The Americas

Every year a fair is held in the last days of September at which not only the inhabitants of Saltillo provision themselves for the entire year, but also those of the Kingdom of Nuevo León, Coahuila, Texas, and a great part of the colony of Santander as well. They come to sell wool, deer skins, salt, mules, and some other products that those places produce, and return with clothes, tanned hides, soap, saddles, and a variety of foodstuffs that come from Michoacán and Nueva Galicia, such as rice, sugar, chickpeas, and other commodities harvested in those lands. As a result, Saltillo has become a sort of warehouse, where the neighboring provinces provision themselves not only at fair time, but where they come between-times to stock themselves of those articles that they lack, which are considerable because of the impossibility of preserving them in such hot places. ¹

So wrote Dr. Gaspar González Candamo, governor of the diocese of Monterrey, in 1791. Although he focused on its economic importance, he might well have added that the fair attracted people from a large region to its religious functions, bullfights, and other entertainments. By the late eighteenth century the Saltillo Fair had become a well established institution, bringing together the residents of remote hinterlands in religious, secular, political, and economic activities that asserted their place in the Spanish empire.

As a crossroads of frontier agricultural, commercial, and settlement activities, Saltillo provided fertile ground for the development of a merchant elite [End Page 395] capable of wresting leadership away from the landed families that had dominated the town since its founding in the late sixteenth century. For these merchant city fathers the fair, with its religious and entertainment attractions, offered considerable wholesale and retail trade opportunities. They found a niche for their trade fair within New Spain's network of fairs ² as they promoted its religious and secular pageantry to increase attendance from an expanding hinterland. In pursuing their economic goals, the merchant elite also fostered a model for Spanish society that reflected their own backgrounds and interests. Through their boosterism, particularly through the mechanism of the fair, Saltillo's elites successfully developed the town as the most important urban center in northeastern New Spain and promoted it as the center of Spanish life in the region.

The Saltillo Fair in a World of Fairs

Fairs are ancient and universal mechanisms for regional and even international interactions. Many fairs originated in religious events that required the provisioning of large numbers of people for extended periods of time. The Parisian fairs of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent, for instance, began as medieval pilgrimage sites at which monks rented booths to local merchants and allowed entertainments to take place. William A. Christian, in his study of local religion in early modern Spain, quotes a history of a Benedictine shrine to this effect: "all of these villages come in procession the Wednesday of Litanies, the day before Ascension, and a great fair is held in this place attended by merchants of silk and woolen cloth, goldsmiths and silversmiths, vendors of dry goods and numerous artisans of all kinds because of the multitude of people who come from so many places." ³ [End Page 396]

Whether they had their origins in religious functions or not, fairs were extraordinary, if regular, events. Fairs were distinguished from markets by frequency: the latter occurred on a regular basis, from daily or weekly to monthly, while the former occurred periodically, normally on an annual or semi-annual basis. Markets were commonly a gathering of local producers, both agricultural and artisanal, petty merchants, and local consumers. Fairs brought local producers and consumers together with long-range merchants and manufacturers. Chartered fairs, that is, those authorized by the crown or other competent government, enjoyed tax privileges--usually the complete suspension of tariffs for a reasonable period leading up to the fair and during the time of the fair itself. ⁴

Commercial gatherings referred to as fairs began to appear in the Spanish colonial record in the seventeenth century, although none of them obtained a royal charter for over a century. Some fairs had imperial importance, such as those at Jalapa and Acapulco. Neither of these fairs had religious origins, instead being the offspring of crown efforts to tightly regulate trade between the mother country and colonies. Dealing with trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific commerce respectively, the Jalapa and Acapulco gatherings provided entertainment for participants, but their main purpose was to provide a forum for wholesale merchants to transact business. At the other end of the spectrum, where conditions permitted, such as at Taos, New Mexico, regular trade relations were established with independent Indian groups. At these annual or semi-annual gatherings frontiersmen and local officials exchanged European and Mexican goods for hides, pelts, livestock, and even human captives, from unassimilated Indian peoples such as the Apache and Comanche. ⁵

Between the international and frontier gatherings stood New Spain's regional fairs, such as those held at San Juan de los Lagos and Saltillo. These [End Page 397] brought together representatives of the large trading houses of the capital and other major cities and local merchants, producers, and artisans. At this level the annual events were outgrowths of pre-existing regional religious commemorations at which retail trade mixed with wholesale transactions, religious devotion, and general revelry. The fair at San Juan de los Lagos had its origins in early seventeenth century pilgrimages to a shrine of the Virgin Mary on the road between Guadalajara and Aguascalientes. Pilgrims from as far away as Central America made the town increasingly popular, so that by the eighteenth century merchants from throughout the viceroyalty made it a point to do business at the two-week event. ⁶

