11 Niles Register, article on Nuevo Santander and Texas
This article, published in a Baltimore magazine, Niles Register, in 1816, reveals U.S. impressions of Nuevo Santander and Texas, including what is now the Rio Grande Valley, during the last years of Spanish colonial rule.
New Santander lies on the north-east (of Mexico). It is 140 leagues from north to south and 70 from east to west (a league is three miles, however, it is unclear here whether this is in English or Spanish measurement). It lies on the Gulf of Mexico, and has the ports of Altamiro, Soto de la Marina, and Carboneras. The principal rivers are Pilancita, Baranca, Real de Borbon, Alamos, Hayas, and the Rio del Norte (Rio Grande). The climate of the interior is cool, the rest of the province is hot, but in general healthy, being refreshed by the sea breezes, which never fail during the summer months. Its forests produce all the valuable kinds of American timber, and one kind in particular, the stone tree, from the tendency its wood has to petrify in water. Many parts abound with tea, indigo, wild cochineal, sassaparilla, and a variety of valuable medicinal plants. The common metals are more plentiful than in any of the other provinces, besides, both gold and silver are indicated, though on account of the wretched management of the government, they are neglected.
Texas is above 300 leagues in length and 100 in breadth Its eastern boundary is the Gulf of Mexico and the Sabine River – the western boundary of Louisiana state. The streams are very numerous, of which the chief are the Nueces, Guadalupe, Colorado, Brazos de Dios, Trinidad, Naches, Nacogdoches, Sabine, and Ride River or Natchitoches, on whose banks is the town of that name, the first in Louisiana. From the Rio Grande northward to the Trinidad, the country abounds with pasturage, but beyond the latter river commence the great pine forests, whose soil is generally a dry sand. The climate of Texas is healthy, though hot in summer, and so cold in winter that they have snow. The productions are nearly the same as in the other Mexican provinces, except that it does not seem to contain any of the precious metals or much of the useful ones.
In New Santander, is the city of Horcasitas, the reales (mines) of San Nicolas and Santiago de Borbon, of which the latter contains about 3000 inhabitants. There are reckoned 76 towns, among which is San Carlos, Hayos, Altamira, Aguayo, Laredo, Revilla, Mier, Camargo, Reinosa, and San Juan (Matamoros). The inhabitants are estimated at 60,000, although it begun to be settled only about the middle of the last century.
The principal towns of Texas are San Fernando (now in San Antonio), Real Presidio de San Antonio de Bejar, la Bahia (Goliad), and Nacogdoches. The government of the provinces consists of a mixture of civil and military power, wretchedly managed. A commandant-general. A commandant-general, independent of the Viceroy of Mexico, has the direction of military matters in the two provinces of Coahuila and Texas. Under him are two governors, who have cognizance of all causes (i.e. judicial powers in all areas). But the police is regulated by the commandant general, and financial matters by the intendant of San Luis Potosi Appeals in civil causes are to the Royal Audience of New Gallicia (in Guadalajara), 600 leagues from the commandant’s residence. New Leon and New Santander have each a military and civil governor, possessing absolute power, except that they are controllable in matters relative to war and police by the Viceroy of Mexico, two hundred – and to some – three hundred leagues distant; and in matters of finance by the intendant of San Luis Potosi, with appeal to the supreme council of Mexico.
The uncontrollable governors, for practically they all are so, are promoted from the rank of captain, major, or colonel at most; and of course are scandalously ignorant of law, and of civil matters generally, for in that country, they begin their military education at boyhood, and neglect all other kinds of learning. Their commissions can only be procured by intrigue, bribery, and vile humiliation, and when procured, their salaries are not half adequate to their support; they find themselves, therefore, on entering the duties of their posts, compelled to adopt the usual system of corruption, or abandon the commissions for which probably all their wealth has been expended They are obliged to become the tools of rich, influential scoundrels, and make a traffic of the forms of justice, or else sink at once. Which alternative such men will choose is easily imagined. There is no other such government in the world, as this; the most lawless chieftain of a savage horde has some check on his conduct – his power must depend upon the acquiescence of the multitude or upon some authority that can correct: but here no one dare appeal to the only powers that could afford redress for injuries. The tribunals of appeal are from 100 to 600 leagues from the people that would choose to resort to them. “I have,” says don M. R. Arispe, “many times known respectable and useful citizens to suffer such scandalous vexations, and even die broken-hearted, finding it impossible to vindicate their honor, or recover their property” “I have,” he says, “seen the families of those who have undertaken to defend themselves totally ruined in consequence.”
There is a self-organizing power that pervades everything, tending everywhere to the production of the system. So here there is a necessary co-operation among the possessor of power to retain vice and stupidity in every department, and ignorance and meanness among every portion of the people. Our readers would be tired and indigant were we to attempt a detail of the many grievances which de Arispe’s work so fully exposes; it is just sufficient to say, that as all power among them takes a military character, all offices are filled by that class-“captains of companies being perpetual judges, the lieutenants sole regidores, and the sarjeants attourneys-general; with the original provision, that the exercise of these employments shall follow the course provided by the military ordinances. This, a sarjeant or a corporal may become a judge in the absence of his superiors. This is generally the case, if not otherwise ordered by the governor, which very seldom happens.
But the worst scourge of these provinces is their mercantile system. In the whole kingdom of Mexico there is but one free port, La Vera Cruz .At Cadiz (Spain), goods are received from England and elsewhere, at second-hand; in Vera Cruz at the third, in Mexico, at Queretaro or Zacatecas in the fourth, and in the great fair of Saltillo at the fifth, where they are distributed through these provinces; and, at the towns where they are sold finally, at the sixth hand. Besides all the expences of such enourmously circuitous carriage, together with freight, duties, etc. there is a tax called alcavala paid on every sale. The amount of this imposition varies from 2 ½ to 7 ½ per cent and applies to everything foreign and domestic – even their garden stuffs are not exempt. What must be the supply of that country whose goods are carried a thousand leagues and subjected to an extortioning monopoly, together with a frightful multiplication of charges.
We are informed that this don M.R. de Arispe, curate of Borbon, who dared to present to the Spanish government a picture of the despotism under which these regions groaned, was expelled from the Cortes (Spanish Parliament), of which he was a member, and outlawed by the still more unprincipled government which has succeeded that body, and that a return to those his native provinces is precluded by nature of his account of the constituted authorities there: that no country remains to him, and therefore he is now a wanderer in the United States. He is a man of excellent talents and learning, but possessed an ardent love of country, unsuitable to the times in places in which he has the misfortune to live.
Niles Weekly Register, Baltimore, Saturday August 17, 1816, 403-404.