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Trade and marketplace interactions were facilitated by the use of accepted media of exchange, particularly cacao beans and varying grades of white cotton cloaks. Plain cotton cloaks carried higher values than the cacao beans; however, the latter were considered sufficiently valuable to be subject to counterfeiting. Other accepted media of exchange in Mesoamerica included copper axes and bells, stone and shell beads, and perhaps feather quills with differing amounts of gold dust within. Despite the presence of these standardized "moneys," most exchange, whether by pochteca or small householder, whether in urban marketplace or regional center, was effected through barter or exchange of goods for goods of comparable and agreed-upon value.

Recent studies of late Postclassic Mesoamerica reveal that trade and markets operated with flexibility and were institutionalized in complex and variable ways. Several different types of merchants traveled the same routes and traded in the same markets, but dealt in different types of goods and were burdened with differing degrees of political involvement. Marketplaces themselves varied considerably depending on their ecological context, geopolitical location (whether strategic or remote), and proximity to urban hubs and centers of political control.

This emerging picture nonetheless leaves a number of important questions unanswered. In particular, to what extent can conditions in the late Postclassic period serve as guidelines for understanding earlier, less well-known civilizations? Furthermore, the role of trade in the development of complex polities and in the expansion of states and empires remains unclear. The nature of marketplace activities, whether they operated according to the market principle or were administered by the state (or some compromise between the two extremes) is likewise an unresolved question.

Marketplaces in late Postclassic Mesoamerica served as clearinghouses for an extensive array of exotic and ordinary goods, as an arena for the exchange of the latest news and rumor, and as a source of income for the polity. As with the merchants themselves, marketplaces varied considerably, ranging from the bustling metropolitan centers where virtually everything in the land was available for sale, to specialized marketplaces in urban areas, to smaller regional centers and those that hugged tense political borderlands.

The grandest marketplace was that at Tlatelolco, adjacent to the Mexica capital city of Tenochtitlan. It may have served 20,000 to 25,000 persons daily, but also apparently operated as a rotating market with perhaps twice as many participants every fifth day (once each Aztec "week"). Virtually every good produced within and beyond the bounds of the empire was available in this commercial arena, from local lacustrine products to exotic tropical feathers. Services, from barbers' to carpenters', could also be enlisted. The marketplace was arranged in an orderly fashion, and fairness in transactions was ensured by professional merchant-judges. This marketplace served the daily and extraordinary needs of noble and commoner alike, and provided the polity with a steady income from market taxes.

Some urban marketplaces, while surely offering an adequate range of utilitarian and exotic products and wares, also became renowned for certain specialties. For instance, Acolman became well-known as a dog market, Otompan as a turkey market, and Azcapotzalco as a slave market. In addition to these notable specialties, general food markets may have been scattered throughout Tenochtitlan and other large urban centers.

Beyond the highly urbanized Valley of Mexico, a multitude of smaller marketplaces provided the setting for local, regional, and interregional exchange. Trade in these marketplaces would have been stimulated by local production specialties (such as wood products or pottery), location along active trading routes, or the imposition of tribute requiring local inhabitants to trade their own production for specific goods required in tribute payments. Usual offerings in these marketplaces reflected the local ecology, although the regular or occasional appearance of traveling merchants would have diversified and undoubtedly stimulated the customary daily sales. Political boundaries ebbed and flowed with the military and diplomatic fortunes of states and empires in Mesoamerica. Coinciding with the formation of these fluctuating boundaries were borderland markets, which emerged to facilitate economic interaction across hostile political borders. Some of these marketplaces, such as the ones at Cholula and Tepeacac, were especially attractive to merchants of pochteca caliber; at Tepeacac fancy wares were to be available by administrative decree, allowing professional merchants access to these goods without needing to venture into adjacent hostile territories.

