outside the republic. Lands had been disposed of by the states, it is true; they sold "concessions" and when they could not do so, they gave them away. They even disregarded the rule against alienation to foreigners of the lands near the border and the coast, but nothing was done "which merits the name of colonization."[1]
State colonization had proven such a fiasco that, after examining many grants, it was decided to annul all acts taken under the legislation that established the system. On November 25, 1853, all alienations of land since 1821 were declared void. The central government now tried its hand. On the 16th of February of the following year a decree was issued inviting European immigration and offering to settlers land and pecuniary aid. President Santa Ana then appointed a Spaniard, General Agent of Colonization, to whom he gave nearly 50,000 pesos with which the appointee promptly disappeared. Other contracts were made in 1856 for colonizing Germans in Nuevo Leon, Jalapa, and Vera Cruz and the consul of Genoa contracted to bring over a colony of Sardinians. Colonies in Sonora and Durango were to be of persons from Upper California. Others were planned in Yucatan, Chihuahua, and the Federal District. All these ventures met the same fate. What the states had not been able to do, the central government did no better. Ministers of Fomento, or the Interior, had to report failure after failure. Immigrants turned aside from Mexico to the northward. [2]
