[ photograph of David Horneck in his CSUN office ]       

DAVID HORNBECK

A Festschrift

Reflections by
Former Students and
Current Colleagues and Associates

 		      [ diseno for Rancho Vega del Rio de Pajaro, Monterey County, Online Archive of California, California Digital Library, altered from original by C.M.Rodrigue ]

CERAMIC WARS: STYLE AND MARKETING IN MEXICAN CALIFORNIA, 1810-1846

Robert L.Hoover
INTRODUCTION

The social sciences have been characterized as a series of disciplines consisting of a framework of irrefutable facts which generate a great deal of constantly changing interpretation. The final quarter of the twentieth century saw a major reinterpretation of the culture of Hispanic California. The milestone publication of Immanuel Wallerstein's first volume on the modern world system (Wallerstein 1974), research associated with the American Bicentennary, and interest leading up to the Columbian Quincentennary provided the impetus for archæologists, geographers, and historians to pursue in-depth studies of the Spanish and Mexican periods in California in an interdisciplinary manner (Archibald 1976; Costello 1989; Johnson 1989; Hoover 1989). In the process, the California mission system was revealed as a very complex and dynamic institution that flexibly adjusted to shifts in politics, the economy, demography, etc.

David Hornbeck (1989) pioneered studies which, using new information, focused on the economic changes affecting the California missions. He demonstrated how changes in technology, population, resources, and cultural attributes caused the individual missions to morph at different times from rapidly growing acculturative institutions to stable surplus producing centers that supported the military and civilian population and finally to gradually declining settlements relying heavily on technology and external trade for survival. This final phase, with its concentration on the development of resources and specialized technology for trade, is exemplified by the attempts of Missions Santa Inés and La Purisima to mechanize the fulling process for their woolen textiles (Hoover 1992; 2001). Each mission with suitable resources specialized in different ways.

California, originally completely dependent on supply ships from Mexico, found trading patterns disrupted after 1808. In that year, Napoleon occupied Spain and abducted its king, Carlos IV, and his son, Fernando, placing Joseph Bonaparte on the throne in their place. Thus began a seven year period of disruptive warfare, in Spain to expel the French and in Mexico from 1810 for independence from Spain in 1821. Trade outside the Spanish empire had traditionally been forbidden (Skowronek 1992), though this restriction was difficult to enforce among needy Californios. Now California was faced with an end of supplies from Mexico and salaries for the frontier troops. The smuggling that had taken place to supply local needs now developed into full-scale illicit foreign trade, finally legalized by Mexico in 1823.

This was the same period that the effects of the English Industrial Revolution were flooding the world market with inexpensive mass-produced products that were rapidly replacing hand-made craft items. It was cheaper and more efficient to ship factory-made English goods on British and American ships to places like California than it was to depend on the limited supplies, high expense, and poor distribution of Mexican sources.

Ceramics have traditionally been useful to historical archæology as time markers that can be linked to particular periods, social groups and trading relationships. Recent excavations at several mission sites and a presidio in California indicate that hand-made Mexican pottery was quite rapidly eclipsed after 1810 by the mass-produced wares of the Staffordshire potteries and other centers in Britain. English ceramic forms and designs became quite popular among all classes during the Mexican period. It is not uncommon to find many examples from California missions decorated with bucolic scenes of the English countryside, with identifiable castles, fox hunts, and punting on the river.

The effect on the depressed ceramic industry of Puebla must have been dramatic. Puebla potters were hampered by several serious handicaps that they were never able to overcome. Local majolicas were each individually shaped and hand-painted by skilled craftsmen in the pre-industrial manner (Lister and Lister 1984). This fact limited production and made each vessel expensive to produce. An equally important factor was the distance and difficulty of transport between Puebla and Alta California. There were no secure land routes, and in any case, pottery did not travel well over the rough roads of the times. Mexican maritime transport was also poorly developed.

The Staffordshire potteries, on the other hand, had ready access to all necessary raw materials; industrial scale factories which utilized molds, lathes (Fig. 1) and transfer printing techniques; and improved kilns which insured uniform firing temperatures. A regional system of canals provided the necessary supplies to the potteries and also served as a means of access for the finished products to the nearby port of Liverpool and the outside world. British and American shipping dominated overseas trade at that time, making it possible to deliver pots cheaply and in quantity to most ports of the world. It is not surprising that British wares dominated world markets for most of the 19th century.

The Mexican potters of Puebla were not oblivious to this decline in their business. While they were unable to address the basic problems of industrialization and transportation, they did take steps to counter the increasing popularity of English forms and decoration. They made some interesting attempts to emulate English designs and to make minor innovations in stylistic type. I propose to discuss these here, first by describing an English ware and then its Mexican majolica imitator.

THE POTTERY

A very common type of English ware recovered from Hispanic sites in California is Feather Edge pearlware, especially in the form of plates. Such plates were formed by shaping a thick sheet of clay over a wooden mold to create the vessel form as well as raised embossing around the vessel rim. Feather Edge Ware generally had a hard white or light blue (due to cobalt) clear lead glaze. The embossed rim was typically decorated with a rim band of color, most often cobalt blue but also green, yellow, pink, red, or brown. In the earlier examples, the rim band was applied as individual brush strokes, over the embossing, creating a "feathering" effect. On other specimens, the decorator simply painted a solid colored line quickly with his brush over the embossed rim. Sometimes the plate edge is smooth; sometimes slightly scalloped. Such pottery was produced in England between 1785 and 1840.

