Exceedingly Rare Document Signed by the Original Residents of Texas

Mexico, 1768. unbound. 2 pages in Spanish (roughly translated), 16.5 x 12 inches, A Royal Proclamation: El Marquis de Croix, March 9, 1768, ordering the mine owners to make concessions and increase wages, in small part: "...A decline in mining...the mines have the common enemy of water, which has flooded them...the excessive construction cost of which the Kingdom has no wealth. Is the relief moderation the price you ask as the best mines are completely uninhabited and desolate? Send my fatherly love to my vassals (subjects)...I'll strive by all means...that they are fruitful. I've visited the Council of the Indies. Faith issued...and the moderate price of quicksilver...which is distributed to the miners, a part of the quarto, has so far been given for relief to support the work...I command you, with consequences, that you publish and carefully observe that the above ceiling of a fourth part of the price at which would have been taken in quicksilver...be given to the miners...ending the embargo. Also, by Royal Proclamation, inserted within, it is free of tax." Also signed by Manuel Rodriguez (1697 - 1772) -- military leader on the Coahuila-Texas frontier, esteemed explorer, and one of the greatest Indian fighters from Texas. After the departure of Jacinto de Barrios y Jaurequi in February of 1768, he became brief interim governor and military commandant of the Province. Rare signature as Commandant and Governor of the Province. According to the Texas State Historical Association, "It was not until recently that archivists were aware that Rodriguez was a Governor...a fact scarcely noted by historians. Horizontal fold; two holes; smudges in the left margin. Very good(-) condition.<br/><br/> De Croix (1699 - 1786) was the Viceroy of New Spain [Mexico] who served during the period of Great Turbulence. The sole purpose of his five-year administration (1766 - 1771) was absolute obedience to the king, whom he always referred to as "Mi amo." In 1767 he expelled the Jesuits from the colony, removing them from their Monasteries and Colleges, allowing them to leave with scarcely the clothes on their backs. These measures provoked a rebellion in which the Viceroy dealt severely with the rebels, proclaiming censorship of literary and scientific publications (1768) and hanging the leaders of the uprising. No sooner had opposition been eliminated, de Croix turned his attention toward the war-seeking Apache and Comanche Indian tribes, financing and authorizing an expedition led by Captain de Galvez into Nueva Vizcaya, whereby the Indians were soundly defeated. In March 1768, following the slow-downs, boycotts and disturbances in the mines of Guanajuato and Pachuca over the low wages paid to the miners, de Croix stunned the Colony by siding with the miners and forcing the mine owners to agree to an increase in wages. His actions were deemed "one of the most significant social reforms in the New World" at that time.<br/><br/>