businessmen, Cámara Luján focused on the export of henequen and not on its production, finding that this business was more profitable. Similarly, unlike other Yucatecan capitalists, he had diversified his business interests to include railways, banking and brewing. In association with Eusebio Escalante Bates, he was owner of Compañía Agrícola del Cuyo y Anexas, S.A, a company which owned a private estate of 2,627 km2 in the northwestern part of Yucatán (roughly the size of Luxembourg or Rhode Island) which was used to exploitate various raw materials such as chicle, sugar cane, tobacco, cocoa, cotton, banana, vanilla and various forest resources.48 The dyewood and chicle were destined for export to the US and European markets. By the end of the 19th century, the henequen boom had transformed Mérida into the city with the most millionaires per capita in the world; between 1870 and 1920, henequen comprised 20% of Mexico's total exports, making it the second largest product in Mexico. most important Mexican exportable after precious metals. Much of this wealth had been concentrated in the hands of a small number of Yucatecan families of European descent (criollos). The rivalry between various business groups intensified in the first decade of the 20th century. On the one hand were Eusebio Escalante, José María Ponce Solís, Carlos Peón and Cámara Luján himself, who represented a group of capitalists “made up of the traditional landowning families [...] whose prestige came from the viceregal era and who 'demonstrated a mysterious ability to adapt to the changing economic order'.” On the other hand, there was Olegario Molina, whose fortune was newly minted but who intended to make use of the political and economic power that he monopolized as Governor of Yucatán and Secretary of Commerce and Industry to create a lucrative monopoly over the Henequen industry. In 1902, he signed a secret pact with Cyrus McCormick, the American businessman who headed International Harvester, to depress the prices of Henequen and force his competition into bankruptcy. In 1899, the couple returned to Mérida where Pino Suárez undertook business activities in partnership with his father-in-law, Raymundo Cámara Luján. After the financial panic of 1907, the Escalante export house, one of the major henequen trading houses collapsed. had been a close business ally of Cámara Luján and his bankruptcy surprised the entire society of Mérida as well as financial circles in Mexico City, New York and Paris. Many wealthy