USA > California > Marin County > History of Marin County, California also an historical sketch of the state of California > Part 18
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MEXICAN GRANTS.
the other by land, to the new territory. In June, 1769, they had arrived, and in that month founded the first mission about two leagues from the port of San Diego. A presidio was established at the same time near the port. The same year a presidio was established at Monterey, and a mission estab- lishment begun. Subsequently, the Dominican friars obtained leave from the King to take charge of a part of the missions of California, which led to an arrangement between the two societies, whereby the missions of Lower Cali- fornia were committed to the Dominicans, and the entire field of the upper province remained to the Franciscans. This arrangement was sanctioned by the political authority, and continues to the present time. The new estab- lishments flourished and rapidly augmented their numbers, occupying first the space between San Diego and Monterey, and subsequently extending to the northward. A report from the Viceroy to the King, dated Mexico, December 27, 1793, gives the following account of the number, time of estab- lishment, and locality of the missions existing in New California at that period :
NO.
MISSIONS.
SITUATION.
WHEN FOUNDED.
1 .. San Diego de Alcala.
Lat. 32° 42' July 16, 1769.
2 .. San Carlos de Montervy.
36° 33' June 3, 1770.
3 .. San Antonio de Padua.
36° 34' July 14, 1771.
4. San Gabriel de los Temblores
34° 10' September 8, 1771.
5 .. San Luis Obispo. 31° 38' September 1, 1772.
6 ..
San Francisco (Dolores)
37° 56' October 9, 1776.
7 .. San Juan Capistrano
33° 30' November 1, 1776.
8. . Santa Clara 37° 00' January 18, 1777.
9 .. San Buenaventura
66 34° 36' March 31, 1782.
10. . Santa Barbara.
34° 28' October 4, 1786.
11 .. Purisima Conception
66 35° 32' January 8, 1787.
12 .. Santa Cruz
66 36° 58' August 28, 1791.
13. . La Soledad
66 36° 38' October 9, 1791.
At first the missions nominally occupied the whole territory, except the four sinall military posts of San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Fran- cisco; that is, the limits of one mission were said to cover the intervening space to the limits of the next; and there were no other occupants except the wild Indians, whose reduction and conversion were the objects of the establishments. The Indians, as fast as they were reduced, were trained to labor in the mis- sions, and lived either within its walls, or in small villages near by, under the spiritual and temporal direction of the priests, but the whole under the politi- cal control of the Governor of the province, who decided contested questions of right or poliey, whether between different missions, between missions and
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HISTORY OF MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
individuals, or concerning the Indians. Soon, however, grants of land began to be made to individuals, especially to retired soldiers, who received special favor in the distant colonies of Spain, and became the settlers and the founders of the country they had reduced and protected. Some settlers were also brought from the neighboring provinces of Sonora and Sinaloa, and the towns of San José, at the head of the Bay of San Francisco, and of Los Angeles, eight leagues from the port of San Pedro, were early founded. The governor exercised the privilege of making concessions of large tracts, and the captains of the presidios were authorized to grant building lots, and small tracts for gardens and farms, within the distance of two leagues from the presidios. By these means, the mission tracts began respectively to have something like known boundaries; though the lands they thus occupied were still not viewed in any light as the property of the missionaries, but as the domain of the crown, appropriated to the use of the missions while the state of the country should require it, and at the pleasure of the political authority.
It was the custom throughout New Spain (and other parts of the Spanish colonies, also,) to secularize, or to subvert the mission establishments, at the discretion of the ruling political functionary; and this not as an act of arbi- trary power, but in the exercise of an acknowledged ownership and author- ity. The great establishments of Sonora, I have been told. were divided between white settlements and settlements of the Indian pupils, or neophytes, of the establishments. In Texas, the missions were broken up, the Indians were dispersed, and the lands have been granted to white settlers. In New Mexico, I am led to suppose the Indian pupils of the missions, or their descendants, still, in great part, occupy the old establishments; and other parts are occupied by white settlers, in virtue of grants and sales .* The undisputed exercise of this authority over all the mission establishments, and whatever property was pertinent to them, is certain.