The fair that developed in Saltillo in the course of the eighteenth century shared many of the characteristics of the San Juan de los Lagos Fair, while at the same time incorporating unique aspects related to regional circumstances. Surprisingly, despite its avowed national importance, there has been no systematic work on the Saltillo Fair. Vito Alessio Robles and Pablo M. Cuéllar Valdés, the city's two most prominent historians, mention the fair in their works, but do so only in an episodic manner. ⁷ Citing the occasional document, such as the one quoted at the opening of this essay, or Fr. Agustín Morfi's 1777 claim that so many buyers and sellers attended the fair that "not fitting into the houses of the place, cabins are constructed next to the church to house them," ⁸ these historians are content to assert the fair's importance without delving deeply into the substantial archival record.

Subsequent historians have in turn depended on Alessio Robles and his limited sources. Charles Harris, writing on the ranching empire of Coahuila's Sánchez Navarro family, provides clear evidence of the fair's importance as a late colonial economic institution. "The Sánchez Navarros sent about half of the August wool clip to Saltillo as quickly as possible, for sale at the opening of the fair." ⁹ Harris then relies on Alessio Robles for a general description of the annual event. José Cuello and Leslie Offutt, who have made the most extensive studies of Saltillo's eighteenth-century economic development, mention the fair only in passing. For instance, in her [End Page 398] work Offutt claims simply that "we are aware of the role of the September trade fair in supplying the region." She later adds that the professional connections of Saltillo merchants with both regional petty merchants and the large firms of Mexico City and Veracruz may have been "established through contacts originally made at the fair." Finally, a recent urban history of eighteenth and nineteenth century Saltillo by Alvaro López López discusses the fair in relatively extensive terms compared to previous works. The author notes that bullfights at fair time predated the eighteenth century; that the fair attracted lawlessness; that the fairs responded to the general economic conditions of the viceroyalty and, later, of the republic, but he does not address its importance as an institution of local development. ¹⁰

Saltillo and its Hinterland

Strategically located along the main corridor between the southwestern highlands and northeastern lowlands of northern Mexico, the Saltillo valley was recognized in the 1560s as an important area of future settlement by Martín López de Ibarra. Occupation of the valley did not take place until 1577, however, when Alberto del Canto made the first land grants there to about twenty followers. The rich soils and bountiful water resources of the valley made it an ideal agricultural supply region for already established mines to the south and any that might be discovered to the north. Moreover, the substantial Indian population in the surrounding mountains provided an additional source of income for some of the early settlers, who had previous careers as slave hunters. To reinforce the small Spanish population headed by Canto, in 1591 Lieutenant Governor Francisco de Urdiñola founded San Esteban de la Nueva Tlaxcala with Tlaxcalan Indian settlers. ¹¹

Consequently, a number of factors contributed to Saltillo's importance as a colonial center in northern New Spain. As the oldest and most strategically located community of the northeastern frontier, Saltillo became the parent of many other frontier settlements. Saltillo families could be found throughout Coahuila, Nuevo León, Texas, and Nuevo Santander by the eighteenth century. From the neighboring Tlaxcalan town of San Esteban, [End Page 399] small colonies of these Indian allies of the Spanish helped "civilize" the frontier. ¹²

The people who went out from Saltillo and San Esteban to occupy neighboring regions not only had family ties to bring them back to the area, but social and economic ones as well. Aside from the local patronal feast of Santiago, which was solemnized annually at least with a High Mass and procession, the early seventeenth century produced important religious devotions that attracted outsiders to the frontier town. The Santo Cristo de la Capilla, a statue of the crucified Savior, became a pilgrim's shrine soon after its arrival in 1608. The miraculous attributes of the crucified Christ were enough to foster annual pilgrimages to the shrine from ever greater distances. By the late eighteenth century the town also supported four cofradías (confraternities), indicative of both the relative prosperity of the community and its religious status in the region. ¹³

The economic importance of Saltillo blossomed in the eighteenth century, when settlement of the northern portions of Nuevo León and of the provinces of Coahuila, Texas, and Nuevo Santander was undertaken. ¹⁴ Already in the seventeenth century Saltillo had grown into a major agricultural center. Sales of Saltillo wheat to the mining districts of Mazapil and Zacatecas, and even to Guadalajara, offered prosperity to area landowners early in the century and allowed the most successful agriculturists to expand into other activities, for example tax farming. During the later decades of the century, some of the landed families complemented their agricultural pursuits with trade. Not all merchants were Saltillo natives, however, and a small number of Spaniards arrived to take advantage of expanding opportunities. ¹⁵