It is not surprising that professional Aztec pochteca were associated closely with political goals and institutions. They supplied the nobility with essential status-linked goods such as precious stones and elaborate textiles, they passed judgments in the central Aztec marketplace, they disguised themselves and served as spies in rebellious or enemy regions, and they acted as emissaries for the highland rulers in their political negotiations with rulers beyond the imperial bounds. In this latter role, it is recorded that certain pochteca were given state goods (plain cotton cloaks) by the Mexica ruler; the pochteca traded those textiles for intricately designed cloaks in the great Tlatelolco marketplace. This reduced the weight of their load (maintaining the same value), and provided an elegant commodity that would be appropriate for a ruler in a distant land. The pochteca returned to their own ruler laden with his new property: precious feathers, jadeite, shells, turquoise mosaic shields, tortoise-shell cups, and wild animal skins. The pochteca were reimbursed modestly by their ruler for undertaking these transactions on his behalf. Undoubtedly more important to the merchant were political endorsement and protection in far-flung trading ventures, enterprises that resulted in considerable personal economic gain.

The setting for these extra-empire transactions were quasi-neutral "ports of trade." Serving as economic entrepôts, such locales offered security for the foreign merchant and allowed merchants from mutually hostile (even warring) polities to exchange desired goods.

In the merchant profession, the pochteca were the wealthiest, most structured, and most closely tied to political goals and activities. Yet commerce also was undertaken by a diversity of other persons operating on very different scales. Regional merchants crossed ecological zones carrying specialized goods such as cotton, painted gourd bowls, and salt. They plied their wares in marketplaces and did not attract the attention of the rulers as did the pochteca. While such merchanting was most likely a full-time occupation, vast numbers of other marketplace vendors merely sold small amounts of surpluses ranging from foodstuffs to pottery to maguey-fiber cloth to dyes and medicines. These producervendors provided the backbone of the extensive marketplace networks of central Mexico.

The vagueness surrounding scholarly understanding of trade in Formative and Classic times is less pronounced for the Postclassic period ( A.D. 900-1521). In Postclassic contexts, archaeological materials are augmented by more definitive documentary evidence for the presence and nature of trade. Indeed, models for trade in earlier periods typically are derived from reconstructed late Postclassic (especially Aztec and Yucatecan Maya) economic conditions. Since the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries are the best known, they can provide the basis for a more detailed understanding of Mesoamerican trade and markets.

Mesoamerican trade during the time of Aztec imperial domination ( A.D. 1430-1521) was carried on at different scales for a variety of purposes. At the most elite level, professional long-distance merchants (pochteca) from Valley of Mexico cities (the center of Aztec imperial domination) undertook long and dangerous journeys to obtain precious objects for their elite consumers. These merchants were organized in guild-like institutions concentrated in separate urban calpulli, or residential districts. They controlled education, rituals, and status rewards within their own groups; acted as judges in the great marketplace at Tlatelolco (sister-city of Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital); and served as emissaries and spies for the imperial ruler. As private entrepreneurs they could accumulate considerable wealth and high status within their guild; however, they were not numbered in the ranks of the nobility.

Pochteca traded their personal high-value, low-bulk goods in markets within the bounds of the empire as well as in extra-empire trading centers. Within the empire, the wealthiest merchants dealt in slaves and elaborate textiles, frequenting the large urban marketplaces. Among the private goods they traded to noble and commoner consumers in areas beyond direct imperial control were gold, copper, and obsidian objects; shells; rabbit fur; cochineal; alum; and herbs. In return they must have received a variety of exotic goods, but only cacao is recorded definitively. Yet it is also known that the Maya merchants, on the other side of the exchange, carried salt, cloth, slaves, cacao, and stone beads as well as beeswax and honey in their trading forays, and some of these items very likely were procured by Aztec pochteca and carried to their highland homelands. The wealthy Maya merchants reflect the somewhat more fragmented political organization of Yucatán in the early sixteenth century: they were frequently (or perhaps always) of noble status and were individual (rather than group) operatives owning their own factors, slave porters, and large trading canoes used in coastal transport.

