Office of the Historian

No. 365.
Mr. Foster to Mr. Evarts.

Legation of the United States,
Mexico, August 20, 1879. (Received September 7.)
No. 1017.]

Sir: On the 17th ultimo I communicated to the Mexican foreign office, in a note of that date, the substance of your dispatch No. 646, of June 23, relating to the prohibition to citizens of the United States from acquiring real estate and public lands in the Mexican border States. * * *

I inclose herein an extract from a recent circular addressed by the governor of the State of Sonora to the prefects of districts, referring to the law of February 1, 1856, and which law is by said circular construed to include mines, enjoining upon the prefects “very special care” to report whether mines within the interdicted zone of twenty leagues from the frontier are owned in whole or in part by foreigners.

It is worthy of mention in this connection that under the old Spanish law, accepted and now in force in this republic, mining rights are not acquired and held in fee simple in Mexico, but are held by a conditional tenure dependent upon the constant working of the mine, and that a failure to observe this condition forfeits the rights of the owner in favor of any person who chooses to denounce the mine and comply with the law for working the same. The section of the law of 1856 containing the prohibition against foreigners is quoted in my dispatch No. 756.

The consul at Guaymas, in a recent unofficial letter, advised me that along the frontier in that State, within the prohibited zone, a number of American companies have purchased mines and are now engaged in erecting mills, machinery, &c., under the belief that mining property could be held by law. The consul says he has advised the superintendent of one of the mines, the San Antonio, of Chicago, that he had better take a lease for ninety-nine years, in view of the circular inclosed herewith. It would seem questionable whether even such a title would save the holder from the prohibition of the law as construed by the circular.

I have, &c.,

JOHN W. FOSTER.
[Inclosure in No. 1017.—Translation.]

mines in sonora.

[From the Monitor Republicano, August 6, 1879.]

The government of the State has issued a circular to the prefects of the districts which in its essential part says:

“It being ordained by the general law of the 1st of February, 1856, that foreigners cannot acquire in the frontier States or territories of the nation real estate, including mines, within a zone of twenty leagues from the dividing line, unless by the previous [Page 834] permission of the President of the republic, the governor of the State of Sonora ordered the prefects to have very special care that in the registers or pre-emptions (denuncios) of mines forwarded to the government through the prefectures, and in which one or more foreigners are interested, they always state the distance from the dividing line of the United States of the North the mine referred to in the document is located, to the end that the executive may the more easily decide which can or cannot be admitted in view of the prohibition referred to.”