In the eighteenth century Saltillo became, in the words of Oakah Jones, "the emporium for the northeastern provinces." ¹⁶ The town's location at a crossroads of frontier roads, its successful agricultural economy, and its sizeable population, made it the logical place for the development of a merchant [End Page 400] community. The increasing volume of trade through the town and the strength of its mercantile sector provided royal officials undertaking the financial reorganization of New Spain in the 1780s and 1790s justification for giving Saltillo an important role in the new system. It was during this time that the alcabala collector for the town received the additional duty of managing the royal tobacco, gunpowder, playing card and stamped paper monopolies over a considerable region. In the early 1790s the town was raised to the status of sub-treasury within the Intendency of San Luis Potosí, with responsibility for military payrolls and mission subsidies throughout the northeast. ¹⁷

Saltillo's importance as the regional commercial center for a vast region is illustrated in its relationship with San Antonio de Béxar, a Texas settlement over 400 miles to the north. From the earliest colonizing expeditions into Texas in the 1710s and 1720s, Saltillenses participated as military settlers. It was at Saltillo that in 1731 the viceroy had the small group of Canary Island colonists headed for San Antonio outfitted with livestock and farming implements. In addition, the Frenchman who escorted the Canary Islanders from Mexico City to San Antonio purchased goods at Saltillo for sale at Béxar and other Texas settlements. Not too long after, one of these by now reluctant immigrants used the excuse of going to Saltillo to sell suede and hides to flee Béxar and attempt a return to the Canary Islands. In the 1730s both Governor Manuel Sandoval and the garrison's commander, José de Urrutia, did business at Saltillo. Three decades later Captain Luis Antonio Menchaca was even more closely associated with Saltillo, making use of one of the city's merchants as his principal supplier. Saltillo became a regular destination of Texas cattle drives, once these commenced in the 1770s, and of the Béxar garrison's paymaster, who acquired some of the company's provisions there. ¹⁸ [End Page 401]

Béxar's commercial dependence on Saltillo is no better demonstrated than in the 1794 words of Texas governor Manuel Muñoz, when requested to recommend a local for the post of royal monopolies agent:

This capital's few merchants have few assets and are indebted to those of Saltillo, and aside from not being able to guarantee the proceeds from the monopoly on their own, they cannot even be received as bondsmen. And to prove what has been stated, Your Grace may receive information in the said town of Saltillo from D. José Francisco Pereyra, D. Miguel Lobo, and D. Felipe Calsado. ¹⁹

In the course of the eighteenth century, as its hinterland expanded and its ties with the center of the viceroyalty strengthened, Saltillo became home to an increasingly diverse and powerful merchant community. By the end of the century the merchants securely held the reins of power in their community. At first composed of the more prosperous creole hacendados who had expanded their entrepreneurial interests into commerce, by the second half of the century business opportunities in Saltillo appeared profitable enough to attract a significant number of peninsular merchants. Given the need to accommodate themselves to local conditions, these European merchants married into the local elites, acquired land, and purchased cabildo posts. Evidence suggests that their acceptance by the community and the strength of the roots they set down precluded the development of the type of creole-peninsular rivalry found elsewhere in the empire. Instead, the commercial elite's exercise of control over the community responded more to personal and business rivalries. The merchant sector's domination of Saltillo is evident in aspects of public life. Except for two priests, merchants served as the administrators (mayordomos) of the town's cofradías, through which they controlled important community economic resources. Merchants also held most of Saltillo's municipal offices, both the purchasable alderman (regidor) posts and the elective magistrate positions (alcaldes ordinarios). ²⁰ As the town's decision makers, merchants made use of the fair to expand their commercial opportunities and reassert their status within the community.

