Economic Trouble: Mexico City's Small Claims Court, 1813–63

What happened when people could not or would not pay their debts? This paper analyzes the economic woes of middle-class people in Mexico City’s small claims court. In these cases—called juicios verbales—judges heard disputes regarding amounts under 100 pesos cases. Subjects and later citizens fought over the simple maxim “render to each his due” during the years from 1813 to 1863 when the modern nation emerged. Residents brought a wide range of demands to the judges. They commonly complained of unpaid rent, unpaid personal loans, and money owed for goods sold. They also complained of poor treatment and slander by their neighbors, relatives, and spouses. The conflicts occurred in people’s homes, in their workplaces, and in the city’s shops. Judges evicted tenants, sentenced debtors to repayment plans, and urged relatives and neighbors to live in harmony. Based on a sample of 1000 cases, the paper analyzes correlations between the gender of litigants, the amounts owed, the reasons for the dispute, and the resolutions, among other variables. The paper also examines the concerns of creditors and how debtors explained themselves, from pleas of insolvency to claims that they had already cleared their debts. It considers the opportunities to be found in this archive (such as the wealth of detail, colorful and mundane, about economic life), as well as the challenges of this research (such as the bare-bones catalogue and sampling difficulties). Ultimately, it presents a social history of economic justice.