The Mesoamerican Classic period saw an increase in the movements of goods across regions. Again, the extent of trade in perishables such as foodstuffs, textiles, and feathers can only be guessed. Nonetheless, at Teotihuacan (C. A.D. 100-750) murals depicting flowing tropical feathers and cacao pods suggest the use of those exotic luxuries, and the presence of spindle whorls for spinning cotton indicates the movement of that lowland fiber to the highland Teotihuacan Valley for processing. Important goods that moved from some distance into Teotihuacan included jadeite, hematite, mica, and large quantities of shell from both Pacific and Gulf Coasts. Teotihuacan itself probably controlled the production of large supplies of obsidian objects, which then were distributed broadly throughout Mesoamerica. The precise nature of distribution and exchange, whether bureaucratically controlled import-export arrangements or free-market interactions, is not entirely clear. Various foreigners apparently were resident in Teotihuacan: it has been suggested that they may have served as trading representatives from areas as distant as Monte Alban in Oaxaca, the Gulf Coast, and the Maya region. The presence of such enclaves points to the development of commerce as a full-time professional occupation, but the extent to which the activities of these merchants were freely entrepreneurial or controlled by the state (or some combination of these arrangements) remains a mystery. It also has been suggested that an enormous marketplace existed roughly in the center of the city of Teotihuacan, and this would provide an institutional context for the exchange of not only exotic goods but also products (such as foodstuffs and maguey textiles) produced locally and regionally.

The Maya region during the Classic era (C. A.D. 250-900) also experienced burgeoning trading activities, although exchanges do not seem to have been greatly institutionalized in marketplace settings. Trade networks, embracing broad areas and encompassing numerous centers, appear to have been controlled largely by noble merchants and political administrators. These merchants transported to elite consumers a variety of goods including locally available shells, sting ray spines, shimmering plumage, salt, and jadeite. Other localized products such as pottery, honey, wax, woods, and textiles also were exchanged from site to site within the Maya region, and would have required institutions and personnel to move those goods predictably and effectively. Some of these individuals may have trekked long distances; a merchant figure (whether mortal or deified) in Maya style with his bulging load of costly wares is depicted on the murals at the central Mexican center of Cacaxtla (c. A.D. 650-900).

Trade was a prominent feature of all the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations. Intense specialization in these complex societies necessitated exchange mechanisms to distribute needed goods and services. However, overt and covert purposes for trade, its degree of institutionalization, the extent of political involvement in trade, degree of specialization in the organization of trade itself, the scale of trading activities, actual mechanisms for trade (including markets), distances involved, and particular goods and services exchanged varied over time and throughout the Mesoamerican culture area.

The presence of nonlocal objects at an archaeological site is often taken as evidence for trade. Yet there are several means by which goods can be moved from hand to hand and from region to region. One of these is reciprocity, particularly elite reciprocity, whereby socially acceptable gifts are exchanged on a roughly equal basis with the aim of establishing or solidifying social and political bonds. Another exchange mode that moves goods across regions is tribute: goods and/or labor are demanded by a dominant polity from a subordinate one. Movement of goods is essentially one-way, from subjugated realm to overlords. Trade, properly speaking, involves a two-way exchange that is at least somewhat divorced from social and political entanglements and is typically undertaken with a profit motive in mind. In ancient Mesoamerica (as in other ancient civilizations), trading activities were varied and complex, some entailing political involvement, others more free-wheeling; some enmeshed in social obligations, others performed without such expectations.

Trade over long and short distances characterized Mesoamerican civilizations from at least the Formative period (c. 2500 B.C.-A.D. 250). Lowland Olmec sites contain objects made from obsidian, jadeite, serpentine, shell, and basalt; all these raw materials originated at considerable distances from the Olmec heartland near the Gulf Coast. Most of them may be classed as luxury goods, as they are found in elite or ritual contexts and are relatively rare. This does not necessarily mean, however, that high-value exotic goods were the only ones exchanged over long distances. Obsidian, for instance, was transformed largely into utilitarian artifacts at this early time; other general-use goods such as textiles and foodstuffs have not survived in archaeological contexts and their role in regional or long-distance trade is unknown.

