Carta de un amigo a su corresponsal sobre Mayorazgos.... [text begins:] Las reflecsiones que V. me hace en su estimable son tan justas, como propias de sus luces y prudencia. Al que no conoce dice ....

[Colophon] (Santiago de Chile), Imprenta de la Biblioteca, (1826).. FIRST and ONLY EDITION. Folio (29 x 18.5 cm.), disbound (separated at fold). Caption title. Very light foxing. Overall in good to very good condition. A few early corrections to text. Early manuscript foliation in ink. (2 ll.) *** FIRST and ONLY EDITION. Argues that the heated debate over mayorazgos is taking time and energy that should be directed toward more important matters. Although advocates of abolishing the institution claim that they wish to do so for the sake of agriculture and the population, Chile is so thinly populated that the effect of abolition would be negligible: "¡y se nos quiere hacer creer ahora que no pueden subsistir 17 mayorazgos en Chile sin que perazcamos de hambre!"The mayorazgo, a form of primogeniture that prevented large estates from being dispersed, became part of Castilian law in 1505 and was carried over into Latin America. After Spain suppressed the mayorazgo in 1820 by the Ley Desvinculadora, debate raged between Chilean liberals and conservatives over its abolition. O'Higgins abolished the mayorazgo by a decree of June 1818 that was ignored. The Constitution of 1828 abolished it, too, but it was effectively reinstated by the Constitution of 1833, and not abolished completely until the 1850s, under President Montt.*** Briseño I, 199: giving the date as 1826. Not located in CCPBE. Not located in Rebiun. Not located in Jisc.