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LAND IN CALIFORNIA
The story of mission lands, Spanish and Mexi- can ranchos, squatter rights, mining claims, rail- road grants, land scrip, homesteads, tidelands.
By W. W. ROBINSON
LAND IN CALIFORNIA
By W. W. ROBINSON
The story of land ownership in California from the days when the Indians were in possession to the present.
The author discusses the mis- sionary empire, the ranchos under Spain and Mexico, the role of the United States Land Commission, the squatter movement, mining claims, railroad lands, and the title stories of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
He also describes the various types of land allocations, including homesteads, preëmption claims, desert .entries, military bounty warrants, federal townsites, swamp and overflowed lands, national forests, and tidelands.
In addition, this book includes the story of California's settlers, subdividers, and title companies. The material is drawn from origi- nal sources, including printed ma- terial and manuscripts found in archives, official records, the files of title companies, and libraries.
A volume in the Chronicles of California.
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1 St Edition
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LAND IN CALIFORNIA
Chronicles of California
LAND IN CALIFORNIA
THE STORY OF MISSION LANDS RANCHOS, SQUATTERS, MINING CLAIMS, RAILROAD GRANTS LAND SCRIP, HOMESTEADS
By W. W. ROBINSON
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley and Los Angeles . 1948
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, ENGLAND
COPYRIGHT, 1948, BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY WIFE IRENE ROBINSON
Foreword
T T THE CHRONICLES OF CALIFORNIA are projected as a series in which qualified scholars may write on well-defined segments of the state's his- tory. Some books, like the present one, will follow a particular theme through the whole span from earliest times to the present. Others will develop subjects that are chronologically more compact, such as the story of the discovery of gold and the Gold Rush. Conjointly the volumes will touch on practically all phases of California's experience.
This series is under the general editorship of Herbert E. Bolton and John W. Caughey. It is launched by the University of California as an enduring commemoration of the state's centen- nial.
Preface
I N THE collection and choice of material for Land in California, and in its writing, I am indebted to many persons, some of whom gave good advice upon the preparation of the manuscript as a whole, others of whom lent a hand upon particular parts.
John Walton Caughey suggested the project and was most helpful in keeping me in the straight and narrow path during the course of my effort. Herbert Eugene Bolton, with encouragement and counsel, and Robert Glass Cleland, with friendly and interested assistance, played important parts in enabling me to carry through this study. Frederick Webb Hodge was generous with help on the Indian phase, J. N. Bowman gave excellent pointers and helped me avoid some pitfalls on rancho and Land Commission subjects.
Leslie E. Bliss, Robert O. Schad, and Carey S. Bliss, of the Huntington Library; George P. Hammond and Eleanor Bancroft, of the Bancroft Library; Mabel R. Gillis, of the California State Library; Lawrence Clark Powell, of the University of California Library, Los An- geles; Laura C. Cooley, of the Los Angeles Public Library; Anna Begue Packman, Secretary of the Historical Society of Southern California; Helen S. Giffen, of the Society of California Pioneers; and Ella L. Robinson, of the South- west Museum Library, were all good enough to place in- teresting and important library resources at my disposal.
C. W. Calbreath, of the United States District Court, San Francisco; P. M. Hamer and W. L. G. Joerg, of the National Archives, Washington, D.C .; Joel David Wolf- sohn, of the Bureau of Land Management, Washington,
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Preface
D.C .; and D. M. B. Peatross, of the Public Survey Office, Glendale, extended their help. Charles K. Adams and W. W. Reyburn threw light on railroad titles. Robert J. Woods allowed me to browse contentedly in his lush Californiana. William W. Clary was generous with his material on tidelands.
A number of men in the title insurance business in various California cities gave special help, among them: Benj. J. Henley and the late Donzel Stoney, of San Fran- cisco; Jas. D. Forward and George Heyneman, of San Diego; W. W. McEuen, of El Centro; Allen S. Mobley, of San Luis Obispo; L. R. Pettijohn, of Hanford; C. J. Hironymous, of Stockton; Stuart O'Melveny, W. Herbert Allen, Walter Clark, Lawrence Otis, and Ben Utter, of Los Angeles; George P. Anderson, of Ukiah; Geo. A. Parker, of Santa Ana; and Floyd Cerini, Executive Secre- tary of the California Land Title Association.
