HAM Political Participation Movlilization CHI MEX VEN CU 1820-25

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the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal ofInterdisciplinary History

Political Participation and the Social Mobilization Hypothesis: Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, andCuba, 1800-1825Author(s): Jorge I. DominguezSource: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Autumn, 1974), pp. 237-266Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/202508 .

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Jorge I. DominguezPolitical Participation and theSocial Mobilization Hypothesis:Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba, 1800-1825POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND THE SOCIAL MOBILIZATION HYPOTH-ESIS Men and women have often sought to affect the allocationof valuesn a society hroughpolitical articipation.'hough herearemany kinds of political participation,two ideal types, modern andtraditional,ummarizebservable ifferences.hesearenot mutuallyexclusive;heyarepolesat the endsof acontinuum. eopleparticipateinpolitics,n thefinalanalysis, ecauseheychoose o doso.However,modernpoliticalparticipantsypicallyhave internal,autonomouspsychologicalources orsuchparticipation.heycan turn hemselveson oroffpoliticallywithoutdependingnagents xternalo themselves.Although they may not be political participants ontinuously,they arecontinuously apableof becomingpoliticalparticipantsut of theirown resources.Traditional oliticalparticipants,n the otherhand,relymore on external gents leaders r organizations)o turnthemon politically.Politically,they are non-autonomous.When theexternal pressurescease, the political participationceases. They areneither ontinuouslynvolved n politics,norcontinuouslyapable fbecomingnvolvedout of theirown resources.A seconddimension f differencesn politicalparticipationestson the experience f modernization.Modernpoliticalparticipationpointsto a break, otalor partial,with historical ommitments ndpatterns f pastpoliticalparticipation.raditional oliticalparticipa-tion,on theotherhand,operatesn a basiccontextof continuitywiththepast.Evenwhentraditionalolitical articipantsrotest,heyoftenseek to restorepre-existingonditions ather han claim new rights;theyshowlow levelsof politicalorganizationsuchasfoodriots andJorge I. Dominguez is Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University and theauthor of several articles on Latin America.The author is grateful to the anonymous critic of the JIH and to the participants ofthe Conference on Methodological Issues in Latin American Social Science (1973),co-sponsored by the Harvard Center for International Affairs and the M.I.T. Center forInternational Studies, for comments on an earlier draft.I David Easton, "An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems," World Politics,IX (I957), 383, 387-395.


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238 | JORGE I. DOMINGUEZpeasantrevolts),ratherthan more complex forms (suchas laborstrikesor political parties).

Thesetwo dimensions-theoriginal ourceof participationndits historicalcontext-are summarized y the social mobilizationhypothesis.Deutschdefined socialmobilizationas "the process nwhich major clustersof old social, economic and psychologicalcommitments re erodedor brokenandpeoplebecomeavailableornew patterns f socialization ndbehavior."Manyscholars,despitedifferentpurposesand methods,have supportedthis hypothesis.2Themechanismwhich dislodges raditionalman from his accustomedcommitmentshas a varietyof empirically bservable omponentswhich are highly and positivelycorrelateddiachronically nd/orcross-nationally.Quantitative ndicators for social mobilizationincludeiteracy,choolenrollmentercapita,ncome,mediaexposure,urbanization,on-agriculturalmployment,ndoccupational obility,amongothers.Thedependentariablespoliticalparticipation.s theindicators f socialmobilizationncrease,he probability f a breakwith previouspatterns nd the launchingof a new patterns quitehigh. An increasen the scopeanddomainof politicalparticipationis likely to follow an increasein social mobilization: More peopleparticipatein politics and are affected by politics; more issues arethoughtto be within the politicalrealm.Thus,social mobilizationincreasesheprobabilityf anew kindofpolitical articipationifferentfrompastparticipation.3Moststudies f thesocialmobilization ypothesis efinepoliticalparticipationsthepsychologicalapacityo participate,r what wehavecalled heinternal, utonomous bility o turnoneselfon or offpolitically. t has a probablydecisivempacton intervening ariablessuchaspersonalities,eliefs,andattitudes,which are themoreproxi-matecauses f politicalparticipation. ostof these tudies lsoconcur2 Karl W. Deutsch, "Social Mobilization and Political Development," AmericanPoliticalScienceReview, LV (1961), 494; Daniel Lerner, The Passing of TraditionalSociety(New York, 1964), 46; Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Basesof Politics(Garden City, N.Y., 1963), 183-229; Robert Lane, Political Life (New York, 1965),45-79; Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Boston, 1965), I2-I8,315-336. Jose L. Reyna, An EmpiricalAnalysis of Political Mobilization: The Case ofMexico (Ithaca, 1971), 35-50, provides a broad summary of empirical findings on socialmobilization as it related to political participation; most, but not all, of the findingssupport the hypothesis. For a propositional inventory on the hypothesis, see Lester W.Milbrath, PoliticalParticipation:How andWhyDo PeopleGet Involvedin Politics?(Chicago,1965), I6-17, III-I30.3 Deutsch, "Social Mobilization," 495-496, 498-500.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 239thatthispsychologicalapacityo participates "new"-a breakwithhistoricaleelings,orientations,ndbehaviors.4

Recent studieshave examinedmore precisely he admittedlyhighlyrelated et of variables ntangledn socialmobilization.Onecandrawthreeprincipalonclusions bout he stateof this venerablehypothesis.stsessentialeatures restillvalid:Education,ncome,andoccupation,nparticular,avea significantffect npropelling eopleinto sustainedpoliticalparticipation.These factorsalso "go together."Political participation, of the sort affected by social mobilization, is stillseen as the capacityto affect politics.Urbanization is now thought not to have an independent impacton political participation (even though it correlates highly withvariables that do). There is little reason to assume an automatic politiciz-

ing or radicalizing bias either to the process of migration to the city, orto the urban environment itself. The political behavior of migrantsflows less from assumed widespread anomie and frustration and morefrom the attitudes and patterns of behavior which migrants bring withthem from the countryside and from the active process of politicalsocialization to which they are exposed in the cities. In addition, theargument that the urban poor are radical is misleading. The criticalissue is to specify the process of politicization, that is, just how theurban poor may be inducted into politics.There is a renewed stress on the importance and independentimpact of organizational involvement and political mobilization, evenperhaps in the absence of much social mobilization, on the promotionof political activity. There may be organization-based political par-ticipation (in factories, unions, and parties) which is different from thebehavior predicted by the social mobilization hypothesis. Thus, oneobserves the involvement of relatively non-autonomous individuals inpolitics as a result of pressures external to themselves. These men andwomen are "turned on" politically by leaders and organizations. Oncethis external mobilization declines or ceases, political activity declinesor ceases, given the relative absence of effective social mobilization.4 Lerner, Traditional Society, 50; Almond and Verba, Civic Culture, 206; Deutsch,"Social Mobilization," 494; Milbrath, Political Participation,51, 53-54, 56-57, 6i, 63,64, 68, 77, 79-80.5 Norman H. Nie, G. Bingham Powel, Jr., and Kenneth Prewitt, "Social Structureand Developmental Relationships, Part I," American Political Science Review, LXIII(1969), 365, 370, 374; ibid., Part II, 825-828; Alex Inkeles, "Participant Citizenship inSix Developing Countries," ibid., 1122-1123, 1139-1141; Joan M. Nelson, Migrants,Urban Poverty, and Instability in Developing Nations (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 25-26,


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240 I JORGE I. DOMINGUEZThese considerations thus far assume a significant amount ofsocial mobilization.The researchquestionshave been concernedwiththe effectof thespeedof socialmobilizationandthemix between exter-nally andinternallymotivated participation.However, two additionalobjectionsmay be aimed not at the core of the hypothesisbut at therangeof itsapplicability.The logicalstructure f the socialmobilizationhypothesis indicates that there are circumstanceswhere it does notapply. In order to argue that "old" commitments can be eroded orbroken,it is necessary o envision a timewhen the "old" commitmentswere prevalent.The hypothesiscannot be used to explainall political

participation talltimes,butonly thespecialmodern kind: theinternal,autonomouscapacityof an individualto engage in sustainedpoliticalparticipation.Second, the social mobilization hypothesis emphasizesa massphenomenon.The utility of the hypothesishasbeen its stresson masschangebeyond the elite,6or beyondparticularectorswhich may haveundergonemodernization.There has been an educated elite in manypre-modernpoliticalsystems.The merepresenceof suchan elite, or ofisolated pockets of modernization, is insufficient evidence of theexistenceof socialmobilization.The hypothesisrequiresargenumbersof sociallymobilizedpeoplewho areturningto new patternsof organi-zation andbehavior.THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE PERIOD IN SPANISH AMERICA Dur-ing the first quarterof the nineteenthcentury, the Spanishempire in

