OCR Text |
Show ee Te RT are ae - ee oe wt - < es eh) ore Eee CaP SRI SO Cee, Pa PLT er a a ¢ ° Ph ee P wee 7 en gg ee € ad iets o* «@ +7. # we ee od on —), ee Ck te ee ee edad Lael le #~ # a the be dn #-#-# ee ke a [ed * bel al al eae er Se et rarerachcaratirerericiea -- Ets ee fal tsp * ae a a di ee dt ok Peee BekPee ee ee me pee et oe me = st x a NRO x5 PREFATORY NOTE THESPANISH ARCHIVES OF NEW MEXICO late to grants of land by the former authorities of the country,’’ to see that ‘‘they are kept in a place of security from fire, or other accidents, and that access is allowed only to land-owners who may find it necessary to refer to their title records,’’ and such references ‘‘must be made under your eye or that of a sworn employe of the government.”’ The surveyor-general was also instructed to prepare, in duplicate, from the archives, or authoritative sources, a document exhibiting the names of all the officers of the Territory who held the power of distributing land from the earliest settlement of the Territory until the change of government, indicating the several periods of their incumbency; the nature and extent of their powers concerning lands; whether, and to what extent, and under what conditions and limitations, authority existed in the governors or political chiefs to distribute the public domain; whether, in any class of cases, they had the power to make an absolute grant; and if so, for what maximum in area; or whether subject to the affirmance of the department or supreme government; whether the Spanish surveying system was in operation, and since what period in the country, and under what organization; also, with verified copies of the original, and translations of the laws and decrees of the Mexican Repub- lic, and regulations which may have been adopted by the general government of that republic for the disposal of the public lands in New Mexico. Mindful of the rights of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, he was instructed to collect data from the records and other authentic sources relative to these Pueblos, so that Congress would understand the matter xl fully and be able to legislate in such a manner as would do ‘‘justice to all concerned.”’ In accordance with his instructions, the surveyor-general made application to Governor Merriwether for such of the archives as related to grants of land by the former authorities of the country. The governor declined to act, saying that ‘‘their selection from the large amount of papers composing the public archives of the Territory would involve an immense amount of labor and a heavy expenditure which he was not authorized to incur.”’ Governor Merriwether, however, graciously permit- ted the surveyor-general ‘‘to remove the packages containing such papers as related to the grants of land in the country from their deposit and examine them in my own office; whereupon I immediately assigned two of my clerks to separate them. On the last day of July (1855) this difficult duty was accomplished, one hundred and from and sixty-eight packages, averaging one hundred and sixty-eight thousand papers, of every na- ture and description imaginable, one thousand seven hundred and fifteen grants, conveyances of land, and other documents referring to claims to land, have been 1 Selected, and are now being arranged and classified be however, will, a systematical form in this office. It impossible to have them properly and substantially ructions, on account of bound, as required by your inst to be the different shapes and forms in which they are paap found — some existing on large sheets of foolsc and heets, per, while others are to be found on half-s be others again, on scraps of paper which can never bound in any convenient form.”’ |