Why do governments recognize Indigenous autonomy in some periods and not others? Scholars of Latin American politics often consider the twentieth-century uptick in government recognition of Indigenous autonomy to be a deviation from a postindependence trend of exploitation, assimilation, and even genocide. Governments in the nineteenth century were especially hostile to Indigenous rights and sought to dismantle existing colonial-era protections for Indigenous institutions (Van Cott Reference Van Cott2007, 129).Footnote 1 While this characterization is broadly accurate, it ignores consequential periods of autonomy that have largely escaped scholarly attention. Postindependence governments recognized communal landholding or self-government rights in the 1820s in Bolivia and Mexico, the 1830s in Guatemala, the 1850s in Ecuador, and the 1860s in El Salvador. Understanding how Indigenous groups achieved autonomy even in these extremely unlikely periods provides a valuable complement to existing theories that explain more contemporary efforts to secure Indigenous rights.
This paper argues that two critical factors explain postindependence governments’ decisions to recognize Indigenous autonomy. First, national-level incumbents were more likely to offer autonomy when they viewed Indigenous groups—and importantly, Indigenous leaders—as allies in an ongoing political conflict. Autonomy served as an inducement to secure the ongoing collaboration of Indigenous leaders by providing them with a key concession they desired: recognition of their authority. Yet even if incumbents had this incentive to offer autonomy, they did not always have the ability to do so. Economic elites, particularly those in rural areas, opposed Indigenous autonomy, which they viewed as a key challenge to their ability to extract Indigenous resources. As such, they frequently mobilized their structural and instrumental power to block it. The recognition of autonomy was, therefore, most likely to occur when Indigenous elites were relatively strong and rural elites comparatively weak.
I examine my argument through a series of case studies, which include Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, and Bolivia. All had a large Indigenous population at the moment of independence. In each of the countries analyzed, governments recognized Indigenous autonomy during specific historical moments and withdrew—or did not offer—this recognition in others. This allows for a within-case analysis that holds many factors constant that would otherwise confound cross-national comparisons.
The findings offer support for my argument. Alliances between incumbents and Indigenous elites sparked efforts to recognize autonomy. Yet it was only when rural elites had limited structural and instrumental power that these efforts were successful. In periods where rural elites had relatively more power, they mobilized to block or veto efforts by governments to recognize Indigenous autonomy. The findings thus suggest that neither Indigenous mobilization nor opportunity spaces alone are sufficient to understand historical recognition of autonomy. Instead, it is necessary to consider a more complex political economy that involves Indigenous leaders, national incumbents, and rural elites.
While situated in the first century of Latin American independence, my findings have important implications for more contemporary instances of autonomy recognition. First, deep historical factors (e.g., colonialism) shape contemporary outcomes (Mahoney Reference Mahoney2010; Mundim Reference Mundim2023), and past experiences with autonomy are no exception. The historical pattern of Indigenous rights being recognized and later revoked has shaped Indigenous groups’ beliefs about the credibility and durability of government commitments. Such experiences may account for many Indigenous groups’ reluctance to embrace contemporary state offers to recognize their autonomy (Carter Reference Carter2025). Second, the same explanatory factors that determined Indigenous autonomy in the past—rural elite weakness and powerful Indigenous leaders—can also explain the more recent rise of Indigenous autonomy in Latin America. By the late twentieth century, ethnic leaders and organizations had gained renewed strength; concurrently, urbanization and economic transitions away from primary-product exports and toward services and industrial goods induced a sustained decline in rural elites’ power, reducing a key barrier to the recognition of autonomy. While understudied in the Indigenous politics literature, these structural transformations may have opened an opportunity for Indigenous autonomy claims to be addressed. It is no coincidence—as I show later in the paper—that in the countries where these trends were most pronounced, Indigenous autonomy has been more commonly offered.
In its focus on historical autonomy, the argument and evidence enrich existing work that examines when governments recognize Indigenous rights. Much of this scholarship points to explanatory factors that are more recently operative, including neoliberalism and the opportunity space provided by plurinational constitutions and postconflict peace agreements (Jackson and Warren Reference Jackson and Warren2005; Van Cott Reference Van Cott2000; Yashar Reference Yashar1998).Footnote 2 Yet autonomy arose in much earlier historical periods (Franco-Vivanco Reference Franco-Vivanco2021; Ochoa Espejo Reference Ochoa Espejo2023),Footnote 3 and as such, novel theories have been developed to explain these instances of autonomy. This paper argues that understudied instances of autonomy recognition in the postindependence period were largely explained by both national incumbent incentives to offer autonomy and rural elite efforts to block it.
The paper further contributes to a growing literature on the enduring consequences of elite divisions. Much of the historical research on Latin America has focused on cases where political and economic power are fused, particularly at the local level.Footnote 4 Increasingly, however, scholars have analyzed how divisions between political and economic elites shaped early state building, state formation, and regime change in the Americas (Callis Reference Callis2023; Gailmard Reference Gailmard2017; Garfias Reference Garfias2018; Kurtz Reference Kurtz2013; Mallon [Reference Mallon1983] 2014; Mazzuca Reference Mazzuca2021; Soifer Reference Soifer2015). The evidence in this paper suggests that these divisions also enabled and constrained government efforts to grant rights to otherwise marginalized populations, a process in which economic elites could serve as an important veto player.
The sections that follow outline and test my argument. The first section examines when opportunity spaces arise that encourage and sustain autonomy demands. The subsequent sections test this argument by analyzing early periods of autonomy recognition. Assimilation is the presumed counterfactual, as this has been the prevailing policy orientation of postindependence Latin American governments. I then demonstrate how the historical analysis may inform our understanding of later periods of autonomy recognition. I conclude by discussing the prospects for autonomy in contemporary Latin America.
What Is Autonomy, and When Do Governments Recognize It?
I define Indigenous autonomy as government recognition of Indigenous institutions within the territorial borders of an existing nation-state. This definition creates several points of distinction with related concepts. Because it requires state recognition, autonomy differs from cases where the state is unable to wrest power from Indigenous institutions or is uninterested in doing so. As such, autonomy—in my definition—requires the state’s institutional and legal commitment.Footnote 5 Autonomy also differs from independence, which entails a group’s separation from an existing nation-state. Finally, autonomy differs from what might be labeled “integration,” or the representation of Indigenous identities and preferences within existing state institutions.Footnote 6
Autonomy can take many forms. It might be political, recognizing the legitimacy of traditional Indigenous governing institutions. Examples include replacing subnational governments with Indigenous assemblies or leaders, delegating judicial authority to Indigenous courts and judges, and requiring “prior consultation” with Indigenous leaders and communities over the use of government-owned land and natural resources. Autonomy might also be economic, which involves recognizing Indigenous groups’ rights to communal landholding. Autonomy includes any combination of these Indigenous political and economic rights. In this paper, I focus on historical cases in which any autonomy rights were legally recognized and implemented to some degree by national governments and explore when this recognition occurred.Footnote 7
Historical autonomy emerged as a response to institutional and structural conditions, which jointly shaped the likelihood that governments would and could address Indigenous demands. As such, it is necessary to consider the political economy of a particularly consequential triad of actors in historical Latin America: a national incumbent, Indigenous elites, and rural elites. Indigenous elites, or leaders of geographically defined Indigenous communities, varied in their ability to articulate demands for autonomy; incumbents differed in their willingness to respond to these demands; and rural elites displayed an unequal ability to block efforts to address these demands.