66-67. See also idem, "The Urban Poor: Disruption or Political Integration in ThirdWorld Cities," WorldPolitics,XXII (1970), 393-414; Wayne A. Cornelius,Jr., "Urbaniza-tion as an Agent in Latin American Political Instability: The Case of Mexico," AmericanPolitical Science Review, LXIII (1969), 854-857; idem, "The Political Sociology ofCityward Migration in Latin America: Toward Empirical Theory," in Francine F.Rabinowitz and Felicity M. Trueblood (eds.), Latin American Urban Research(BeverlyHills, I97I), I, 95, 147; Bradley M. Richardson, "Urbanization and Political Participa-tion: The Case of Japan," AmericanPolitical ScienceReview, LXVII (I973), 433-452;Gerald W. Johnson, "Political Correlatives of Voter Participation: A Deviant CaseAnalysis, " ibid.,LXV (197I), 768-776; Samuel P. Huntington andJorge I. Dominguez,"Political Development," in Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (eds.), The Handbookof Political Science,(Reading, Mass., forthcoming), Part IV; Samuel P. Huntington andJoan Nelson, "Socio-Economic Change and Political Participation," (Cambridge,Mass., 1973), mimeo; Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Participationn America(NewYork, 1972).6 Deutsch, "Social Mobilization," 497-498.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 241mainlandAmerica collapsed.7Research on this period has typicallyemphasizedagglomerativeor casestudies.The latterpresenta detailedexamination of the reasonswhy a given colony becameindependent.Agglomerativestudiespresenta generaldiscussion,at a much higherlevel of aggregation, concerning the reasonsfor the collapseof theempireasawhole. Comparative tudies,emphasizing he detailedcom-parisonof differentmodes of politicalbehaviorin a numberof colo-nies, have been rare.Mostof the studiesof theperiodareheavily"loaded."Because heyfocusonly on colonieswhich becameindependent, hey fail to considerpolitical behaviorin loyal colonies. Some of the favorite hypothesesto explainthewars of independencemust be looked at skepticallyonceone is committed to the explanationof politicalbehaviorduring thisperiod,ratherthan to the explanationof the coming of independencein those countrieswhich in fact becameindependent.Among possibledecisive"causes"of independence,one findsthe Napoleonic invasionof Spain, the thirst for unfetteredforeign trade, the impact of theEnlightenmentor, more specifically,of the ideasand examplesof theNorth AmericanandFrenchrevolutions,theconflictbetween Spanish-born and American-bornelites, etc. Yet, all of these alleged "causes"existed in a colony which did not revolt (Cuba), often to a moreheighteneddegreethanin the colonieswhich did.Most of the studies of the period make relatively little use ofcontemporarysocial science hypotheses which have been useful toexplaincertainforms of politicalbehavior acrosstime and space.Theapplicationof suchhypotheses o theperiodof thewarsof independencewould have three conceivable outcomes. The first is that the hy-potheses would explain political behavior during the period, in an"unloaded" and comparative ashion,more efficientlythan has beendone so far. In this case,historiansmay learnfrom politicalscientists.The secondis that thehypotheseswould prove utterlyirrelevant o theexplanation of political behavior during the period. In this case,political scientistsmay learn from historians,and be led to modifygeneralizationsabout political behavior which are based mostly onanalysesof Europeanand North Americanpolities. The third is thatthe hypotheses may provide useful contributingexplanationsto one7 Jorge I. Dominguez, "Social Mobilization, Traditional Political Participation andGovernment Response in Eearly Nineteenth Century Spanish America," unpub. Ph. D.diss. (Harvard University, 1972), discusses the general topic.


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242 j JORGE I. DOMINGUEZpartof the periodbut not another. n thiscase,both historians ndpolitical cientistsmayprofit.

One of themechanismseading o thebreakdown f the empirewas a burst n politicalparticipation uringthe periodof the wars.Political demobilization or departicipation mmediatelyfollowed thewars,yielding little net socialchange.This essaywill askwhether thesocial mobilization hypothesis can contribute to the explanationofpoliticalparticipationand departicipationduringand afterthe wars ofindependenceperiod. The social mobilizationhypothesiswas chosenfor two reasons.It hasproved usefulin the studyof politicalparticipa-tion comparativelyanddiachronically.And the referencesof historiansto theimpactof theEnlightenment, o theclamoringfor lessrestrictionson the evolving economicgrowth in the citiesandtowns, etc., suggestthat the hypothesismay apply.In contrast o the early "blacklegend"views about Spanishuninterestin education, "revisionist"historianshave pointed to a richer colonial educationalheritage.The study wasbegun with the expectation that the social mobilization hypothesiswould be a more efficient explanationof comparativepolitical be-havior-in secessionist and loyal colonies-than had been availableheretofore. In this essaywe shallfocus primarilyon the independentvariable(socialmobilization)and itscomponents(literacy,urbanization,media exposure,etc.).If socialmobilizationis at a relatively high level, then subsequentresearchtrying to specify the linkage between the independentanddependentvariableswould be warranted. But such a finding wouldmake it more difficultto explain the political departicipationat theconclusion of the wars: If the probability of autonomous politicalparticipationwas high, why was there such an apparentreturn topreindependencepatternsof behaviorin the mid-nineteenthcentury?On the otherhand,if socialmobilization was at a relativelylow level,then subsequent research to link the independent and dependentvariablesmay not be warranted. Other independentvariableswouldneed to be explored.But a negative findingwould also make it easierto explain the political departicipationat the conclusion of the wars.One would, then, expect that political participationduring the warswould have been mostly of the traditionalsort. In the light of theprevious discussionabout the social mobilization hypothesis-whichapplies primarilyto modern, autonomouspoliticalparticipation-wewould clearly have establisheda point in time where the hypothesiscannotexplainlarge-scalecollectiveparticipation.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 243In a peculiar way, this essay does not settle the researchproblem byexplaining political behavior during the wars of independence period.

Either conclusion requiresfurther research. The link with the dependentvariable is not established here. But this essay is a necessary step in apath of reasoning about political participation during the periodunder scrutiny, and about the political departicipation which im-mediately followed. If neither conclusion is sufficient, either is necessaryto understand at least half of the problem. In short, the purpose ofthis essay is the specification of a complex independent variablewhich has proved useful in comparative political research, and forwhose applicability to this period there was some a priori ustification.The independent variable is located within a hypothesis which allowsus to discontinue further research with it unless the findings meet well-defined criteria as discussed further in the conclusions.The rest of this essay presents social mobilization data from fourSpanish colonies. The unit of analysis is not the agglomerated Spanishempire, but four of its subunits. The colonies were chosen to meet sixcriteria: I) at least one viceroyalty in addition to several more peripheralcolonies; 2) at least one colony which failed to have a large-scalerevolt for independence, while the others were having such revolts;3) colonies with different kinds of agricultural, mining, and industrialproduction; 4) representation of the different major population groups-Indians, Negroes, American whites, and Spaniards; 5) colonies withdifferent degrees of direct involvement with countries other thanSpain; 6) at least one successor state which was able to re-establishinstitutionalized government fairly soon after independence.

Spanish colonial officials have not been eager contributors to thisresearch. The nature of the evidence is fragmentary. Yet, a generalpicture of the level of social mobilization in the late Spanish colonialempire emerges. The purpose of the statistical exercise is primarily toestablish orders of magnitude. One seeks, therefore, to deal with anordinal scale. Although the data have the appearance of an intervalscale, they are not sufficiently reliable to claim an interval scale.However, the ordinal scale which is attained does have upper andlower interval limits.EDUCATION AND LITERACYCuba The first full educational census available for Cuba wasconducted by the Royal Patriotic Society in 1836. It found that I4.5