Juan de Tovar brought more to San Gregorio, however, than just his pedagogical and evangelical skills, for he was also an accomplished musician. The colegio soon was renowned for Tovar's choirs of Nahua boys who sang exquisitely and performed ecclesiastical pieces in Nahuatl before Mexico City dignitaries as well as in neighboring towns, inevitably enhancing the fame and the following at San Gregorio. Indeed, in a report to his provincial, Tovar described his students as "quicker than young Spaniards," and he even went before Mexico City's Nahua gobernador Antonio Valeriano to defend his charges in the school and keep them from being drawn into the labor draft. His argument was based upon the great deeds the boys already performed for the community through their services at San Gregorio. It is unfortunate that neither the names of Tovar's musicians nor other specifics about the colegio's students are extant.

Tovar's ministrations to the Indians, even in times of plague and other crises, are well documented. And it can be said with certainty that his career as a Jesuit was realized in the indigenous sphere of New Spain's colonial milieu. Nonetheless, Tovar was esteemed by Spaniards as well as Indians. For example, in the world of colonial publishing Tovar was responsible for more approbations of Nahuatl- and Nahuatl-Spanish-language imprints than anyone else in the capital. Moreover, the inquisitor-archbishop-viceroy don Pedro Moya de Contreras was so taken with Tovar's abilities that he personally commissioned the printing and distribution of a Nahuatl ecclesiastical treatise by Tovar, and then undertook the study of the language himself. And when the real cédulas arrived mandating an intensive, critical appraisal of the Indian situation in New Spain, in Mexico City it was to Juan de Tovar that viceroy Martín Enrfquez turned for the writing of a complete history of Indian Mexico. That work, Historia de la venida de los indios a poblar a México, was based on the translation and the interpretations by Nahua intellectuals of ancient texts that were collected from native repositories and brought to Tovar for study. The Historia was sent directly to Spain, but it was lost. Tovar then produced a condensed version based on his perusal of a work by Dominican friar Diego Durán. Jesuit José de Acosta used Tovar's abridged version as the basis for his own Historia natural y moral de las Indians.

Tovar continued to teach and preach at San Gregorio until the loss of his eyesight in 1620 began to limit his activities. Other infirmities soon restricted all his work with the Indians, and in 1626 he died next door at the Jesuits' Colegio Máximo. It was an occasion for profound ceremonial mourning on the part of the Nahua community. Several works have been credited to Tovar, but none is extant other than a manuscript copy of his Historia at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island. They include: El flos sanctorum mexicano; Pláticas escritas en el Colegio de San Gregorio; Sermdn guadatupano; and Sermones y ejemplos en mexicano, now in the Mijangos sermonario.

Mexican tourism faces severe tests in the future. The "free market" policies of the dominant party, especially since 1988, signal a retreat from state-led expenditures for tourism. Future expansion will, it seems, depend increasingly on foreign investment and private domestic capital. As a result, the deregulation of business in Mexico threatens the government's professed sensitivity to the environmental impacts of tourist development. Given this new vision of government-business relations, any dramatic changes in addressing the social and environmental problems produced by the tourist industry seem bleak. The drastic economic downturn of December 1994 punctured the heady expectations that followed the passage a year earlier of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Indeed, the deep recession that began at the onset of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León's presidency in 1994 revealed both the vulnerability of the Mexican economy and the weakening political grasp of the dominant party. The need for jobs, investment capital, and revenues likely will push government to accommodate rapid tourist development, despite the possible social or ecological costs, and regardless of the party in power. In this light, the tourist industry may become even more important to Mexico's economic future.

It was not uncommon for Tovar to preach and administer the sacraments in nearby pueblos, and his signature appears on numerous baptismal and marriage records at many different locales; they are indicative of the intensity and constancy of his evangelization efforts. Eventually, but only briefly, he was reassigned to another of the Jesuits' schools for Indians, the Colegio del Espíritu Santo in Puebla.

Most of Tovar's life was spent in Mexico City, however, and in 1590, the same year he took his fourth vows (or 1592), he was appointed superior at the Colegio de San Gregorio, the society's erudite school for Indian elite from all the major towns in central Mexico. It was at San Gregorio, especially, that Tovar cultivated his indigenous congregations. Famous for his eloquence in Nahuatl and exceptional oratory, he is the first to appear in New Spain's historical literature as the "Cicero of Mexico." He preached frequently and regularly at the tianguis (Indian market) and town plazas, employing patterns of high Nahuatl prose that appealed, it was said, to the elite as well as the "vilest of the commoners." His Sunday sermons at San Gregorio's Xacalteopan (Straw-Topped Church) attracted thousands of Indians, who after services continued the ceremonies through the streets of the capital.