Puebla potters responded to this popular style with two types of majolica. Huejotzingo Blue-on-White continued the venerable Puebla Blue-on-White Tradition, itself inspired in the later 17th century by the designs and colors of Chinese blue-on-white porcelain. Huejotzingo was normally decorated with only a single encircling rim band of cobalt blue. The remainder of the vessel was plain, in contrast to the earlier floral and animal designs of the larger tradition. This plainness may reflect a new preference for simple English neoclassical designs. If one accepts this interpretation, Heujotzingo should be confined to the very late Spanish and Mexican periods to correspond to the firm dates of Feather Edge Ware. Heujotzingo also includes green (Fig. 2) and yellow variants, as well as the more frequent blue.

An interesting variant has been noted at the Presidio of Santa Barbara, Mission La Purisima, and in Spanish Florida. These were basically Huejotzingo Blue-on-White sopero plates with the addition of several circular bands around a central medallion containing the inscription? "Viva Fernando VII", commemorating the restoration of the Spanish monarchy after the final fall of Napoleon in 1815 (Fig. 3). More elaborate figures and decorations with the same phrase have been noted in Mexico City collections. Since this phrase would hardly have been used in Mexican territory after 1821, we can date these examples firmly to 1815-21. Perhaps produced by government order or by a patriotic patron, these specimens were widely and briefly distributed in Spanish territories, and are examples of early political "spin." With the exception of labels on storage jars, albarelos, Hispanic ceramics seldom contained inscriptions. This was in sharp contrast to the English practice, in which? pot inscriptions frequently commemorated specific events.

Wavy Rim Blue-on-White (Fig. 4), also part of the Puebla Blue-on-White Tradition, was made in soup plate form. Like the Huejotzingo type, they were generally plain except for a single rim band, in this case undulating or scalloped. Wavy Rim pottery was also found in a green variety. The type should again be placed in the very late Spanish and Mexican periods to correspond to the dates of Feather Edge Ware.

Dipped Ware is a broad general term for British utilitarian earthenware vessels turned on horizontal lathes and decorated with colored slips in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest varieties were decorated with variegated "geological" surfaces or by geometric patterns created on rose and crown engine-turning lathes. By the 1790s, mocha decoration appeared, consisting of dendritic patterns formed by the reaction of an acidic coloring agent to the alkaline wet slip surface. In the 19th century, further designs, such as "cat's eye," "common cable," "dipped fan," and "twig" were developed, many with the use of a special three-chambered slip cup (Carpenter and Rickard 2001) (Fig. 5). Large quantities were shipped to North America as bowls, mugs, and jugs (Fig. 6 and Fig. 7). Since neither the lathe nor the triple slip cup were available to Mexican potters, there are no Hispanic equivalents.

Transferwares appeared in England in the 1770s and became extremely popular throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century. An engraved copper plate containing intricate designs was used to print a design on tissue paper, which then transferred the wet ink to the ceramic surface. The design could be either placed under or over the glaze. Transfer printing eclipsed hand painting, a much more laborious and costly process. No Hispanic equivalents existed.

Flow Blue is a type of stoneware, or rarely porcelain, that originated in the Staffordshire potteries in the 1820s. Most examples contained transfer printed designs, though some were hand painted. The blue glaze blurred or "flowed" around the design during firing.

Cohen-Williams (1992:128) has identified a majolica known as Guanajuato Flown (sic) Blue, which was produced in the late 19th century in Mexico. Its diffuse designs are clearly imitations of English Flow Blue. I have not seen examples of this type in California, as the Hispanic era had ended there. Soperos, platos, and tazas? have been found with this design. I am uncertain how successful the Guanajuato potters were in copying Flow Blue, but in any case these majolicas had unimproved earthenware bodies.

SUMMARY

The results of several excavations at mission sites in California indicate that Mexican hand-made pottery was largely replaced between 1810 and 1825 by mass-produced English wares. This represents a clear reflection of the shift postulated by Hornbeck in the mission economy from one of dependent subsistence to one of specialized trading. Mexican potters made efforts to regain the ceramic market by means of adjusting pottery decoration to current tastes. However, they were ultimately unsuccessful. Not only was the Mexican ceramic market no longer shielded by protectionist laws after 1823, but both land and water transport were poorly developed by Mexico. Most importantly, Mexico would not develop the industrial capabilities for mechanized production until the end of the 19th century during the Porfiriato.
REFERENCES

  • Archibald, Robert. 1978. The Economic Aspects of the California Missions. Academy of American Franciscan History, Washington.

  • Carpentier, Donald, and Rickard, Johnathan. 2001. Slip decoration in the Age of Industrialization. Ceramics in America. Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee.

  • Cohen-Willaims, Anita. 1992. Common majolica types of Northern New Spain. Historical Archaeology 26, 1: 119-130.

  • Costello, Julia G. 1989. Variability among Alta California missions: The economics of agricultural production. Columbian Consequences, Vol. ?1: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West, pp. 435-449. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

  • Hoover, Robert L. 1989. Spanish-Native interaction and acculturation in the Alta California missions. Columbian Consequences,Vol. 1: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West, pp. 395-405. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

  • ________. 1992. Excavations at the Santa Inés Mills complex. Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 28, 2: 48-66.

  • ________. 2001. Excavations at the Mystery Column: The possible remains of a wind-powered wool fulling post mill in La Purisima?Mission State Historic Park. Pacific Coast Archaeological?Society Quarterly 37, 1: 37-59.?

  • Hornbeck, David. 1989. Economic growth and change at the missions of Alta California, 1769-1846. Columbian Consequences, Vol. 1: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West, pp. 423-433. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

  • Johnson, John R. 1989. The Chumash and the missions. Columbian Consequences, Vol. 1:? Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West, pp. 365-375. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

  • Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the 16th Century.? New York: Academic Press.


This document is maintained by C.M. Rodrigue
First placed on the web: 05/02/09
Last Updated: 05/02/09