State loan of 1831

On 18 August 1831 the state government authorised the creation of certificates to cover a loan (empréstito) it was making^{[text needed]}. The text stated that these would be accepted as legal tender (dinero efectivo) in any payment made to the state or be redeemed on a specific date. They were signed by the governor, Francisco García Salinas, and secretary, Manuel Gómez, and judicially acknowledged (tomado rázon) by Francisco de Arrieta.

Francisco García Salinas (1786 - 1841) appears on the notes of the Banco de Zacatecas. As regidor (president) of the ayuntamiento (city council) of Zacatecas he was elected to represent the state in the First Constituent Congress of Mexico in 1822 and continued to serve in the Congress as deputy and then as senator from Zacatecas from 1823 to 1827, taking a special interest in financial matters and helping to reestablish Mexico's foreign credit. In 1828 he was elected governor of his home state and his administration was a model of liberal reform (in developing mining and manufacturing, and promoting health and education) that made the state, with its strong militia, one of the bulwarks of the federal system. The defeat of the Zacatecas militia by conservative and centralist forces (boo, hiss) in 1832 and 1835 marked a turning point in the early republican history of Mexico.
Manuel Gómez Cosío
Francisco de Arrieta

Given the fact that the notes are entitled BILLETE, refer to legal tender and might have been negotiable, they can be considered as a form of paper currency.

Interestingly, by a decree dated 11 December 1829, García Salinas declared the provisional creation of a bank, in an attempt to use church property to create a bank for agricultural credit. This would appear to be the first bank established in the independent Mexico^{José Enciso Contreras, "El Banco de Fomento Agrícola de Zacatecas: Proyectos desamortizadores y de reforma agraria, en 1829 (Notas exploratorias)" in Revista Digesto Documental de Zacatecas núm. 16}.