Indigenous elites prioritized state protection of ethnic political and economic institutions (“autonomy”). This involved recognizing either collective landholding arrangements, which I label economic autonomy, or self-governance rights through traditional political institutions (e.g., deliberative assemblies, councils of elders), which I call political autonomy. Government recognition of autonomy legitimized Indigenous institutions and offered legal and bureaucratic mechanisms to enforce this recognition. Autonomy thus promoted the survival of communities and bolstered the authority of Indigenous leaders, who derived their power from long-standing ethnic institutions.
Autonomy presented a much less desirable outcome for non-Indigenous rural elites (e.g., miners, plantation owners, land developers), who often sought to expand their wealth through the extraction of Indigenous resources. Government-recognized autonomy reduced opportunities for such predation; as García (Reference García2005, 68) observes of early twentieth-century Peru, “the landowning elite was staunchly opposed to the emancipation of the Indian.” Economic autonomy, for example, protected traditional patterns of collective landholding, preventing large estate owners from seizing Indigenous land. Political autonomy could also shield Indigenous community members from labor exactions, including the mobilization of unpaid Indigenous workers to build infrastructure and toil on large estates. While state authorities were often complicit in this labor extraction, Indigenous leaders were more likely to resist it (Carter Reference Carter2025).
The observations above thus suggest that Indigenous elites generally wanted autonomy, while rural elites almost always opposed it. The existing literature frequently assumes a tight connection between political and economic elites during this period of Latin American history, suggesting that preferences against autonomy should have ultimately prevailed. Yet this was not always the case. The remainder of this section develops an argument to explain why national incumbents sometimes recognized autonomy, even in the unlikely first century of Latin American independence.
Argument
National-level incumbents seek to maintain their power, and doing so—especially in the historical periods evaluated in this article—required cobbling together and maintaining a minimum-winning coalition. Nineteenth-century strongmen, or caudillos, built loyal bases of workers or peasants by distributing selective benefits. An aspirant leader could mobilize these supporters to take office through violent or nonviolent means, and once the leader was in power, supporters would defend him against threats from rival strongmen.Footnote 8 While maintaining such a loyal popular-sector base was important, it was insufficient to secure a leader’s tenure. Caudillos also, I argue, generally avoided policies and actions that would alienate rivals; any action that systematically disadvantaged elite groups could unify opposition factions against the incumbent. Thus, incumbents often sought to maintain a delicate balance among two groups with divergent interests: the popular sector and elite rivals.
Among popular-sector groups, Indigenous communities and their leaders emerged as valuable coalitional partners for certain national incumbents.Footnote 9 In El Salvador, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Guatemala, Indigenous groups played a key role in the military mobilizations that carried prominent caudillos to national power in the mid-nineteenth century. Incumbents subsequently rewarded this military support with policy concessions that included autonomy. Alliances between national leaders and Indigenous groups continued into the early democratic period. In Mexico and Peru, Indigenous groups—upon receiving the franchise—and their non-Indigenous advocates served as important electoral constituencies of early twentieth-century national and subnational leaders.
A caudillo’s relative dependence on Indigenous leaders often arose from relatively idiosyncratic factors, including the region that produced the caudillo, the charisma and outsider status of the caudillo, and the status quo policy approach of the incumbent government to Indigenous peoples. Caudillos were more dependent on these alliances when they were from an Indigenous-majority region, when they had the skills and ability to portray themselves as credible defenders of Indigenous interests, when they had limited ability to obtain or maintain power through traditional political parties, and when the existing government adopted an aggressive and exploitative approach to Indigenous groups. Even where these conditions occurred, caudillos were unlikely to form alliances with all Indigenous leaders. Instead, they relied on a subset of leaders who were geographically proximate or personally predisposed to collaborating with the caudillo.Footnote 10
I argue that caudillos who successfully took national office through such alliances were more likely to recognize autonomy. Offering Indigenous rights served to reward Indigenous leaders for their support and to reduce the likelihood of future defection.Footnote 11 It could also serve as a tool to expand support to new Indigenous leaders who had previously opposed the incumbent or abstained from political alliances entirely. Hu-DeHart (Reference Hu-DeHart1984, 56) writes of the Yaqui Indigenous group in Sonora, Mexico, “[Caudillos] literally bought the loyalty of their armed followers with material rewards. In the case of Yaquis, however, when they agreed to fight for a caudillo, it was for the promise of having their land and their autonomy honored.”
Caudillos who were successful in taking national power had an incentive to recognize Indigenous autonomy to reward their coalition allies. Yet they often failed to do so, as they also had to consider the preferences of rural elites, who opposed autonomy. Rural elites’ ability to resist autonomy depended on exercising two closely connected forms of power: instrumental and structural (Lindblom Reference Lindblom1977). Instrumental power involves the direct influence that actors may exercise over politics. In the historical moments studied in this paper, individual rural elites could amass armies that they or their allies could use to challenge incumbents who opposed their interests. In later eras, large estate owners often mobilized their rural labor force in support of preferred candidates in elections (Albertus Reference Albertus2017; Baland and Robinson Reference Baland and Robinson2008; Mares Reference Mares2015, 84).Footnote 12 In addition to their direct influence on politics, rural elites also used structural power to achieve their preferred policy outcomes: rural elites accounted for a substantial portion of economic production, and the government viewed their well-being as closely tied to the success of the national economy. To the extent government policies “harmed” rural elites, they would also harm the country’s economic prospects and, therefore, the incumbent.
Rural elites’ instrumental and structural power waxed and waned during the first century of Latin American independence. For example, in the early nineteenth century, landowners in Latin America were relatively weak, as the wars of independence had decimated infrastructure and markets that would have otherwise promoted commercial agriculture. Furthermore, divisions along ideological or regional lines often prevented the emergence of a unified rural elite group that could jointly deploy its power.Footnote 13 Yet by the late nineteenth century, primary-product export booms had increased the economic power of rural interests and united them as a class.Footnote 14
When rural elites were stronger and more cohesive, they were more effective in blocking autonomy. Stronger rural elites had more influence vis-à-vis other societal groups, including urban industrial elites and intellectuals, as well as workers and the rural poor. Cohesion determined alignment within the rural elite, particularly around Indigenous policy. When elites were divided—for example, some depended on Indigenous labor while others did not due to geography or the labor intensity of their economic activity—a subset of large landowners sometimes preferred policies that empowered Indigenous groups and thus undermined their political or economic competitors.
National incumbents generally avoided taking action against strong and cohesive rural elites because they feared alienating potential rivals and triggering a rebellion. They sacrificed their Indigenous allies—if they had any—and instead advocated policy approaches nominally designed to promote the assimilation of Indigenous groups. These government actions facilitated nearly unconstrained rural elite predation on Indigenous land and labor. Perhaps the most common example of this approach involved dividing previously inalienable Indigenous communal land into private parcels that could be bought and sold.Footnote 15
Pursuing these assimilation strategies increased rural elite support for the incumbent while weakening potential opposition from disaffected Indigenous allies. Yet assimilation policies could also backfire, such as when Indigenous communities rebelled to preserve their access to land and control over their labor.Footnote 16 Incumbents could also suffer if they encouraged unfettered assimilation and extraction: these actions might expand the wealth, and thus the power, of rival elites, who could in turn use their strength to displace the incumbent.
