The Reorganization of Mexico Under the Seven Laws & The Republic of Texas
A scarce Italian edition of Le Sage's map of Mexico, Upper California and Texas, based largely on Alexandre von Humboldt's map of 1812.
Issued 1 year before Texas declared its Independence, the map is richly annotated with dates and details of early explorers and Missionaries. The accompanying text includes a history of California from Cortez to the early 19th Century and a history of Mexico from di Nizza to 1833, along with population and other tables.
The map shows Mexico in the year of its reorganization under the Seven Laws an on the eve of Texas claiming its Independence.
Las Siete Leyes or Seven Laws were a series of constitutional changes that fundamentally altered the organizational structure of Mexico, ending the first federal period and creating a unitary republic, the Central Republic. Formalized under President Antonio López de Santa Anna on December 15, 1835, the Seven Laws were enacted in 1836. They were intended to centralize and strengthen the national government. The aim of the previous constitution was to create a political system that would emulate the success of the United States, but after a decade of political turmoil, economic stagnation, and threats and actual foreign invasion, conservatives concluded that a better path for Mexico was centralized power.