Higher value notes of Miguel and Ignacio Cornejo

At the time of the Mexican revolution the peninsula of Baja California was divided administratively into two territories. In the south the Huertista General Gregorio Osuna held out until he evacuated La Paz in March 1914 and the Constitutionalists moved in. There the need for currency to pay troops and facilitate commerce was greater and on 21 August 1914 the jefe político of southern Baja California, Miguel Cornejo, acting on an authorization that he had received on 30 April from General Alvaro Obregón, as chief of the Ejército del Noroeste, authorized an issue of notes in three denominations (five, ten and twenty pesos)^{[text needed]}.

These are signed by either Miguel or Ignacio Cornejo.

Miguel L. Cornejo Romero was born in San Antonio, Baja California, on 25 August 1857. In 1894 he was granted permission to build a railway from La Paz to El Triunfo, with the right to extend to Todos Santos or Pescadero del Pacífico. However, the concession was nullified in February 1895 because Cornejo could not provide the $5,000 surety requiredLa Patria, Año XIX, Núm. 4,567, 5 February 1895. Miguel was also involved in the pearl trade. Together with his brothers Carlos and Ignacio, he was the owner of the Compañía Perlífera de Baja California, which they transferred in 1897 to the English company La MangaraEl Contemporaneo, 31 December 1897, the same one that ultimately exercised the monopoly for pearl fishing. According to Juan Preciado, Miguel was part of a group headed by Gastón J. Vives that formed the Compañía Criadora de Concha y Perla de la Baja California. By 1912, Cornejo owned the maritime concession called Chamela, owned a business making pearl shell buttons in La Paz, founded in August 1905, and was involved in the extraction of salt from the flats located south of the island of Pichilingue. Miguel was elected an alternate federal deputy in 1908, At the 1912 elections he was chosen as the candidate for alternate deputy for the Comité Democrático Californiano, being presented as a man with liberal and progressive ideas, of impeccable customs, hardworking and busy in the welfare of the regionEl Sermón del Cura, La Paz, núm. 9, 5 June 1912. He went on to win. At the beginning of September 1913 he was appointed president of Comité Ejecutivo Electoral de Propaganda en el Distrito Sur de Baja California. On Madero’s death, he became a Constitutionalist, providing economic support to the movement. On 30 April 1914, Obregón appointed him prefecto político of the Distrito Sur, without it becoming effective immediately. Because of personal rivalries with the former municipal president Gastón J. Vives, owner of the Compañía Criadora de Concha y Perlas de Baja California, S.A., he ordered the total destruction of the nurseries established on the islands of Espíritu Santo and San José. He assumed political functions and, at his ranch La Lagunilla, agreed to the agreement for the withdrawal of the Huertista forces. Together with General Félix Ortega Aguilar, they made the agreement in Santa Rosalía, Baja California, for the withdrawal of the Huertista forces from the Partido Central. In the 19020s Miguel was a shareholder of the casa comercial M. L. Cornejo y Cía, merchants in fine pearls, pearl shell and salt, and agents for various businesses. He died in La Paz, on 5 October 1933.

Ignacio L. Cornejo was born in 1865. Like his brother he was involved in the pearl trade. He was elected as a síndico in La Paz in the elections for 1913-1914 and participated in Ortega’s meeting at Las Playitas de la Concepción.

Some are known with a resello 'AYUNTAMIENTO DE LA MUNICIPALIDAD DE SAN ANTONIO, B. C.'.

Carranza specifically confirmed the legitimacy of this issue when he wrote to Miguel Cornejo from Mexico City on 5 September telling him that he could continue issuing obligaciones to cover his costs until they could be exchanged for notes (Puede usted seguir emitiendo obligaciones para cubrir haberes mientras se le mandan billetes para ser canjeados). In all matters, military and political, Cornejo was to obey only Carranza himself or Obregón^{Boletín Oficial, Gobierno Constitucionalista de México, La Paz, 21 September 1914. Note that Cornejo's successor, Félix Ortega, in his manifesto, distinguished between issuing paper money and issuing obligaciones to state employees}.

On 9 February 1915 General Brigadier Félix Ortega, the new jefe político, decreed (decree núm. 1) that these Cornejo notes were null and worthless. Annulling the Cornejo notes caused upset in La Paz and the town council (which included the leading businessmen) told Ortega that his decree would be severely detrimental because the lack of funds would means people could not buy necessities and small businesses would grind to a halt. Ortega replied that the decree was intended to avoid the economic isolation of the territory as the Cornejo notes were not accepted on the mainland opposite and that he was attempting to put into circulation a currency that would be accepted in Sonora, Sinaloa and Tepic. He added that holders of large quantities of Cornejo notes could exchange them over time for notes of general circulation (such as the sábanas and dos caritas of Chihuahua, and the issues of Sinaloa’s Riveros and the Estado de Sonora issue. Besides, the lower value cartones with the Jefatura’s resello still remained in circulation to facilitate day-to-day transactions. Finally, troops and public employees were being paid with notes of general circulation, so these would be available.

On 11 February the Presidente Municipal Interino of Todos Santos, Valente Salgado, published Ortega’s decree, as soon as he received it but asked what to do with the $450 in such notes in the Tesorería and was told to hold on to them^{ABCS, Gobernación, vol. 642, exp. 150}.

In correspondence and meetings over the next few weeks there is mention of withdrawing the local paper currency, but this seems to refer to the local vales rather then this Cornejo issue, which seems to have just lost its value. However, a week after the Carrancista  Urbano Angulo took over, on 13 July 1915 he wrote to Coronel José J. Obregón, in charge in Mazatlán, that the merchants in La Paz could not trade with Sinaloa because they lacked the requisite paper money and so Angulo thought it convenient to send various sizeable packets of Cornejo currency in the hope that they could be exchanged so that the public in La Paz could acquire basic necessities^{ABCS, Gobernación, vol. 646bis, exp. 63}. The amounts sent over, totalling $30,455, were^{ABCS, Gobernación, vol. 647 2.2, exp. 46}

A $5 note is known with two resellos of the Distrito de Mazatlán and a stamp 'Retirado de la Circ'^{[image needed]}.

When, on [              ], Crispín Rodas y A. rose in favour of Villa, he decreed^{[text needed]} that people had to accept the Cornejo notes.

When Ortega’s decree núm. 1 invalidated the Cornejo notes the French doctor V. Lacavalerie was left holding $865 of them and thus unable to buy medicine from the States^{ABCS, Gobernación, vol. 642, exp. 150}.

A year later, on 31 January 1916 the Comandante Militar, Urbano Angulo, wrote to Carranza that holders of Cornejo notes were asking if they were valid, and so he asked for a decision^{ABCS, Hacienda, vol. 658 1/2, exp. 50}. Carranza replied on 3 February that his Primera Jefatura had not authorised the issue^{ABCS, Gobernación, vol. 658 2/2, exp.189} whereupon Angulo had to remind Carranza that in September 1914 Cornejo had published Carranza’s message authorising the issue^{México Palacio Nacional. El 15 de Septiembre de 1914. La Paz. – M. L. Cornejo, Jefe Político. – Puede Ud seguir emitiendo obligaciones para cubrir haberes mientras se le mandan billetes para ser canjeados. – Tanto en asunto militares – como políticos de esa península unicamente atenderá Ud. ordenes de esta Primera Jefatura y del Gral Obregón Jefe del Ejército del noroeste. – V. Carranza. (ABCS, Gobernación, vol. 658 2/2, exp.189)}.