As such, autonomy emerged as a more attractive option for some incumbents than assimilation. It allowed these national executives to balance and limit the power of rural elites while maintaining their linkages to allied Indigenous elites. Yet incumbents could only offer autonomy when rural elites were too weak and divided to oppose it. Otherwise, these elites could mobilize to block autonomy and retain their ability to extract (figure 1). In the sections that follow, I test this argument in a series of cases in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America.
Figure 1 Argument
Historical Cases of Indigenous Autonomy in the Americas
I evaluate my argument using a research design that leverages within-case comparisons across several Latin American countries. The within-case structure of the study allows me to hold constant deep-historical and other national-level time-invariant factors that might otherwise confound cross-national comparisons.Footnote 17 Empirical leverage is also provided by repeating the within-case analysis for multiple countries, including Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, and Ecuador. These cases share a “critical antecedent” condition: Indigenous peoples constituted a majority—or near majority—of the population at independence (Slater and Simmons Reference Slater and Simmons2010).Footnote 18 This condition is a critical antecedent in two ways. First, it is a “cause of a cause”: Indigenous elites are more likely to become allies of the incumbent when Indigenous groups have larger demographic weight (Holzinger et al. Reference Holzinger, Haer, Bayer, Behr and Neupert-Wentz2019). Second, it is a critical “conditioning” cause; it does not directly induce changes in rural elites’ instrumental and structural power, but it does shape the ability of Indigenous groups to demand rights during periods of rural elite weakness. Given this discussion, we might be concerned that over time changes in the size of the Indigenous population may otherwise confound comparisons; as I describe below, however, we see substantial variation within countries in the decision of incumbents to seek Indigenous allies—even as demographics remained relatively constant.Footnote 19
The six countries also differ in important ways, including their Indigenous composition, colonial experiences, and postindependence political dynamics. These differences offer analytical leverage similar to that provided by a “most-different” case-study design (Collier Reference Collier and Finifter1993). As such, despite substantial variation in many baseline attributes, these cases generally conform to the predictions I outline: that both the political importance of Indigenous leaders and the weakness of rural elites are central to providing an opportunity space in which communities can demand and achieve autonomy. Figure 2 outlines the evidence I use to evaluate these predictions.
Figure 2 Opportunity Space for Indigenous Autonomy in the Americas, ca. 1820–ca. 1940
Crucially, each of the six cases exhibits over-time variation in the key independent variables of interest. These variables are coded following a careful review of the secondary historical sources.Footnote 20 I code the strength of Indigenous elites based on the degree to which national and (in the case of Mexico) subnational executives viewed leaders of Indigenous groups and communities as necessary allies to take or hold power.Footnote 21 This often occurred when Indigenous groups became valuable military or electoral allies in a broader conflict among political and economic elite factions. I code rural elites’ structural and economic power using agricultural production. When agricultural products account for a substantial portion of economic activity, rural elites have more resources and influence to deploy to shape public policy. I also examine divisions among rural elite groups.Footnote 22 While intra-elite conflict alone does not indicate rural elite weakness—such cleavages were extraordinarily common in postindependence Latin America—it further reduces elites’ ability to coordinate and thus exercise power in contexts of agricultural decline. I include a full discussion of the coding of this variable in section A1 of the online appendix.
The outcome is coded based on a close reading of the history of Indigenous–state relations in each country. For each case, I examine instances where Indigenous autonomy—which includes the titling of communal lands and/or the delegation of power to Indigenous institutions and authorities—is formally recognized through decrees, laws, or constitutions. The informal (de facto) recognition of Indigenous institutions would not be coded as autonomy. I also require that laws recognizing autonomy be at least partially implemented.Footnote 23 Laws that existed only on paper would not constitute autonomy per my measure.Footnote 24
There remain certain challenges to the design, notably the existence of factors that vary over time and are related to both the explanatory and outcome variables. For example, while individual political entrepreneurs choose to ally with Indigenous elites for seemingly idiosyncratic reasons, systematic factors may increase the appeal of these alliances and the likelihood autonomy is recognized.Footnote 25 Likewise, the strength (or weakness) of rural elites may be determined by the ideology of the incumbent government, a factor that might also shape the likelihood a government recognizes autonomy. At the conclusion of this section, I discuss and evaluate the likelihood of such confounding and other threats to inference. I now proceed to examine each case, beginning with Guatemala.
Guatemala
The first postindependence extension of Indigenous autonomy in Guatemala occurred in the 1840s under the presidency of Rafael Carrera, who effectively ruled the country from 1839 to 1865. Born to a poor family, Carrera assumed power through a revolt that threatened the interests of the country’s rural elite (Woodward [Reference Woodward1993] 2012, 57, 76). He arose from eastern Guatemala, where he commanded an army of mainly Indigenous peasants (C. Smith Reference Smith1984, 201). While Indigenous revolts were common during this period (Woodward [Reference Woodward1993] 2012, 62), Carrera alone succeeded in leading a largely Indigenous rebellion to national political power.
Once in office, Carrera’s Indigenous allies provided a key inducement for him to recognize autonomy. This was motivated primarily by his desire to preserve power. The United States chargé d’affaires in the country remarked on the fear among elites “that the Indians, having for the first time since the conquest of the country discovered that they can by a use of their power force the whites and the Ladinos into terms, will hereafter return to repeat their atrocities upon the slightest provocation” (quoted in Woodward [Reference Woodward1993] 2012, 81).Footnote 26 Consequently, Indigenous groups under the Carrera administration witnessed what scholars have labeled a “golden age” of political autonomy (McCreery Reference McCreery and Smith2014, 101). In a series of decrees, Carrera recognized “Indigenous municipal and judicial autonomy,” reestablished bureaucratic agencies to protect this autonomy, hired interpreters to help Indigenous groups interface with state and private actors, and extended political recognition to traditional Indigenous leaders, or gobernadores (Grandin Reference Grandin2000, 103). Law 13, issued on December 5, 1839, declared the government’s responsibility to “prevent [Indigenous peoples] from being defrauded of that which belongs to them in common or individually and that they cannot be prevented from those practices and customs learned from their elders” (Section 2, Article 3).
