Mayorazgo

Mayorazgo, a privilege allowing an individual to entail his estate so that his property, real or personal, could be passed on intact to a successor who, following the rule of primogeniture, preferably would be the oldest male son or the nearest relative. The legal basis for such establishments was Castilian law, in particular the 1505 Leyes de Toro. These laws allowed any subject above the rank of peasant to entail his property and thus acquire the privileges of hidalguía (nobility), including the title of don (gentleman), which forbade his entering any profession attached to commerce or industry on pain of loss of status.

In America rich individuals who could afford to petition the crown or its representatives for the royal decree permitting the establishment, entailed houses, stores, mills, mines, large rural estates, slaves, furniture, and silver and jewelry. The mayorazgo became a sought-after privilege of many leading families as a means of preserving the control of property within a kin group and maintaining the lineage and its collective memory. Thus, it became an important institution that perpetuated the elite class.

See alsoCastile .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

William B. Taylor, Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Oaxaca (1972).

José F. De La Peña, Oligarquía y propiedad en Nueva España (1550–1624) (1983).

Additional Bibliography

Gutiérrez R., Jairo. El mayorazgo de Bogotá y el marquesado de San Jorge: Riqueza, linaje, poder y honor en Santa Fé: 1538–1824. Santafé de Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura Hispánica, 1998.

Vargas-Lobsinger, María. Formación y decadencia de una fortuna: Los mayorazgos de San Miguel de Aguayo y de San Pedro del Alamo, 1583–1823. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1992.

                                         Susan E. RamÍrez