The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981 Page: 9
502 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The El Paso Area in the Mexican Period
came a member of the ayuntamiento of Chihuahua during part of 1841
and 1842, and on several occasions served as president of that body.20
Presumably he acquired his Mexican citizenship about this time; the
evidence shows that on one occasion he contributed five pesos to a Mex-
ican independence celebration. Late in 1841 he led a caravan back to
St. Louis, returning by way of Santa Fe with forty wagons of merchan-
dise. South of Santa Fe he provided the prisoners of the ill-fated Texan-
Santa Fe expedition with coffee and tobacco, and in Chihuahua Sefiora
Magoffin gave them a variety of Mexican dishes and champagne. In
1844 Magoffin moved his family back to Missouri, although what
prompted the action is not clear. It may have been his concern over the
increasing number of Mexican regulations, the growing tensions be-
tween Mexican officials and American merchants, the lack of a United
States consul in Chihuahua to represent American interests, a desire
to educate his two children in the United States, or perhaps a combina-
tion of factors. At any rate, the next time he would see Chihuahua it
would be as a prisoner of Mexican forces in September, 1846, several
months after war had broken out between the United States and
Mexico.21
Stephen Courcier, of French descent and a native of Philadelphia,
established residence in Chihuahua in the 182os. In 1828 he acquired
the Santa Rita del Cobre mine on the Gila River, one of the richest in
Chihuahua. Leasing the mine from a Spaniard who had been forced to
flee Mexico as a result of the Law of Expulsion of 1827, Courcier soon
monopolized the entire copper trade of Chihuahua, fixed prices, and
made a profit, according to a contemporary, of a half million dollars.
He quickly incurred the wrath of Jose Agustin de Escudero, a leading
Chihuahua legislator, who argued that the veins of the Santa Rita mine
were sufficiently rich to permit others to explore, and that Courcier's
operation had doubled the price of copper and ruined the business of
the coppersmiths of Chihuahua.22
Reel 5; Jose Maria Ronquillo to Cayetano Justiniani, July 20, 1835, Janos Archives (micro-
film; Special Collections and Archives, University of Texas at El Paso), Reel 26.
20J. W. Magoffin to William B. Jones, Jan. 30o, 1839, Consulate General, Mexico Cor-
respondence (NA); Archives of the ayuntamiento of Chihuahua (microfilm; Special Col-
lections and Archives, University of Texas at El Paso), Reel 183. These records are cited
hereafter as Chihuahua Archives.
21"Lista de la cantidades con que voluntarimente han contribuido los sefiores," Aug.
22, 1842, Chihuahua Archives, Reel 183; Geo. Wilkins Kendall, Narrative of the Texan
Santa Fd Expedition (2 vols.; London, 1844), I, 329-330, 398; II, 79, 85; Connelley, Doni-
phan's Expedition, 197; Moorhead, New Mexico's Royal Road, 174.
22Rex W. Strickland, "Robert McKnight," Hafen (ed.), Mountain Men, IX, 267; A[dolf]
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981, periodical, 1980/1981; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101225/m1/29/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.