Matías Romero Avendaño and coffee production in Oaxaca, Mexico, in the Late 19th Century

Abstract

The research conducted for this article was found in the Memorias de Gobierno available in the Archivo General del Poder Ejecutivo del Estado de Oaxaca (the Oaxacan Government Reports´ Historical Archive). In this article, we document how the initiatives of Matías Romero Avendaño undertaken in the late nineteenth century, reinvigorated the production of coffee in the state of Oaxaca. Matías Romero Avendaño was a Oaxacan public official and a coffee-growing businessman who reflected on his experiences in various written texts. We discovered that this agricultural activity had an enormously positive impact on the general economy of Oaxaca at the time. The average growth rate of coffee production, measured in quintals, during the 1890s was 35.3% and for the same period, the value of production of coffee grew at an average rate of 24.72%.