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244 | JORGE I. DOMINGUEZpercentof the white malesand2.3 percentof the freeblackmales,aged 5-I5, were in schools. The respective statistics for women,considering only those between ages IO-I2, were 7.3 percent and1.6 percent.In short,9.I percentof all of the free children consideredto be school age were attendingschool in 1836. Another source sets amaximum proportion of free studentsin school in that year at 13.2percent.There are no direct statisticson the education of slave children.In order to estimate,we will assumethat the proportionof school-ageslaves in schools was no more than 2 percent in I836-the sameproportionas foundin the free blackpopulation.However, thepropor-tion of childrenwas much higher in the free than in the slavepopula-tion: Slaveowners did not want to support an unproductive child.The proportion of persons in the 1827 census under age I5 was 36.0percent for the free population, but only 17.8 percent for the slavepopulation.Within the freepopulation,the differences n age structureamong whites, blacks,and mulattoes, or between men and women,were relativelysmall.We can estimate the school-age slave population for 1836 byextrapolation.First,we extrapolatefor the free white populationin1836 (520,000 free persons) from the 1826 and 1841 censuses; ofthose,98,900or I9 percentare known to have been of school age fromthe 1836 census,and 8,946 were enrolled (bearin mind the peculiardefinitionused where the school age for men was years 5-I5 and forwomen, 10-I2). The same method is used to estimate the slave popula-tion for 1836 at 386,000. Given the comparative age structure for freeandslavepersons n 1827,the estimateof thefree,school-agepopulationfor 1836, and the assumptionthat the conditionsof 1827 are roughlyapplicableto those of 1836, then the slave school-age population in1836 can be estimated at 9.4 percent of the slave population, or 36,284.Applying the rate of education of free black children to slavechildren,we havea probablemaximum of 726 slavechildrenreceivingsome education.Then thetotal numberof childrenreceivingeducationin 1836 would be 9,672 out of a combined free and slave school-agepopulation of I35,I84 (14.9 percent of the total population). Thus,approximately 7.2 percent of the total school-age population wasenrolled in 1836.The 1817 national census reported 2,793 students enrolled inCuban schools.Assumingthat they were all free, it appears hat therewas a significant ump during the I820Sin educationalenrollment.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 245Indeed,for the provinceof Havana whichhad over half of thepopulation f the islandat thetime),theenrollment f whitestudentsjumped 279 percent from 1816 to 1836, and the enrollment of freeblackstudentsumped204 percent.Takingthe 1817populationofCuba at 553,ooo (a low estimate which consequentlymay overstatethe rate of total populationgrowth), then the rate of populationgrowth from 1817 to our 1836 estimate was 63.8 percent. In short,Cubaneducation rew aboutfourtimesfaster hanpopulation; utthisgrowth tookplace duringthe I820S, not before, and it reached alevel whichwasstillrather ow in 1836.

Becausewe havecountsof thenumberof freechildren eceivingsomeeducationn I836 and n 1817,andanestimate f thenumber fslavechildrenwho mayhave beenreceiving omeeducationn 1836,ceterisaribushe maximumnumberof slavechildrenreceivinganeducationn 1817 is estimated at 227. Thus the probablenumberofchildrenreceiving some educationin 1818 was 3,020. Applying thestatisticderived from 1836 to obtain the school-age population in1817(on the assumptionhat no significanthangesn age structuretook place),this yieldsa free and slave,school-agepopulationof81,997for 1817.Thusapproximately.7 percentof the school-agechildrenwerebeingeducatedn thatyear.8It is difficult o obtainharddataon literacyor Cuba or mostofthenineteenthentury,ince hefirstmodern ensuswasnottakenuntil1899. At that time, 44.6 percent of the populationover age Io wasliterateincludinghose ew who knew how to read,butnot how towrite).9Thiswashighrelative o otherLatinAmerican ountriesorthe turnof the century.That censuswas taken ollowingmore thanthreeyearsof savagewar,butalso ollowing he decades f significanteconomicdevelopment f the earliernineteenthentury.The periodof I8IO-25, ontheotherhand,wasthebeginning f a Cuban conomicexpansionwhich would peak much later.The significantpush inschoolenrollmentcameonly duringthe i820s. Itwould seem, however,thatnot morethanIo-I2 percentof adultCubanswouldhave been8 The sources of the computations are Cuban Economic Research Project, A Study onCuba(Coral Gables, Fla., I965), I7, for the 1836 school census; II, I6, for population andother educational data; additional data for 1816-I817 and 1836 are in Diego Gonzalez,"Desarrollo educativo," in Ramiro Guerra y Sanchez et al. (eds.), Historia de la nacidncubana La Habana, I952), III, 385-387. See also Julio J. Le Riverend Brusone, "Historiaeconomica," ibid., 195; Jose M. Perez Cabrera, "Movimiento de poblaci6n," ibid.,344-348.9 Cuban Economic Research Project, Cuba, 22.


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246 jJORGE I. DOMINGUEZliteratebefore 1820, that is, before the push and when not more than4 percent f theage-eligibletudentswerein school.

Thequalitativeatapointto thebeginning f aCuban ducationalsystemduring heeighteenth enturywhenprimary ducation eganin manycitiesand townsof theinterior f thecountry:Remedios n1712, Santiago in 1754, Matanzas in 1771, and Camagiiey in 1785. Forhigher education, there are three significant events during the century.In 1722, the Bishop of Havana established a seminary, primarily for thetraining of clergymen, but also open to other students. It had the usualprovisions against non-white admission. In 1728, the University ofHavana, authorized by the Pope and the King, began functioningunder the supervision of the Dominican Order. In 1773, anotherseminary was established (San Carlos) under the educational policiesof King Charles III. Although it had the usual seminary curriculum,it paid particular attention to new developments in mathematics,physics, and other scientific subjects.I0The Cuban data on school enrollment and literacy suggest fourconclusions. One, there was a generally low level of education andliteracy in I817. This has been estimated quantitatively. The quantita-tive data suggest that mass educational institutions began to appear ona national scale during the second half of the eighteenth century. Thefact that educational growth was a late colonial experience supportsthe low quantitative estimate. Two, educational trends appeared tomove upward at an exponential rate. There was a significant expansionof the narrowly based educational system during the I82os. Three,elite educational institutions seemed to receive at least as much, ifnot more, attention than mass educational institutions. And four,education was, on the whole, limited to whites. The whites alsobenefited more from the educational growth of the I820S, which ledto an increase of black-white inequality. The quantitatively estimatedunequal educational opportunities by race were legally enforced byeducational regulations.Venezuela The Venezuelan census of 1846 established the popula-tion of the country at 1,273,155; of those, 128,785 had the right to vote;and of these, 39,002 were able to read and write. Available data on agestructure for the city of Caracas in 1822 indicate that 40 percent of thepeople of that city were over age 20. (For the balance of this discussionIO Juan J. Remos, "La cultura," in Guerra y Sainchezet al., Historia, II, 302-304.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 247we will generalize from the Caracas age structure of 1822 to thewhole of Venezuela in the absence of better data.) Therefore, theliterate population of Venezuela over age 20 was 7.6 percent in 1846.Moreover, only 3.5 percent of children aged 5-I5 were enrolled inschool in the I846-47 academic year.Between 18Io and 1846, Venezuela lived through both a savagewar and the years of reconstruction under the Presidency of GeneralJose A. Paez. The character of its war of independence was such that theliterate population was killed or emigrated to a significant extent.Notwithstanding the possibility that the literacy rate may haverecovered a bit from 1830 to 1846, on balance we will advance thehypothesis of educational decay from the late colonial period into therepublican nineteenth century. We argue for a higher literacy rate for181o and will estimate that the number of literate persons over age20 was no less in I8Io than it was in 1846.In addition, the population loss of Venezuela during the wars ofindependence has been estimated as about one-third of the populationin 1822. We will, therefore, make an upward adjustment for 18o1 ofthe number of literate persons by the same factor of one-third, whichputs the number of literates of age 20 or more in I8io at about 52,000.On the other hand, the Caracas age structure of I822 probably under-states the number of Venezuelan adults in I8Io. The 1822 age structureshows the population concentrated below 15 years and over 35-clearly the effect of war. We will, therefore, set the adult (age I5 ormore) share of the Venezuelan population in 1810 at 60 percent. Thiswas approximately the Cuban share for the same age groups in thefree population in I826-without war. Because the slave share of theVenezuelan population was only about one-third that of Cuba, it isbest to consider the age structure of Cuba's free population only.To reconcile the two sets of data, we will estimate that the numberof literates between ages I5 and 20 in 181o was about 8,000; this isabout the same as the national adult literacy rate. In sum, Venezuela'spopulation age I5 or more in I810 is estimated at approximately540,000; the literates among these number approximately 60,000.Therefore, II.I percent of the adult population was literate in I8Io.11ii The sources of the computationsareJose Gil Fortoul, HistoriaconstitucionaleVenezuela (Caracas, 1954), II, 277, 311, for the 1846 census; Federico Brito Figueroa,Historia economicay social de Venezuela (Caracas, 1966), i6o, 259, for total population;Angel Grisanti, La instruccionpublica en Venezuela (Barcelona, 1933), 133, for schoolenrollment data.