Historians have pointed to several instances that highlight the effective exercise of this Indigenous political autonomy. In Momostenango, a town in Guatemala’s western highlands, a local Indigenous couple was executed, purportedly for engaging in witchcraft against another Indigenous clan. Witchcraft was a capital offense according to traditional judicial practices in the area, and as a result, the local Indigenous tribunal refused to convict the executioners. Local white and Ladino state officials objected to the decision; still, they did not intervene to overturn it, demonstrating the degree to which Indigenous autonomy was exercised and respected (Carmack [Reference Carmack and Smith1990] 2014, 119–120).Footnote 27 In addition to the recognition of traditional judicial practices, many Indigenous communities throughout Guatemala gained the right to replace municipal institutions with traditional Indigenous ones.Footnote 28
As predicted by my theory, this expansion of Indigenous political rights corresponded to a period of unprecedented economic and political weakness for Guatemala’s landed elite. The market for Guatemala’s primary-product exports reached historic lows in the 40 years following independence (McCreery Reference McCreery1994; C. Smith Reference Smith1984). The only notable export was cochineal, a red dye produced by insects that feed on nopal cacti (Mahoney Reference Mahoney2001, 87), but this crop had the undesirable trait that it was particularly vulnerable to pestilence and weather events, including droughts and floods (McCreery Reference McCreery1994, 117). As such, cochineal produced comparatively little revenue for the country’s economic elite. In addition to their limited economic power, the rural elite as a class was highly divided during Carrera’s time in office, locked in nearly perpetual regional conflicts. Rather than unifying as a class, landowners supported rival caudillos. This comparative weakness of the rural elite opened a space for Indigenous elites, who were important allies of Carrera, to successfully articulate their autonomy demands (C. Smith Reference Smith1984; Woodward [Reference Woodward1993] 2012, 124). Importantly, however, not all municipalities were equally likely to receive this authority. Consistent with my argument, Reeves (Reference Reeves2006, 9) observes, “The greater a region’s commercial agricultural potential, and the more important the ladino who desired to exploit it, the more likely it was that the state would intervene to weaken or dismantle the autonomy of the respective region’s indigenous communities.”
The late nineteenth century witnessed a growth in the power of rural elites and a concomitant shift away from Indigenous political autonomy. In the 1860s, global demand for coffee exploded, and Guatemala provided a very hospitable climate for the crop’s cultivation. Between 1860 and 1871, the value of coffee exports grew by over 8,600%; coffee had accounted for 1% of Guatemalan exports in 1860, but by the early 1870s, the crop accounted for nearly half (Woodward [Reference Woodward1993] 2012, 383). Despite this impressive economic boom, landowners felt that the government was hindering the development of commercial coffee production. In the minds of these rural elites, conservative governments had granted far too many concessions to the Indigenous peasantry. The potential value of Indigenous land and labor posed too great an opportunity cost to leave untapped (McCreery Reference McCreery1994, 163). The landed elite saw the potential to accrue enormous wealth by mobilizing Indigenous resources for coffee production. In 1871, the rural elite united to push the conservatives out of office and dismantled protections for Indigenous communities. For the next 70 years, the rural elite functionally controlled the Guatemalan government, effectively foreclosing the possibility of government recognition of Indigenous autonomy.
El Salvador
Between 1850 and 1870, the conservative politician Francisco Dueñas dominated politics in El Salvador, serving as president four separate times (Gudmundson Reference Gudmundson, Gudmundson and Lindo-Fuentes1995, 91).Footnote 29 Faced with a rural elite divided along regional, ethnic, and, later, sectoral lines, Dueñas followed Carrera’s lead and courted Indigenous groups as a core constituency (Mahoney Reference Mahoney2001, 86).Footnote 30 Indigenous communities served as the most valuable soldiers in the president’s—and others’—efforts to maintain control of the state (Alvarenga Venutolo Reference Alvarenga Venutolo1996, 27). Likewise, the threat of Indigenous rebellion sparked fear in Dueñas, and many Salvadoran Indigenous communities used their mobilizational capacity to achieve recognition of their autonomy (Lindo-Fuentes Reference Lindo-Fuentes1990, 133).Footnote 31 In 1867, Dueñas issued a decree that “provid[ed] legal recognition and protection to community-based landholding” (Lauria-Santiago Reference Lauria-Santiago1999b, 501). He enforced these laws, refusing to break up collectively held land even in the face of great pressure from coffee producers.Footnote 32
By 1870, the conditions that promoted Indigenous autonomy had eroded. Foreign demand for coffee exploded, and Indigenous land became a more desirable commodity for rural elites since Indigenous communities possessed some of the best land for coffee cultivation (Lindo-Fuentes Reference Lindo-Fuentes1990, 126–31). The expansion of the global coffee market also increased the power of the existing coffee-growing elite and thereby their ability to challenge Dueñas’s policies around Indigenous autonomy. As Lindo-Fuentes (Reference Lindo-Fuentes1990, 82) observes, “[t]he growth of the economy consolidated a landed elite that, imbued with positivistic ideas, proved eager to erase whatever remnants of egalitarian rhetoric were left from the early independent years.” In 1871, they united to overthrow Dueñas and install a liberal regime that would be more favorable to their interests. This initiated a period that Paige (Reference Paige1998, 14) calls the “golden age of coffee.”
The increased power of the landed elite in El Salvador coincided with a governmental assault on Indigenous autonomy. In 1881, landowners successfully lobbied the liberal president, Rafael Zaldívar, to abolish Indigenous communal lands (Tilley Reference Tilley2005, 128). The language of the decree reflected the importance of rural elite interests; in it, Zaldívar argued, “[t]he existence of lands under the ownership of the [Indigenous communities] impedes agricultural development, obstructs the circulation of wealth, and weakens family bonds and the independence of the individual” (quoted in Tilley Reference Tilley2005, 128–29).
Over the next 50 years, much of El Salvador’s Indigenous communal land was privatized. Indigenous communities’ efforts to resist these changes were generally unsuccessful in the face of support for land privatization by powerful coffee growers and their government allies (Lindo-Fuentes Reference Lindo-Fuentes1990, 135).Footnote 33 By 1895, over half of the positions in the national legislature were occupied by coffee growers, and between 1895 and 1931, coffee growers held the presidency in El Salvador without interruption (Paige Reference Paige1998, 14). As Kincaid (Reference Kincaid1987, 475) notes, “[facing] a relatively homogeneous dominant class in control of a much stronger state … there was no longer any prospect of successful resistance on the part of isolated communities.” As had happened in Guatemala, the erosion of protections for Salvadoran Indigenous communal land ushered in an era of Indigenous exclusion, assimilation, and even genocide.Footnote 34 The Indigenous population, which was likely around 50% of the total population at the time of independence, had declined to at most 20% by the early twentieth century (Lindo-Fuentes, Ching, and Martínez Reference Lindo-Fuentes, Ching and Martínez2007, 26).
Mexico
After obtaining its independence in 1821, Mexico experienced nearly 40 years of “continuous war, economic stagnation, and regional fragmentation” (Lomnitz and Pérez-Lizaur Reference Lomnitz and Pérez-Lizaur1987, 15). These factors weakened a previously powerful rural elite, preventing them from exercising significant political influence. Coatsworth (Reference Coatsworth1978, 97) observes that in newly independent Mexico, “neither landowners nor capitalists can be said to have formed a national governing class.”
The federal system of government that Mexico adopted upon independence granted enormous power to Mexican states (Caplan Reference Caplan2009, 7). It even subordinated the national constitution to state constitutions.Footnote 35 As such, the theory I have developed for national governments should in the Mexican case extend to state governments. In this section, I compare the paths of two states: Oaxaca and Yucatán. Both are located in southern Mexico and shared many critical traits at the onset of independence. Their populations were mostly Indigenous,Footnote 36 and Indigenous groups in both states received substantial autonomy from the Spanish Crown during the colonial period. Yet the paths they followed postindependence differed significantly.
