true sense occupied. Lower California, over which neither Spain nor Mexico had ever had effective control, was practically without inhabitants—it had about one inhabitant to every seven square miles. The character of the country there, it is true, assured that it would never support any large population. The frontier units to the eastward made a somewhat better showing. Sonora had 1.69 inhabitants per square mile, Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico had 3.07. The frontier divisions, with an area of about 400,000 square miles, or over half of that of the republic, had a population of less than a million, and that population lived under such conditions that its rapid increase and material progress were unlikely.[1]
Practically a generation after state promotion of colonization was authorized it was confessedly a failure. Colonists were unwilling to come to a country torn by disorder. The state governments were not strong enough to carry out the subsidies they promised. The modifications adopted after 1824 were not acted upon any more than the original measure. On June 1, 1839, a great quantity of lands was marked out, which was to be sold for payment of the public debt. Seventeen years later not a single conversion had been made. On December 4, 1846, a junta of distinguished persons was created to foster colonization but nothing was done. In 32 years following 1824 not a single colony had been formed, by a state, of individuals who had come from
- ↑ The statistics for 1861, on which this estimate is made are, at best, only approximately correct. They are taken from Carlos Butterfield. The United States and Mexico, Washington, 1861, pp. 9-11.
