El Barzón began in August 1993 in Jalisco, as a movement of debtors who could no longer pay their bank loans. Jalisco farmers proposed the name from a revolutionary corrido about sharecroppers and peons who were always in debt to the landowner. A barzón is the leather strap that joins the yoke to the plow.
The movement’s first slogan was Debo no niego, pago no tengo, “I owe, I do not deny it, I have nothing to pay with.” It later became Debo no niego, pago lo justo, “I owe, I do not deny it, I pay what is fair.” The debtors offered to pay the capital and the interest first agreed, but not the interest for late payment.