The liability of the missions of Upper California, however, to be thus dealt with at the pleasure of the government, does not rest only on the argument to be drawn from this constant and uniform practice. It was inherent in their foundation-a condition of their establishment. A belief has prevailed, and it is so stated in all the works I have examined which treat historically of the missions of that country, that the first act which looked to their secu- larization, and especially the first act by which any authority was conferred
* Since writing the above, I have learned from the Hon. Mr. Smith, Delegate from the Ter- ritory of New Mexico, that the portion of cach of the former mission establishments which has been allotted to the Indians is one league square. They hold the land, as a general rule, in community, and on condition of supporting a priest and maintaining divine worship. This portion and these conditions are conformable to the principles of the Spanish laws concerning the allotments of Indian villages. Some interesting particulars of the foundation, progress, and plan of the missions of New Mexico are contained in the report, or information, before quoted, of 1793, from the Viceroy to the King of Spain, and in extracts from it given in the papers accompanying this report.
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MEXICAN GRANTS.
on the local government for that purpose, or over their temporalities, was an act of the Mexican Congress of August 17, 1833. Such, however, was not the case. Their secularization-their subversion-was looked for in their foundation; and I do not perceive that the local authority (certainly not the supreme authority) has ever been without that lawful jurisdiction over them, unless subsequent to the colonization regulations of November 21, 1828, which temporarily exempted mission lands from colonization. I quote from a letter of "Instructions to the commandant of the new establishments of San Diego and Monterey," given by Viceroy Bucareli, August 17, 1773:
" ART. 15. When it shall happen that a mission is to be formed into a pueblo (or village) the commandant will proceed to reduce it to the civil and economical government, which, according to the laws, is observed by other villages of this kingdom; then giving it a name, and declaring for its patron the saint under whose memory and protection the mission was founded." (Cuando llegue el caso de que haya de formarse en el pueblo una mision, pro- cederá el commandante á reducirlo ál gobiemo civil y economico que obser- van, segun las leyes, los demas de este reyno; poniendole nombre entonces, y declarandole por su titular el santo bajo cuya memoria y venerable proteccion se fundó la mision.)
The right, then, to remodel these establishments at pleasure, and convert them into towns and villages, subject to the known policy and laws which governed settlements of that description,* we see was a principal of their foundation. Articles 7 and 10 of the same letter of instructions, show us also that it was a part of the plan of the missions that their condition should thus be changed; that they were regarded only as the nucleus and basis of communities to be thereafter emancipated, acquire proprietary rights, and administer their own affairs; and that it was the duty of the governor to choose their sites, and direct the construction and arrangement of their edifices, with a view to their convenient expansion into towns and cities. And not only was this general revolution of the establish- ments thus early contemplated and provided for, but meantime the governor had authority to reduce their possessions by grants within and without, and to change their condition by detail. The same series of instructions author- ized the governor to grant lands, either in community or individually, to the Indians of the missions, in and about their settlements on the mission lands, and also to make grants to settlements of white persons. The governor was
*A revolution more than equal to the modern secularization, since the latter only necessarily implies the turning over of the temporal concerns of the mission to secular administration. Their conversion into pueblos would take from the missions all semblance in organization to their originals, and include the reduction of the missionary priests from the heads of great establishments and administrators of large temporalities, to parish curates; a change quite inconsistent with the existence in the priests or the church of any proprietary interest or right over the establishment.
