Passenger Lists/Martin Del Campo, Cabral, Figueroa/ Zacatecas, Jalisco

Hi,

I have a research question about the following information. I wanted to
know if anyone knows whether this is true or not. "Mexican customs and
passenger lists do not begin until 1903, except for documents relating to
the expulsion of Spaniards during the period 1820-1850." Also, "all persons
traveling to New Spain had to be cleared by the Casa de la Contratacion in
Seville."

The reason I am looking into passenger lists at this time is because I am
also researching my Cabral/Figueroa line, which almost immediately takes me
to their point of immigration. My great-grandfather Alberto Martin Del
Campo married a woman named Francisca Cabral Gonzalez, a first-generation
born Mexican, whose mother and father immigrated to Mexico, Pioquinta
Gonzalez Figueroa of nobility from Madrid, Spain and Benigno Cabral, a
merchant sailor from Portugal. They eloped, sailing out of Seville,
possibly the 1850's, and got married in Zacatecas against Pioquinta's family
wishes. So, if the customs and passenger lists did not begin until 1903,
does this mean I won't find a record of their immigration?

BTW, someone placed on the IGI two people with these same names as having
been born in Guadalajara, Benigno Cabral and Pioquinta Gonzalez. If they
are the same people as my ancestors, then I think they're wrong, because
they were not born in Mexico. They didn't cite their source for that
information, however.

Corrine Ardoin