Natives and the Mexican Republic

Natives and the Mexican Republic

Library of Congress

The Mexican Consitution of 1824

In 1823, the Mexican Republic replaced the Spanish with the rule over the area. Colonial citizens had permits to the parts of the land, which claimed about 1/6 of the territory. Even though the original missions were only supposed to be in place for 10 years, missionaries continued to fight against surrendering their land back to the natives. The original plan was that after "conversions," the natives would become citizens of Mexico, and the missions and the land they were on would be given back to them. In 1824, however, the Mexican Republic's constitution gave Natives the right to vote and hold public office positions. Still, the natives were often treated as slaves. Despite this, the new Mexican government gave 51 land grants to its citizens, which, in actuality, belonged to native tribes that were forcibly moved to missions. The colonial ranchers still had a growing desire to gain more native land. Between 1834 - 1836, the Mexican government disallowed the colonial settlers to use natives for labor and concocted a plan to redistribute the land that the missions were erected on. This entire system was corrupt, as politicians gave themselves and their families the most valuable regions of land, leaving not much for the actual natives of the land. Further, only a few natives from the missions were eligible to get the redistributed land, and, since many were moved from the regions they were native to in order to provide labor for the mission areas, they were unfamiliar with the area. The Native Americans who did end up returning to the lands that they were originally from witnessed the devastation of population decline, due to disease, and environmental degradation from new, invasive species. Former fugitives from missions banded to fight against Mexican militant attacks and slave-hunting raids, using their power to create organized resistance against Mexican ranchers and the government. Out of fear of their growing power, the Mexican government auctioned off 762 more land grants by 1847. As a result, natives continued to commit stock raids of the lands, which affected the owners so much so that ranchers asked the Mexican government to repurchase their land as a result. Still, even with the success of their communal effort, the native population was declining due to epidemics from diseases brought over by the colonizers. Another factor of the immense native population degradation was the forced labor and violence against them by Mexican military and slave-hunting raids.

CSUMB

1824