1856 Lerdo Law
Finance Minister, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada passes the Lerdo Law (Ley Lerdo). The Lerdo Law allowed the government to force the sale of Church real estate and all communally-held land. Not all church land was confiscated; however, land not used for specific religious purposes was sold to private individuals. This changed the nature of land ownership allowing more individuals to own land, rather than institutions.
Read more about this topic: Agrarian Land Reform In Mexico
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“They who say that women do not desire the right of suffrage, that they prefer masculine domination to self-government, falsify every page of history, every fact in human experience. It has taken the whole power of the civil and canon law to hold woman in the subordinate position which it is said she willingly accepts.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)