In the reprinting of part of "The Strange Case of Thomas Valentine" permission was obtained from the Automobile Club of Southern California, through Phil Townsend Hanna, editor and general manager of West- ways, in which the article originally appeared.
Through the courtesy of Edward Weston, three of his photographs are used. The drawings for the chapter vignettes are the work of Irene Robinson.
Title Insurance and Trust Company, Los Angeles, also permitted reproduction of a number of pictures from its Historical Collection.
Constance Riebe gave secretarial assistance. Lucie E. N. Dobbie, University of California Press, gave editorial help.
W. W. ROBINSON
Los Angeles, 1948
Contents
CHAPTER
PAGE
I. Whose California?
.
1
II. First Owners .
5
III. Missionary Empire
23
IV. Four Square Leagues
33
V. First Rancheros .
45
VI. Gifts of Land .
59
VII. Chain of Title
73
VIII. The Land Commission
91
IX. Shotgun Titles
111
X. Titles in El Dorado .
133
XI. Land Grants to Railroads .
147
XII. Land for Settlers .
163
XIII. Land Scrip .
177
XIV. The State as Owner .
185
XV. Buying and Selling California
199
XVI. Insurance of Title
213
XVII. Title Story of Two Cities
229
APPENDIX
I. Boundary and Property Provisions of the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
249
II. Act for the Admission of California into the Union . 252
III. Act to Ascertain and Settle the Private Land
Claims in the State of California
253
BIBLIOGRAPHY .
259
INDEX .
275
Illustrations
PAGE
Diseño showing Cahuenga Pass and part of the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles County . 47
Diseño of Rancho San José de Buenos Ayres, Los Angeles County . 54
Diseño of Cañada de los Nogales, Los Angeles County . 62
California in 1846 68
Diseño of Rancho Cañada de los Alisos, Orange County 70
Diseño of Rancho La Merced, Los Angeles County . 96
Diseño of Rancho Tajauta, Los Angeles County . 104 Diseño of Rancho Santa Anita, Los Angeles County . 108
The Ygnacio Martínez Adobe, Rancho El Pinole, Contra Costa County 117
The Raimundo Yorba Adobe, Rancho Rincón, San Bernardino County 117
New Almaden Mining Camp, Santa Clara County
.
118
Store at New Almaden .
118
John Temple's Conveyance of Rancho Los Cerritos, 1866 119
Bodega Coast, by Edward Weston . 120
Tomato Field, Monterey County, by Edward Weston . 120
Owens Valley, by Edward Weston
121
Foothill Scene, Southern California
121
San Francisco Water Lots, 1856 . 122
Oil Wells at Summerland, Santa Barbara County
122
Transfer of Valentine Land Scrip, 1875 -
123
San Luis Obispo, about 1890
124
Claremont and Mt. San Antonio, about 1907
124
[xiii ]
CHAPTER I
Whose California?
THE STORY OF California can be told in terms of its land. Better still, it can be told in terms of men and women claiming the land. These men and women form a pro- cession that begins in prehistory and comes down to the present moment.
Heading the procession are Indians, stemming out of a mysterious past, speaking a babel of tongues, and laying claims to certain hunting, fishing, and acorn-gathering areas-possessory claims doomed to fade quickly before conquering white races.
Following the brown-skinned Indians are Spanish- speaking soldiers, settlers, and missionaries who, in 1769, began coming up through Lower California and taking over the fertile coast valleys and the harbors of California. Their laws were the Laws of the Indies controlling Span- ish colonization and governing ownership of land. Mis- sions, presidios, pueblos, and ranchos were born in the period of these people.
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Land in California
A few Russians are in the procession because of their temporary establishment-without consent of Spain-of Fort Ross, north of San Francisco Bay. These men, hunt- ers of seals and otters, came down the coast in 1812 and left in 1841, after selling their equipment to Swiss- adventurer John A. Sutter.
Citizens of Mexico are in line, too, for in 1822 the flag of Spain yielded to that of Mexico at California's capital city of Monterey. They carried on the Spanish tradition in landownership, with embellishments of their own. Ranchos had their flowering during California's Mexican regime.
