THE FIRST AMERICAN MINING CODE

Authors

Arthur S. Aiton, History, University of Michigan

Abstract

It is characteristic of Spain's priority in the New; World that the first American mining law should have been developed in Mexico, soon after the conquest by Cortes, as a natural result of the extension of royal authority overseas in the person of the first viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza. The surprising fact is that this code, despite recent interest aroused by the Mexican petroleum controversy, extensive American mining investments south of the Rio Grande and its probable influence on early western mining legislation, has remained unknown. Scholars and investigators have been content with later colonial and republican legal sources without bothering to trace the various provisions contained therein back to their origin in the early years when Mexican mining was in its infancy and Spanish law was going through the process of transference and of alteration to meet different colonial conditions. It is the purpose of this article to present an analysis of this primitive body of laws prefaced by a brief history of the beginning of the mining industry in New Spain.

Recommended Citation

Arthur S. Aiton, THE FIRST AMERICAN MINING CODE, 23 Mich. L. Rev. 105 (1924).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol23/iss2/2