Religious Foundations of the Fair

While commercial and secular activities may have made up the bulk of the fair by the end of the eighteenth century, the annual event had its origins [End Page 402] in observances of the feast of St. James the Greater, Saltillo's patron saint. Santiago, in his devotional form of Matamoros (St. James the Moor Slayer), was a favored saint in early New Spain, particularly along the Indian frontier. The conquistadors asserted that he appeared to Cortés at Tabasco and to Nuño de Guzmán in Jalisco; he was said to have rescued the Spaniards at Guadalajara during the Mixtón War and later helped some of Juan de Oñate's men defeat Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. Until the end of the seventeenth century naming a Spanish frontier town for the warrior saint was a logical first step in settlement. ²¹ Saltillo, founded in the 1570s, at the end of the age of conquest by second-generation Indian fighters turned slave hunters, partook of that notable pedigree. ²²

Devotion to Santiago, whose feast day fell on July 25, continued to have importance to the Saltillo region into the eighteenth century. ²³ For the Tlaxcalan colonies of the region, settled with families from San Esteban, ²⁴ July 25 was the day on which the local militia held annual musters. ²⁵ In 1655 Santiago de Treviño, one of a group of unfortunate soldiers caught in a landslide caused by Indians he was pursuing, remembered the date to be the eve of St. James's feast. He invoked the saint's name "many times and promised to celebrate his feast day every year if he would deliver him from that danger. So our patron (as he gives such favor to his devotees) was pleased to deliver [End Page 403] him from such a dangerous situation." ²⁶ Thirty-four years later, Coahuila governor Alonso de León founded the province's capital, giving it the name Santiago de la Monclova. As late as 1731, a new villa established for Tlaxcalan families at what is now Viesca, Coahuila, was founded on July 24 and 25 and given the name San José y Santiago del Alamo. ²⁷

Unfortunately, the process by which the traditions of the Santiago feast became established in the seventeenth century remains obscure because of a 1669 fire that destroyed the municipal archives. ²⁸ From later documents we can establish the following parts to the annual celebration, which during this period fluctuated between late August and early October: naming of "captains" responsible for organizing the events; public expenditure of municipal funds on certain expenses; procession of the royal standard through town streets followed by the citizenry; public entertainments, including moros y cristianos and bullfights in the town plaza. ²⁹ The alcalde mayor's 1682 order for preparation of the celebrations already speaks of the "obligation to celebrate the feast," and the need for farmers and stockmen to enclose the plaza "as has been the custom." ³⁰ These traditional elements, although modified in the course of the eighteenth century, survived beyond independence.

Among the more innovative aspects of the Saltillo celebrations was its temporal flexibility. Having long since abandoned the actual July date of St. James's feast, city leaders could schedule festivities earlier or later in September, or even in October, as conditions required. Although the exact reason for the scheduling change is not known, the region's climate may offer an acceptable explanation. A late September to early October calendar provided some relief from the worst of the summer heat as well as giving farmers an opportunity to travel to and from the fair between the end of the planting and the beginning of the harvest seasons. ³¹ By the mid-eighteenth [End Page 404] century the cabildo, increasingly under merchant control, held responsibility for setting the date and overseeing the celebrations.

In order that the feasts that this town celebrate in honor of its glorious patron, St. James, Apostle, should be held with the great approbation that has been customary, and discussing the time that might be most convenient for said feasts, we have agreed that they should commence on the twenty-first and twenty-second of this coming September. It being indispensable that on the said twenty-first the royal standard should be displayed, as has been customary. . . . We should and do agree that the president of this council enact by ordinance the said feasts and designate those dates for church functions and the succeeding three days of the week for bullfights. ³²

This adaptability meant that the feast could take on additional functions, allowing other important events to be celebrated at the same time. Given the limited financial resources of the region's population and the obstacles to travel, celebrating multiple events at once proved economical and efficient. In 1737, word arrived from the viceroy that Our Lady of Guadalupe had been proclaimed patroness of Mexico City, ³³ or as Saltillo's cabildo interpreted it: "The Holy Virgin, mother of God, in her prodigious image of Guadalupe, has been declared Universal Patroness." To solemnize the occasion, the cabildo tacked on a day of celebration at the end of the Santiago feast; a rosary, luminarias, and fireworks the evening before, and a Mass with sermon the following day. ³⁴ Festivities in 1800 were in some ways even more joyous, as the newly completed parish church was to be dedicated at the opening of the fair. Father Pedro Fuentes, the parish priest, asked the town council to serve as godparent in the ceremonies. The council, in turn, invited the governor and requested two distinguished clerics from Monterrey, the diocesan See, to deliver the sermons. ³⁵ Saltillenses also solemnized one of the last important events of the Mexican colonial period during the Santiago feast of 1820, [End Page 405] taking an oath of allegiance to the restored constitutional monarchy under the Constitution of Cádiz. ³⁶ They had special cause to celebrate that year, for it marked a resumption of the fair after a decade-long suspension.