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HISTORY OF MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
likewise authorized at an early day to make grants to soldiers who should marry Indian women trained in the missions; and the first grant (and only one I found of record) under this authorization, was of a tract near the mis- sion edifice of Carmel, near Monterey. The authorization given to the cap- tains of presidios to grant lands within two leagues of their posts, expressly restrains them within that distance, so as to leave the territory beyond-though all beyond was nominally attached to one or other of the missions-at the disposition of the superior guardians of the royal property. In brief, every fact, every act of government and principle of law applicable to the case, which I have met in this investigation, go to show that the missions of Upper California, were never, from the first, reckoned other than government establishments, or the founding of them to work any change in the ownership of the soil, which continued in and at the disposal of the crown, or its representatives. This position was also confirmed, if had it needed any confirmation, by the opinions of high legal and official authorities in Mexico. The missions- speaking collectively of priests and pupils-had the usufruct; the priests the administration of it; the whole resumable, or otherwise disposable, at the will of the crown or its representatives.
The object of the missions was to aid in the settlement and pacification of the country, and to convert the natives to Christianity. This accomplished, settlements of white people established, and the Indians domiciliated in villages, so as to subject them to the ordinary magistrates, and the spiritual care of the ordinary clergy, the missionary labor was considered fulfilled, and the establishment subject to be dissolved or removed. This view of their pur- poses and destiny fully appears in the tenor of the decree of the Spanish Cortes of September 13, 1813 .*
The provisions of that act, and the reason given for it, develop in fact the whole theory of the mission establishments. It was passed "in consequence of a complaint by the Bishop elect of Guiana of the evils that afflicted that province, on account of the Indian settlements in charge of missions not being delivered to the ecclesiastical ordinary, though thirty, forty and fifty years had passed since the reduction and conversion of the Indians." The Cortes therefore decreed :-
1. That all the new reducciones y doctrinas (that is, settlements of Indians newly converted, and not yet formed into parishes), of the provinces beyond the sea, which were in charge of missionary monks, and had been ten years subjected, should be delivered immediately to the respective ecclesiastical ordinaries (bishops), "without resort to any excuse or pretext, conformably to the laws and cedulas in that respect."
2. That as well these missions, (doctrinas) as all others which should be
* "Collection of Decrees of the Spanish Cortes, reputed in force in Mexico." Mexico, 1820. l'age 106.
=
1
1
Of Clansfen
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MEXICAN GRANTS.
erected into curacies, should be canonically provided by the said ordinaries (observing the laws and cedulas of the royal right of patronage), with fit min- isters of the secular clergy.
3. That the missionary monks, relieved from the converted settlements, which should be delivered to the ordinary, should apply themselves to the extension of religion in benefit of the inhabitants of other wilderness parts, proceeding in the exercise of their missions conformably to the directions of paragraph 10, article 335, of the Constitution .*
4. That the missionary monks should discontinue immediately the govern- ment and administration of the property of the Indians, who should choose by means of their ayuntamientos, with intervention of the superior political authority, persons among themselves competent to administer it; the lands being distributed and reduced to private ownership, in accordance with the decree of January 4, 1813, on reducing vacant and other lands to private property."+
It has also been supposed that the act above alluded to of the Mexican Con- gress, (Act of August 17, 1833), was the first assertion by the Mexican gov- ernment of property in the missions, or that they by that Act first became (or came to be considered) national domain. But this is likewise an error. The Mexican government has always asserted the right of property over all the missions of the country, and I do not think that the supposition has ever been raised in Mexico, that they were the property of the missionaries or the Church.
The General Congress of Mexico, in a decree of August 14, 1824, concern-
* The following is the clause referred to, namely, paragraph 10, article 335, Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy, 1812.
"The provincial councils of the provinces beyond sea shall attend to the order, economy, and progress of the missions for the conversion of infidel Indians, and to the prevention of abuses in that branch of administration. The commissioners of such missions shall render their accounts to them, which accounts they shall in their turn forward to the government."
This clause of itself settles the character of these establishments, as a branch of the public administration.
+ " Collection of decrees of the Spanish Cortes," etc., p. 56. This decree provides:
1. That "all the vacant or royal lands, and town reservations (propios y. arbitrios, lands reserved in and about towns and cities for the municipal revenue), both in the peninsula and islands adjacent, and in the provinces beyond sea, except such commons as may be necessary for the villages, shall be converted into private property; provided, that in regard to town reserva- tions, some annual rents shall be reserved."