In Oaxaca, Indigenous groups were particularly strong relative to non-Indigenous landowners. Immediately following independence, “hacendados [large estate owners] tended to be relatively poor” and characterized by “instability and debt … as [Indigenous] communal villages wielded power over them” (Chassen-López Reference Chassen-López2010, 106, 303). Indigenous leaders, consequently, maintained a power unrivaled in other Mexican states (Chance Reference Chance1978, 183). Consistent with my argument, the combination of a weak rural elite and strong Indigenous elites led the state government to recognize Indigenous autonomy—both Indigenous communal land and the right of Indigenous groups to select their own local legislatures, or “repúblicas”—in Oaxaca’s 1825 Constitution (Caplan Reference Caplan2009, 67–69). Indigenous groups then actively worked through courts to ensure the implementation and enforcement of these rights (Chassen-López Reference Chassen-López2010, 331). The recognition of Indigenous political and economic autonomy constituted the most comprehensive and robust form of Indigenous autonomy among the cases studied.
At various moments, however, rural elites threatened this autonomy. During the nineteenth century, in response to the growing power of large landowners, the central government adopted reforms to eliminate Indigenous communal land and replace locally selected Indigenous authorities with government-appointed officials (Chassen-López Reference Chassen-López2010, 302–3; Taylor Reference Taylor and Kicza1999, 182). Nevertheless, Oaxaca’s rural elites were weak compared to those in other states; as such, the Oaxacan government, apparently responsive to its relatively powerful Indigenous communities, successfully thwarted the implementation of these reforms, and Indigenous autonomy persisted in Oaxaca well into the twentieth century (Caplan Reference Caplan2009, 179–80).
Like Oaxaca, the early years of independence in Yucatán involved the state government recognizing Indigenous autonomy, albeit in a less robust form. During this period, the state faced both a demographically large Indigenous population and a potentially rebellious non-Indigenous rural elite. Remarking on this trade-off, Caplan (Reference Caplan2009, 103) notes, “[S]tate officials were weary of the potential power of nonindigenous entrepreneurs and yet cognizant of the danger inherent in losing indígenas’ [Indigenous peoples’] support.” These dynamics led the state government to accommodate Indigenous groups and the rural elite. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, sugar and henequen emerged as key cash crops in Yucatán. While land for these crops was abundant in the state, labor to harvest them was relatively scarce (Gabbert Reference Gabbert2019, 35–37). To appease the Indigenous population without further depleting the supply of labor for the rural elite, the state government of Yucatán offered Indigenous groups economic autonomy through recognition of their communal land. Under this system, there existed protections for collectively held land in Indigenous villages, but all political and administrative tasks—outside official tax collection—resided with local state authorities and institutions (Caplan Reference Caplan2009, 108).
By the mid-nineteenth century, conditions in Yucatán became considerably less favorable for Indigenous economic autonomy. The rural, non-Indigenous elite became a more united and powerful interest group due to two factors. First, the Caste War (1847–1901), a “race war” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens, unified landowners as a class against Indigenous peasants. Second, cash crops became both increasingly profitable and concentrated in a few landowners’ hands, with henequen growing from 13.7% of Yucatecan exports in 1845 to 70% in 1876 (Richmond Reference Richmond2015, 38). These factors increased rural elites’ power vis-à-vis the state government and pushed state officials to eliminate autonomy. In 1868, the state government of Yucatán officially abolished Indigenous communal villages (Caplan Reference Caplan2009, 213).Footnote 37
Ecuador
Ecuador’s first three decades of independence, which had been obtained in 1822, witnessed a gradual erosion of colonial-era Indigenous rights. Indigenous political authorities, or caciques, were gradually replaced by local delegates of the central state, or “political lieutenants” (O’Connor Reference O’Connor2007, 36–37). Regional conflicts dominated politics. The primary cleavage occurred within the rural elite class, specifically between liberal plantation owners on the coast and conservative hacienda owners in the highlands (sierra). The latter had historically been considerably more dependent on extracting Indigenous resources. During the early to mid-nineteenth century, the coastal elite experienced an economic boom, largely as a result of increased international demand for cacao; between 1831 and 1857, coastal agricultural production grew fourfold. Conversely, over the same period, highland elites—who had traditionally held economic and political power—experienced a sustained decline in their agricultural production, with total output falling by about 45% (Van Aken Reference Van Aken1981, 450).
The decline of previously powerful sierra landowners paved the way for state recognition of Indigenous autonomy. In 1851, José María Urvina, a liberal politician, became president. An ally of the coastal elite, Urvina embraced highland Indigenous groups as a strategy for undermining agrarian interests in the sierra. Urvina advocated several pro-Indigenous policies during his five-year term. Most notably, he issued “special titles” to Indigenous communal lands, thereby “[reinforcing] the territoriality and legitimacy of the Indian community” (D. Williams Reference Williams2003, 707). Williams observes that “the sum effect of Urvinista policy was … the reinforcement of Indigenous collective rights and community structures” (703).
Beginning in the 1860s, national policy toward Indigenous groups once again shifted away from a recognition of Indigenous rights and toward assimilation. Gabriel García Moreno, a conservative, became president in 1861 following a two-year civil war. He had achieved power with the help of a highland elite that had unified in opposition to Urvina’s liberal policies; for their support, these highland elites obtained enormous power and influence within García Moreno’s administration (O’Connor Reference O’Connor2007, 15; D. Williams Reference Williams, Clark and Becker2007, 43). García Moreno subsequently “worked to roll back decades of Indigenous … autonomies” (Larson Reference Larson2004, 113). Laws passed during his administration allowed state officials to declare Indigenous communal lands “vacant” and seize them to sell to private actors (Henderson Reference Henderson2008, 198; O’Connor Reference O’Connor2007, 55, 86). This process of privatizing Indigenous communal land continued well into the twentieth century, virtually unabated.Footnote 38 As a result of these sustained attacks, today there remain very few Indigenous communities in Ecuador compared with Bolivia and Peru, which I turn to now.
Bolivia
Like many other former colonies in Spanish America, Bolivia’s initial years of independence were characterized by economic instability. The rural elite, which consisted mostly of mining interests, was hit particularly hard, experiencing a prolonged period of “decapitalization” that would last until the 1840s (Klein Reference Klein2011, 102). A massive decline in silver export revenue not only harmed the mining elite but also left the fiscally starved Bolivian state with few options but to reinstate a colonial-era head tax on Indigenous groups. To ensure Indigenous groups could produce this revenue, the Bolivian government guaranteed their access to traditional communal land, or “communities” (Platt Reference Platt1982).
In 1829, Bolivian president Andrés de Santa Cruz, a caudillo whose regime depended on substantial support from Bolivian Indigenous groups during his 10-year administration, issued a decree recognizing Indigenous communal landholdings (Larson Reference Larson2004, 212; Perea Reference Perea2011, 224). The emergence of these rights also corresponded to a period of declining power for the rural elite. Klein (Reference Klein2011, 104) observes, “[J]ust as the collapse of the export sector in the seventeenth-century crisis had been a positive aid to the … free Indian communities, the same would occur again in the early nineteenth-century crisis.” For the next three decades, the Bolivian central government issued communal land titles to many Indigenous communities.