Americans follow, some before, but most of them after, the Mexican War. As a result of the war California be- came a part of the Union and a board of commissioners was set up to help segregate private land claims (of Spanish and Mexican origin) from public lands of the United States. Of these Americans there was and is no end-nor of the law books that hold their beliefs about landownership.
Today, all publicly and privately owned land in Cali- fornia may be grouped according to origin of title.
First of all there are the lands-mostly rancho and pueblo-the titles to which were granted by, or derived from, Spanish or Mexican authority before the American period in California's history, and which later received United States confirmation. Rancho land took in some of the best pasture and agricultural areas of the state.
Then there are the "public lands"-so called-of the United States. These lands were unconveyed under Span- ish or Mexican authority and are outside rancho and original pueblo areas, though once a part of the land vested in the King of Spain and later the Mexican nation.
3
Whose California?
They passed directly to the United States with the cession of California by Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Most of the public domain in California has been conveyed by the United States directly to indi- viduals or to corporate or governing bodies or has been reserved. Public lands include those conveyed under American laws governing preëmption, homestead, desert, timber culture, and timber and stone entries, military bounty warrants and scrip, mining claims, federal town- sites, railroad titles, and Indian reservations. Some of the public lands are now within national forests or national parks set apart for the all-time benefit of the people.
In addition, there are what are called "state lands." These include those which Congress, early in California's American period, granted to the State of California out of the public domain to supply it with the means to raise funds for education and reclamation. These lands also in- clude those in which the state has, or had, at least a quali- fied ownership, such as lands under inland navigable waters, rivers, harbors, even tidelands down to the low- water mark.
Within the boundaries of California, as defined in its constitution, is the three-mile wide coastal strip of sub- merged land extending oceanward from the line of low- water mark. Until June 23, 1947, this strip was thought to be owned by the State of California as a sovereign power. On that date the United States Supreme Court denied this ownership and asserted paramount rights of the federal government. This decision is subject, of course, to possible later Congressional action.
How and why the rich land of California came into the hands of its present owners is the story to be told here- with comment along the way about Indians, missions,
4
Land in California
presidios, pueblos, ranchos, squatters, miners, railroad companies, settlers, subdividers, real estate brokers, re- cording systems, title companies, and bulging cities.
CHAPTER II
First Owners
BEFORE THERE were white men in California, that is, be- fore the year 1769, there were Indians, at least 150,000 of them. Some authorities have estimated their number then as high as 250,000.
What we know about the cultures of these California Indians and their relation to other Indian cultures we owe to the anthropologist.
The Mohaves, living in the southeastern part of the state, were an organized tribe, it seems, but in most parts of California the tribal system was probably only in its beginnings or did not exist at all. For example, the Yurok and Karok people of northern California did not recog- nize any organization higher than that of individuals or of kindred. Even the village was not a unit. Prewhite Cali- fornia was a babel of tongues, with a new language every few miles. In fact there were a greater number of unre- lated languages in California than in any equal area in the world.
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Land in California
Through occupancy and use, the California tribes, groups, villages, even individuals, had gradually estab- lished claims to, or the rights to possess, certain acorn- gathering lands, certain hunting grounds where deer abounded, certain fishing streams, certain fields, forests, and chaparral-clad hills that could give men and women the wherewithal to feed and clothe themselves as well as to furnish them medicines and materials for their arts.
The Indian conception of the earth as the mother who provides food for her children is presented by the late Alice C. Fletcher in a general discussion of land tenure among American Indians in the all-encompassing Hand- book of American Indians North of Mexico edited by Frederick Webb Hodge. "In this primitive and religious sense," explains this authority, "land was not regarded as property, it was like the air, it was something necessary to the life of the race, and therefore not to be appropriated by any individual or group of individuals to the perman- ent exclusion of all others." Occupancy, therefore, was the only land tenure recognized by Indians. Generally speak- ing, so long as they lived on certain village sites or so long as they went regularly to certain hunting grounds, the members of a tribe could claim them against intruders. Actually, the struggle over rights to hunting grounds was the cause of most Indian wars in America.