2. That "in whatever mode these lands were distributed, it should be in full and exclusive ownership, so that their owners may enclose them, (without prejudice of paths, crossings, watering places, and servitudes), to enjoy them freely and exclusively, and destine them to snclı use or cultivation as they may be best adapted to; but without the owners ever being able to entail them, or to transfer them, at any time or by any title, in mortmain."
3. "In the transfer of these lands shall be preferred the inhabitants of the villages, (or settle- ments), in the neighborhood where they exist, and who enjoyed the same in common whilst they were vacant."
11
162
HISTORY OF MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
ing the public revenue, declares the estates of the inquisition, as well as all temporalities, to be the property of the nation (that is, no doubt, in contra- distinction from property of the States-making no question of their being publie property). This term would include not only the mission establish- ments, but all rents, profits and income, the monks received from them. A like Act of July 7, 1831, again embraces the estates of the inquisition and temporalities as national property, and places them with "other rural and suburban estates " under charge of a director-general. The executive regula- tions for colonizing the territories, may raise an idea of territorial and native property in them, but it puts out of the question any proprietary rights in the missionaries.
The seventeenth article of these regulations (executive regulations for col- onization of the territories, adopted November 21, 1828) relates to the mis- sions, and directs that "In those territories where there are missions, the lands which they occupy shall not at present be colonized, nor until it be determined if they ought to be considered as property of the settlements of the neophyte catechumens and Mexican settlers."
The subsequent acts and measures of the general government of Mexico, in direct reference to missions and affecting those of California, are briefly as follows:
A decree of the Mexican Congress of November 20, 1833, in part analogous to the decree before quoted of the Spanish Cortes of September, 1813, direct- ing their general secularization, and containing these provisions:
1. The government shall proceed to secularize the missions of Upper and Lower California.
2. In each of said missions shall be established a parish, served by a curate of the secular clergy, with a dotation of two thousand to two thousand five hundred dollars, at the discretion of the government.
4. The mission churches with the sacred vessels and ornaments, shall be devoted to the use of the parish.
5. For each parish, the government shall direct the construction of a cem- etery outside of the village.
7. Of the buildings belonging to each mission, the most fitting shall be . selected for the dwelling of the curate, with a lot of ground not exceeding two hundred varas square, and the others appropriated for a municipal house and schools.
On December 2, 1833, a decree was published to the following effect:
" The government is authorized to take all measures that may assure the colonization, and make effective the secularization of the missions of Upper and Lower California, being empowered to this effect, to use, in the manner most expedient, the fincas de obras pias (property of the piety fund) of those territories, to aid the transportation of the commission and families who are now in this capital destined thither."
163
MEXICAN GRANTS.
The commission and emigrants, spoken of in this circular, were a colony under the charge of Don Jose Maria Hijar, who was sent out the following Spring (of 1834) as director of colonization, with instructions to the following effect: That he should "make beginning by occupying all the property per- tinent to the missions of both Californias;" that in the settlements he formed, special care should be taken to include the indigenous (Indian) popu- lation, mixing them with the other inhabitants, and not permitting any settle- ment of Indians alone; that topographical plans should be made of the squares which were to compose the villages, and in each square building lots to be distributed to the colonist families; that outside the villages there should be distributed to each family of colonists, in full dominion and ownership, four caballerias* of irrigable land, or eight, if dependent on the seasons, or sixteen, if adapted to stock raising, and also live stock and agricultural implements; that this distribution made, (out of the moveable property of the mission) one- half the remainder of said property should be sold, and the other half reserved on account of government, and applied to the expenses of worship, mainte- nance of the missionaries, support of schools, and the purchase of agricultural implements for gratuitous distribution to the colonists.
On April 16, 1834, the Mexican Congress passed an act to the following effect:
1. That all the missions in the Republic shall be secularized.
2. That the missions shall be converted into curacies, whose limits shall be demarked by the governors of the States where said missions exist.
