El Banco Mexicano

Luis Terrazas began to extend his interests into banking in 1878. On 8 March the Chihuahuan government, then headed by Angel Trias, gave Terrazas, Félix Francisco Maceyra and Antonio Asúnsolo permission to establish a bank of issue under the presumptuous name El Banco Mexicano.

The bank could issue up to 300,000 pesos in twenty-five centavos, fifty centavos and one peso notes, payable in legal tender or in hard cash at an 8% discount (en moneda corriente ó en pesos fuertes al 8 por ciento de cambio). The bank was given eight months to establish itself or the concession would lapse¹. The bank also had to satisfy the government that its issue was backed by mortgages on property, though this proviso was probably more a sign of growing refinement in drafting legislation than that this was the first concession granted to native Mexicans.  Later legislation, on 31 July 1882, inter alia, enabled the state government to appoint interventors for the bank².

Terrazas had yet to establish his pre-eminence in Chihuahua and Maceyra and Asúnsolo, his partners in this venture, were wealthy landowners in their own right. All three had been assessed at $2,000 in Trias’ forced loan of 1876³ and the last two were associates in the business firm of Asúnsolo y Maceyra⁴. By 1881 the bank was advertising that it bought ‘cattle hides, copper, lead, cotton, sugarcane’ and made advances on these items⁵ indicating that in the beginning these banks were not just concerned with financial transactions but also acted as brokers and commodity dealers.

National Bank Note Company notes

The bank's earliest notes (with the legend ‘Banco Mejicano’) were dated 1878. They were ordered by Ramón Luján and printed by the National Bank Note Company⁶ in September 1878.

The print run was:

These early 25c has small serial numbers. Most of the 50c have a brown seal as part of the background but this was changed between [133734?] and 133810 to an orange seal. The $1 note was printed in sheets of twelve notes with the range of series letters A-L thus:

and the notes were numbered sequentially in columns before the sheets were cut, thus Series A was 1, 13, 25, 37…, Series C 2, 14, 26, 38…, Series B 7, 19, 31, 43… and so on.

Signatories

The signatories are Félix Francisco Maceyra as President and Ramón Luján as Accountant (Contador).

Félix Francisco Maceyra: Maceyra was born in Chihuahua City in 1832 but after studying in Paris he set up in business in the mining town of Jesus Maria (now Ocampo). He became ‘one of the leading capitalists in the state, enjoying unlimited credit in Mexico and the United States’⁷. In 1880 he was one of the founding shareholders of the bank and as manager in May 1881 inaugurated the first telephone line in the city between the bank and the mint (Casa de Moneda). He was substitute governor in 1885 and afterwards represented Chihuahua in the Senate for three terms. He died in 1897.

Ramón Remigio Luján: He appears as contador on the Banco Mejicano notes and later as cashier (cajero) of the Banco Mexicano from September 1888 until December 1890 and again between May 1893 and December 1895. Born in 1833, Luján was the owner of the Corralitos mines, a state deputy, and jefe político of Galeana. He died in 1899.

Offices

The bank's offices were originally the premises used by Félix Francisco Maceyra at [      ]  and in 1881 were at the corner of Independencia and Victoria.