According to the seventh article of the so-called “Leese contract,” the
company was bound to introduce into the peninsula of Lower California,
within a term of years ending on the 4th of May last, two hundred families
of colonists. As the result of a commission given to an officer of the
custom-house of La Paz, to report upon the number of families of colonists
existing in Lower California on the above date, that officer states that
there were but twenty-nine families, but that there were in addition between
four and five hundred single men, by counting whom the company claims to
have fulfilled its engagement.
The government agents deny, 1st. That any number of single men can be legally
considered to compose the families spoken of in the
contract; 2d, that more than a small percentage of the single men referred
to have been brought to the peninsula by the colonization company, alleging
that they came thither for other purposes, especially for the gathering of
the orchilla plant; and 3d, that such persons cannot be considered as colonists, they having come for the purposes of a
temporary speculation. Acting upon this report the Mexican minister of
public works addressed a note, on the 29th of June last, to Mr. Drake De
Kay, secretary and general agent of the Lower California Company, (A and B,)
declaring the concessions of land made to that company null and void for
non-fulfillment of the terms of the contract, and that the government would
proceed to open an account against that company for trespasses upon the
national domain, and especially for the quantities of salt and of the
orchilla plant which it has extracted from such public lands. The minister
concludes by stating that he has sent copies of his note to the departments
of the interior and of finance, “in order that they may proceed to take the
proper steps concerning the introduction of goods at Magdalena Bay, and the
continuance at that place of persons who improperly occupy public
lands,”
B.
[Translation.]
Mr. Balcarcel to Mr. De Kay
Department of Public Works, Mexico, June 29, 1871.
Sir: On the 19th of April, 1869, Mr. Jacob P.
Leese, the representative of your company, was informed of the
obligation under which the said company was placed, in respect to its
taking possession of the lands it was to colonize in Lower California,
according to its contract, of subjecting itself to the operation of the
laws of the republic, applying for that purpose to the proper judicial
authority, and previously executing a measurement and survey of those
lands.
When you communicated to this department, on the 22d of September last,
that the company was disposed to proceed by legal measures to obtain all
the rights, exemptions, and immunities to which it was entitled
according to its contract, and that with this object it had landed the
first exploring and colonizing expedition, this government deemed it
proper to repeat the above instructions, and informed the governor of
Lower California that the colonization was to take place according to
contract, not only in the zone comprehended between the parallels of 24°
20? and 27°, but also in that between 27° and 31°; leaving untouched in
the former the property of Mexicans, whatever might be the titles
alleged, even when they might not be yet confirmed; and taking
possession, in the latter zone, for the proposed colony, of all the
lands, without other limitation than that of reserving the fourth part
for the native Mexicans who may solicit them. You were also informed at
that time that the company was under obligation to execute
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immediately, in the first of
these zones, a general measurement of the lands, in order to separate
those belonging to Mexicans from those which were to be colonized; and
that it was also under obligation to survey and determine, with the
greatest accuracy, the parallels of 27° and of 31°, in order to enter
thereafter into the possession of all the wild lands between these
parallels, except the fourth part reserved for citizens of this
republic.
Before this time, the government had to send to Lower California a
scientific commission charged with the survey of the said parallels, in
order that the company might meet with no difficulties in that respect,
and the said commission being further charged to be present at the
measurement made by the company.
The said company, instead of proceeding to the said measurement as the
first step toward entering upon possession of the lands ceded for
colonization, limited itself to the occupation of certain lands, and to
the location of a small number of persons upon them. Although these
irregularities attracted the attention of the government, it allowed the
agents of the company to remain at Magdalena Bay, because they
manifested a desire to explore the ground first, in order to proceed to
the survey and measurement afterward. Moreover, as the government
comprehended that for the establishment and success of the colonies it
was indispensable that the company should introduce along with the
colonists provisions and other objects necessary for their subsistence,
as well as the utensils necessary for the works to be executed in the
foundation of a colony, and all the more so in lands of that character,
it facilitated, as far as possible, that class of importations, opening
at the proper time, by virtue of his constitutional faculties, to the
commerce of the high seas, the port of Magdalena Bay, which had been
chosen by the company for the beginning of their work of colonization,
and therefore the most adequate for the landing of the goods destined
for the supply of the colonists.
All these measures of the government had for their object the
colonization of the peninsula, and desiring to know if it was being done
in accordance with the terms of the contract, the government named a
special agent to proceed to Magdalena Bay, along with a judge of Lower
California, in order that his acts might all have due credit and
responsibility, and to form a register of the number of families who
should have established themselves in the territory up to the 4th of May
last, the date on which, according to the seventh article of the
contract, the company should have introduced at least two hundred
families of colonists. By the report of the said special agent to this
government and the accompanying register authorized by the judge, it is
proven that on the 4th of May last there were in the districts examined
by that agent twenty-one foreign families, amounting to fifty-nine
persons, and forty-five Mexicans inscribed as colonists, among whom were
eight families; the sum total being therefore twenty-nine families,
composed of one hundred and four persons. The company also presented as
colonists introduced by it four hundred and twenty-six individuals,
among whom only two were females, which individuals not only do not
constitute families, but do not even possess the
character of colonists, since they have not
definitively left their own country to settle in this, but are now in
the peninsula merely with the object of exercising a certain industry
for a limited time.
From these facts it may be deduced that the company has failed to fulfill
the seventh and other articles of the contract, since it has not
introduced into the peninsula the two hundred families of colonists
mentioned therein as a minimum. But the government knows, moreover, that
the company, without having legally taken possession of its lands, has
devoted itself to their exploitation in an undue manner, unauthorized by
the terms of the contract. This department is also informed that since
the month of February, 1870, Mr. J. Jansen, who calls himself an agent
of your company, and claims to act under its authority, has exploited
upon a great scale, and still exploits the salt mines of Ojo de Liebre
against the express stipulations of the eighth article of the contract.
The company itself has not only collected and exported the lichen called
orchilla, in grounds of which it was not yet legally in possession, but
has assumed to grant an exclusive privilege for the exercise of this
industry, for which it would have no faculties, even in case of having
fulfilled its contract, and having become the proprietor of the said
lands.
Since the seventh and other articles of the contract have not been
fulfilled, the stipulations of the seventeenth article are now to be
applied, they being as follows: “If the contractors shall fail to
fulfill any of these conditions within the time and manner stipulated
the concession shall become null and void, even though they may have
delivered in advance the sum of money mentioned, and in such case they
shall be indemnified with 500 sitios de ganado mayor, between the
twenty-seventh and thirty-first degrees of latitude,” and by virtue of
this danse the citizen President of the republic has been pleased to
declare that the concession of lands made for purposes of colonization,
in favor of your company, has ceased to be binding, and is null and
void.
As stipulated by the last clause, the government is disposed to indemnify
the company with 500 sitios de ganado mayor, between the parallels of
27° and 31°, for which purpose it awaits that the company take the
proper steps in this department, by means
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of a properly authorized representative; it being
understood that there will previously be drawn up articles of
settlement, in which the government will demand from the company the
amount properly due for the articles of public property which it has
taken without permission, and for the exploitation it has made of salt
and of the orchilla plant in lands which are to be considered as
belonging to the nation.
This decision is now communicated to the departments of the interior and
of finance, in order that they may proceed to take the proper steps
concerning the introduction of goods at Magdalena Bay, and the
continuance at that place of persons who improperly occupy public
lands.
Independence and liberty!
Mr. Drake De Kay, Secretary of Lower California Colonization Company, Magdalena
Bay.