From Religious Ceremony to Commercial Ritual

The Santiago feast, which had been a local religious celebration throughout the seventeenth century, began to take on broader proportions once occupation of the northern frontier spread outward from Saltillo. Because Saltillenses played an important role in the settlement of Coahuila, Texas, and parts of Nuevo León and Nuevo Santander, ³⁷ family ties, bonds to birthplace, and attachment to the town's religious culture made Saltillo the natural meeting place of frontier-folk. These norms extended to Saltillo's sister settlement of San Esteban, which had provided the numerous Tlaxcalan families that settled throughout the region.

These facts were not lost on local elites who, beginning in the early eighteenth century, actively promoted the Santiago feast as the occasion for commercial activity of regional proportions. In 1738 the town council, after being unable to locate in the local archives the document binding the settlement to celebrate the feast, called a meeting of leading citizens to discuss the matter. Citing an apparent decline in interest, Saltillo vecinos and merchants formally obligated themselves to celebrate the feast each September, electing two captains to organize the activities. The five days of proceedings included two days of vesper Masses, sung and with sermons, followed by three days of bullfights, fireworks, and procession of the citizenry. Why all the fuss of a public, legal commitment on the part of the town's prominent citizens and merchants? Because celebration of the Santiago feast was "of universal benefit to all the residents of the said district, and of common utility to the merchants and other persons who come to do business at fair time." ³⁸

That the commitment on the part of the city fathers paid off, is beyond dispute. When Alonzo de Cárdenas, one of the captains for 1764 died in August, just weeks before the feast was to commence, the town council scrambled to finance the event. Claiming that there was not enough time to contact the governor at Durango, the members decided that the municipal funds would absorb the costs for which Cárdenas was to have been responsible, "because its suspension would produce a great setback both to the [End Page 406] town as a whole and its commerce, as with the said celebration serving as a motive, muleteers and merchants attend with goods of all kinds, and not only does this town's populace meet all its needs for the entire year, but so do the other kingdoms of the interior." ³⁹ By the late 1780s there was nothing ambiguous about the fair. In 1789, when the governor ordered the fair postponed for a few days, he emphasized that "until said date, the fair must not open, and neither should any person associated with the fair, nor the foreign traveling merchants attending it, trade or contract." ⁴⁰

The fair by then served not only to provide the region's population access to manufactured goods but as the mechanism for the export of local goods to the rest of Mexico and beyond. Zebulon Montgomery Pike, who traveled through the region in 1807, did not observe the fair, but commented that the regional economy produced "horses, mules, wines, gold, and silver. There is an annual fair held at Saltelo . . . where an immense quantity of merchandise is disposed of, and where merchants of very large capitals reside." ⁴¹ The fair must have been the venue for considerable trade in the city's most famous product, the Saltillo blanket (or sarape). By the late 1700s the Sánchez Navarro family had part of its wool clip and sheep and goat skins processed by Saltillo artisans into blankets, sarapes, chamois, and leather for use on its haciendas. Miguel Ramos Arizpe commented in 1812 that the city boasted forty cotton looms and sixty wool looms. Other regionally produced manufactured items marketed at the fair included soap, tallow, and piloncillo (brown sugar cones). And, of course, there was livestock; some of it from as far off as Texas. ⁴²

To the degree that the "fair" was a natural outgrowth of the religious celebration, it enjoyed no legal status as a sanctioned event. Fairs required rules and regulations, and policing and protection. Only the king could declare a feria franca, or duty-free fair, a status that sometimes took decades to acquire but which guaranteed organizers a clear advantage over routine commerce. Without such status, all commercial transactions that took place [End Page 407] during the fair were subject to the prevailing tax rate. ⁴³ Until 1767 Saltillo, still very much portraying itself as a tierra de guerra, was subject to a minimum alcabala of 2 percent. ⁴⁴ This tax burden was further mitigated by its payment as a lump sum 750 pesos to the holder of the tax franchise under the existing tax farming system. In that year Inspector General José de Gálvez ordered the tax system revamped and a five-year contract was signed in Mexico City by which Saltillo owed 1,500 pesos annually. A decade later a series of tax increases began to be implemented which raised the alcabala and created new exactions. By 1780 tax officials had raised the rate to 8 percent and substantially increased the taxes on tobacco and pulque. Along with these growing burdens, the commandant general of the Interior Provinces ordered new local taxes instituted to help defray the costs of maintaining three local militia companies. ⁴⁵

