Los Arocena: El Rey del Algodón que Dominó La Laguna y Pancho Villa Expulsó de México

The Arocenas: The Cotton King Who Dominated La Laguna and Was Expelled from Mexico by Pancho Villa Rafael Arocena arrived in Mexico at the age of twenty, penniless. Forty years later, he controlled the price of cotton on the New York Stock Exchange from his hacienda in the Durango desert. Eighteen interconnected ranches. More than 24,000 irrigated hectares. A quarter of all the cotton in the Comarca Lagunera region was produced by a single Basque family who transformed the desert into the most productive farmland in northern Mexico. But the very system that made him untouchable had a flaw that no landowner in La Laguna wanted to acknowledge: it depended entirely on a political order that ceased to exist in a single week in 1913. EDUCATIONAL AND HISTORICAL CONTENT Main Sources: Plana, Manuel — The Cotton Kingdom in Mexico. The Agrarian Structure of La Laguna 1855-1910 (CIESAS) Vargas-Lobsinger, María — The La Concha Hacienda: A Cotton Enterprise in La Laguna 1883-1917 (UNAM, 1984) Katz, Friedrich — The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (Stanford University Press, 1998) Arocena Museum — Family Historical Archive, Torreón, Coahuila UANL Books — Spaniards, Cotton, and Businesses in La Laguna CONTENT NOTICE This video analyzes the career of Rafael Arocena y Arbide and the cotton hacienda system of the La Laguna region within the context of the Porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution. It describes regional power structures that operated within the political and economic framework of their time. It does not seek to defame individuals, families, or institutions. Historical complexity is respected: no moral judgments are made about past individuals based on present-day values. 💬 Did you know the history of the Comarca Lagunera region? Share in the comments. 👍 If you appreciate this work, please like it. 🔔 Subscribe for more documentaries about power structures in Mexico. #TheHousesOfPower #HistoryOfMexico #LaComarcaLagunera #MexicanRevolution #PanchoVilla #Torreón #Cotton