By the 1860s, the rural elite—particularly mining interests—reestablished their power and influence within the Bolivian government. The mining of recently discovered mercury deposits in California reduced the cost of refining silver (Langer Reference Langer1989, 17). These benefits accrued to not only silver miners but also hacienda owners. The increase in export revenue generated banking credits, which were often invested in large estates to expand production (Klein Reference Klein1993, 134). As the rural elite’s economic power grew, so too did their political influence. Hacienda owners successfully lobbied for the passage of legislation in 1866 that required Indigenous community members to purchase individual titles to their lands within 60 days of the law’s passage; those who did not had to forfeit their land to the Bolivian state, which would sell the “vacated” plots to the highest bidder (Klein Reference Klein2011, 136). Indigenous groups mostly resisted the implementation of the law, but the legislation set the stage for a more prominent and effective attack on communal land. An 1874 law entirely withdrew government recognition of Indigenous communal land and unilaterally issued private titles to those residing on that land (Jackson Reference Jackson1994, 74). Subsequently, Indigenous communities experienced a rapid decline in both access to land and membership, a trend that would continue well into the twentieth century. Indigenous communities in Bolivia contained about half of Bolivia’s land and rural population in 1880, but by 1930, these communities contained “less than a third of both” (Klein Reference Klein1992, 152).
Peru
The recognition of Indigenous autonomy in Peru followed a very different trajectory from neighboring Bolivia. In the early years of Peru’s independence, the rural elite, particularly the large estate owners concentrated in the north and along the coast, were able to exercise enormous structural and instrumental power over the newly independent Peruvian government. Gootenberg ([Reference Gootenberg1989] 2014, 37) observes that “the circumscribed national state could not escape [hacendado] influence.” Agricultural production in the north met the food needs of those in the capital, Lima, and the government itself was sustained by duties levied on rural exports; urban elites, many of whom worked in milling, lard making, and artisan leather products, developed close economic and social ties with hacendados in the north of Peru (37). The instrumental and structural power of the rural elites only strengthened as the nineteenth century progressed. Exports grew around 5% per year between 1840 and 1878, largely due to expanding international demand for Peruvian guano, copper, sheep wool, cotton, sugar, and nitrates (Bonilla Reference Bonilla and Bethell1985, 550). Mallon ([Reference Mallon1983] 2014, 107) remarks on the “patron–client alliance between the mestizo elite and the national government” that existed in rural Peru, especially in the central highlands.
The strength of rural elites as an interest group corresponded to an erosion of colonial-era protections for Indigenous rights. In 1828, the Peruvian central state privatized all Indigenous communal land and revoked recognition for Indigenous political authorities (R. Smith Reference Smith1982, 78; Stepputat Reference Stepputat, Hansen and Stepputat2009, 77).Footnote 39 While continuing to be important for native groups, the Indigenous community became “invisible and strange for … legislatures, magistrates, and authorities” who refused to respect or defend any Indigenous institutions that were not legally recognized (Basadre Reference Basadre1961, 1309). The seminal Civil Code of 1852, which defined Peruvian law until 1932, made no mention of Peruvian Indigenous communities or their collective rights to hold land (Larson Reference Larson2004, 154). The adoption of the code eliminated any remaining protections for Indigenous land and further hastened the destruction of Indigenous communities (Davies Reference Davies1973, 186–87).
The early twentieth century witnessed a decline in the power of traditional landed interests, opening a space for Indigenous autonomy. Peru had a primarily rural population throughout the nineteenth century, more than any other Latin American country for which data are available (Gootenberg Reference Gootenberg1991, 132). However, Peru subsequently experienced massive rural–urban migration. Lima’s population grew from 130,000 in 1900 to nearly 300,000 in 1930 (Mitchell Reference Mitchell1993, 54). This rapid demographic shift facilitated the rise of a populist politician, Augusto Leguía, who in 1919 became Peru’s president mainly due to support from the country’s growing urban population. The election of Leguía brought an end to the “Aristocratic Republic” era, a nearly 25-year period in which agricultural and mining interests dominated Peruvian politics (Bertram Reference Bertram and Bethell1991, 392).
Leguía’s administration initially sought the support of the indigenistas, urban intellectuals who denounced rural elites’ exploitation of Peru’s Indigenous populations (García Reference García2005, 69–70).Footnote 40 Promising a new era in Indigenous–state relations, he created a land commission to resolve land disputes between Indigenous communities and hacienda owners, which was headed by a pro-Indigenous commissioner, Erasmo Roca, and established an Indigenous Affairs Section within the Ministry of Development, led by Hildebrando Castro Pozo, “one of the most … sincere defenders of Indian rights that Peru has produced” (Pike Reference Pike1967, 222). Leguía also supported a prominent Indigenous advocacy group, the Tahuantinsuyo Pro-Indigenous Rights Committee (Comité Central Pro-Derecho Indígena Tahuantinsuyo, CPIT).Footnote 41
In 1925, Leguía implemented a key provision of the 1920 Constitution, which offered the first systematic, postindependence effort to register and title Peruvian Indigenous communities. He also recognized communities’ “right to administer their own finances without the intervention of district councils” (Davies Reference Davies1974, 91).Footnote 42 Leguía’s efforts to recognize Indigenous autonomy, however, were moderated by his concerns about the power of rural elites. Watters (Reference Watters1994, 67) observes, “Leguía succeeded in maintaining the delicate position of seeming to advance indigenista causes without alienating the Sierra landowners by pushing them too hard.” In 1927, Leguía withdrew his support for Indigenous groups and ethnic organizations in favor of an alliance with the hacendados, who continued to constrain the intensity and reach of autonomy (Cant Reference Cant2021, 77). Nevertheless, Leguía’s protections for Indigenous communal land—economic autonomy—have persisted to the present.
Addressing Threats to Inference
A key challenge for drawing causal inferences from the above case studies involves potential confounding variables: factors that explain both the independent and dependent variables. Ideology, for example, presents a possible confounder. One of the two dominant factions in nineteenth-century Latin American politics, liberal or conservative, may have been inherently more sympathetic to Indigenous causes and espoused policies that disadvantaged the rural elite. Yet the cases above demonstrate that autonomy was offered under both liberal (Urvina) and conservative (Dueñas and Carrera) governments.
Likewise, the patterns observed above are not attributable to idiosyncratic differences in incumbent preferences. A potential challenge to my argument would arise if national incumbents who adopted autonomy were simply pro-Indigenous advocates who opposed—and therefore deliberately weakened—the rural elite. If true, this would suggest a high correlation between periods of rural elite weakness, Indigenous elite strength, and the recognition of autonomy, even if there exists no causal relationship between the independent variables and outcome. Yet this does not seem to be the case. Carrera, for example, was arguably the clearest champion of Indigenous causes, but even he was not inherently committed to the Indigenous cause. In response to initial efforts by Indigenous peasants in eastern Guatemala to recruit him to lead their rebellion, Carrera responded, “I cannot go against my own country” (quoted in Woodward [Reference Woodward1993] 2012, 64). Similarly, Peruvian president Leguía’s swift abandonment of Indigenous groups suggests that his stated commitment to Indigenous interests was strategic rather than sincere. Incumbent ethnicity likewise does not appear to be a confounder. None of the presidents who embraced autonomy identified as Indigenous. Moreover, Indigenous leaders, such as Mexican president Benito Juárez, sometimes actively undermined Indigenous institutions (Cal y Mayor Reference Cal y Mayor2000, 102; Haake Reference Haake2007, 94).