To be sure, the growing tax burden was only one of the changes brought about by Bourbon reformers' efforts to better integrate New Spain's northern frontier into the colonial system. In creating the Comandancia General de las Provincias Internas in the 1770s, reformers attempted to establish a more efficient administrative structure for the frontier provinces by turning the region into a military government. Just as important was their implementation of the intendency system, through which they hoped to carry out modernization of colonial finances and bring about economic development. Gálvez, the most zealous of these enlightened autocrats, was responsible for many of these initiatives which, in the case of Saltillo, proved a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the reorganization of the political, fiscal, and military governance of the region meant an even greater role for Saltillo as a regional urban center. Confirmation of the new role came with the 1787 transfer of the Saltillo-Parras region from Nueva Vizcaya's jurisdiction to that of Coahuila. ⁴⁶ On the other hand, increased taxation threatened to disrupt the economic expansion of the region, clear evidence of which was the growing importance of the fair.

Outrage over the effects of the tax increases surfaced at the end of the 1781 fair. The mounting impositions, the merchant-dominated town council [End Page 408] complained to the commandant general, would surely lead to calamity. Many outside merchants sneaked out of town to avoid paying the militia tax. "All in one voice, publicly and manifestly, protested that they either would not return to the fair or would take their business to the city of Monterrey, where they would not only free themselves of said burden, but in addition would have the additional benefit of paying a lower royal alcabala, which they do not enjoy here, where they have to pay 8 percent." The council went on to argue that the small amount collected was more trouble than it was worth; that it would hurt even the humble of the town, who relied on renting rooms or selling food and knickknacks during the fair. ⁴⁷

Of course taxes were a year-round reality and the town council also argued against both the alcabala and the militia taxes on other grounds. The community's poverty, the disincentive to outside merchants, and the absence of any direct benefit from the militia plan made powerful arguments. The royal treasury council realized the merits of the arguments and returned the alcabala to 2 percent while the commandant general granted a substantial reduction in the town's militia obligations. In the early 1790s area merchants even received a tax refund of 43,000 pesos to cover the excessive collections of the previous decade. It was not until 1814, however, that the Regency in Spain, acting on behalf of the captive Ferdinand VII, authorized Saltillo to hold a tax-free annual fair, seventeen years after San Juan de los Lagos, and nine after Valle de San Bartolomé. ⁴⁸

Putting on a Good Show

Aside from making sure the fair went on and stayed in Saltillo, the town's leaders had to take care of security, entertainment, and financial concerns. With regard to the former issue, Saltillo was, after all, situated on the Indian frontier. Saltillo's elites did everything in their power to gain the support of superior officials and organize available local resources to meet the native challenge, and there is no evidence that the fair as a whole was ever disrupted by Indian warfare. ⁴⁹ Such threats were not the only source of worry, however, as vagrants, petty criminals, and other lowlife drew constant attention [End Page 409] from the authorities. In one instance Saltillo's royal treasurer wrote to the governor regarding the presence at the fair of suspicious individuals who might have designs on the treasury, the coffers of which swelled with tax receipts from the fair. ⁵⁰ The 1779 ordinance for the fair, issued by Alcalde Mayor Pedro José de Padilla, aside from prohibiting horseback riding through the streets after evening prayers and the carrying of certain weapons, also required:

That no person have a gaming table in his house, and that no one play cards, dice, knucklebones, or other prohibited ones, under penalty that whoever is found playing them will be punished severely with fifteen days in jail and a fine of twelve pesos, which his lordship has designated for court costs. ⁵¹

Just as security concerns at fair-time increased as the event gained popularity, so did it increasingly complicate matters for city fathers in trying to maintain the entertainment venues. Already mentioned is the commitment to religious pomp and ceremony, an aspect of the festivities which required the personal financial sacrifice of those elected "captains." The degree to which the religious and secular celebrations and commercial activities of the fair were tied together are well illustrated in the troubles of 1790. Heavy rains in the weeks before the fair's commencement on September 20 made it impossible for the two merchants responsible for the religious celebrations to receive some "special" items they had ordered for the occasion from Mexico City. Neither had the pyrotechnist been able to work on the accompanying fireworks because of the humidity nor had the bullring contractor been able to carry out construction. Moreover, the outside merchants "have not come because of the rains," nor would "all of them arrive by the twentieth, for which reason commerce at the fair will be hindered, causing universal harm to the Interior Provinces." ⁵²

