9 Felix Calleja’s Inspection of Nuevo Santander

1795 Spanish official Felix Calleja inspected Nuevo Santander and wrote an extended report. His comments about the people reflect his prejudices toward people living in frontier zones and racially diverse communities. A significant outcome of this report was the expansion of the port of Matamoros and increased trade from this area’s ranches.

Calleja’s Report on Nuevo Santander

The province of Nuevo Santander is located between 23° 23’ and 28 ° 15’ North Latitude, and between 276° 25’ and 279° 15; Longitude. It is bounded on the north by Texas, or rather by the Indian enemies that are interposed, and on the east by the coast of the Seno Mexicano (Gulf of Mexico). On the south and west the Sierra Madre and the subdelegations of Tampico, Villa de Valles, and Charcas, and the gobiernos of Monterrey and Coahuila encircle it. Its climate is hot, notwithstanding that in winter it freezes and is very cold during the periods when the northers (northern cold fronts) furiously lash it. Moisture comes with very little regularity. The droughts and rains are excessive, and in one or the other case health suffers, and livestock and crops are ruined.

The land is immensely level with the exceptions of the sierras of the Tamaulipa Oriental, which is inhabited by ‘savage Indians’ and of Tamaulipas Occidental, which is settled. Both mountain ranges emanate from the Sierra Madre, although separated by a large interval, the first in the south of the province and the second almost in the center.

The terrain is loose and spongy, and in many areas claylike, and extraordinarily fertile. Virgin and uncultivated, the soil is suitable for all types of planting, though the seasons cannot be determined because of the irregularity of rainfall and the absence of irrigation because of the lack of ponds, tanks, dams, or anything that would make it possible. The country is even better suited to the production of all species of livestock.

Thirteen rivers supply it, which could make it uniformly productive if advantage were taken of their waters…The Rio Grande, flowing a long and undetermined distance, has no ford (crossing) except in dry years or at a great distance from the coast. It measures 150 varas (Spanish ‘yards’) in its narrowest portions, and in the months from April to October, more than 300, rising six or eight spans (c. 4.5-6 feet) with a uniform and constant rate occasioned by melting ice and rainfall held and dammed in the mountain gorges through which is flows that permit only the quantity that they contain to pass through. As it enters the sea the river becomes contrary, extended, muddy, but little sheltered, and with greater depth than its two mouths, the northern of which is shallow, dangerous, and useless, and the southern of which is twelve spans (c. nine feet) in depth ordinarily and is clean and wide…

The entire coast is clean beach and so shallow that for a distance of more than a league (roughly two miles), the depth does not exceed six fathoms (c. 36 feet). The coast is full of lagoons, which are interconnected in rainy seasons. The lagoons obstruct the approach to the sea by land for a distance of a league and a half. The sea interposes sand dunes which form bars as they break. All of the lagoons produce fish and salt in such abundance that the amount that could be taken annually is incalculable….the salt from the lagoons near San Fernando (south of the Rio Grande) are a monopoly to the account of the royal treasury with a tax of twelve reales ($1.50 in Spanish pesos) for each load that is taken from them.

Salinas (salt lakes) situated twelve leagues north of Reynosa, which are also a monopoly and include many that extend toward Texas from which salt is no longer produced, are not only better but very special. Their beds are solid masses of coagulated salt that the rains do not liquify. Blocks are taken out as from a quarry, and salt has been known to coagulate to a depth of two varas. In some districts it is the color of mother-of-pearl; and branches of trees or birds that accidentally die and fall in them are transformed in a period of twenty-four hours to salt, maintaining their figures…

Population, Property, and Industry

In the province are one city, 25 villas (towns), three mining districts, 17 haciendas (large estates), eight missions attached to parishes (i.e. churches in towns), and four independent missions (churches that serve Indians). Inhabiting the region are 30,405 Europeans (this includes Spaniards, Creoles, Mestizos and Mulatos), 1,434 Christian Indians, and 2,190 Gentiles (unbaptized Indians) of both sexes and all ages. They possess 92,198 mares (female horses), 37,501 horses (male horses), 28,800 mules, 8,621 burros, 111,777 head of large livestock (essentially cattle), and 539,711 animals to produce mohair and wool (goats and sheep): the total is 799,874.

