24. [BORDERLANDS]. COMISION DE LA PESQUISIDORA DE
LAS FRONTERA DEL NOROESTE. Reports of the Committee of
Investigation Sent in 1873 by the Mexican Government to the
Frontier of Texas. Translated from the Official Edition
Made in Mexico. New York: Baker & Goodwin,
Printers, 1875. viii, [3]-443 pp., 3 folding lithographed
maps with colored outlining or shading: (1) A Map of the
Indian Territory Northern Texas and New Mexico Showing the
[G]reat Western Prairies by Josiah Gregg,
32 x 38.3 cm; 12-1/4 x 15 inches; (2) ...Mapa de S. Mc.
L. Staples...especialmente le parte mas al norte i la
derecha del Rio Bravo, 38.4 x 26.2 cm; 15-1/4 x 10-1/8
inches; (3) Mapa del Rio Grande desde su desembocadura
en el golfo hasta San Vicente, Presidio Antiguo by M.
J. Martinez, 80.4 x 72.3 cm; 32 x 28-1/2 inches (See Day,
Maps of Texas, p. 87). 8vo, later full smooth tan
calf, spine gilt with raised bands. Some splits to first
map neatly reinforced (no losses), embossed library stamp
on title, otherwise very fine.
First
American edition and first edition in English of one of
the most important borderlands reports (published the same
year in Mexico, in Spanish). Adams, Guns 1108;
Herd 558 & 2264: "Rare. The northern frontier
question and cattle and horse stealing." Decker 37:340:
"Scarce and informative...of great documentary value."
Graff 2765. Eberstadt 122:97 (no mention of maps). Howes
I32 (see also T143). Palau 119576-8. Tate, The Indians
of Texas: An Annotated Research Bibliography 2469: "The
Mexican government ordered publication of this English
translation of an official report on Indian and bandit
depredations along both sides of the Rio Grande." In
response to recurring Indian depredations and increase of
cattle rustling on the Texas-Mexican border, a Mexican
commission was formed to investigate charges by the U.S.
that the crimes were committed by Mexicans and Indians.
This report, which the Mexican government ordered in an
English translation, absolves the Mexicans of wrongdoing
and accuses the U.S. of connivance. Pingenot: A
respected southwestern scholar who examined this copy
at length commented that for its period it was comparable
in importance to the Pichardo treatise for the colonial
period of
history.
This
report can be found from time to time, but seldom with the
important maps. The first map conforms to the map found in
Gregg’s classic Commerce of the Prairie, with
an added legend in Spanish. See Wheat, Mapping of the
Transmississippi West 482 & I, p. 486: "A
cartographic landmark." Also, consult John L. Allen,
"Patterns of Promise" in Mapping the North American
Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), p.
51 & Fig. 3. This report and the Mexican version of the
Gregg map are not mentioned in Rittenhouse in his
bibliography on the Santa Fe Trail. The second map, by M.
J. Martinez, depicts the area of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon
followed by the raiding parties. The third and largest map
(dated at Monterey, December 1873) shows the Rio Grande
from its mouth to the Big Bend region. This important,
little-known, and rare map of portions of Texas, Nuevo
Leon, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas is one of the most detailed
maps of the region for that period, showing each state
along the border, towns, rivers, mountains, roads, forts,
lakes, and every Mexican and American ranch. No copy of
this report has appeared at auction for the past
thirty-five years.
($1,000-2,000)