International crises and pressure, which vary across time but are experienced in relatively similar ways across countries, may also pose a threat to inference by shaping both the power of rural elites and the likelihood that autonomy is adopted. This does not seem to explain the findings discussed above. Autonomy was recognized relatively soon after independence in some cases (Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala) and later in others (El Salvador, Ecuador, and, especially, Peru). Likewise, large-scale structural changes associated with modernization theory—such as democracy, industrialization, and urbanization—might have reduced the power of landed elites and increased the likelihood that autonomy was recognized, but those changes generally postdated the periods of autonomy described here. Even where they did not, they do not threaten the causal interpretation of my findings. In Peru, for instance, rapid urbanization weakened rural elites in the lead-up to Leguía’s recognition of Indigenous autonomy in the 1920s. Yet Leguía’s shift away from pro-Indigenous policies during the second half of his second term—when movement to cities continued unabated—suggests that urbanization alone cannot explain the adoption of autonomy.
State capacity is a further potential confounder. The expansion of state presence in the periphery may have threatened the power and influence of entrenched rural elites (Kurtz Reference Kurtz2013; Soifer Reference Soifer2015). This increase in capacity may have also allowed central states to credibly intervene for the first time to protect Indigenous institutions. The empirical evidence does not support this claim. Every case described above would be characterized as having low state capacity throughout the study period. Furthermore, there is no evidence that a state needs to be particularly strong to offer protections for Indigenous rights. The Spanish Crown was able to protect Indigenous political and economic institutions despite having a limited presence in peripheral areas (Franco-Vivanco Reference Franco-Vivanco2021; Platt Reference Platt1982).
Beyond confounding, a further challenge arises from reverse causation: autonomy may increase (or reduce) the power of Indigenous (or rural) elites. Often, this is indeed the case (Carter Reference Carter2025; McMurry Reference McMurry2022).Footnote 43 Yet for the variables I analyze, temporal sequencing is relatively easy to define. One can pinpoint the precise moment in which autonomy is recognized through laws, decrees, and constitutions. The El Salvador case makes this point well. Dueñas initially attempted to disarm Indigenous peasants, whom he viewed as a threat to his regime. He offered autonomy only when this strategy failed, demonstrating that Indigenous mobilizational strength often preceded Indigenous rights (Lauria-Santiago Reference Lauria-Santiago1999a, 117).
Discussion
Several basic patterns thus arise in the Latin American cases analyzed above: the combination of incumbents viewing Indigenous leaders (or their advocates) as important allies and a weak rural elite predict the likelihood that autonomy is recognized. The findings for the cases are summarized in table 1. The table includes information on the independent variables as well as incumbent ideology to demonstrate that national executives of various political persuasions embraced autonomy.
Table 1 Summary of Case Findings
Importantly, in almost all cases, autonomy recognition in the postindependence period was fleeting; only Peru—the case that delayed the most in recognizing autonomy—offered enduring recognition of Indigenous rights.Footnote 44 In the other cases, the granting and revocation of autonomy may have reduced Indigenous groups’ confidence in future government commitments. This skepticism may explain the hesitancy of many Indigenous groups to embrace contemporary government offers of autonomy in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Mexico (Carter Reference Carter2025).
The analyses of the Latin American cases further reveal an interesting empirical pattern that may explain the type of autonomy postindependence governments offered. Even when rural elites could not block autonomy, they could often shape the form that it took. Economic autonomy emerged in cases where Indigenous labor was most valued and scarce (El Salvador, Ecuador, Yucatán, Peru, and Bolivia). Conversely, where land was most important—for development or plantation agriculture—political autonomy was the more common outcome (Guatemala). This may suggest that rural elites were less willing to accept economic autonomy—which protected Indigenous communal land from being divided and sold—where land was scarce or otherwise valuable. Where labor was relatively scarce, landowners sought to prevent political autonomy, which undermined the local state institutions that landowners often captured and used to mobilize Indigenous workers. It is further notable that it was only where rural elites were especially weak (Oaxaca) that governments recognized both economic and political autonomy.
While rural elites played an essential role in shaping politics during the first century or so of independence in Latin America and perhaps beyond, their power waned in subsequent periods. During the twentieth century, the historical grip that rural elites had on political power loosened in most Latin American countries. The following section discusses the effects of these changes on the expression of and response to Indigenous demands for autonomy.
Beyond the First Century of Independence
This section analyzes the argument’s applicability to two more contemporary periods in Latin American history: the mid-twentieth century, in which governments were generally averse to recognizing Indigenous autonomy, and the late twentieth century, when governments were relatively more open to it. The earlier period corresponded to a general decline in rural elite strength, opening an opportunity space for popular sectors to demand rights. Yet class-based organizations (e.g., unions, left parties) dominated popular mobilization and deliberately subverted ethnic demands. As such, Indigenous elites only rarely became key allies of national incumbents, with negative consequences for autonomy recognition. I then analyze the more recent period, when rural elite power declined even further. During this period, Indigenous elites and their community members gained greater political influence due to democratization, decentralization, and international policy frameworks and diffusion that emphasized Indigenous rights. Consistent with my theory, this period has corresponded to increased government recognition of Indigenous autonomy.
Historically, rural elites in Latin America mobilized to block policies they opposed, but beginning in 1930, their power started to decrease. Kay (Reference Kay2001, 744) argues, “It was only with the Great Depression of the 1930s and the subsequent import substituting industrialisation process that the economic and political predominance of the landed oligarchy began to wane in Latin America.” Import-substituting industrialization, in particular, aimed to “shift the domestic terms of trade between agriculture and industry in favour of the latter” (Hofman Reference Hofman2000, 25). In Peru, for example, agriculture’s share of the gross domestic product fell from 20.4% in 1950 to 12.7% in 1975 (Fitzgerald Reference Fitzgerald1980, 69). In Mexico and Colombia, agriculture fell from about 60% of employment to around 40% over roughly the same period (Hofman Reference Hofman2000, 57).
While rural elites lost power during the mid-twentieth century, Indigenous leaders had relatively little power vis-à-vis national incumbents to leverage this opportunity space to demand autonomy. Instead, class-based organizations and demands prevailed. During this period, left and corporatist parties, including the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, MNR) in Bolivia and Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI) in Mexico, came to power, vowing to promote the interests of Indigenous peasants. In many cases, these parties created corporatist or clientelistic arrangements that provided certain class-based rights to rural workers in exchange for social obedience and political loyalty (Yashar Reference Yashar2005, 60–61, 159).Footnote 45 These included better wages, better working conditions, and land reform—often distributed through government-sponsored or government-created unions—to maintain and expand their base of support. Crucially, these governments were generally not receptive to autonomy claims by Indigenous leaders and organizations, viewing ethnic identities and institutions as barriers to their ideological or strategic goals of class-based mobilization.Footnote 46
By the late twentieth century, most left and corporatist regimes had lost power, leading to a decline in the emphasis placed on peasant mobilization and labor rights. From 1970 to 1990, governments across the region dismantled protections for labor rights and repressed peasant organizations and unions (Yashar Reference Yashar1998). During Latin America’s left turn in the early 2000s, governments reinstated some of these protections, but a general decline in the strength of labor unions and continued trends toward urbanization have reduced the power of peasants to make effective class-based demands on the state.