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248 I JORGE I. DOMINGUEZThe hypothesisof a "high" literacy rate for Venezuela in I8Io(relativeto 1846) can be supportedfrom qualitativedatafor the late

colonialperiod. The Venezuelaneducationalsystemtook shapein theperiod between 1700 and I8Io-roughly the century of imperialBourbon rule. The Jesuit Order began to set up schools in Caracasand Maracaiboin I73I. Other groups followed suit, especially inCaracas. Specialized education also received some support in Caracas:In 1768 a school for girls was established,and, in 1772, a school wasendowed for the educationof twenty poor students.By 1775, more-over, there were reportsof some elementaryschools even in at least sixsmall towns of the interior,and more solid elementaryschools in thecities of Barquisimeto,El Tocuyo, and Barinas.Secondary schools were reported in the towns and cities ofCumana, Coro, and El Tocuyo. The city of Merida receiveda semin-ary in 1790 which, by 1795, was teaching university courses. InCaracas,the University was established n 1725 with the traditionaldisciplinesand expandedto include the teachingof medicine, mathe-matics, physics, and non-Aristotelian philosophy after I760. In 1782,KingCharles II madea specificroyalpolicy to persuadeparents o sendtheir children to school (although compulsory education would stillbe far away). In short, it is arguablethat there was a significantandbroad-basedgrowth of the Venezuelan educationalsystem duringthe eighteenth century,and that this complex of primary,secondary,and university education could have produced the estimated I8Ioliteracy level.12The main qualification to this educational expansion was itsethnic differentiation.As in Cuba, education was primarily limitedto the white segmentof the population.As lateas1794,Sim6n Rodri-guez, aprominent ntellectual,observed hat mulattoandblackchildren"haveno one to instruct hem; they cannot attendthe schoolsof whitechildren;poverty forces them to work from their earliestyears andthey acquire a practice but no technical knowledge .. ." Evidence ofschools open to blacksis quite meager. There are three such schoolsknown between 1788and 800oo-none f them establishedn Caracas,but in other smaller towns. One of these was for black children only,one was raciallyintegrated,and the third acceptedchildren of both12 Caracciolo Parra Perez, El regimenespaiol en Venezuela (Madrid, 1932), 130-132;Mario Bricefio-Iragorry, Tapices de historiapatria (Caracas, I942), 167-168; ArturoUslar Pietri, Del hacery deshacerde Venezuela (Caracas, 1962), 45.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 249racesprovidedhatthe teacherpreservedacial egregation ithintheschool.13

In sum,literateadultsprobablymadeup aboutone-ninthof theadultpopulation,as in Cuba.This is plausiblebecausethe late colonialperiodmarked he peakof the Venezuelanconomicexpansion,ndpredatedhemajorCubanburstof economic rowth.Thedataarealsoinaccordwiththehypothesisf educationaleclineorVenezuela saresultof the severewarsof independence,ndof an increaseor Cubadue to the absenceof war. The available"hard"data indicate hatCuba's 1836 school participation ratio was twice as large as Venezuela'sfor 1846.Indeed,by the beginningof the twentieth entury,Cuba'sadult literacyrate was twice that of Venezuela.Therefore,Cubaquadrupledts adult iteracy atewhile Venezuela oubled t duringacentury n which theyearsandintensityof internalwars were probablygreatern Venezuelahan n Cuba.Mexico In Mexico, the "hardest" ata available ome from the1857 school census.They show that 11.7 percent of the school-agechildrenwere then enrolled.Extrapolatingrom the school-agepopulation f 1844(whichwe alsoknow),I4 he schoolparticipationratio orthatyearwas4.8percent.Thus,schoolenrollmentmayhavetripledduring hisperiod.Given hefactthat hewarwiththe UnitedStatesintervenedbetween these two dates, the sharpincrease squestionable.Yet it may be that the school enrollmentratio forMexico in 1844was below the I836 Cubanlevel, but above theVenezuelan evel for 1846.Reasonablyuseful and reliable iteracyor school enrollmentestimatesor the periodof the wars of independence re lacking.However,giventhe evelofmid-nineteenth-centurychoolenrollmentwhich persisted ven after a fairlyseverewar of independencendintermittent nternalwar thereafter,and the fact that the Viceroyaltyof New Spainwasthe ewel of theSpanish mpiren thelate colonialperiod, one may hypothesizethat Mexico's literacyrate for I8Io washigh by the standardsf the age.The adult iteracy atemighthavebeenmorethan he one-ninthevelwhichhasbeenestimatedorCuba13 Quotation from Tulio Chiossone, Los problemassociales en la formacion del estadovenezolano (Caracas, 1964), 9-IO; Ildefonso Leal, "La universidad de Caracas y lasociedad colonial Venezolana," Revista de historia,III (I962), 33.14 Memoria de justicia e instrucio6nptiblica, 1844 (Mexico, I844); Luis Gonzalez yGonzalez, Emma Cosfo Villegas, and Guadalupe Monroy, "La vida social," in DanielCosio Villegas (ed.), Historia modernade Mdxico: La repiblica restauradaMexico, i956).


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250 | JORGE I. DOMINGUEZand Venezuela, but probably not beyond one-sixth of the adultpopulation.The main supportfor thishypothesiscomes from qualita-tive data.The Royal and PontificalUniversity of Mexico was founded in1553. Mexico's university preceded by some 170 years the establishmentof universities in Cuba and Venezuela in the I720s, and it precededChile's by two full centuries.Intellectual ife and the professionshada long, mature life in Mexico before the other three colonies underconsiderationbegan their own indigenousefforts.Since the last thirdof the sixteenthcentury, there had been a proliferationof secondaryschools(someof which also ncludedprimaryschools).TheAugustinianfathers founded two between 1540 and I575. The Jesuits establishedtwo in Mexico City, and othersin the cities and towns of Patzcuaro,Oaxaca, Puebla, Veracruz,Tepoztlan, Guanajuato,and Guadalajara,all between 1575 and 1585. Moreover, by 1559 the Dominicans and theAugustinianshad forty convents each, with primaryschools attachedto them.15The burstof educationalentrepreneurshipn the sixteenthcenturyslowed down considerablyduring the following century,but a goodmany schools survived. When the Jesuits were expelled in 1767,they left thirty-nineschoolswhich were then taken over by the state.A secondaryschool for women was establishedn 1767, an Academyof the Arts was established in 1781, and a School of Mining in I783.The last soon becamethe leading technicalcenter of the Viceroyalty,andpromotedthe growth of experimental cience.The King providedtwenty-five scholarshipsor needy students at the School of Miningand the Academy of Arts. In the I790s, a new universitywas estab-lishedin the city of Guadalajara.I6In Mexico, too, education was mostly limited to whites. Yet, incontrast o the othercountries,there was a serious nitialeffortbeyondmissionarywork to educatethe Indians.The first primary school inAmerica was established by Franciscan Friarsin Texcoco in 1523; twoyears later it moved to Mexico City. It was exclusively designed toteach Indians. Other primary schools followed during the I520s-enough so that the King authorizedthe establishmentof a secondaryschool (Colegio de San Juan de Letran) for poor mestizos in I529. InI5 Francisco Larroyo, Historia comparadade la educacion en Mexico (Mexico, I947),88-89, III-125; Jose Bravo Ugarte, La educacion n Mexico (Mexico, 1966), 55-59.16 Jose L. Becerra L6pez, La organizacionde los estudios en la Nueva Espana (Mexico,1936) 327-334; Larroyo, Educacion,136-141; Bravo Ugarte, Educacion,77-78.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 2511536, another secondary school (Colegio Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco) wasestablished to educate the children of Indian chieftains. In the I53os, asystem of rural schools (Hospitales de Santa Fe) was organized, whichwould move into a community as a work-study center. Each attemptedto identify the process of education with other normal life processes.Each was a communal institution, thus closer to Indian traditions thanthe more European-oriented school.17This early effort at educating Indians came under attack in thesixteenth century from two sources. One, it would have opened thelower professions to the Indians. In order to prevent this, the guildsystem was transplanted to New Spain, with provisions for the ex-clusion of the Indians: The blacksmiths established their guild in 1524,the silk artisans in 1524, the knitting and textile artisans in 1546, etc.The rise of the early white, artisan, urban middle class in Mexico wasaccomplished at the expense of the Indians. It was both an ethnic andan economic conflict.I8The second source of attack upon Indian education came from thefear that it would destabilize what was still a precarious social systemin the first century of the conquest. In 1539, Carlos Chichimecatecotl,chieftain of Texcoco and an alumnus of the Tlatelolco school, revoltedagainst Spain. This fear of political instability as a result of educatingthe Indians was joined by the fear of religious unorthodoxy.In 1541, the Counselor to the Viceroy of Mexico, JeronimoL6pez, wrote to the King about the effectiveness of the Tlatelolcoschool. He testified about the "error and the injuries which may followfrom the learning of the sciences by the Indians, and an even greaterdanger from placing the Bible in their hands and the entire SacredScripture that they may read and confuse." The Counselor quoted acleric who visited the school and who was surrounded by about 200students "who asked him questions from Sacred Scripture about theFaith which astonished him, and he covered his ears and said thatthis was Hell and that they were disciples of the Devil." The Counselorconcluded: "This appears to me to have gone beyond any remedyother than ending what has been done thus far and avoiding suchsteps in the future." By the end of the century, indeed, the Counselorhad his way. Tlatelolco became a primary school, and education of the17 Larroyo, Educacion,76-88.I8 Paula Alegria, La educacion n Mexico antesy despue's e la conquista Mexico, 1936),IOO-I02; Diego L6pez Rosado, Historia econ6micade Mexico (Mexico, 1963), IoI.


