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Levi Fox
HILA 100
10/1/1999
The Riot as a Reflection of Social Stability
In both Eighteenth Century England and Mexico City between roughly 1620 and 1720
there existed a system in which social control was exerted by a small group of elites over a much
larger laboring class. And yet only rarely did the much larger laboring classes riot against the
upper class, and never with the intention of remaking the existing social system. Why is this? I
intend to show that in both cases the masses did not revolt because they were satisfied or at the
very least comfortable with the existing social system. Indeed it was only in those cases when
some change occurred which appeared to threaten this social system that riots tended to occur.
And even when they did occur these riots did not, as the upper classes sometimes feared, seek to
overturn the entire existing social structure, but instead sought a return to the status quo, which
the masses knew and with which they were comfortable. I will also seek to explain why, though
relatively infrequent in both cases, there were only major riots in Mexico City in two out of the
more than one hundred years under study while there were similar disturbances in eleven of the
101 years of English history which have been examined.
Social control in Eighteenth Century England, indeed throughout much of Medieval and
Modern English History, was exercised by a group of hereditary, landed aristocracy over a much
poorer group of land laborers. While maintaining seemingly distant relations, these groups were
actually rather close, as far as objectives were concerned; by and large both groups wanted peace
and prosperity for all concerned. More than that there existed an historic bond between the
landholders and those who worked the land, stretching back as far as the Middle Ages, when
peasants worked a lord’s land in return for protection, among other things. And thus historically,
each group knew that it could not survive without the presence and cooperation of the other.
And yet this relationship was by no means equal, as the landed class had significant power over,
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and very little accountability to, the lower classes. However, this added power also brought on
an added sense of responsibility, a noblesse oblige, which can be observed through the actions of
the upper classes on behalf of the lower classes. This practice of the upper classes supporting the
lower classes (often against the rising middle class which made both older classes uneasy) is
especially clear when one looks at the laws concerning a product absolutely essential to the
continued functioning of society: bread. The upper classes recognized the poor’s reliance on
bread as a staple and enacted a number of laws designed to prevent “hucksters” from engaging in
unfair business practices, thus keeping this necessity available and affordable for the lowest
classes. To this end E.P. Thompson states that “for most of the eighteenth century the
middleman remained legally suspect, and his operations were, in theory, severely restricted”
(p.83). While the “in theory “ element to this statement implies that there were cases in which
middle men were able to make money at the expense of the poor, there is ample evidence that the
upper classes would quickly act to rectify any imbalances which were brought to their attention,
or at least permit the lower classes ample leeway to deal with the problem themselves. In some
cases, however, this normal functioning of society broke down and the upper classes allowed
their responsibilities to go unperformed. It was in cases like this, such as when the price of bread
rose sharply, that a riot became “necessary.” It must be noted though that such riots were never
intended to result in a long-term change in government (indeed, as I will show later, this was the
last thing which the poor wanted) but simply sought to restore the lower classes conception of
the social order.
The structure of society in Mexico City between roughly 1620 and 1720 can be best
described by the gente decente/plebian model which views society as being divided into two
groups, a lower class composed of the castas and the poor Spaniards, and an upper, ruling class
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composed entirely of wealthy Spaniards. This model recognizes the prevailing social truth of the
period; as Cope writes “all elites were Spaniards, but not all Spaniards were members of the
elite”(p. 24). The methods of social control utilized by the elite Spaniards were largely ones of
familiarity and mutual (yet again staunchly unequal) interdependence. Elite and casta lived side
by side and interacted personally on a daily basis. The lower classes depended upon the elite for
work and were, in turn, depended upon as workers. And while such a labor system tended to
evolve along paternalistic lines, the personal interaction created both security for and a sense of
responsibility among the elite. The castas were much less likely to rebel against a specific
person with whom they had constant, and often warm, personal relations, than against an abstract
and distant elite social class. On the other hand, the elite would often support their dependents in
conflicts with other elite Spaniards, situations in which the castas would be unable to effectively
fend for themselves. Thus for both personal and economic reasons it was in everyone’s best
interest to prevent social discord and the riots that could result from it.
