NUEVO LEON. 
For only a few and relatively short periods has Nuevo Leon had close civil 
and military connection with the territory of the United States, but for nearly 
half a century the ecclesiastical connection was intimate. Nuevo Reyno de 
Leon was the oldest of the provinces of the northeastern frontier, and at 
first extended 200 leagues north of Panuco. In the later seventeenth century 
Coahuila was cut off from its western edge, and in 1747 it was still furthes 
delimited by the formation of Nuevo Santander. After that time Nuevo 
Leon was in a sense an interior province. In the later sixteenth century the 
Castafio de Sosa expedition into New Mexico was equipped in Nuevo Leon, 
as was true of the first expeditions led by De Leon into Texas a century later. 
The practice in vogue during the Spanish régime of interchanging provincial 
officials established at times a personal connection between Nuevo Ledon and 
Texas. Thus, to cite mere examples, De Leon, Salinas Varona, and Junco y 
Espriella, prominent characters in the early history of Texas, were all gov- 
ernors of Nuevo Leon. For a number of years in the early nineteenth century 
the capital of the Interior Provinces of the East, of which Texas was one, 
was at Monterrey. This fact gave Monterrey especially close connection with 
the United States during the period of the Mexican Revolution and of the 
American filibustering expeditions into Texas. Again, during the war with 
the United States, Nuevo Leon, and especially the city of Monterrey, was in 
the path of the American army of invasion. For each of these periods a 
greater or less quantity of material bearing on the United States is found in 
the civil archives of Monterrey. The direct ecclesiastical connection of 
Nuevo Leon with the United States was longer and more continuous than the 
civil and military, since for many years after 1777 the province of Texas. 
including western Louisiana, formed a part of the diocese of Nuevo Leon, or 
Linares. Of fully as great interest as the documents having to do directly 
with events in the United States are those in the ayuntamiento of Monterrey 
relating to the encomienda system. Indeed, they afford the best opportunity 
known to the writer for studying from the sources the actual workings of the 
encomiendas on the northern frontier. Finally, the close connection of the 
native tribes of northern Nuevo Leon with those of the Rio Grande border 
of the United States makes the records that throw light upon the Indians of 
the former region of special interest to students of the ethnology of the latter. 
MONTERREY. 
The principal collections of Nuevo Leén are, as a matter of course, at 
Monterrey, long the capital of the province and state. The earliest capital was 
at Leén, now Cerralvo, near the Rio Grande. 
ARCHIVO DEL AYUNTAMIENTO. 
(ARCHIVE OF THE AYUNTAMIENTO. ) 
The oldest documents are preserved in the archive of the ayuntamiento, in 
the Ayuntamiento Building, facing the main plaza of the city. There is a 
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