Ayuntam[ien]to de la Villa de Allende. Borradores de la Contestac[io]n del Ayuntam[ien]to con el Exmo. Sen. Gov[ernad]or del Est[a]do de Coahuila [y] Tejas... [manuscript caption title]

[Allende, Mx, 1831. About very good.. [40]pp. Mixed folio and quarto sheets, haphazardly stitched. Light wear and dampstaining at edges; even tanning and light foxing throughout. Accomplished in several legible secretarial hands. A fascinating manuscript log of municipal bureaucracy during the early 1830s in the small Mexican village of Allende, southwest of the Rio Grande between present-day Muzquiz and the border city of Piedras Negras. The entries here comprise drafts or transcriptions of acknowledgements and responses to orders from the state government of Coahuila y Tejas from 1830 to mid-1831. In all, the log records the reception of nearly seventy decrees, orders, and circulars on a wide variety of subjects as arrived at the administrative center for this isolated municipality in the northern reaches of the state (Piedras Negras, now the largest city in the area, was not founded until 1850). A good number of the orders are related to local economics, taxes, and trade, but many also deal with political and religious issues, military matters, and other problems.

Some of the entries are short, and simply record the communication received, when and by whom, such as, "Una circular del Supremo Gov[iern]o de la Federacion, su fecha 5 de Julio del presente año, referente à que no deine [?] el espiritu publico, co la lectura del folleto titulado, 'Noticia Extraordinaria de la Derrota a loas Tropas del Gov[iern]o.' = Allende Julio 22 de 1830 = José Sanchez =." Others contain lengthy responses, such as the following airing of grievances and an enumeration of difficulties that evidently prevent the town from fulfilling its fiscal and trade obligations as requested on October 29, 1830, which includes descriptions of attacks by Native Americans:

"Ponemos por punto cardinal que siendo esta villa una de las que an adolerido los males de la a soladora guerra, se aya casi abilitada para su ejercicio laborioso a causa de que los indios barbaros del Norte an yniquilado esta poblacion en tanto grado que en el ano de dies y nuebe fueron vitimas para estos barbaros 63 almas, sin las que plaudatinamente [?] an corrido la misma suerte sin los bienes que an corrido, si sor. todo esto avido debido aun gobierno opresor que jamas oyo las voces de la osenda, ni del ver sanito [?], que mendigando para el sus tento no abia quien lo socorriera por que todos corriamos, y aun continuamos la misma suerte, can la gran diferencia de que nuestro paternal Govierno dara una mirada de compacion ha esta porcion desgraciada de este estado; y mas cuando confiados en que vos tomara por su parte las medidas analogas a nuestra felicidad...."

In all, the manuscript provides a valuable record of local governance and municipal issues in an isolated and evidently somewhat downtrodden region of Northern Mexico that would soon become the borderlands of an independent Texas.