Managing the Feudal Remnant

• Main Author: Van Young, Eric
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Yale University Press 2021
• Subjects: Cortés; Terranova
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300233919.003.0012

For three decades Alamán acted as the Mexican agent, with wide powers, for the Sicilian nobleman, the Duke of Terranova y Monteleone, in the administration of the many and valuable properties remaining in the Marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca, the vast personal estate left to his heirs by Fernando Cortés, of whom the Duke was a lineal descendant. The estates included mortgages held on urban properties, scores of buildings in the capital and other cities, and rural properties, of which the most important was the sugar hacienda of Atlacomulco near Cuernavaca. While this earned Alamán a substantial income over the years, it also exposed him to almost constant political attack from liberals for his association with the putatively “feudal” holdings of a foreign landlord, the heir of the abhorred conqueror of the Mexican native peoples.