Tomas Mejia to The Citizen, May 1, 1868

Decree establishing military colonies in the frontier states.

The citizen President of the republic has been pleased to communicate to me the following decree:

Benito Juarez, constitutional President of the United Mexican States, to the inhabitants of the same, be it known:

That the congress of the Union has decreed as follows:

The congress of the Union decrees:

Article 1. In order to defend the frontiers of the republic against the incursions of the wild Indians, thirty military colonies, distributed in the following manner, shall be established: In the State of Sonora, seven; in that of Chihuahua, seven; in that of Nuevo Leon, four; in that of Coahuila, six; in that of Durango, four; and in the territory of Lower California, two. The headquarters of the colonies shall be fixed by the common accord of the citizen governors of the respective States.

Art. 2. Each colony shall be composed of one hundred men, mounted, armed and equipped in the manner most suitable to the service.

Art. 3. The veteran standing of these companies shall consist of fifteen hundred men of the army—preference being given to the corps raised in the frontier States. For the completion of the three thousand men, enlisting offices shall be opened in the towns nearest the place designed for a colony.

Art. 4. The enlistment shall be made under the following conditions: 1. Those citizens who may wish to enlist in any company shall bind themselves to pass at once with their families to the place fixed on for their residence, and remain there for six years. 2. The executive shall give the colonists, according to their class, one or more lots of land, materials for construction, and all the necessaries for agriculture, with the seeds necessary for the crop of one year, and moreover the corresponding monthly salary.

Art. 5. The executive shall have the power, for the purpose of public utility, to take from the owners of any uninhabited lands those which may be occupied by the colonies.

Art. 6. The land occupied shall be divided into lots, of which one shall belong to each soldier, and two or more to the chiefs and officers. Each lot shall have ground for a house, and three and a half hectares (or seven acres) for sowing.

Art. 7. In case the colonist should die before the end of the six years of his enlistment this property shall go to his heirs.

Art. 8. After the distribution of the lots among the colonists has been made, the governors of the respective States shall distribute the surplus land among individuals with family, who without belonging to the colonists may wish to live with them.

Art. 9. Any colonist who shall desert within the stipulated term, disregarding military discipline and his engagements of enlistment, shall be condemned to the penalty of two or four years of forced labor, which he shall complete in any one of the colonies, and he shall lose all right to the lot, and to the improvements thereon introduced.

Art. 10. The executive shall forthwith appoint an inspector general, who shall have in charge the direction of all the colonies; it shall also appoint a sub-inspector for each State, recommended by the governors of the respective States.

Art. 11. The faculties of these employés shall be determined by the department they belong to, in the regulations it shall issue for that purpose, enjoining, as an essential point, activity and efficacy in the persecution of the wild Indians, and order and morality in the colonies.

Art. 12. In each colony a rudimentary school shall be established.

Art. 13. The inspector general or sub-inspectors authorized by him shall be able to conclude peace with the tribes of savage Indians, acting in concert with the governors of the respective States. After the terms have been adjusted, the supreme executive power shall be informed of the same, for its approbation, and in order that it may supply the necessary means for obtaining and maintaining it.

Art. 14. No authority shall divert the soldiers dedicated to the service of the colonies from their object.

Hall of sessions of the congress of the Union, Mexico, April 27, 1868,

J. C. DORIA, President.

F. Diaz Covarrubias, Secretary.

Elenterio Avila, Secretary.

I therefore order it to he printed and circulated for its due observance.

Palace of the national government, Mexico, April 28, 1868.

BENITO JUAREZ.

The Minister of War, Citizen General Ignacio Mejia, Present.

I communicate the same to you for your information and the consequent ends.