The city and villas, without police, jails, treasuries, missions, funds, nor any public works, are formed of jacales of straw with only a few ill-constructed houses made of stronger building materials.

The haciendas and ranches are segments of land without limits nor landmarks in which each settler has his stock. He changes the stock when he wishes and moves the hacienda to another location. Few of the settlers have fixed boundaries, though each was assigned his own. In the disorder to which all contribute, this indeterminate right of property has been established or at least accepted as a workable system. It discourages each owner from caring for his own property. This province should regulate the 11,250 square leagues of surface land in which the settlers wander at their own whim with their herds, making it all useless. In the beginning the lands were open, with excellent pastures and an abundance of water. At present those immediately surrounding the settlements are not serviceable for the production of horses. Water is scarce because the large and small livestock transport huisache seed from one part to another, causing new huisache growth that the owners have not taken the trouble to uproot, and because those same herds of cattle in great numbers daily trample the springs of water, compressing the land underfoot and forcing the water to run laterally a great distance, so that at present there are only the rivers to supply water.

This frequent migration does not favor the formation and development of towns, for the people lack houses and furniture, utensils, and tools to accomplish such an end.

Their occupations are limited all year to branding. In a very few towns some seeds are sown, which, in spite of their scarcity, are adequate for local consumption because of the small demand, the people’s diet being ordinarily meat, fruit, and milk.

Industry is limited to the extraction of salt and the preparation of hides.

Commerce is purely barter among the people or with peddlers, with whom the exchange mules for goods.

In character and customs, the people are lazy, dissipated, with relative luxury in their dress, arms, and horses, pusillanimous (cowardly), captious, and sarcastic murmurers, all stemming from the fact that this population was formed from among the vagabonds and malefactors of others.

The eight missions attached to the parishes have made no advances in religion and it has been difficult. To improve customs because they themselves are such bad examples. The four independent missions are the only ones on a footing that appears promising.

Proposals for Improvement

The most useful and necessary measures for developing the provinces, after first freeing them for the extortions of their enemies (i.e. Indian raids), are those which facilitate both the exportation of surplus products and the importation of needed goods which are lacking. The exportation of the one will develop and augment the cultivation of goods, while the importation of the other will make subsistence less expensive and more comfortable, will attract more immigrants, and, with the commerce of ideas and customs as well as goods, will improve those who are already here. Also, the avenues of improvement which they are not now observing or of which the people are ignorant will be advanced and quickened….

An improved port

Through this port goods could be exported that are now of little value, not being able to support the cost of fleets or the conduct of shipments…with their slaughter, meats, waxes, lard, soap, and hides could be shipped through the port. To be sure, the sellers could now take their products to Veracruz, but in that single port, flooded with goods, the products would be sold with little profit, and much expense would be involved to register them and transship them to another market…

If they were permitted to take the animals to Havana, they could triple the price and in return bring back goods that are transported 360 leagues by land. The Cuban sugar mills, in which a bad mule costs 100 pesos, would be better served by having a good mule for 60 pesos, and Cuba would get a better price for selling its sugar abroad.

The Rio Grande seems to be navigable to Laredo, 100 leagues distant from the sea and very close to the four provinces. Its bar and all its course, though of twelve spans in depth with little less even in times of drought, can never permit passage of the larger ships that would bring commerce. Its waters extend a great distance into the Laguna Madre which is at its mouth, and the shelter of the port begins at the mouth of the river. I have been along its coast, and although I have not been able to make a detailed reconnaissance, I have found no obstacle that would impede its navigation. If this were to be made an auxiliary free port, it seems to me it would be the channel to the abundant peopling and prosperity of the four provinces of Texas, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Nuevo Santander.

Felix Calleja, translated by David M. Vigness, “Nuevo Santander in 1795: A Provincial Inspection by Félix Calleja.” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly 75, no. 4 (1972): 461-506. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30236739