They had a late onset in Yucatán compared with the rest of Mexico because of geographical, ecological and economical reasons, particularly the poor quality of the soil and lack of water to irrigate farms.
The hacienda henequenera required large staffing for the cultivation of the fields, as well as, the development and maintenance of industrial processes, such as shredding the leaves.
By the 19th century, the hacienda henequenera developed on a wider scale throughout Yucatán, particularly in the north-central region, where the soil was better suited for the cultivation of henequen.
Unlike in the rest of Mexico and in most of Latin America, these farms in this region were not established immediately after the conquest and during the seventeenth century.
In Yucatán, because of geographical, ecological and economical conditions, particularly soil quality and lack of water for irrigation, onset of agricultural estates was delayed.
[1] Predominantly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries there was no large scale production and the haciendas were strictly for raising livestock, which did not require concentrations of labor.
[2] Initially the crop grown was maize, but increasingly the change was made to henequen production, in the cases of the estates of Itzincab, San Antonio Sodzil, Temozón, Uayalceh, Xtepen, and Yaxcopoil, among others.
[3] The foreman usually has his own home, and there were storage buildings, the hydraulics or pump house, a school, an infirmary, a store, the stables and a jail.
They were not slaves, as they retained some civil rights, but they were not free, as they were bound to the land, forced to serve against their will,[3] and in the absence of any type of currency at the governmental level were paid in hacienda tokens.
Others who had borrowed during the boom and overinvested, were unable to repay after the bust, when the sisal prices declined after the stock market crash of 1929.
[2] All of the henequen plantations ceased to exist as autonomous communities with the agrarian land reform implemented by President Lazaro Cardenas in 1937.
[2] In areas farther afield from Mérida, driving routes have emerged to market closely located haciendas to tourists.