On the secular side, the most important part of the fair was the bullfights. At first these entertainments were relatively simple affairs that could be handled [End Page 410] by setting up a temporary wooden enclosure around the town plaza. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, growth in attendance required more substantial measures. Town authorities went farther afield to find good bulls for the spectacle. They decided to replace the temporary stockade around the main plaza with a dressed-lumber structure that required construction of a storage shed to house it. "We have contracted with Don Ignacio Carrillo, vecino of the city of Guanajuato, to fence and dress the plaza for a period of three years with good lumber, properly preparing and reinforcing it with the necessary hardware, and constructing galleries encircled with painted balconies." ⁵³ Finally, the bullfights drew such a large attendance, that the number of corridas had to be increased and a new venue had to be found for the spectacles. ⁵⁴

Saltillo's merchant elites had good reason to concern themselves with putting on a good show. If the bullfights drew people into the town center, they would spend money at the stalls, booths, shops, and cantinas on which the city collected taxes. In the case of the temporary stalls and booths put up at fair-time, the practice by the 1780s was to auction the plaza off to the highest bidder, who in turn could rent out smaller or larger spaces. This procedure had the advantage of guaranteeing the city a fixed sum, and placing the risk on the concessionaire, who, although he could charge what he wanted for spaces, also had to make sure to collect.

Although financial records of any concessionaire have yet to surface, the concession auction proceedings for 1807 demonstrate how the system worked and make clear that potential profits merited considerable risk. Following thirty days of calling for bids, an auction for the plaza took place on September 1. Don Mariano Liendo appeared with the necessary bond to bid 600 pesos. Don Ignacio Valdés, also with the required sureties, counterbid 700 pesos. From there the bidding rose to 1,050 pesos, not including the cost of the bulls, an amount that Ignacio Valdés, the winning bidder, dutifully deposited in the city coffers on October 24. From the 1790s until the outbreak of the Hidalgo revolt in September 1810, Saltillo experienced a steady rise in local revenues from this income source. ⁵⁵ [End Page 411]

The decade of rebellion leading up to Mexican independence played havoc on the Saltillo economy, especially on the fair and the Santiago feast. ⁵⁶ Rumors of Hidalgo's uprising reached Saltillo by the third week in September 1810, at the very moment the celebrations were about to commence. Hard news arrived on the 30th, bringing about a special session of the town council during which the city's peninsular and creole merchants deliberated along with royal officials on the best means of maintaining order. The participants agreed to organize extra patrols, to arm the better class of citizens, and to appeal to the governor to come to town with as many troops as possible. Bishop Marín de Porras, who was in Saltillo for the festivities, did his part, directing a pastoral letter to his flock threatening with excommunication anyone who aided the rebels. ⁵⁷

The measures had their intended effect, and peace reigned throughout the remainder of the fair. In the period immediately thereafter, however, the rebellion reached the frontier, temporarily overwhelming royalist forces in all four northeastern provinces. One casualty was the fair, which was not held again until 1820. The Santiago feast, which did go on as the annual parade of the royal standard and celebration of church functions, also suffered from dissension among the town's leading citizens. Among the few bright spots and, ironically, one over which nothing could be done given the circumstances, was the 1814 decree chartering the fair. ⁵⁸

The Fair Center Stage

There is no doubt that in the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the commercial activities surrounding the annual gathering at Saltillo acquired importance for the people of neighboring provinces, and even for merchants in the metropolises of Mexico, Guadalajara, and beyond. Luis Mariano Menchaca was one among a number of San Antonio, Texas, residents who annually made a trip to the fair by the 1780s. The 1787 fair was the place and time at which another San Antonio merchant, Simón de Arocha, agreed to pay his debt to Santiago de Zúñiga, a petty merchant and muleteer from Guadalajara doing business in Coahuila and Texas. Mexico City merchant Francisco Martínez de Aguirre, with 2,000 pesos' worth of [End Page 412] fabrics invested, was typical of a number of merchants from the interior represented at the 1801 fair. ⁵⁹

The event's commercial success, and therefore its social and economic importance, contributed to the reasons cited in 1797 by the authorities of the Diocese of Monterrey in attempting to move the diocesan See to Saltillo. They argued that Saltillo was destined to become a very populous place because many of the merchants who came to the fair would soon reside there, and it was much better suited for the episcopal seat than Monterrey. The population growth would stimulate economic activity, generate more tithe and tax revenues, and, consequently, produce "the greater and more solemn worship of God." ⁶⁰