The tourism labor force has led to a highly gendered workplace, where a large portion of jobs are held by women as maids, waitresses, and related service workers. In addition, women also lace the semiprofessional sector of tourism workers as travel agents, tour guides, and salespersons. Thus, the tourist industry has accelerated the employment of women, but such gains for women usually have been characterized by low incomes, seasonality, meager benefits, and limited mobility. Furthermore, the largely female composition of the workforce has magnified the problems of proper housing, sufficient health facilities, adequate welfare networks, and good schools.

The adverse social implications of tourist development in Mexico has held similar consequences for the environment. Both government and the private tourist industry have recognized this concern, but there has been little response until relatively recently, and even then it was uneven. In older sites, the ecological damage has been severe, made worse by lapses in the enforcement of environmental regulations, corruption, and inept planning. Nowhere is this more obvious than Acapulco, where the lack of appropriate sewage treatment facilities has nearly ruined the once-pristine waters and beaches of that beautiful bay. The growing interest in ecotourism, and in ecological protection generally, has compelled the Mexican tourist industry to address this issue. But the attention is too little and too late for certain sites, and it is conditioned by the steep costs of environmental rehabilitation, competing economic priorities, constrained government budgets, and political considerations.

The contemporary tourist industry has, to some extent, attempted to redress the errors and imbalances produced by postwar policies. INAH, for example, has tried to regenerate the interests of Mexicans in their cultural past through a myriad of activities that clearly reflect domestic concerns, as opposed to focusing primarily on foreign travelers. Mexico City and its environs once again have received needed attention, as the government has rehabilitated much of the historic central downtown area in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake of 1985. There also has been an effort to restore the fading beauty of the gardens of Xochimilco. Still, beachside resort complexes that proliferated explosively in the 1980s continue to be built, for example, along a corridor running from Cancun to Chetumal, although with less aggressiveness and an allegedly greater concern for the environment. Ecotourism also has debuted in Mexico with much promise; the government has initiated such projects in cooperation with the private sector, including a site in the area north of Puerto Vallarta.

During World War II, however, the state shifted the focus of its tourist promotion—and its infrastructural investment—to emphasize Mexico's beaches, climate, exoticism, and modernized services. World War II dramatically reduced international travel for pleasure in Europe, greatly enhancing Mexico's pull in the United States as a tourist attraction. Furthermore, the social composition of tourism changed, particularly after 1945, as increasing numbers of middle-class people in Europe and the United States found foreign travel more accessible. A major outcome of this shift was the reconfiguration of the spatial organization of Mexican tourism. At the beginning of state-promoted travel, Mexico City was the centerpiece of Mexican tourism. The change in the industry's focus after 1940 lessened the centrality of the capital, as increasing numbers of tourists (including Mexicans) used Mexico City as a conduit or point of departure to other sites. Thus, the infrastructural spending of the state tended to channel tourists to particular places through specific routes and means of transportation. As a result, a disproportionate amount of government expenditures went to a few sites and related ancillary activities. Acapulco, for instance, received enormous attention in the 1940s, as the government pushed the bay's tourist development with outlays for a modern highway, sanitation system, water works, and airport improvements. In comparison, Oaxaca received scant attention until much later, as other developments patterned on Acapulco garnered the bulk of state-backed tourist investment. As a consequence, certain sites became highly visible and developed for tourists, primarily foreigners, while many interesting parts of Mexico went largely ignored by the government's tourist industry.

Although the industry generated innumerable jobs and businesses, the benefits often have been marred by manifest inequities and lack of concern for the welfare of many tourism workers. The labor needs of tourism have led to a mushrooming of demand for housing, for instance, that frequently outstripped supply, a problem compounded by low wages, high real estate costs, shoddy construction, and a lack of such structural amenities as well-paved roads and adequate transportation between workplace and workers' residential areas. In recent years the government has made an effort to address these problems, but the effort has fallen far short. Moreover, because many tourist sites have been developed in areas with small populations, labor migration to such sites has exacerbated problems of housing, health care, and the schooling of the workers' children.