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252 | JORGE I. DOMINGUEZIndiansbeyond Christianization eems to have decayed during thesecond century of the conquest.I9

In sum, education was mostly limited to the whites and somemestizos; in addition, some efforts at literacy in Spanish for Indianswere made for the sake of Christianization. The Indian population, onthe whole, was not socially mobilized. But the evidence of significanteducational advancement for the whites of Mexico, from the first daysof the conquest through the late colonial period, is impressive. TheViceroyalty anticipated by a full century and a half the three othercolonies in having a complex, nation-wide, educational system. It is,therefore, reasonable that its level of literacy in the late colonial periodmay have been somewhat higher than that of the other colonies.Thus, on the assumption that independence produced an educa-tional cost for both Mexico and Venezuela, in the absence of a com-parable cost for Cuba, it is a plausible hypothesis that the Mexican levelof literacy at the time of the wars of independence was higher than thatfor either Venezuela or Cuba. By mid-nineteenth century, Cubasurpassed Mexico, while the latter declined; Venezuela declined andfell behind the other two. This ranking for the mid-century is wellsupported by the quantitative estimates for school participation.Chile In Chile I3.5 percent of the population was found to beliterate in the 1854 national census. Approximately one-fifth of thepopulation aged I5 or more was literate at the time. Chile's level ofliteracy at mid-century was thus at least twice that of Venezuela. It ismore difficult to establish Chile's level of literacy in the late colonialperiod. Chile had a war of independence, but it was less severe than inVenezuela or Mexico. After 1830 it had an uninterrupted tradition ofstable government which was marred only by minor disturbances.

Despite losses during its war of independence, Chile was able toexperience a resurgence of wealth during the mid-nineteenth century,unlike the other independent countries. From 1840 to I855 silverproduction increased sixfold. By the I86os, Chile supplied 40 percentof the world's copper. From 1844 to 1860, the value of Chilean exportsincreased 400 percent; the value of agricultural production increasedfivefold.2019 Alegria, Educacion,I45; Larroyo, Educacion,96.20 Corporaci6n de Fomento de la Producci6n, Geografia economicade Chile, textorefundido Santiago, I965), 438.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION [ 253In short,given economicexpansion, t is reasonableo hypothesizeconsiderableeducationalexpansion. This growth in mid-nineteenth

century implies that the level of literacy for the late colonial periodmay have been much lower. Chile, too, was probablyat the level ofliteracyof Venezuelaand Cuba.Unlike Mexico andVenezuela,whichexperienceddeclinesas a resultof the warsof independence,both Cubaand Chile were ableto experiencepositiveratesof socialmobilization.From Chile'spartialcensusin 1813 of the Bishopricof Santiago(comprising approximatelyhalf of the country) minus the city ofSantiago,the populationbetween ages 7 and 15 is estimatedat 22.5percentof the total. This will be generalized o Santiago tself. Therewere some 500 studentsenrolledin all primaryschools in the city ofSantiago in 1810, and 664 in I813. The population of the city has beenestimated between 30,000 and 35,000 in I8Io. After war-inducedurbanization occurred, the city had about 50,000 inhabitants in 1813.Therefore,between 6.3 percentand 7.4 percentof Santiago'sschool-age population n 18Io, and5.9 percent n 1813was enrolled n school.Although the nationalstatistics or the whole countrywere probablymuch lower, Chile was probablyat the level of Cubaand Venezuela,but behind Mexico.2'

Qualitativedatasupportthisranking or Chile in 1810.Missionaryeducationalactivity beganin the i55os; there was a primaryschoolby1567.The Colegio de SanDiego (Franciscan)was foundedin 1678;itsenrollment n theseventeenth enturywas betweensixteenandtwenty;it did not fall below thirty students n the eighteenth centuryand by1805 there were forty-two. In 1767, the Jesuitshad thirty primaryschools n Chile-which theyhadto surrenderwhen theywere expelledfrom the empire.In SanFelipe,the meanstudentattendancewas fortyafter I743; in Copiap6, it was forty after I745; and in Valparaisoit was more thanfortysince1725. By theendof theeighteenthcentury,mostparishesn Chileboastedsomeeducationalactivities.Moreover,by1803, the Cabildo (municipal council) of Santiago supportedninepublic schools with a combined mean attendance of about 400students.Therewere forty-five convents in Chile, and they, too, hadeducational activities. Until 1767, the ten secondaryschools of theJesuitswere the bulwarkof the educationalsystem at that level. TheColegio SanFranciscohad fifty students n I767.21 Computed from Diego Barros Arana, Historia general de Chile (Santiago, 1933),VII, 528; Archivo Nacional, Censo de 1813 (Santiago, I953), passim; Fernando CamposHarriet, Desarrolloeducacional,181o-1960 (Santiago, I960), I2.


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254 | JORGE I. DOMINGUEZThere were four institutions or secondaryprofessionalandhighereducation.In 1778, the Colegio Carolino was founded as a centerfor

secularsecondaryand higher education. It had an annualaverageoftwenty-nine students (950 in totoby 181I). It had forty students in I8Io.In 1797,the Cabildoof Santiagoestablishedhe AcademiaSan Luis asacenter of professionaleducation,including mathematics,rudimentaryappliedscience,chemistry,andmineralogy.It hadninety-fourstudentsin 1813. Between 1763 and 1794, the Seminary had 935 students, or anannualaverageof twenty-nine.The fourthwas theUniversityof SanFelipe,whichbeganfunction-ing in limited form in Santiagoin 1747,by merely awarding degreesearned elsewhereuntil its buildingsand faculty were ready in I756.From 1756 to 1764, it had some 400 students enrolled, or an annualaverage of fifty-five to sixty. From 1756 to I830, it had 1,837 students,or an annual average of about twenty-five. The difference is probablyaccounted for by the impact of the wars of independence. AlthoughChile was the last of the four countries under consideration to receiveits university, the rest of its educational system seemed sufficientlysolid to warrant placement alongside Cuba and Venezuela in 18IO.

Chilean education belonged to whites. Its failure to educate theIndians was perhaps more severe than in the other countries. TheSpanish government had never been able to subdue the Chilean Indiansmilitarily. It sought to accomplish the same through Jesuit and Francis-can missionaries; this also failed. The main effort toward Indianeducation was a secondary and primary school for children of Indianchieftains established in the town of Chillan in I700, intended fortwelve to twenty students with sixteen scholarships. It had twenty-fourstudents in 1778, eighteen in I785, ten in 1786, and eleven in 1790. Theteaching of Indian languages was prescribed between 1700 and 1723,but prohibited in the re-established, post-I774 school. Indeed, it wasillegal for students even to speak in Indian languages. The school wasclosed in 1723, to be reopened only in 1774. The number of blacks andmulattoes in Chile was very small, but they, too, were operating underthe same severe educational handicap as elsewhere.2222 Sergio Villalobos, Tradiciony reformaen 1810 (Santiago, 1961), 63-73; FranciscoEncina, Historia de Chile (Santiago, 1946), V, 517-527, 552-576, 582-587, 591; BarrosArana, Chile, 538-539; Alejandro Fuenzalida, Historia del desarrollo ntelectual de Chile1541-1810 (Santiago, 1903), 3-4, 60-78, 194-198, 205-221, 236-242, 267. Computationson average annual enrollment are based on these sources, correcting their arithmeticerrors.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 255PER CAPITA INCOME Estimates of per capita income for SpanishAmerica in I8IO are subject to a plethora of qualifications aboutvalidity and reliability. These estimates, once again, should be con-sidered no more than orders of magnitude for comparison. Theevidence does suggest that this indicator is within the general rangethat may be expected on the basis of other indicators of social mobiliza-tion. The social mobilization literature argues that there is a highpositive correlation between per capita income and literacy andeducational levels. Therefore, the level of per capita income is anotherpiece in the puzzle to help estimate the literacy-education levels.23We have only two estimates of per capita income for the periodunder consideration. The gross national product per capita of Cuba in1825, measured in 1950 United States dollars, was $I70-truly anextraordinary statistic for the age.24 There was considerable economicgrowth in Cuba up to the late I820S. That growth, however, washeavily based on an illiterate, slave labor force. Thus, the level ofliteracy probably lagged well behind what we may otherwise haveexpected from such a level of per capita income.The Mexican gross domestic product per capita of I803 has beencalculated at approximately between 600 and I,ooo pesos, measured inI950 prices. In I900, calculations show a per capita product of 628pesos. The per capita product in 1950 United States dollars for 1803Mexico, however, might have been as low as $45-55.25We can use the per capita income data to bolster the Mexicanestimates of literacy. During the nineteenth century, Mexico wasravaged by internal and international war. Mid-nineteenth-centuryMexico, in contrast with Venezuela, had been unable to reach its I8Io23 This position is at the heart of the social mobilization hypothesis. Aggregate datafor 117 countries in the mid-twentieth century show that the product moment cor-relation between gross national product per capita in 1957 United States dollars and thepercent of the population aged 15 or more which was literate is .80; approximatelytwo thirds of the variance in adult literacy can be explained by per capita income.Ithiel Pool, Robert Abelson, and Samuel Popkin, Candidates,Issues and Strategies:AComputerSimulationof the 196o and 1964 PresidentialElections(Cambridge, Mass., 1965)omit education asa type defining variable from their simulations because it was correlatedhighly enough with socioeconomic status and would thus have added little predictivepower. In our case, the literacy-education variable is easier to obtain than the incomevariable. We have thus taken the opposite approach.24 William P. McGreevey, "Recent Research on the Economic History of LatinAmerica," Latin AmericanResearchReview, III (1968), 98.25 Clark W. Reynolds, The MexicanEconomy: TwentiethCenturyStructure nd Growth(New Haven, 1970), 15-19, 311-314; McGreevey, "Economic History," 97-I00.