Bearing these fundamental generalizations about land tenure in mind, it will be worth while to consider the viewpoints of different California groups regarding prop- erty, especially real property. We must look primarily to A. L. Kroeber, whose studies of these groups-from those at the northerly boundary of the state to those at the Mexican border-are to be found in his monumental Handbook of the Indians of California.
7
First Owners
Among the individualistic Yuroks, who lived in houses of split redwood planks along the Klamath River and on the shore of the Pacific Ocean in the extreme northern part of California, much thought was given to the acquisi- tion and use of all kinds of property, both personal and real. River land of any value for hunting deer and elk was privately claimed. A mile or more back from the river, lands were unclaimed. Rich men might hold three or four inherited tracts; poor people, a single tract or no tract at all. Good fishing places might be held jointly, each owner using them in turn for a day. No new fishing places could be established, and fishing that interfered with established rights was forbidden. Certain areas esteemed for seed gathering were bought and sold, reports Kroeber. It is related that one villager, having killed a man, fled to the coast, bought himself a stream, and made his home there.
The money used by the Yuroks in buying and sell- ing was dentalium shells. A fishing place, for example, was worth one to three strings of such shells-a twelve- dentalium string in the American period equaling ten American dollars. A house had a three-string value, though a well-conditioned one of redwood planks might have a valuation of five strings. A tract bearing acorns was said to be worth one to five strings.
Among the Yuroks most of the estate of a man who died went to his sons. The daughters, however, received a share and something was given to the nearer relatives, at least male relatives. The house itself, real property, was in- herited by the son, says Kroeber. Only if there were no adult sons or daughters was the brother of the dead man the inheritor.
Among the Indians of Hoopa (or Hupa) Valley on the Trinity River, the power of each headman depended on
8
Land in California
the amount of property he owned. He had special hunt- ing and fishing rights and certain lands where his women might gather acorns and seeds. Varying lengths of river shore were held as private fishing rights by heads of fam- ilies, and these passed from father to son.
The Pomo Indians, living in redwood-bark houses along the Russian River, owned a famous and prized salt deposit. Its salt was free to their particular friends; all others paid for the salt they took.
Among the Shastas, several fish dams were built in the upper Klamath River. Each dam was the property of one family. All salmon caught in the willow traps belonged to the head of the family, but he was expected to give fish to everyone asking. The Atsugewi Shastas, living along streams that drained into the Pit River, had no private or family ownership in land, but they recognized claims to certain places where edible roots and seeds were to be found and to certain eagles' nests, the right to take from which passed from father to son. This claim is reminiscent of property rights among the Pueblo Indians who con- sidered the nests of eagles to be the property of the clan within whose domain they were found, and the birds themselves to belong to the clan.
Land was free, and common to all members of the community, among the Maidu Indians whose lean-to shelters of bark and brush were found in the territory between the Sacramento River and the crest of the Sierra Nevada. Fish holes, however, sometimes were claimed in- dividually, and certain families had the right to build fences for deer drives. Individual hunters were not re- stricted.
The warlike Mohaves planted corn, beans, pumpkins, and watermelons along the Colorado River. This farm
9
First Owners
land was claimed individually and was bought and sold for beads or for captives and spoils brought back from war. Mohave farmers had boundary disputes-like present-day , Imperial Valley farmers-an aftermath of river floods that washed away landmarks or changed the shape of the land. These disputes were settled by dragging or shoving the claimant across the disputed territory, each farmer being helped by his friends. The stake might be the entire arable holdings of both contestants. Losers, if they wished, might then fight the victors, each side armed with thick willow poles and short sticks. Title to the disputed tract was finally established by driving an opponent back across it. The dispossessed went to his friends who might permit him to share their fields.
Property transfers among California Indians, whether involving personal possessions or claims to land, took place when the property owner died. They also took place when the proper consideration-dentalium shells, clamshell disc beads, slaves, captives, spoils of war or other property-passed between buyer and seller. Furthermore, a man became richer or poorer in property as a result of wagering on a game. California Indians, northern, central and southern, like all American Indians, were inveterate players of games-and the stakes were anything from a white deerskin to a wife. Although the games were both those of dexterity, like the hoop-and-pole game, and of chance (dice or guessing), the guessing games were uni- versal favorites. Reckless betting upon which hand held which stick-perhaps one with a painted center among two shuffled and divided handfuls of sticks-could strip a man ultimately of all his personal property and all his claims to fishing holes and acorn-gathering lands.
