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| One peso 1823 Mexican banknote, issued by the National Treasury |
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| This 1823 One peso banknote was printed on the backs of Catholic bulls to encourage their usage by the Mexican people |
Mexico 1 Peso 1823 banknote Tesoreria de la Nacion
1 Peso Republic of Mexico bank note dated from April 11, 1823. Las Tesorerias de la Nacion (The Treasury of the Nation). It is printed on the back side of an 1819 Papal Bull (lent authorization issued by the Vatican giving the owner permission to eat meat on Lent). This banknote was put into circulation in May 1823, after the fall of Agustin de Iturbide’s First Mexican Empire. It is important to contextualize this document within Mexican history in order to understand its importance.
Independence, Empire, and the Republic of Mexico
Mexico’s War of Independence from Spain began on September 16, 1810 and ended in 1821. In 1821, after the proclamation of the Plan of Iguala (in February) and the Treaty of Cordoba (in August of the same year), which recognized Mexican independence from Spain, Agustin de Iturbide was proclaimed President of the Regency. Not long afterward, in May 1822, Iturbide crowned himself First Emperor of Mexico. Iturbide abdicated his throne in March 1823, after the signing of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana’s Plan of Casa Mata, which sought to reinstate the Mexican Congress, declare the empire null, and no longer recognize Iturbide as the emperor.
Brief history of Mexican currency
The history of currency in Mexican is situated within the nation’s turbulent history. During the War of Independence New Spain’s mines– which supplied the gold, silver, and copper for minting coins– were abandoned. Due to the poor economic situation and the abandonment of the mines, Mexico turned to paper currency (or banknotes) in 1822, during Emperor Iturbide’s reign. The general public, however, was used to using coins and, consequently, rejected these banknotes (“Conoce la historia”).
After the fall of the Empire in 1823, the new Mexican Republic retired the imperial banknote from circulation as part of their efforts to reestablish the public’s trust in the government’s financial management. The poor economic situation, however, did not improve and the government decided to print paper currency or banknotes, once again (“Conoce la historia”).
This one peso banknote is one of the national banknotes issued in 1823 under the new Mexican Republic. It was printed with the national seal of Mexico, the eagle on a cactus, and says the following:
"The National Treasury will pay ONE PESO, precisely and exclusively substituting this new paper in exchange for those that bear the previous seal, whose fabrication and exchange has ceased in accordance with a decree issued by the sovereign Congress on April 11 of last year. Mexico May 5, 1823." (One peso).
To avoid the public’s rejection, as had previously occurred during the Empire, the government decided to print this new paper currency on the backs of Catholic bulls. The government made this decision based on the idea that the Mexican people’s religiosity would encourage them to use the banknotes. Yet, the banknotes were rejected once again (“Conoce la historia”). The possibility of a paper shortage during the poor economic situation that Mexico found itself in after the War of Independence and the fall of the First Empire could have also influenced the decision to recycle another document or old paper.
Paper currency was not accepted by the Mexican public until 1864, during the Second Mexican Empire under Emperor Maximilian, when the Bank of London, Mexico, and South America, a private bank, was put in charge of issuing currency.
Verso: Catholic Bull
On the other side of this banknote is an eighteenth century Bull of the Holy Crusades. A Bull of the Holy Crusades is a bull that granted indulgences in exchange for a monetary contribution. This contribution was used to finance wars against infidels.
Summary of the Bull of the Holy Crusades
This particular eighteenth century bull concedes “the use of eggs and dairy during Lent (with the exception of Holy Week).” These indulgences were conceded to “Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, lesser Prelates, and Secular Presbyterians” (One peso). These ecclesiastics paid different amounts, according to their position. The archbishop, for example, had to pay four pesos of assayed silver, while the secular presbyterians only had to pay one peso of assayed silver. The use of the phrase “assayed silver” in this bull reminds us that coins made of silver and not paper currency were used during this time period.