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256 i JORGE I. DOMINGUEZeconomic level.26The longitudinaldata on per capitaincome suggestthat Mexico eitherstagnatedor grew at a very slow rate-a compoundannualratewell underI percentperyear-during thewhole nineteenthcentury.Moreover, the estimatedliteracylevel for I8Io is within thesamerangeasadultliteracyfor Mexico in I900. Therefore, t may be areasonablehypothesisthat the I900 literacylevel is a probableupperlimit for the 18Io level of literacy.The longitudinaldata also supportthe hypothesisof an income-literacy-educationdecline from I8Io to themid-nineteenth century.This was the cost of the wars of indepeldence. Mexico attained itsI900 education-literacy level-the I8Io level-only after a significanteducationalpushduringthe secondhalfof the nineteenthcentury.Thepercentageof school age childrenenrolledin school in I900 was threetimes greaterthanin the middle of the nineteenthcentury.27URBANIZATION Cuba had one large city-Havana-which inI792 comprised approximately 50,000 people, or 18.4 percent of thenationalpopulation. According to Humboldt, HavanaaccountedforI6 percent of the population in 1811. According to the 1827 census,greater Havana's II2,000 citizens accounted for I4.5 percent of thepopulation.28 t was, then, a large city by internationalcomparativestandards.Specificdatafor other cities-separate from theirdistricts-are available only for 1827. We thus extrapolate backward to 1817,assuming hat the rateof growth of thecity was the sameasthat for thedistrictin which it was located. Given the populationby districts or1827 and 1817, and the population of the largest cities in 1827, therewere four cities in 1817 with a probable population of Io,ooo or more:Havana, Puerto Principe, Santiago de Cuba, and Sancti Espiritus.According to the 1817 census, Havana contained I5 percent of thepopulation of the country. These four cities had 28 percent of thepopulation. In I8Io, the first three cities probably still had at leastIo,ooo persons; thus the percentage of the entire population livingin cities of Io,ooo or more was probably 20-25 percent.2926 Tulio Halperin Donghi, Historia contempordnea e Ame'ricaLatina (Madrid, 1969),182, 192.27 Moises Gonzalez Navarro, "La vida social," in Daniel Cosio Villegas (ed.), Historiamodernade Mexico: El porfiriato Mexico, 1957), 599-60I.28 Computed from Alexander von Humboldt (ed. J. S. Thrasher), The Island of Cuba(New York, I856), I84-I9I, 205; Hugh Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom(NewYork, I97I), I2n, Io6n.29 Computed from Ram6n de la Sagra, Historia economica,politica y estadisticade laisla de Cuba (La Habana, 1831), 5-6, I3.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION | 257The populationof Caracas n I8oo was approximately42,000 (alittle more than half the size of Havana),which accountedfor only

4.7 percentof the populationof Venezuela,or less than one-third ofHavana'sshare.Venezuelahadnine cities with Io,ooo or more peoplein I8Io, together making up I7.1 percent of the entire population.In short, the total relative urbanizationof Venezuelawas approxi-mately matched by the proportionalshare of metropolitan Havanaalone.30Mexico City (137,ooo000)ccounted for 2.4 percent of the populationof theViceroyaltyof New Spain or I803-04; the seventeencities n theViceroyaltywith more thanIo,ooopeoplecontained8.3percentof thecountry'spopulation.Therefore,the level of urbanization or Mexicowas less than that for either Cuba or Venezuela; yet, the absolutenumber of urban residents was 485,000 in Mexico but only I54,000 forVenezuela n the latecolonialperiod.Mexico hadtwice the numberofcities of Io,ooo inhabitants hat Venezuelahad, and six times Cuba'snumber. In Mexico, the varietyof urbansociallife was greater haninthe othercolonies.Although most people lived in the ruralareasor insmalltowns, therewere, nevertheless,many citieswhich servedeffect-ively asregionalcapitals.At the top of the urbanhierarchywasMexicoCity-an impressivemetropolisfor the age.31The available data on urbanization for Chile are less direct, butsuggest that Chile was the least urban of the four countries underconsideration. n the I790s, the periodfor which mostpopulationdataareavailable,Santiagowas the only city of more than Io,ooo persons.By I8Io, it may havehad 35,ooo-still I0,000fewer than Caracas.Theavailable estimates for the I79os, including unsubdued Indians insouthernChile, give Chile a 4 percentlevel of urbanization,which isequalto thatfor the city of Santiagoalone.For 1810,it seems doubtfulthat Chile's level of urbanization(includingSantiagoandConcepcion)was much morethan5percent,countingtheIndianswithin thepopula-tion. If the Indiansare excluded, the level of urbanizationwould stillnot reach6 percent.Therefore,the other three countriessurpassChileon most scales of urbanizationfor the late colonial period. Encinaestimatesa permanent"urban"populationof 20 percentfor the cities30 Computed from Brito Figueroa, Venezuela, 154-155.3I Computed from Alejandro de Humboldt, Ensayopoliticosobre el Reino de la NuevaEspana (Mexico, I941), 263, 265, 271-272, 274, 286, 288, 290, 295, 299, 309, 317, 323-324,329.