The Indians of California, like those of the rest of
10
Land in California
America, had fully developed ideas of personal property ownership, yet they also had, it has been pointed out, a definite sense of ownership in lands that were directly used by a tribe, a group, a village, or even an individual. These ideas were not peculiar to California Indians. In fact, the cultures of California-including real property beliefs-were related to more widely spread cultures out- side the state. The Yurok and northwestern culture, for example, was part of the north Pacific Coast civilization centering in British Columbia and was influenced by habits and strong property beliefs of that area. North- western California culture predominated over that of southwestern Oregon, however, probably because the Klamath River was the largest stream entering the Pacific south of the Columbia and north of the Sacramento rivers. The Klamath valley region supported a larger population with a more active social life than the area that adjoined on the north. Yurok culture and that of their neighbors, the Hoopa and Karok, formed the southern tip of the culture common to the Pacific Coast from Oregon to Alaska. The central California Indian culture, less vig- orous than the British Columbian, was more isolated be- cause of the physical boundaries of central California. This area, however, and that of the Shoshoneans of the Great Basin adjoining on the east, had cultural kinship. The cultures of the southern Californian and lower Colo- rado River Indians had ties with those of the southwest, though the southwestern basis was ultimately Mexican in character.
The first white men to look upon California and Cali- fornia Indians were sixteenth-century Spanish explorers, but actual occupancy by Spaniards did not begin until 1769.
11
First Owners
In that year a land expedition coming up through Lower California, under Captain Gaspar de Portolá, reached the port of San Diego. Spanish-speaking soldiers, missionaries, and settlers, under an active expansionist program, gradually occupied the fertile coast valleys and established outposts on the good harbors of California between the San Diego and San Francisco areas. Presidios and pueblos were established, and twenty-one Franciscan missions into which near-by Indians were shepherded.
The Spanish newcomers gave, in practice, as little heed to the Indians' tribal, communal, or individualistic claims to the land as the Indians themselves had given to the occupation by animals of the fields, forests, caves, burrows, or nests that interfered with the wishes or needs of brown-skinned men. They brought with them to Cali- fornia the Laws of the Indies, controlling Spanish coloni- zation and governing colonial ownership and use of land. These laws were full of pious recognition of the rights of Indians to their possessions, the right to as much land as they needed for their habitations, for tillage, and for the pasturage of their flocks. So far as the California In- dians were concerned, this meant, practically, that when they were "reduced," that is, converted to Christianity and established within or around a mission area, they would have these theoretical property rights. There was, of course, no recognition of Indian rights to land not actually occupied or necessary for their use, nor was there any policy of purchasing Indian titles. Obviously only Christianized California Indians could share in any of the provisions of Spanish law.
The brief span of years between 1769 and 1822 saw established in California the chain of missions, inaugu- rated and planned by Fray Junípero Serra, along with
12
Land in California
four presidios and three pueblos. These years saw the Indian villages of the mission-controlled area-about one sixth of California-abandoned for the Indian quarters of the missions. At each mission there were from a few hundred to two or three thousand Indians. Here, with- out individual property rights, they worked at the tasks assigned them in the fields or shops and were given food and clothing. The lands, theoretically, were held by the missions in trust for the Indians, a temporary arrange- ment that envisioned the natives becoming self-sustaining units. Distant or reluctant natives-the great majority- kept to aboriginal living and had no property rights that were recognized by Spanish authorities.
Those tribes that became completely devoted to mis- sion life are today gone. Disease and disruption of native ways of living swept them away. Kroeber says: "The brute upshot of missionization, in spite of its kindly flavor and humanitarian roots, was only one thing: death." Another authority, S. F. Cook, in his exhaustive The Conflict Be- tween The California Indian And White Civilization, states that from 1779 to 1833 there were 29,100 births at the missions, and 62,600 deaths.
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