Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the National General Archive (AGN) are working in the evaluation to identify and authenticate the historical documents from the Mexican Independence that included a letter signed by Miguel Hidalgo and that were auctioned on September 8 by Morton auction house.
Marco Palafox, legal director of the AGN, informed that on September 7, researchers warned them about the auction of historical documents that Morton held a day later. Nevertheless, hours before the event, the AGN filed a complaint against the auction house “over the possible alienation of historical documents with strong indications of being part of the Nation’s Documentary Legacy and over the commission of the auction house of informing the AGN of its intention.”
The AGN filed a complaint in which it mentioned 75 lots. Now, the AGN informed that the FGR asked it to collaborate to perform the necessary expert evidence to identify the origin of the documents and conclude their historical relevance.
“The FGR informed the AGN that the assets were under its protection and asked the AGN for its collaboration to identify the documents for the FGR does not have experts in the matter, the reason why personnel from the Direction of Documentary Heritage Preservation, as well as the legal team of the AGN, went to the FGR’s facilities, where they noticed the guard conditions of the documents were not ideal and needed a detailed inspection to be able to perform the corresponding test,” said the AGN in a release.
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However, the AGN did not explain how the documents arrived in the FGR, that is, if the FGR seized them or if Morton or a private person presented them. It did not explain either how many lots of the 75 mentioned in the complaint are being safeguarded by the FGR.
Although the AGN did not provide much detail on its release, it said there will be a diplomatic analysis of the constitutive elements of the holders of each of the documents, according to institutional criteria.
“It is stressed that they are documents from the first half of the 19th century. These documents are about several communications that were issued by relevant figures that were involved in the Mexican Independence movement so, in the first look to them shows the signatures of Miguel Hidalgo, José María Morelos y Pavón, José María Cos, José María Liceaga, Agustín de Iturbide, Javier Mina, and Juan O’Donojú, among others, which shows evidence that they are transcendental documents for the study and understanding of the national history and, hence, they could be considered part of the Nation’s Documentary Heritage,” said the AGN.
On September 8 at 17:00, despite the AGN’s complaint, Morton held the “Auction of Books and Documents on the Independence of Mexico, the First Empire, and the First Republic, History of Mexico, Explorers, Travelers and Maps” that was originally comprised of 252 although it removed one, lot 77, a letter by Miguel Hidalgo.
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Lot 77 was expected to be sold for up to MXN $150,000 and was the only one removed from the whole auction .
The other 251 lots were auctioned and although not all of them were purchased, several of them were, such as the letter written by José María Liceaga, José María Morelos y Pavón, and José María Cos, that was classified as lot 95.
Lot 95 was sold for MXN $96,000, the second-highest sum of the event.
Another document sold on the auction was lot 99, which was comprised of two letters written by Agustín de Iturbide, one from 1808 and one from 1816, for MXN $19,200.
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