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226 crossed," hold itself together. Its misfortune had been the result of its impotence and of the fact that its more remote districts "found themselves almost foreign. . . to the civilization of the center of the country." For a time efforts seem to have been confined to internal colonization. Military colonies were set up, especially on the northern frontier where "invasions by adventurers from Upper California" were feared. Thirty of these outposts were established, seven in Sonora, seven in Chihuahua, four in Nuevo Leon, six in Coahuila, four in Durango, and two in Lower California. But the enemies of order were not alone in the north and similar establishments had to be set up in Tehuantepec, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, and even in the State of Mexico itself. These colonies were of 100 mounted men and their families, to whom, in return for a promise to stay in the colony six years, the government gave a monthly salary, land, construction materials, laboring tools, and seeds for the first crop. The settlements were, of course, of exceptional character; they did not promise to satisfy the country's need for greater population nor the desire for European population. Further, the settlements once established could not be given the promised support, because of the poverty of the treasury.

How real was the Mexican need of immigration is shown by comparing her population and her area. The states of the northern frontier were possessed but in no