For a long time now, I have been curious on how a family from Villa De Garcia moves to San Luis Potosi for about 20 years and then goes back to live in Villa de Garcia. This was the case of my grandfather, Serafin. I guess we will never know the real reasons, but based on the information available through the civil registries of births, marriages and deaths, and on understanding what was going on at the regional and national level at that time and understanding the dynamics of family growth, we can used some deductive reasoning to develop a scenario that describes how this situation might have happened.
The following is an opinion about this family move on the basis of incomplete information (conjecture), but with some collaborating evidence. I will start with description of the social, political, economic and labor conditions in Mexico during this time period and discuss some observations on family dynamics and then discuss the particular case of Rufino Garza and Zoila Garcia's family.
When General Porfirio Diaz became president of Mexico in 1876, Monterrey was a city of merchant houses and workshops servicing northeastern Mexico's mining and agricultural economy. By 1910, when Porfirio Diaz was forced out, Monterrey had emerged as the nation's preeminent industrial center. With only 80,000 inhabitants, less than one-fifth the population of Mexico City, it produced nearly 14 percent of the nation's output. Monterrey was transformed from one of merchants and artisans to a blue-collar city of factory workers and their families.
Courted by the government, foreign investors financed railroads, factories, a mining revival, and oil exploration. The railroads spurred commercial agriculture and the displaced peasants became rural laborers or rode the rails to find work in fast-growing industrial cities like Monterrey. By 1910, the railroads helped transform the frontier trading post into a modern city of banks, commerce, and industry. But Porfirian Progress carried a heavy and unacceptable price for the people of Mexico. Foreign companies and large Mexican industrialist families, like the Garza Sada, dictated how workers were treated - bad. This led to unionism and a sometimes deadly labor-industry conflicts. As Don Porifirio grew more repressive, the younger generation demanded honest elections, workers agitated for industrial democracy, and peasants struggled for the restitution of lands. The combination of those diverse grievances and the social evolution that was taking place prompted the 1910 revolution that drew the Porfirio Diaz government to a close.
Villa de Garcia and the Garza families, with their agrarian lifestyle, were somewhat isolated from the political and social turbulence happening in the "Big City" not too far away. But the civil war that followed devastated the economy, the downturn of demand for industrial products impacted the agricultural production of the farms in Garcia. This lasted several years, and although Garcia was somewhat insulated from all this, the events from 1905 to 1917, had to impact the lives of the Garza families in Villa de Garcia.
Meantime in Garcia, a family problem began to come to a head, generations of family growth and a fixed amount of land resulted in limited work and business opportunities. The only solution was for some of the family to move away. For example, if you were one of the three youngest children of Clemente Garza and Cirila Garza what would you do? What were your opportunities in Villa de Garcia? Not only you did not have the capital to jump into business in the growing metropolis of Monterrey (your capital was tied up in land), Monterrey was too chaotic and dangerous. Also, the labor situation with their strikes and labor conflicts with industrialists made it too turbulent and people on the farm simply did not have the experience to work in that environment.
I would suppose that in addition to farming, probably oranges, pecans, corn, beans and other crops, Clemente also had some cattle and horses. I suspect that he might have even owned a store and he might even provided feed and grain to other farmers in the town. Many of the civil registries indicate that he was a businessman ("comerciante"). I think he probably "dabbled" in many things to make a living. His oldest son, Victor, and probably with the help Pedro, Juan, Fernando and later Rufino, the youngest, help run the family business.
I think that Juan was an adventurer and a risk taker of the family and sought a new business life in a larger city like San Luis Potosí or maybe Mexico City. Maybe there was a family link that allowed him to do this but most likely, he found an apprenticeship or school he wanted to attend in San Luis Potosí and Clemente provided him some financial support to do this. The railroads made the travel much easier in the late 1800s. Juan's death certificate implied that he was associated with some sort of enterprise in San Luis Potosí.
Fernando seemed to have followed a different route in finding his way in the world, he seemed to have migrated north. He might have developed or maybe ran some business in Laredo. Again the railroad would have made it easier to move goods both north and south. Some border crossing records indicate that Rufino made some business trips into Texas. Again, we are looking at a time period between 1890 and 1910, there was a lot of opportunities for commerce between the U.S and Mexico. It is most likely that Fernando's family got established in Laredo and it became difficult or undesirable (given the revolution) for him to move back.
Rufino and Zoila stayed in Villa de Garcia and had at least nine kids, at least five five of them still alive at the beginning of 1900. I suspect that Juan had some success in his business and probably needed some help and convinced Rufino to move with his family to San Luis Potosí to help with his business. Again, all of this in conjecture, but Juan did marry late in life and from the records, he married well with what might have been a business-related family, the Rocha. The opportunity seemed to be solid enough that Rufino did move with his whole family to San Luis Potosí. What probably happened is that he left his affairs and possibly land, in the care of Victor and Pedro since Clemente and Cirila had died by the 1905 time frame. Rufino seemed to have made his move before the turmoil of the revolution in 1910. This scenario based on little bits of information, if true, explains the reason why Serafin, Maria de la Rosa, Genaro and Zoila, as well as Maria de Jesus (the daughter of whom we know little) were raised in San Luis Potosí.
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