Excerpt from Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum: January, 1909<br><br>On June 25, 1856, President Comonfort, of Mexico, promulgated a law forbidding religious and civil corporations to own or administer real estate other than churches and schools and the churches and religious orders were allowed three months to dispose of their holdings. The clergy, however, sought to evade the law by buying in the. Property through third parties, and many complications arose.<br><br>On July 12, 1859, following the triumph of the Liberal Party in Mexico, the long-discussed 'measure was finally decided by Juarez, who nationalized clergy property by an edict published at Vera Cruz. By this drastic decree, all property held by convents and religious orders was confiscated by the government and ordered to be sold. Although this law was not put into operation until December 27, 1860, and then did not specifically include the nunneries, these, with the exceptions of the Sisters of Charity, shared in the common fate from February, 1861, to February, 1863, and by March, 1863, the nationalization of clergy property was an accomplished fact.<br><br>This is not. The place, nor is. There any occasion for a discussion of the event in its political, financial, or ethical aspects, and it is only referred to here in order to make perfectly clear the facts concerning the placing upon the market and the acquisition of the remarkable piece of post - Columbian native art here described.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.