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258 JJORGE I. DOMINGUEZand towns, and Barros Arana, one-third. But they reach these higherstatistics only by including as urban all the small towns and villages.32MEDIA EXPOSURE The most useful, available data on "massmedia" exposure relate to the introduction and use of the printingpress. It was introduced in Mexico between 1532 and I537. For aconsiderable period of time, the press was used to issue governmentproclamations and other documents, and to advance the work of theChurch. A monthly gazette appeared briefly in 1722, and was thenpublished in Mexico City between 1728 and 1742; the Gaceta waspublished fortnightly on a continuous basis from 1784 until I8Io whencompetition forced it into semiweekly publication. Other short-livedperiodicals appeared in 1768, 1772-1773, 1787, and I788-1794. Dailynewspapers began publication in Mexico City and Veracruz in I805.The rate of publication by titles from all Mexican printing presses wasI88 titles in I809, 232 in I8IO, and 147 in I8II.When the Mexican wars of independence broke out in I8Io, anewspaper war occurred between revolutionary and counterrevolution-ary presses. In fact, enough printing presses were available in Mexicoto have a newspaper, pamphlet, and book war. The official press ofMexico City and Veracruz turned against the rebels, but the latterhad resources at least in Guadalajara, Sultepec, Oaxaca, and Jaujillabetween I8io and 1817. The press in Oaxaca dated from 1720, thatin Guadalajarafrom 1793, and the one in Veracruz from 1794. Mostof the revolutionary newspapers were weeklies. In sum, there was noshortage of printing pressesand newspapers for political mobilization.33It appears that no printing press existed in Venezuela prior toI808, two years before the outbreak of independence. There is evidencethat some religious prints and calendars may have been printed inVenezuela before I808, and perhaps some government proclamations,but this is still disputed among reputable Venezuelan historians. Theyagree, however, that the I808 press was the first whose existence can32 Computed from Encina, Chile, V, I60-161, 168-169, I75, I98-I99, 207-221;Barros Arana, Chile, 488-489. For I8Io, the estimate of the total population is 900,00o;the estimate of the population in cities of at least Io,ooo persons is 45,000 (by takingthe maximumreportsof the sizesof SantiagoandConcepci6n).33 Larroyo,Educacion,8-89; J. M. Miquel, La independenciae Mexicoy la prensainsurgenteMexico, 194I), 17-19, passim;LucasAlaman, Historiade M6jico Mejico, I968),I, 84-85; Hugh M. Hamill,Jr., "EarlyPsychologicalWarfare n theHildagoRevolt,"HispanicAmericanHistoricalReview, XLI (I96I), 2I5; C. H. Haring, The SpanishEmpirein America(New York, I953), 228-231.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 259be validated,he first which enjoyedcontinuous xistence or sometime,and,most mportantly,he first o havea significantocialeffect.Withinamonthof itsarrival,hefirstnewspaper, aGaceta,ameout.Thepresswasalso mportant uringhewarsofindependence,lthoughless so than in Mexico.The absenceof a printingpresswith socialeffectuntilI808 suggestshatthedemand or writtenmaterials r thecapacity o use them was low enoughto be satisfied hroughtheimportof books.Moreover,ocalVenezuelanssueswere not publiclyandregularly iscussednprint.34Chilewasnot muchbetteroff thanVenezuela. heJesuitsroughta printing press in 1748; after their expulsion in 1767, the press wasactive between 1776 and 18Io, publishing pamphlets, proclamations,notices, prayers, and similar materials. There is no evidence that apamphlet longer than sixteen pages was published. Chile's first news-paper, Aurora de Chile, did not appear until February, 1812, after therevolutionary government imported another printing press. It was aweekly newspaper with a circulation of 200 units. In short, thoughone can validate the existence of a functioning printing press in eight-eenth-century Chile, its social effect was limited. Chile's level ofmedia exposure was higher-but not by much-than Venezuela's.35In the middle of our ordinal scale, closer to Mexico, we placeCuba.36 The printing press came to Havana in 1723 and to Santiagoin 1792. The first newspaper, La Gazeta, was published in 1764. Butthe first serious social effect came with the Papel Periodicode la Habana,in October, I790. It appeared first as a weekly, then as a semiweekly.Thus Cuba was clearly a match for Mexico City in terms of newspapers,if not ahead. In contrast to Mexico, however, there is no evidence fornewspapers extending to other parts of the country until briefly inI8IO to Santiago, and more generally after I820. Newspapers blos-somed in Havana after 1820, and a daily appeared in I8Io. There is littledoubt that the Papel Periodicohad a very significant social effect onpolitical, social, economic, literary, and artistic ideas, for most of the34 Pedro Grases (ed.), Or'genes de la inprenta en Venezuela y primicias editorialesenCaracas Caracas, I958); Julio Febres Cordero, Tressiglosde imprentay culturavenezolana,1500-1800 (Caracas, 1969). See also Alejandro de Humboldt, Viajes a las regionesequinoccialesdel nuevo continente Caracas, 1941), 334.35 Encina, Chile, V, 383-385; Jose T. Medina (ed. Guillermo Feliu Cruz), Bibliografiade la imprentaen Santiagode Chile desdesus or'geneshasta Febrerode 1817 (Santiago, 1960),xiii-xiv, xxxiv-xxxv, in Feliu's introduction; xiv-xviii, xxvii, in Medina's introduction.36 Juan J. Remos, "La cultura," Historia de la nacionctubana, I, 305; idem,"Desarrolloliterario," ibid., III, 353-360.


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260 I JORGE I. DOMINGUEZleadingmembers of Cubansocietycame to be associatedwith it at onepoint or another.

There are two reasonswhy Cuba is ranked behind Mexico onmediaexposure n I8Io: I) there is evidencethatnewspapersextendedtheir domainbeyond thecapital n Mexico beforethey did so in Cuba;2) the shiftto dailynewspapersn two Mexicancitiesfive yearsbeforeCubasuggeststhatthe demandfor written materialswas higherin theViceroyalty.In short,Mexico may have startedat a level comparableto Cuba,but it took the lead in the very late colonialperiod.This essay has developed a comparative perspectiveon the level ofsocial mobilization n thefirstquarterof thenineteenthcenturyin thesefour colonies. The purposehas not been to establishprecise intervalmeasurements or theperiod.Instead, hereis a rough ordinal scaleforsocial mobilization,and upperand lower limits to a possibleintervalscale.

Therefore,one cansaywith someconfidencethat the rate of adults(personsover age 5)who were literatedid not go beyond20 percent nany of these countries n I8Io, andthatit was probablycloser to Io-I2percent. The upper limit, perhapsapproachedby Mexico, was 14-I7 percent. Fairlydirect data on the percentageof school-age childrenactuallyenrolledwere obtainedfor Chile and Cubafor 18Io and 1817,respectively;the level was about 4 percent.Cuba (which experiencedno war), and Chile (which experiencedone less severethan the othertwo) had surpassedMexico (thenrankingthird)and Venezuela(at thebottom) by the middle of the nineteenthcentury in terms of schoolenrollment relative to the school-age population. This is especiallystriking becausethe qualitativeand quantitativedata for the periodbeforetheoutbreakof thewarsplaceMexicoat the top, followed aboutequallyby the other three.Urbanization,measuredas thepercentageof the population ivingin cities with Io,ooo or more inhabitants,s highestin Cubaand Vene-zuela for the late colonial period. Their respectiveupper and lowerlimits of estimate are 20-25 percent and 14-18 percent. Mexico ranksthird, and Chile, fourth. The limits for these two are 5-Io percent.Nevertheless,Mexico had developedan urbancenterin its capitalcityunmatchedfor variety of urbanlife. It was a distinctivemetropolitancenter. Moreover, the number of cities in Mexico was about twicethat in Venezuela,while Cuban and Chilean urbanizationwas con-centrated n theirrespectivecapitalcities.If thenumber of cities(rather


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION j 261than the number of people in them) is counted, the ranks are Mexico(I7), Venezuela (9), Cuba (3), and Chile (2). And if the distinctivequalities of life in metropolitan centers are stressed,37then the ranks areMexico (Mexico City), Cuba (Havana), Venezuela (Caracas),and Chile(Santiago).The data on media exposure generally confirm these findings.Mexico was at the top, followed closely by Cuba, and then by Chileand Venezuela. The data on per capita income are available for Cubaand Mexico only, but for two very different periods: for Mexico at theend of the colonial period, and for Cuba in the late I820s. The laterCuban date, reflecting its significant economic growth, placed Cubaahead of Mexico.Table I summarizes the ordinal scales. The urbanization scale isbroken down into three components: the percentage of the populationin cities over Io,ooo; the number of cities of such size; and a ranking ofcapital cities only. The date of the foundation of universities is takento develop a scale indicating the length of time during which eliteprofessionals were produced by the native educational systems.Table 2 summarizes the rank scores received by each country onthe six variables in Table I. The four countries appear in a compositerank, which is treated as a seventh variable in Tables 3 and 4. Table 3presents a matrix of Kendall's tau-arank order correlations based on theTable 1 Social Mobilizationin I8Io: Country Rankings on Six VariablesI. Literacy-edutcationl 2. Universities 3. MediaexposureMexico Mexico Mexico

Cuba a Cuba a CubaChilea Venezuela ChileVenezuelaa Chile Venezuela4. Urbanizationl- 5. Urbalnizatioll- 6. Metropolitanipopulatiotn numiiberf cities centersCuba Mexico MexicoVenezuela Venezuela CubaMexico Cuba VenezuelaChile Chile Chile

a Tied.

37 George A. Kubler, "Cities and Culture in the Colonial Period in Latin America,"Diogenes, XLVII (I964), 59-60.


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262 | JORGE I. DOMINGUEZTable2 Composite Rank Scores for SocialMobilization in I8IO

NUMBER OF SCORESCOUNTRIES RANK I RANK 2 RANK 3 RANK 4

Mexico 5 o I 0Cuba I 4 I 0Venezuela o 4 I IChile o I I 4Total 6 9 4 5

Table3 Kendall'sTau-aRank Order CorrelationsI 2 3 4 5 6 7

I2 .5 -3 .50 .504 -.I7 .I 7 .005 .50 .83 .33 .00oo6 .50 .83 .67 .33 67 -7 .50 .83 .67 .33 .67 I.00 -

Table4 Kendall's Tau-bRank Order CorrelationsI 2 3 4 5 6 7

I2 .773 .7I .55 -4 -.24 .i8 .00 -5 .7I .91 .33 .00 -6 .71 .9I .67 .33 .677 .7I .9I .67 .33 .67 I.o -

six variables of Table I plus the seventh variable from Table 2. Becausevariables i and 2 of Table I show tied ranks, Table 4 presents a matrixof Kendall's tau-b rank order correlations based on the same sevenvariables. Kendall's tau-b, unlike tau-a, has a mathematical adjustmentin the denominator of tau in order to correct for ties. The effect of the


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 263adjustment,s canbereadily eenby comparinghevaluesnTablesand3, is to increasehenumericalalueof tau.38

