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TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS.

New Spain (extent of the whole viceroyalty without including the

kingdom of Guatimala.)

B. New Spain, properly so called, immediately subject to the viceroy, comprehending los Reynos de Mexico, Mechoacan y Nueva Galicia, and the two Californias

1. Intendencia de Mexico

2. Intendencia de Puebla

3. Intendencia de Vera Cruz

4. Intendencia de Oaxaca

5. Intendencia de Merida, or Yucatan

6. Intendencia de Valladolid

7. Intendencia de Guadalaxara

8. Intendencia de Zacatecas

9. Intendencia de Guanaxuato

10. Intendencia de San Luis Potosi, (without including New Santander, Texas, Cohahuila, and the kingdom of Leon)

11. Old California, (Antigua California) 12. New California, (Nueva California)

This statistical table proves the imperfection of the territorial division. It appears that in confiding to intendants the administration of police and finances, the object was to divide the Mexican soil on principles analogous to those followed by the French government on the division of the kingdom into generalities. In New Spain every intendancy comprehends several sub-delegations. In the same manner the generalities in France were governed by sub-delegates, who exercised their functions under the orders of the intendant. But in the formation of the Mexican intendancies, little regard has been paid to the extent of territory or the greater or less degree of concentration of the population. This new division indeed took place at a time when the ministers of the colonies, the council of the Indies, and the viceroys, were unfurnished with the necessary materials for so important an undertaking. How is it possible to possess the detail of the administration of a country of which there has never been any map, and regarding which the most simple calculations of political arithmetic have never been attempted?

Comparing the extent of surface of the Mexican intendancies, we find several of them ten, twenty, even thirty times larger than others. The intendancy of San Luis Potosi, for example, is more extensive than all European Spain, while the intendancy of Guanaxuato does not exceed in size two or three of the departments of France. The fol

lowing is an exact table of the extraordinary disproportion among the several Mexican intendancies in their territorial extent; we have arranged them in the order of their extent:

Intendancy of San Luis Potosi, 27,821 square

leagues.

of Sonora, 19,143

of Durango, 16,873
of Guadalaxara, 9,612

of Merida, 5,977

of Mexico, 5,927

of Oaxaca, 4,447

of Vera Cruz, 4,141
of Valladolid, 3,447
of Puebla, 2,696

of Zacatecas, 2,355

of Guanaxuato, 911.

With the exception of the three intendancies of San Luis Potosi, Sonora, and Durango, of which each occupies more ground than the whole empire of Great Britain, the other intendancies contain a mean surface of three or four thousand square leagues. We may compare them for extent to the kingdom of Naples, or that of Bohemia. We can conceive that the les populous a country is, the less its administration requires small divisions. In France no department exceeds the extent of 550 square leagues: the mean extent of the departments is 300. But in European Russia and Mexico

the governments and intendancies are ten times more extensive.

In France, the heads of departments, the prefects, watch over the wants of a population which rarely exceeds 450,000 souls, and which on an average we may estimate at 300,000. The governments into which the Russian empire is divided, as well as the Mexican intendancies, comprehend, notwithstanding their very different states of civilization, a greater number of inhabitants. The following table will show the disproportion of population among the territorial divisions of New Spain. It begins with the most populous intendancy, and ends with the one most thinly inhabited.

Intendancy of Mexico, 1,511,800 inhabitants.

Puebla, 813,300

Guadalaxara, 630,500

Oaxaca, 534,800

Guanaxuato, 517,300

Valladolid, 476,400

Merida, 465,700

San Luis Potosi, 331,900

Durango, 159,700

Vera Cruz, 156,000

Zacatecas, 153,000

Sonora, 121,400

It is in comparing together the tables of the

population of the twelve intendancies, and the ex

tent of their surface, that we are particularly struck with the inequality of the distribution of the Mexican population, even in the most civilized part of the kingdom. The intendancy of Puebla, which in the second table occupies one of the first places, is almost at the end of the first table. Yet no principle ought more to guide those who chalk out territorial divisions than the proportion of the population to the extent expressed in square leagues or myriametres. It is only in states like France, which enjoy the inestimable felicity of a population almost uniformly spread over their surface, that divisions will admit any thing like equality of extent. A third table exhibits the state of the population, which may be called relative. To arrive at numerical results which indicate the proportion between the number of inhabitants and extent of inhabited soil, we must divide the absolute population by the territory of the intendancies. The following are the results of this operation: Intendancy of Guanaxuato, 568 inhabitants to the square league.

Puebla, 301

Valladolid, 273

Mexico, 255

Oaxaca, 120

Merida, 81

Guadalaxara, 66

Zacatecas, 65

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