The Lerdo Law , or Ley Lerdo in Spanish, is the common name for the Reform law formally known as the Confiscation of Law and Urban Ruins of the Civil and Religious Corporations of Mexico. It was drafted by Miguel Lerdo de Tejada and enacted on 25 June 1856 by President Ignacio Comonfort. Its objectives were to create a rural middle class, promote development, improve public finances of the state, and revive the economy by eliminating restrictions on freedom of movement. The latter was considered by Ignacio Comonfort as one of the biggest obstacles to Mexican prosperity. . The Lerdo Law provided for the confiscation of the lands held by the Catholic Church and civil corporations, that is indigenous communities that held property as a corporation. Properties were to be sold to private individuals. It was expected to stimulate the real estate market and generate government revenue through sales tax. However, the poor lacked the funds to buy the property, which meant that the main purchasers were large landowners or foreign investors, further concentrating land ownership. Religious groups and their civil corporations were prohibited from purchasing land sold under the Lerdo Law unless it was necessary for strictly-religious purposes. The law was part of the multiple Reform Laws that sought to establish the separation of church and state, the abolition of ecclesiastical privileges, and the secularization of registration of births, deaths and marriages.
Historical background
Nineteenth-century Mexican liberals were not the first to attack the Catholic Church's economic power. The Bourbon monarchy identified the Catholic Church's real estate holdings as a problem, permanently removing them for the real estate market and considered unproductive, but also granting the Church considerable economic power. During the Bourbon Reforms when the Spanish monarchy sought to undermine the power of the Church, especially the Society of Jesus, it expelled the Jesuits, confiscated their highly productive landed estates, and sold them to private individuals. During the colonial era, the Spanish crown had granted indigenous communities a certain amount as corporations to ensure that they had sufficient land to maintain their subsistence. After independence in 1821, ecclesiastical rights to hold real estate were challenged in the 1830s, during the vice-presidency of Valentín Gómez Farías, who implemented the secularization of Franciscan missions in California.
Excluded properties
The law excluded properties that were used by the church as a corporation for religious purposes. As stipulated in Article 8 of the Lerdo law, they were exempt from the alienation buildings used immediately and directly to the service or object institute corporations, even if somewhere is leased not separate from them, such as convents, Episcopal palaces and municipal schools, hospitals, hospices, markets, houses of correction charities. Properties belonging to municipalities also excepted buildings, open lands and land used exclusively for the public service of the populations they belonged.
Fiscal consolidation
All translations domain of rural and urban properties to be executed under the law, cause the sales tax of five percent, which was to be paid in the corresponding general government offices. Such tax contribution would be in cash and debt bonds, depending on the time it had taken in verified awards. With these policies, the Mexican government intended to increase the low level of tax revenue to which it faced and improve public finances.
Impact on Indian communities
The Lerdo law required that civil corporations be stripped of their real estate, seriously damaging the foundation of the economy of indigenous communities, who owned all the land within their boundaries. These territories represented a significant income for communities, as they generally were leased to third parties to raise funds, so that their loss further worsened the situation of many indigenous peoples already living in poverty. The Indians demanded from the then Finance Minister Miguel Lerdo de Tejada that their property rights be respected. However, according to the Lerdo law, those rights had been respected when the law was used to protect the rights of tenants to buy their own land before offering them to foreign buyers. To prevent their lands from being acquired by others, sometimes the Indians went before a judge to acquire the land as an individual; however, these officials charged very high wages and sales taxes, complicating the recovery process. In other cases, judges had fraudulent dealings with people interested in the territories in order to acquire land even before the natives learned of the existence of the Lerdo law, making it virtually impossible for communities to retain their territories.
