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The Texas - Mexico Borderlands

Report and Maps Relating to Native American Depredations in Mexico by Texas Tribes

A rare and extensive Mexican report on Texas Border problems, especially Native American depredations by Apaches and other tribes coming into Mexico from Texas. The report includes three detailed maps, including a large folding map of the Rio Grande, noting the ranches on both sides of the border, as well as the routes used by the Native Americans on their incursions into Mexico. The text includes a history of the longstanding problems between the United States and Mexico stemming from Apaches and Comanches venturing into Mexico to steal cattle and horses, as well as the violence perpetrated against Mexicans during such raids. The Mexican investigative committee that issued the present report (La Comisión Pesquisidora de la Frontera del Norte) noted the presence of Texans dressed as Native Americans conducting some of these cattle-stealing raids into Mexico. The report also calls on the Mexican government to send detachments of 200-300 soldiers each to various points along the Texas-Mexico border to guard against further Native American depredations.

This is the rare second (enlarged) report issued by the Mexican Commission charged with investigating the recurring Native American depredations into Mexico, cattle rustling, and general chaos along the Texas-Mexico borderlands. An initial 124-page report was published the same year. The complete Mexican text of these detailed reports has never been published in English, though portions appeared in an 1875 edition published in New York.

Members of the Commission were Ignacio Galindo, Antonio Garcia Carrillo, with Francisco Valdés Gómez as secretary.

A most valuable source document for the Texas-Mexico border during the post-Mexican-American War period.

The maps:

• Mapa del Rio Grande Desde Su Desembocadura en el Golfo Hasta San Vicente, Presidio Antíguo. Approximately 28 x 32 inches.

This large scale and elegant mapping of the Rio Grande was made by Topographical Engineer M. J. Martínez. It shows the course of the Rio Grande from the Gulf of Mexico to San Vicente, Presidio Antiguo. The map has blue, pink and yellow outline handcoloring. There is also a table listing the "Ranchos Mexicanos" and "Ranchos Americanos" along both sides of the Rio Grande. The location of Native American tribes (e.g. Kickapoos) is noted. (see Day, Maps of Texas, page 87).

• Untitled map showing a portion of the Texas - Mexico border, roughly the area from the Big Bend through the town of Mier, outlining in red the principal routes used by Native Americans on their incursions from Texas into the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The map also notes the meeting points ("puntos de reunion") for the Native Americans during their Mexican incursions. The map is based on earlier work by F. L. Mier. Approximately 10 x 15 1/2 inches. The map has the following interesting note, referring to its use in stationing military detachments in order to interrupt the Native American attacks.

Indica este Mapa los principales puntos de pasaje de los indios en el Rio Grande, para venir desde los Estados Unidos á hostilizar á México. Señala con exactitud las montañas, los valles que forman, y sus gargantas, para demostrar la conveniencia de la ocupacion de determinados puntos por destacamentos militares, que dificultarian las incursiones.

• A Map of the Indian Territory: Northern Texas and New Mexico, showing the reat [sic] Western Prairies by Josiah Gregg. 15 x 12 inches. 

Copy of Josiah Gregg's 1844 map detailing Native American tribes throughout New Mexico, parts of Texas and Indian Territory. (see Wheat, Mapping the Transmissippi West 482).

The appendix is titled:

Apéndice al Informe de la Comision Pesquisidora del Norte que Contiene Estados de las Incursiones de los Indios, varios documentos sobre sus depredaciones, y muchas otras constancias del mal estado de las relaciones entre las fronteras de México y los Estados-Unidos. 

Which roughly translates to:

Report of the Research Commission of the North: containing tables of the Indian depredations, related documents, and much more concerning the bad state of border relations between Mexico and the United States.

Rarity:

A bibliographically complex book, all reports by this special Mexican border commission are very rare in the market. This second report appears to be one of the most extensive, and certainly one of the best in terms of the maps therein. Only a single copy noted in RBH in the last thirty years - also an ex-library copy released as a duplicate.

A similar report issued by the same Mexican commission is cited by Howes (U.S.iana) and Ramon Adams (Rampaging Herd & Six-Guns and Saddle Leather), but not the present seemingly scarcer report.

Howes (I-32) describes a later comprehensive edition of 1877, which seems to cover the same subject matter: "depredations on Mexican property by Apaches and Navajos from New Mexico and Arizona and by Mexicans and Texans operating from the Rio Grande to the Nueces, often with unblushing official connivance."

An English translation was published in 1875, but it does not contain all of the material found in this Mexican edition.