Alongside the declining returns to class mobilization, other factors—democratization, decentralization, and an international movement advocating Indigenous peoples’ rights—created an opportunity for a new wave of ethnic mobilization. These transformations have increased the importance of Indigenous groups as the political allies—or adversaries—of incumbents.Footnote 47 Democracy and decentralization incentivized state officials to collaborate with local ethnic leaders, who can serve as important electoral brokers and collaborate in the production of local public goods that expand state capacity (e.g., roads, security).Footnote 48 Furthermore, allying with Indigenous groups and embracing Indigenous rights may improve an incumbent’s reputation in the international arena; for example, many leaders have incorporated Indigenous rights into national constitutions, following the guidance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) and International Labour Organization Convention 169 (1989).Footnote 49
The incentives of incumbents to embrace Indigenous allies corresponded to a continued decline in the power of rural elites, which began during the period of corporatism and import-substituting industrialization. Of the countries discussed in this article, the ones that have done the least in the domain of autonomy are those that continue to have powerful rural elites (table 2). Guatemala remains dependent on agriculture exports (45% of total exports), as do El Salvador (27%) and Ecuador (31%). Together, these three countries have done little to nothing to recognize Indigenous autonomy.Footnote 50 The Ecuadorian case is especially notable given its powerful national-level Indigenous movement and nationally competitive Indigenous political party, Pachakutik (Brysk Reference Brysk2000; Madrid Reference Madrid2008; Yashar Reference Yashar1999); this suggests that the strategic political importance of Indigenous groups—and their leaders—alone is not sufficient to generate meaningful autonomy.
Table 2 Agriculture, Ethnicity, and Indigenous Autonomy
Sources: Duff and Padilla (Reference Duff and Padilla2015); ECLAC (2014).
Note: † The range reflects the difference in official and unofficial statistics on the Salvadoran Indigenous population (DeLugan Reference DeLugan2012, 73, 129 fn. 2).
It is likewise notable that other countries that have done little to recognize autonomy remain more dependent on agricultural exports, such as Chile (25%), Argentina (54%), Brazil (34%), and Paraguay (43%). These cases mark a stark contrast to Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico, which have a relatively low dependence on agricultural exports—20%, 14%, and 6%, respectively—and have recognized economic autonomy (Peru) or both political and economic autonomy (Bolivia and Mexico).Footnote 51
Conclusion: What Does the Past Tell Us about the Present?
The study of Indigenous autonomy is arguably more timely than ever. As scholars increasingly examine the important contemporary effects of Indigenous autonomy on political, economic, and social outcomes, it becomes necessary to interrogate carefully the path that led to contemporary Indigenous rights.Footnote 52 This article has illustrated that Indigenous autonomy was not an innovation of the twentieth century. The formal recognition of autonomy often began in the early postindependence period and occurred in a fits-and-starts manner—largely as a result of (1) Indigenous elites’ strategic importance to incumbents and (2) rural elites’ instrumental and structural power.
What is new to recent decades is the comparative resilience of Indigenous rights, which appear relatively more insulated from shifts in the political and economic power of rural elites. This may be due to the same explanatory variables I use to explain autonomy during the first century of Latin American independence. Indigenous elites, through enduring Indigenous movements and organizations, have acquired mobilizational strength in recent decades, and rural elite power has in many cases experienced a dramatic and sustained decline. Together, these factors may thus explain the more recent rise and persistence of Indigenous autonomy regimes in several Latin American countries. They may likewise explain the uneven emergence of opportunity spaces for autonomy across contemporary Latin America. Rural elites have been especially strong during commodity booms and conservative administrations, allowing them to block the adoption, implementation, or enforcement of Indigenous rights. In Brazil, for example, the Bolsonaro regime, which maintained close ties to land developers and herders, routinely violated legally protected Indigenous rights. As such, the trend toward autonomy in Latin America is certainly not a uniform one, and my argument can perhaps explain why.
The theory and evidence presented in this paper may also have purchase beyond Latin America. In the first century and a half of independence, the US government embraced assimilationist and even genocidal policies that benefited powerful rural elites, including land developers, farmers, and ranchers.Footnote 53 Structural economic changes at the turn of the twentieth century, however, particularly in the western states, reduced rural elites’ power and opened an opportunity space for autonomy. As Evans (Reference Evans2023, 91) notes, “[w]estern industrialization and urbanization meant that western voters, economies, and political power shifted away from the rural areas with land-based economies where reservations and their neighbors were located.”Footnote 54 In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt was elected president with the support of tribal reform groups, non-Native popular sectors, and intellectuals, all of whom called for a new federal policy toward tribes. In 1934, the US Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act, which made communal land on reservations inalienable and extended the political and judicial authority of tribal leaders. While this form of autonomy was weak—tribes did not have the right to independently develop their communal lands and the Bureau of Indian Affairs retained substantial influence over tribal affairs—it did mark a notable break in tribal policy that corresponded to a weakening of rural elites and an increase in the strategic importance of tribal leaders and their allies.
This paper has examined the emergence of Indigenous autonomy with a primary focus on top-down decision making; however, the explanatory variables discussed here may also explain another key outcome of interest: historical ethnic mobilization. Indigenous movements and organizations have become very influential in several Latin American countries. Undoubtedly, these bottom-up mobilizational efforts have been pivotal in triggering a contemporary expansion in the recognition of Indigenous institutions, but they are not entirely new. Bolivian Indigenous community leaders (caciques apoderados) created in the first two decades of the twentieth century an Indigenous movement that had an “unequivocally national structure” and achieved “exceptional levels of national coordination” (Gotkowitz Reference Gotkowitz2008, 46). Indigenous communities in other countries also engaged in similar large-scale coordination during the early twentieth century—through the Tahuantinsuyo Pro-Indigenous Rights Committee in Peru and the Caupolicán Society and the Araucanian Federation in Chile. The emergence and sustained activity of these historical organizations may have been more likely during periods of rural elite weakness and Indigenous elite strength.Footnote 55
On the whole, the past three decades have offered an unprecedented opportunity for Indigenous groups to make ethnic claims. Democracy’s third wave, a decline of traditionally powerful class-based organizations, and a reduction in the strength of rural elites have ushered in a new era of Indigenous mobilization alongside a more favorable political climate for recognizing ethnic rights.Footnote 56 Never before has the reward for addressing these demands been higher for politicians, and never before have rural elite interests been less capable of blocking Indigenous rights. Yet key challenges to meaningful implementation remain. Efforts by national and local political elites to thwart autonomy, along with reasonable skepticism by Indigenous peoples, have created a notable gap between what is available “on paper” and what is adopted in reality. While the conditions outlined in this paper shed light on why Indigenous autonomy might arise through national legal frameworks, other research is better positioned to interrogate if, when, and how this autonomy is exercised in individual Indigenous communities.Footnote 57
Supplementary material
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592725101904.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Anna Callis, Ruth Collier, Thad Dunning, Evan Lieberman, Andrew Little, Alison Post, Kenneth Scheve, and Noam Yuchtman for very helpful comments on prior versions.
Open access
