I, the citizen GREEN DE WITT, empresario for the introduction of immigrant foreigners into the colony which the supreme government of the state of Coahuila and Texas has assigned to me by the contract entered into between the said government and the said De Witt, certify:
That Squire Burns is one of the colonists whom I have introduced in virtue of my contract above mentioned; that he arrived in this colony on the 15 day of the month of August of the year 1826; that he is single and his family consists of one persons, according to the signed statement that he has presented to me; and that he says he has taken before alcalde 280 the oath provided for by article three of the state colonization law. 281
I give this certificate to the above-mentioned Squire Burns to present to the commissioner, named by the government to distribute lands and issue titles, as a testimony that he comes under my said contract.
This document shall be null if it appears that the statement made by the person concerned is false in any particular, or if before receiving his title of possession he leaves the colony to settle in some other locality.
Green De Witt. Town of Gonzales, 4 of May 1830.
Mr. Commissioner:
I, Squire Burns, a native of the United States of the North, appear before you observing the formalities of the law, saying: that I am one of the individuals admitted by the empresario, Green De Witt, to settle, in accordance with the state colonization law, upon lands in his colony, as will be shown by the certificate which I enclose; that I am single; and that I have not yet received the title to the land which belongs to me as a colonist. I therefore beg you that in the exercise of your functions you put me in possession of a quarter of a sitio of land, which is entirely vacant and is located on the north-east bank of the Guadalupe River, about a mile below the Anastasio crossing, by which justice will be done me.
Squire Burns. Gonzales, July 9, 1831.
Town of Gonzales, July 9, 1831.
To the empresario Green De Witt in order that he may inform me by writing if the petitioner is the true owner of the certificate which he presents, if this certificate is legitimate, if what he says in his petition is true, and especially if the land he desires is entirely vacant and included within the limits of his colony, adding anything else that it may seem well to mention.
Navarro.
Gonzales, July 9, 1831. Mr. Commissioner:
In view of your above request I reply that the petitioner is the true owner of the certificate that he encloses in his petition as colonist introduced in virtue of my contract and in accordance with the law. Therefore, I consider him worthy of the favor that he begs, the land he desires being vacant and included within the limits of my colony.
Green De Witt.
Let the title of ownership be extended to him in order that by means of it he may possess and enjoy the land according to law. And I hereby so provide, command, and approve by my signature.
José Antonio Navarro.
In the above-mentioned town of Gonzales on the tenth day of the month of July, one thonsand eight hundred and thirty-one, I, José Antonio Navarro, special commissioner of the supreme government of the state of Coahuila and Texas to distribute and give possession of vacant lands in the colony contracted for by the empresario, Green De Witt, with the said supreme government, in accordance with the document which precedes and in view of the fact that Squire Burns has been received as a colonist under the colonization contract mentioned above, as is attested by the preceding report of the empresario, and because the said Squire Burns has shown that he is single and because he himself fulfills the requirements which the state colonization law of March 24, 1825, provides; in conformity with the aforesaid law, the contract, the instructions dated September 4, 1827, by which I am governed, and the commission conferred upon me by the most excellent governor of the state in his order of January 20 of the current year of 1831, in the name of the same state concede, grant, and give real, actual, corporal, and virtual possession of one-fourth of a sitio of land to the said Squire Burns, which land, having been measured by the expert surveyor, Byrd Lockhart, previously appointed in legal form, is situated and bounded as follows: [Here are given the field notes.]
The above-mentioned land which by the said field notes appears to to the surveyor to be pasture lands, with three labors of temporales, I, the aforesaid commissioner, in the exercise of the power which the law gives me and in faithful accordance with my knowledge and understanding, characterize and classify in conformity with [the opinion of] said surveyor.
This serves to fix the price that he is to pay the state for it, which is eleven pesos and forty centavos, payable in the way prescribed by the twenty-second article of the said law, under the penalties therein provided, of which he is well informed, as well as of the fact that within the term of one year he must construct permanent land-marks on each corner of the land, and that he must settle and cultivate it in conformity with what the aforesaid law prescribes.
Therefore exercising the powers which are conceded me by the same law and by the instructions issued in accordance with it, I issue the present instrument, and command that a legal copy of it be taken and be delivered to the interested party in order that he may possess and enjoy the said land, he, his children, heirs, and successors, or whoever from him or from them may have cause of action or claim, which I this day sign together with two witnesses present with me, in conformity with the law.
José Antonio Navarro. Witness, Witness, Thomas R. Miller. José Ramon Bedford.
280. See page 99.
281. Evidently this reference is to article 3 of the instructions to commissioners issued September 4, 1827.
How to cite:
"APPENDIX IV. A TITLE TO LAND SECURED UNDER THE EMPRESARIO SYSTEM.1 (TRANSLATION.)", Volume 008, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 176 - 178. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v008/n2/back_5.html
[Accessed Tue Dec 2 0:00:54 CST 2008]