While the religious elements of the Santiago feast remained beyond reprobation in this culturally Catholic world, not so the commercial activities of the fair. Miguel Ramos Arizpe, a native of the Saltillo area and a clergyman, represented Coahuila and, by default, the other three northeastern provinces at the Cortes of Cádiz in 1812. There he made a report on regional conditions that condemned the lack of economic and social development resulting from the royal government's inattention and inefficiency. For Ramos Arizpe the fair symbolized all that was wrong with a commercial system that required the export of the region's bountiful raw materials at very low prices, only to return as ruinously expensive finished goods. "The town of Saltillo is the stage for this scandal, and where all its inhabitants concur every year in the month of September to pay the tribute of their unfortunate slavery at a great fair, where they are reduced to surrendering their products at ten [pesos], when they need twenty to acquire clothing, etc., for their families." ⁶¹ It was perhaps in response to these conditions that the Cortes attempted to ameliorate the situation by granting tax-free status to the fair in 1814.

Following the disruptions of the Mexican war for independence, the disarray in the new country's commercial system provided an opportunity for foreign merchants to become important elements at the fair. Reuben M. Potter, a New Jersey native recently arrived in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, as [End Page 413] agent for a commercial house, visited the 1828 fair. He later wrote that the mostly retail trade at the event produced sales of $200 to $300 per day for fellow Americans, Frenchmen, and others. Potter's description, considering the turmoil of the times, indicates that the fair promptly resumed its role as the focal point for regional society. ⁶²

After the fair is over, there is a general clearing out. The foreign merchants go off in a body, with their mule loads of money, and the immense concourse of natives, who have come from the Lord knows where, to see the bull fights, & to buy, to sell, and to steal, shrink away and disappear like a snow in March. Thus also did I, & left Saltillo in company with about a dozen foreigners, mostly Frenchmen, besides about the same number of muleteers and servants. There being such a number of merchants, and each one transporting a considerable sum, the whole amount of specie in our caravan was sixty or seventy thousand dollars. ⁶³

Conclusion

In the decades following independence, Saltillo elites fought a losing battle to restore the commercial predominance of their city in the region. Until 1859 the city held annual fairs (except for 1847, on account of the war with the United States) in their colonial tradition, that is, the joint celebration of the Santiago feast, bullfights, and trade. In that year Benito Juárez's secularization law passed, prohibiting government officials from sponsoring religious events. ⁶⁴

Although the fair continued to be held, its unique character was undermined. Factors contributing to its decline, aside from the divorce of its religious aspects from its secular ones, included better integration of the region into the national economy and the commercial penetration into northeastern Mexico of United States goods from Texas. Saltillo's preeminent commercial position was undermined by the rise of Monterrey, Nuevo León, as an [End Page 414] industrial and transportation center. With these developments the fair lost its original purpose as an instrument of regional trade. The law signed by Governor Evaristo Madero in January 1882 regulating the fair, shows that the event had been transformed into little more than a state fair of the type becoming popular in the United States and other parts of the world. Article one of the decree moved the fair to the first two weeks of August and article two emphasized its function as an exposition of goods and manufactures. While the fair was restored to mid-October by 1886, its transformation into an exhibition of durable goods and regional manufactures was permanent. ⁶⁵ Saltillo's merchant elites had been replaced by local manufacturers and producers eager for a venue in which to show off their products and be introduced to the latest industrial products from abroad.

For over a century the Saltillo Fair held a commanding position in the life of northeastern Mexico. It was not a meeting of powerful import and export merchant houses, but of regional merchants and small traders. It allowed the town's commercial sector to promote itself and control trade across a broad hinterland. The fair served the needs of regional ranchers and farmers for access to manufactured goods and to markets for their livestock and crops. As such, the Saltillo Fair fits neatly into a model of late colonial economic resurgence in which trade fairs played an important role. Although smaller and more limited than that at San Juan de los Lagos, the Saltillo Fair served as the vehicle through which the whole of the northeastern frontier participated in the colonial economy. Just as important, it shows that local merchant elites, even in peripheral areas, were capable of successful boosterism, of promoting economic activity through public expenditures, and of protecting tax advantages that allowed their city to prosper.

As an outgrowth of seventeenth century celebrations of St. James the Greater's feast day, the event also served important cultural, social, and political roles. Still very much on the Indian frontier, Saltillenses used the fair as the means to reinforce Christian and Euro-American values. It offered rudimentary but otherwise unavailable recreational opportunities, particularly large-scale bullfights, for commoners and elites alike. With its religious pageantry, which survived well beyond independence, the fair helped foster Saltillo's place as a Christian community. Its political pomp [End Page 415] served as a reminder to those attending from far and near that they were members of a greater society--subjects of His Catholic Majesty, citizens of Mexico.