Much the larger portion of the goods was not made in regular factories, but by itinerant weavers.[1] In Indian towns, the inhabitants wove the fabrics they wore, the cost of the raw material being the only money they put into circulation.[2]
Drawn into the armies were large numbers of weavers, as well as tillers of the soil. After the independence was secured, foreign trade became so much favored that manufacturing interests continued to suffer; indeed, though the government did something to revive them, and some cotton mills sprang into life in Victoria's administration, the industry did not acquire a healthy growth. In 1823 the factories were little better than prisons.[3] The policy of protection to home industry was initiated in 1828, exempting from taxation all manufactures of the country, and also the raw cotton produced therein, and the twist or yarn made therefrom.[4] The importation of raw cotton had been forbidden, and in 1836 the same rule was applied to ginned cotton, and in 1837 to cotton twist, the higher numbers of which were to cease coming in March 1838. The next step was to levy a heavy inland tax on foreign fabrics, and finally, the importation of common cotton goods was prohibited. This and other restrictive measures had been clamored for by cotton planters and manufacturers.[5] Cotton manufacturers, for all occasional checks, went on as-
- ↑ The rebozo maker of Puebla, for instance, travelled about, and might be found with his spinning-wheel and hand-loom in different places, even at the distance of 300 miles; his stock consisting of about 20 lbs. of raw cotton, worth three pesos or less, to make one piece of manta, 32 varas long by vara wide, out of which he supported himself and his family.
- ↑ According to statistics of 1817, the value of all manufactures in Mexico was computed at 61,011,818 pesos. Quirós, Mem. de Estatuto, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, i. 18.
- ↑ Many of the workmen were criminals sentenced to labor in the obrajes, as the factories were called, and were rigorously treated. Others, by borrowing money from the owners, pledged themselves and their labor till it was reimbursed, which in most instances never was, and the workman became a peon for life. Bullock's Sic Months in Mex., 222-5; Tablas Estadist., MS., 43.
- ↑ Arrillaga, Recop., 1828, 115; 1838, 277-8.
- ↑ They were looked upon as necessary to save their interests. Mex., Expos. Cultiv. Algodon, 1841, 8-9; Bustamante, Gab. Mex., i. 13; Id., Voz de la Patria, MS., xiii. 38-9.
