The War in Texas; A Review of Facts and Circumstances, showing that this contest is a Crusade Against Mexico, set on foot by Slaveholders, Land Speculators, &c. In Order to Re-Establish, Extend, and Perpetuate the System of Slavery and the Slave Trade. Page: 23 of 64

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COLONIZATION LAW OF COAHUILA AND TEXAS.

23

tie any of the vacant land belonging to the State, are
hereby offered asylum and protection.
ART. 2.-Any Mexican, or Mexicans, who shall
propose to introduce, at his or their own expense,
Ninety Families, at least, shall present themselves to
the Government, and enter into contract, in conformity
with this law; and the territory, in which they
are to establish themselves, shall be pointed outwhich
contract shall be fulfilled within four years.
Those who do not establish the said number of
families, shall forfeit the rights and privileges hereby
granted.
ART. 3.-So soon as Thirty Families shall be collected,
they shall proceed to the formal estab;ish
metnt of new Towns, in the most convenient places
in the opinion of the Government, or of the person
commissioned by it, for that purpose; and for each
new Town, four square Leagues of land shall be
designated, the figure of which may be regular, or
irreguiar, according to its location.
ART. 4.-If aniiy site where a new Town shall be
formed belong to an individual, and the establishment
may be of known and general utility, it shall still be
formed-observing the regulations of the Constitution,
in the fourth restriction of Aiticle 113.
ART. 5.-The Government, in consideration of the
agreement which any contractor, or contractors, shall
enter into, and for the better location and formation
of the new towns, and the exact division of soil and
water, shall commission a confidential person, who
shall be of Mexican origin, and not enjoy foreign
privileges, who shall proceed according to the instructions
of the 4th of September, 1827, when not in
opposition to this law.
ART. 6.-In Towns which admit of water works,
they will be constructed for account of those concerned.
The Commissioner will divide the water off
in pipes,or conduits, endeavoring to make them at least
half a yard wide; one of which shall be for the use of
the Town, and the others for irrigating the fields.
ART. 7.-The contractor and new settlers, in the
division and location of land and water, shall be at
no other expense than the pay of the commissioner
and surveyor, according to law.
ART. 8.-To each Family, included in the contract,
referred to in Art. 2, shall be given one Day of
water, and one Labor of land, [177 acres] or two if
the land is temporal, [cannot be irrigated] and a
Town lot of 70 yards square, on which they shall
build a house, within two years, under pain of forfeiture
of their privilege. Should they possess over
one hundred head of stock-either of cattle or horses
-or six hundred head of small stock, they shall be
entitled to a Sitio [4428 acres] of pasture land.
ART. 9.-A square of land, which on each side
measures one League, of 5000 Varas-or, what is
thesame, an area'or superficies of 25,000,000 square
varas-shall be called a Sitio; and this shall be the
unit for counting one, two, or more Sitios; as likewise,
the unit for counting one,two, or more Labors,
shall be one million square varas, or one thousand
varas on each side, which shall constitute a Labor.
The vara, for these admeasurements, shall consist of
three geometrical feet.
ART. 10.-This Law concedes to the contractors,
for each Ninety Families which shall be established
in the new settlements, four Sitios of grazing land,
and three days of water in each supply that can be
used for cultivation of the settlemert. But they can
take onily that proportion for nine hundred families,
though a greater number should be established-nor
shall they have the right to any premium for any
fraction, not reaching to ninety.
ART. 11.-No Commissioner, nor any other authority
can give to the same person a second Lot,
unless ie shall have built upon the first.

ART. 12.-The contractor who, on account of the
Families he shall establish, shall acquire, according to
Art. 10. more than Eleven Sitios, must dispose of
the excess within nine years. And if he does not do
so, the respective civil authorities shall put it up at
public auction, and pay over 'to the owners the net
proceeds, deducting the expenses of the sale.
ART. 13.-The Government can sell. to Mexicans,
such lands as they wish,-with the proviso,
that no single person obtain more than eleven Sitios,
and under the express condition, that the purchaser
have introduced into said lands, by the fourth year of
liis purchase, at the least Thirty head of large, and
Two hundred head of small cattle, for each Sitio.
The purchaser shall pay into the Treasury of the
state, or wherever the Government shall direct, at
the time of sale. the fourth part of the land sold; and
the three remaining parts shall be paid the second,
third, and fourth years, respectively, under penalty
of forfeiting his right to any part, and losing the
whole by his failuie to comply with this arrangement.
ART.
14.--The price of each Sitio, within ten
leagues in a straight line from the shores of the gulf
of Mexico, shall be Two Hundred Dollars, if it be
of grazing land, and Three Hundred if of temporal.
In the rest of the Departmenit of Bejar, the value
shall be One Hundred Dollars, if it be of grazing
land, and One Hundred and Fifty, if of temporal.
Anid in the other commons of the State, the value
shall be Fifteen Dollars, for grazing land, and Twenty
for temporal.
ART. 15.---The Government will sell to Mexicans,
alone, the land which by its local situation, will
admit of irrigation, and shall not be marked out for
settlements, at Three Hundred Dollars each Sitio,
in the Departmeiit of Bejar,---and in other parts of
the State at Two Hundred Dollars,---according to
ternis in Art. 1I, on the express condition, that by
the fourth year from the purcliase, the purchaser
shall have the eighth part of the land under cultivation---observing
the same rule with respect to the
temporal lands as mentioned in the foregoing article.
ART. 16.-There shall be no variation in regard to
the contracts which the Goverpment shall have entered
into, nor in the grants which it shall have made
to purchasers or settlers, in virtue of the Decree, No.
16, of 24th March, 1825; but care shall be taken
that those who shall have purchased, within eighteen
months after the publication of this law, enter into
possession ofthe lands granted to them.
Upon those of the former class, who shall hereaft
ter make new contracts, or shall hold new grants in
the w.y of purchase, (i. e. in virtue of the Decree
No. 16, of the 24th March, 1825,) it shall be obligatory
to make, within eighteen months from the execution
of their respective contracts, settlements on
their lands of one-sixth part of the families stipulated
in their said contracts; and those of the second
class (to wit, those who shall have purchased within
eighteen months after the publication of this law)
shall, within the period specified in their contracts,
actually enter into possession of the lands under the
penalty ot forfeiting them by not observing this regulation.
ART.
17.-Everv new settlement shall be free
from all contributions whatever, for the space often
years from the time of its establishment, except such
as shall be laid, generally, to prevent or repel foreign
invasion.
ART. 18-The Families which shall, at their own
expense, remove to any of the new settlements, and
wish to establish themseives in any of them, can do
so at any time; and shall therefore be entitled to the
benefits granted by this law to new settlers; for which

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The War in Texas; A Review of Facts and Circumstances, showing that this contest is a Crusade Against Mexico, set on foot by Slaveholders, Land Speculators, &c. In Order to Re-Establish, Extend, and Perpetuate the System of Slavery and the Slave Trade. (Book)

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Lundy, Benjamin, 1789-1839. The War in Texas; A Review of Facts and Circumstances, showing that this contest is a Crusade Against Mexico, set on foot by Slaveholders, Land Speculators, &c. In Order to Re-Establish, Extend, and Perpetuate the System of Slavery and the Slave Trade., book, 1837; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2414/m1/23/ocr/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .

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