Arriero

Arriero, an indigenous, mulatto, mestizo, or humble Spanish man who, from the mid-sixteenth century on, managed four or five mules (and, less often, horses). Typically teamed up with other muleteers or assistants to form recuas (strings) of twelve to fifty animals, arrieros transported a great variety of goods, often grains, ten to fifteen miles a day, not infrequently along trade routes dating back to pre-Hispanic times. Arrieros earned anywhere from twenty-five pesos a year to ten times that amount, with variation corresponding largely to capital investment. Numerous regulations sought to govern arrieros, such as the kind of animals they used, how many animals, where they obtained grain to feed the animals, what goods they transported, and how much they charged. In Mexico, arrieros eclipsed tlamemes (pre-Conquest human carriers), facilitating a much expanded and less onerous interregional trade and transportation system.

See alsoMestizo .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mexican arrieros have received greater scholarly attention than those of other parts of Latin America. Ross Hassig, Trade, Tribute, and Transportation: The Sixteenth-Century Political Economy of the Valley of Mexico (1985), is a most useful compilation of data. Biographies of muleteers include John C. Super, "Miguel Hernández: Master of Mule Trains," in Struggle and Survival in Colonial America, edited by David G. Sweet and Gary B. Nash (1981); and Richard Boyer, "Juan Vásquez, Muleteer of Seventeenth-Century Mexico," in The Americas 37 (April 1981): 421-443.

Additional Bibliography

Suárez Argüello, Clara Elena. Camino real y carrera larga: La arriería en la Nueva España durante el siglo XVIII. México, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1997.

                                        Stephanie Wood