On the haciendas before the Revolution, the tienda de raya was the estate store. The historian Jesús Silva Herzog wrote that it kept “cuenta minuciosa de sus deudas, las cuales pasaban de padres a hijos” (a detailed account of their debts, which passed from parents to children). Indebted peons were easier to keep “arraigados a la tierra” (rooted to the land).
Article 123 of the Constitution of 1917 declared void any work clause that created an “obligación directa o indirecta de adquirir los artículos de consumo en tiendas o lugares determinados” (direct or indirect obligation to buy consumer goods in particular stores or places).