A crucial figure for Mexican tourism was Miguel Alemán Valdés, president of Mexico from 1946 to 1952, who most forcefully used the power of his office to accelerate dramatically the industry through government support. Alemán was instrumental in the move to promote Mexico vigorously to foreign travelers, and in the construction of a more modern, highly-commercialized approach to Mexican tourism. Using his political privileges after his departure from office in 1952, Alemán remained a central actor in the promotion of Mexican tourism, including a term as the head of the government's agency for tourism. Alemán represented perhaps the most obvious example of the close relationship between the state and the tourist industry. The turn away from state-led development policies after 1982 failed to alter the pattern of mixing politics with tourism. The political weight of the Figueroa family in the state of Guerrero, for instance, clearly influenced the attempt of the federal government to reanimate the dwindling attraction of Acapulco in the 1980s.

Furthermore, the state's powerful position contributed to the creation of the "tourist gaze" of Mexico, that is, the manipulation of the country's image as a means of attracting foreign visitors as well as domestic travelers. The nationalist ideology that emerged and then matured after the Revolution of 1910 formed the initial basis of Mexico's official cultural policy, with crucial implications for tourism. Thus, the Mexican government initially touted the country's folkloric cultural elements, colonial architecture, and monumental indigenous achievements, most notably the pyramids outside of Mexico City. The cultural nationalism evident in government-subsidized promotional publications of the 1920s and 1930s paralleled that seen in contemporary state-sponsored textbooks and murals. The state invested deeply in its official cultural policy, as evidenced by government-supported archaeological excavations, museums, anthropological research, rehabilitation of historic buildings and neighborhoods, arts performance and production, and programs for the maintenance of folkloric and popular cultural expression. The founding of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) in 1938 best signified this aspect of the state's cultural policy. The work of INAH contributed significantly to the celebration of Mexico's cultural past, symbolized in the construction of the heavily promoted Museo de Antropologfa in Mexico City.

For much of the period after the violence of the Revolution subsided, tourism contributed significantly to the country's economy. Soon it became a major source of foreign currency. As border tourism increased substantially, accelerated by the growing use of automobiles in the United States, the revenues generated by this type of tourism pushed the Mexican government to facilitate the entry and travel of Americans further into the interior of the country. Thus, in 1929 the first formal legislation concerning tourism was passed in Mexico, establishing the role of the state in the promotion of the industry and its regulation. Since then, the federal government has exercised a fundamental role in the regulation of the industry, from the ratings of hotels to the licensing of tourist agencies, although the government has been careful to include private business representation in the making of policy concerning tourism.

More importantly, the state provided the foundations for the industry with its willingness to fund its development through various measures, from the building and improvement of roads to the creation of government-supported offices in foreign countries to promote travel to Mexico. This trend in state support for the industry eventually led to the formation of the Fondo Nacional para el Turismo (FONATUR) in 1956, a special development fund for the financing of tourist-related projects. To underscore the importance of the industry to Mexico's economy, a cabinet-level ministry was eventually established.

Nonetheless, the government has generally refrained from direct participation in tourist operations, avoiding government-run hostelries, for example. Rather, the Mexican government has allowed the private sector to dominate the profits generated by the industry. Thus, Mexican tourism invites discussion of state and business relations in the formation of the industry, but this issue is complicated by the authoritarian nature of Mexican politics since the 1920s. From 1929 to the 1990s, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional ( PRI, or Institutional Revolutionary Party) in its various incarnations has dominated national politics. Not surprisingly, political privilege has conditioned the state's tourist policy, such as the location and size of government spending in the promotion and construction of tourist sites. As early as 1930, for instance, the secretary of defense at the time ( Juan Andreu Atmazán) used his position to begin construction of a road to Acapulco, where he had bought properties with the intent of developing their tourist potential. Hence, political considerations have surrounded at times the state's economic calculations in tourist industry decisions.