And, like in England, in
the rare case that social discord would reach the riot stage, such riots were enacted not with the
intent of altering the social system, but in an attempt to address specific and temporary
grievances which the lower classes felt threatened the stability of that social system, such as the
lack of food and refusal of communication in 1692.
Having established the presence of seemingly secure social systems in both England and
Mexico, and having established that in neither case did either upper or lower classes truly desire
a riot, we must now ask ourselves why such riots appear to have occurred with such greater
frequency England than in Mexico? While obvious solutions might lie in the larger population
or later date of study in England, both of these are red herrings. The answer, in fact, lies in
communication or a lack there-of. While cultivating good relations and preventing situations in
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which the lower classes might be moved to unrest were policies practiced by the upper classes in
both instances, there existed in Mexico another method of social control which was largely
absent in England: direct communication between the classes. In Mexico, unlike in England,
there existed “channels of communication that acted as a safety valve for plebian discontent”
(Cope p. 136). In instances where these channels of communication were temporarily shut down
for whatever reason, such as in 1692, the Mexican crowd lacked any other way of displaying
their discontent short of actual riot. As there never existed any similar process of direct
communication between the English upper and lower classes, in instances where the typical
social order was weakened, times when the lower classes of Mexico City would have sought a
communication, the English masses had no other recourse than riot. Thusly, while neither
society desired a riot, the apparatus for prevention in Mexico City contained an additional, often
invaluable, mechanism for maintaining social accord which English society lacked. The
presence of this additional mechanism may also explain why the upper classes in Mexico City
reacted so much more harshly to riot when it did occur than did their peers in England.
Accepted that there is a reason why riots occurred more often in England than in Mexico
City we must now ask another question; if both the upper and the lower classes were satisfied
with the society in which they lived, why did lower class riots occur at all? This question proves
to be much more difficult to answer than the previous. Despite what I have said, it is possible
that the lower classes were not really contented with their place in the social system and sought
to change it by rioting. This view, however, does not hold given the evidence that even when
riots did occur they were short lived and the rioters demanded no major social changes. Perhaps
even more straightforward is the argument that the people rioted because of high food prices and
low food supplies; that they rioted because they were hungry. In a way this is true, yet the real
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explanation lies in what the lower classes thought about their being hungry. The truth is that the
people did not riot simply because they were hungry, the people rioted because the social system
which they supported was expected to keep them from being hungry. In England, the lower
classes expected the upper classes to keep the price of bread reasonable. This was a primary
responsibility of the upper classes in that social system. In Mexico City in 1692 it was a
combination of the government not being able to provide food for everyone, as it had done in
previous food shortages, coupled with the denial of direct communication about this problem,
that precipitated the riot. In both cases the poor were protesting the lapse of their beloved social
system. Their riots were reactionary; they wanted to preserve the status quo. It was a failure of
the existing social structure, in England a rise in food prices which were expected to remain
affordable and in Mexico City a shortage of food that was expected to be available coupled with
a denial of communication that was depended upon to address social grievances, which
precipitated such riots.
While riots did occur in both Seventeenth Century Mexico City and Eighteenth century
England, in no case where these revolts against the prevailing social order. In fact they were
riots in favor of the prevailing social order. They were an attempt by the lower classes to gain
back something that they felt they had lost, instead of to gain something which they had never
before had. Such riots were not destructive or revolutionary in intent, even if seemingly so in
action, but where, to paraphrase Clauswitz, simply the continuation of social politics by other
means. And while much rarer, and more frowned upon by the upper classes, in Mexico City,
riots were in both instances a sometimes-necessary step toward preserving social stability. These
riots were a reflection of lower class contentment with the existing (staunchly unequal) social
system, and their desire to maintain such a system even if it meant having to riot in order to do it.