Forpurposesof analysis, et us firstexclude variable4 (percentageof the population living in cities with more than Io,ooo persons), andvariable 7 (the composite rank of Table 2). Nine of the remaining tencorrelations show tau-a values between 0.50 and 0.83; the tenth istau-a53=0.33. The same nine show tau-b values between 0.55 ando.9I; the tenth is, once again, tau-b53= 0.33. No one single rank ordercorrelation is terribly impressive when there are only four observations;rather, one is more taken with the general direction and size of all ofthem. This would be expected from the social mobilization hypothesis.The six variables of Table I also correlate well with the compositerank (variable 7) of Table 2. The lowest tau value (a or b) is, as expected,tau47= 0.33. All other tau-b values are between 0.67 and I.oo. Four ofthe six tau-a values are also in that range.On the other hand, variable 4 is clearly not measuring the samethings as the others. Excluding the composite rank, its five tau-a valuesrange from tau-a46 0.33 to tau-a41 = - 0.17; its tau-b values range fromtau-b46=0.33 to tau-b4l= -0.24. On either value of tau, it shows twopositive correlations, two at o.oo, and one negative correlation. Onemay question its utility as an indicator of social mobilization for thisperiod. This skepticism about the general urbanization variable issupported by the theoretical discussion earlier in this essay. There are,however, special reasons why the variable must be looked at withconsiderable caution in the study of these countries at the beginning ofthe nineteenth century.The hypothesis is that Spanish American cities at that time weresignificantly different from those that had or would emerge in WesternEurope and North America, and later in Latin America. RichardMorse has argued that the Latin American city was the point ofdeparture for the settlement of the soil. The European city representeda movement of economic energies away from extractive pursuitstoward those of processing and distribution. The colonial LatinAmerican city was the source of energy and organization for theexploitation of natural resources. Therefore, the location of thecity was determined by political and strategic considerations arising38 The formulae for Kendall's tau-a and tart-b,and an explanation of the differencebetween them can be found in the discussion of rank order correlations in most basictextbooks on statistics. See, for instance, Hubert M. Blalock, Social Statistics New York,1960), 3I7-324.


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264 JORGE I. DOMINGUEZfrom the needsof settlement.And the economic activitiesof the urbandwellers drew them to the countryside-to agricultureand mining.In short,a politicaland"ruralized"city emerges.Through most of the colonial period, Morse argues that citieswere in a centrifugalphase.The towns distributed tatus-and fortune-seekersout to the land.The socialorganizationof the town was oftelunstable,and itsvery life sometimesephemeral.The centripetalphasetook hold only well into the nineteenth century. Yet in the latecolonial period, it is possible that some leading cities-typically thecapitalcities-had begunto enterthecentripetalphase.In the countriesunderstudy,Mexico City andHavanawere thechiefexamplesof citieswhich had begun to draw from the surroundingareas,followed byCaracasand Santiago.39In sum, it is likely thateven cities with Io,ooo inhabitants-otherthanthecapitalcities-did not exhibitthe qualityof life associatedwithsocial mobilization. Neither their elitesnor their masseswere funda-mentally engaged in "new" kinds of behavior. Their orientation wasrural and non-industrial,even if they lived in a city or town. Thecorrelationsamongvariableswhichmarksocialmobilization, herefore,are stronger with literacy, university experience, media exposure,number of cities, and metropolitan urban centers than with thepercentageof the populationin "ruralized" ities.CONCLUSIONS Deutsch has suggested that the threshold of signific-ance for social mobilization is that level below which no significantdeparture rom the customary workings of a traditionalsociety canbe detected and no significantdisturbanceappearsto be created inits unchanged unctioning.He set thatthresholdat 60 percentof adultliteracy.40That may be too high. Nevertheless, t is difficultto arguethatthelevelsof socialmobilization n thesefourcountries,as measuredby adult literacy, could have accountedfor the "significantdisturb-ance" and the "significantdeparture of the warsof independence nthreeof the fourcolonlies.Moreover, f thesocialmobilizationhypoth-esis were to apply, there would have been a revolt in Cuba-secondin compositerank-probably at about the sametime, and theremightnot have beena revolt in Chile,which ranked ast.At theselow levels,39 Richard M. Morse, "Latin American Cities: Aspects of Function and Structure,"Comtparative tudies iz Society and History, IV (I962), 474, 479-480, 493; ideum, SomeCharacteristics of Latin American Urban History," AmlericanlHistoricalReview, LXVII(1962), 322; Kubler, "Cities."40 Deutsch, "Social Mobilization," 497.


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POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 265therefore, the political implicationsof the rate of change of socialmobilization are still very marginal.

One hasto go far backinto thehistoryof the currently ndustrial-ized countries o find suchlow levelsof socialmobilization.In 1660,upto 30 percent of all adult males in Englandwere literate; by 1770,50 percent of young rural males in England were literate. The estimatesof male literacy ill early post-TokugawaJapan are40-50 percent; at theend of the Tokugawa period (i86os), 43 percent of the young menand io percent of the young women were receiving some kind ofschooling. In the United States, the census of I840 reported only 9percent of the white population over age 20 as illiterate.41There are, in short, four theoretical conclusions. First, the countryrankings on social mobilization suggest considerable difficulty inlinking the independent and dependent variables. If social mobilizationwere a significant cause of political participation during the wars ofindependence, one would have expected a revolt in Cuba and norevolt in Chile. Such was not the case; causes and consequences are notmatched. Second, the social mobilization hypothesis is not a general,adequate explanation of political participation during the wars ofindependence period. The levels of social mobilization in the fourcolonies were far below the thresholds of significance which must beapproached if the hypothesis is to be relevant. Given these low levels,it is difficult to argue that they made a primary contribution to themass characteristics of the wars. However, it 1ay be possible that all ormost of the political participation during the period of the wars ofindependence came from the areas which had exhibited the most socialmobilization. Yet another alternative is that modest amounts of socialmobilization, in the context of a relatively traditional society, mayhave had considerable impact. The meaningof limited social mobiliza-tion may have been very striking: A little social mobilization couldgo a long way. It is possible that a regionally disaggregated studycould show a different conclusion, and this should be the subject offurther research.However, available researchsuggests large-scalecollec-tive participation during the wars of independence period in areaswhich were bothhigh and low in social mobilization.42 The issue of the4I Marius B. Jansen and Lawrence Stone, "Education and Modernization in Japan andEngland," ComparativeStudies in SocietyandHistory, IX (1967), 209, 216, 228; SeymourMartin Lipset, The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and ComparativePerspective Garden City, N.Y., I967), I08-I09.42 Dominguez, "Social Mobilization."


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266 JORGE I. DOMINGUEZmeaning of limited social mobilization is extraordinarily difficult totest operationally in the absence of retrospective surveys. However, associal mobilization is narrowly restricted, the socially mobilized be-come synonymous with the elite. Clearly, the meaning of elite partici-pation is striking. But the social mobilization hypothesis is about themass, not the elite. One may suspect, therefore, that at such low levelsof social mobilization it is very difficult to disentangle elite participa-tion from "meaningful" but highly restricted mass participation.Third, much of the foregoing makes it clear that there wereenough educational institutions at the middle and upper levels to trainthe elite. Many of the leaders of the revolts were well-educated men.The concepts of the social mobilization hypothesis thus have restrictedutility within the study of the elites. But the general utility of thehypothesis is that it stresses mass change beyondthe elite. It requireslarge numbers of socially mobilized persons who are turning to newpatterns of organization ind behavior. This was missing in I8Io.Fourth, the low levels of social mobilization suggest that the warscould not have been engendered by men and women who werepsychologically autonomous and capable of self-generated politicalaction. Political mobilization depended on leaders and organizationsacting upon a fairly inert, non-civic mass. Social mobilization stressesendogenous sources of political behavior. Political mobilization, in therelative absence of social mobilization, stressesexogenous forces work-ing to produce political behavior. Once the exogenous pressurescease, the political behavior ceases.The insight of the social mobilization hypothesis, therefore, has anegative utility for the study of Spanish America after the wars ofindependence. The hypothesis would then predict a political de-mobilization or departicipation after the wars of independence ended;only smaller, fragmented groups-the remnants of leaders and organ-izations-would remain once the grand challenge was met and over-come. This is, then, a contribution to an explanation of the post-I825period. The wars of independence were not followed by sustained civicparticipation. The very fact that social mobilization is inapplicable tothe onset of the wars makes it applicable to the failure of the wars tolaunch a fundamentally different, modern type of political system.But to explain the burst of political participation in the first quarterof the nineteenth century and to explain the breakdown of the Spanishempire, one must look to other hypotheses and independent variables.

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HAM Political Participation Movlilization CHI MEX VEN CU 1820-25