Latinx History Primary Sources: Texas, New Mexico and California

1717-1836 (inclusive), [microform]. The Bexar Archives, consisting of manuscript and printed material, are the colonial archives of Texas produced during the Spanish and Mexican periods, 1717-1836. Arranged in five series: I. Coahuila y Texas Official Publications, 1826-1835. II. General Governmental Publications, 1730-1836. III. Non-governmental Publications, 1778, 1811-1836. IV. Undated and Undated Fragments. V. General Manuscript Series, 1717-1836.

1621-1821 (inclusive), [microform]. The collection includes the extant official Spanish archives of New Mexico documenting the administration of the region from the period of Spanish colonial sovereignty to the establishment of the Mexican national government in 1821. Other material includes items in the Zimmerman Library of the University of New Mexico.

Mexican pictograph color manuscript prepared on the authority of Don Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy of New Spain. The manuscript was owned by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1636.

Typed copy of a journal of the march of the Mormon battalion to California in 1847.

Prefect of Matamoros, that the American forces will reach the Rio Grande in two days and that local officials and citizens will sally for the defense of the territory.

1522-1915 (inclusive), 1770-1865 (bulk). A collection of correspondence; government documents, including reports, commissions, decrees, and awards; church documents; and writings and poems from Mexico on civil, military, economic, religious, and social topics. An addition consists of photographs by Mario Bucovich.

A report of Atondo Antillón’s two expeditions to California in 1683 made at the expense of the Mexican government. Travelling to the settlements of La Paz and San Bruno, Antillón describes the areas, the equipment that was necessary for travel, the supplies, and Indians.

Sworn statement by Alcade Diego Vizcaino that the soldiers sent out to Extramadura were not paid (WA MSS S-628) and a statement by Alcade Rodriguiez Flores de Valdes that the soldiers sent into the Mexican Territory, now east Texas, have been helpful in establishing the first settlers and have completed their term of service (WA MSS S-629).

Father Salvatierra, a Jesuit priest interested in founding a mission at Loreto, California, writes to Juan de Ugarte, a Mexican Jesuit, that a Mr. Miner is willing to give money and ships, and Juan Caballero has promised to establish two missions.

The Henry Raup Wagner Papers document his work as a bibliographer and historian of the American and Spanish-American West. The collection spans the dates 1917-1962, but the bulk of the material falls in the years 1930-1952.

Draft of a plan to increase the population on the Mexican/US frontier, addressed to the Viceroy. Bustamante mentions possible difficulties but stresses the necessity of more emigration to both the northern border of Mexico and to Florida.

James Lowry Donaldson was an officer in the United States Army, 1836-1869, who served in the Second Seminole War, military occupation of Texas, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. He was chief quartermaster of the Department of New Mexico from 1858 to 1862.

1858-1862. John H. Clark, a member of the Mexican Boundary Survey in 1854 and 1855, was appointed by Congress in 1858 as United States Commissioner for the Texas Boundary Survey, to be conducted jointly with a Texas Commission. The survey established the boundary of Texas from the westernmost tip to the Red River.

1850-1859. Papers include correspondence with Secretary of State Lewis Cass, the President of the United States, and John S. Black, United States Consul in Mexico, concerning the lawsuit, Andres Castillero v. United States, in which the federal government tried to gain title to the mine.

Ending the Mexican War, between the government of Mexico and the general of the U.S. forces preparatory to the actual ratification of the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 1848 Feb 22.

1851-1914 (inclusive), [microform]. The records are chiefly original letters from territorial governors and secretaries, journals of executive proceedings in the territory, and other papers.