The tourist industry of Mexico has evolved markedly from its simple origins in the early twentieth century to its highly capitalized and complex contemporary expression. The development of Mexican tourism has been shaped in large part by the federal government, particularly in the critical period between 1940 and 1960, when the Mexican state focused on building infrastructure for tourism, such as the creation and maintenance of costly transportation facilities, advertising, marketing, and the financing of tourist-related investment. The history of the industry in Mexico also has been influenced by shifts in the global tourist economy, however, especially its spread into developing countries at the turn of the century and its subsequent worldwide diversification.

As early as 1925, economic planners recognized the potential benefits for Mexico of a thriving tourist industry. At that time, border tourism emanating from the United States was the main source of tourist revenues; indeed, over the decades American tourists would be a critical force in shaping the Mexican tourist industry. Government statistics have tracked foreign tourists entering Mexico since the early 1920s, and 80 percent on average have come from the United States. Border tourism in the 1920s, however, contained an unsavory undercurrent. Many Americans flocked to Mexican border towns during the prohibition years ( 1919-34), when liquor production and consumption were barred in the United States. As a result, bars, casinos, racing venues, and red-light districts proliferated in Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, and other border cities. This type of tourism expanded during World War II. American military personnel stationed near the border made frequent use of the services and goods offered by Mexican businesses, a trade enlarged by wartime rationing of various products in the United States that were available or less expensive across the border.

Prior to the 1920s, visitors to Mexico encountered a poorly organized tourist structure, generally confined to a handful of sites with meager amenities that appealed to adventurous travelers and few others. Rough roads, uneven train service, and a scarcity of appropriate lodging contributed to the low number of visitors to Mexico. Mexico attracted comparatively less attention from international tourists who desired to travel to non-European locales. Moreover, Mexico saw relatively little domestic tourism; only a small number of Mexicans had the means to travel for leisure extensively, and most tended to travel to Europe or the United States rather than brave the rough travel conditions of their native country. Indeed, despite the romanticized reverence for patria (nation) in the late nineteenth century, for most Mexicans of means the concept of travel for pleasure rarely included their native country. The Revolution of 1910 and its attendant nationalism would change this attitude among many Mexicans. Still, the driving force behind the development of the Mexican tourist industry was the potential profits from international visitors.

The final day, October 28, soldiers crept up to the last redoubt. There was not much resistance. They cut holes in the roof and hurled blazing pine torches inside and then hammered down the only door to the dwelling. Inside they found the dead and dying. Cruz Chávez and five other comrades lay there fearfully wounded. The army took the men outside, propped them up against an adobe wall, and executed them in accordance with the dictator's demand for exemplary punishment."

Some 60 Tomochitecos were martyred, and nearly 500 soldiers dead. But such matters never end simply. Reports of events at Tomochic, some of them exaggerated and distorted, soon filled the nation's press. Opposition newspapers in the nation's capital printed details furnished them by sympathizers in Chihuahua. Was this the kind of treatment that humble Mexicans could expect from the regime for their religious beliefs? Government papers countered that Díaz had been patient and had tried to negotiate with the Tomochitecos (including the heirs of those who had scorned the religious movement) into peaceful compliance but was left no alternative when the "rebellion" persisted. Soon revolutionary activities— some of them much more radical and politically pointed— erupted in the Tomochic region, but a massive military response stamped them out within a year or so. Still "Vivas" to the Tomochitecos and Santa Teresa continued to echo throughout the region and beyond well into the next century.

Those who had opposed the religious movement soon returned to rebuild and take control of the pueblo. A number of widows of those who perished in the fight also resettled at the site. Teresa Urrea was exiled to the United States where she eventually joined a traveling medicine show and died in 1906. More recently the names of the martyred have been invoked by Tomochitecos demanding land for their expanding population and lumbering enterprises. And in the country's popular culture Cruz Chávez and his associates have been heroized as the determined defenders of human rights against a bruising dictatorship, even if they had been driven by religion, meaning the superstitions of their times. The myth of Tomochic continues to grow, shaped by the needs of those who would use it.