3. This decree shall take effect within four months from the day of its publication.
November 7, 1835, an act of the Mexican Congress directed that " the · curates mentioned in the second article of the law of August 17, 1833 (above quoted), should take possession, the government should suspend the execution of the other articles, and maintain things in the condition they were before said law."
I have, so far, referred to these various legislative and governmental acts in relation to the missions, only to show, beyond equivocation or doubt, the rela- tion in which the government stood toward them, and the rights of owner- ship which it exercised over them. My attention was next directed to the changes that had taken place in the condition of those establishments, under the various provisions for their secularization and conversion into private property. "
Under the act of the Spanish Cortes of September, 1813, all the missions in New Spain were liable to be secularized; that is, their temporalities delivered to lay administration; their character as missions taken away by their con- version into parishes under charge of the secular clergy; and the lands perti-
* A caballeria of land is a rectangular parallelogram of 552 varas by 1,101 varas.
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HISTORY OF MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
nent to them to be disposed of as other public domain. The question of put- ting this law in operation with regard to the missions in California, was at various times agitated in that province, and' in 1830 the then governor, Echandrea, published a project for the purpose, but which was defeated by the arrival of a new governor, Victoria, alinost at the instant the plan was made public. Victoria revoked the decree of his predecessor, and restored the missionaries to the charge of the establishments, and in their authority over the Indians.
Subsequent to that time, and previous to the act of secularization of August 1833, nothing further to that end appears to have been done in California. Under that act, the first step taken by the Central Government was the expc- dition of Hijar, above noticed. But the instructions delivered to him were not fulfilled. Hijar had been appointed Governor of California, as well as Director of Colonization, with directions to relieve Governor Figueroa. After Hijar's departure from Mexico, however, a revolution in the Supreme Govern- ment induced Hijar's appointment as political governor to be revoked; and an express was sent to California to announce this change, and with directions to Figueroa to continue in the discharge of the governorship. The courier arrived in advance of Hijar, who found himself on landing (in September, 1834) deprived of the principal authority he had expected to exercise. Before consenting to cooperate with Hijar in the latter's instructions concerning. the missions, Figueroa consulted the Territorial Deputation. That body protested against the delivery of the vast property included in the mission estates-and. to a settlement in which the Indian pupils had undoubtedly an equitable claim-into Hijar's possession, and contested that his authority in the matter of the missions depended on his commission as Governor, which had been revoked, and not on his appointment (unknown to the law) as Director of Co !- onization. As a conclusion to the contestation which followed, the Governor and Assembly suspended Hijar from the last mentioned appointment, and returned him to Mexico .*
Figueroa, however, had already adopted (in August. 1834) a project of sec- ularization, which he denominates a "Provisional Regulation." It provided that the missions should be converted partially into pueblos, or villages, with a distribution of lands and moveable property as follows: To each individual head of a family, over twenty-five years of age, a lot of ground, not exceeding four hundred nor less than one hundred varas square, in the common lands of the mission, with a sufficient quantity in common for pasturage of the cattle of the village, and also commons and lands for municipal uses; likewise, among the same individuals, one-half of the live stock, grain, and agricultural implements of the mission; that the remainder of the lands, unmoveable prop-
* Manifesto a la Republica Mejicana, que hace el General Jose Figueroa, commandante general y gefe politico de la Alta California. Monterey, 1835.
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MEXICAN GRANTS.
erty, stock, and other effects, should be in charge of mayor domos, or other persons appointed by the Governor, subject to confirmation by the general Government; that from this common mass should be provided the mainte- nance of the priest, and expenses of religious service, and the temporal expenses of the mission; that the minister should choose a place in the mission for his dwelling; that the emancipated Indians should unite in common labors for the cultivation of the vineyards, gardens and field lands, which should remain undivided until the determination of the Supreme Government; that the donees, under the regulation, should not sell, burthen, or transfer their grants, either of land or cattle, under any pretext; and any contracts to this effect should be null, the property reverting to the nation, the purchaser los- ing his money; that lands, the donee of which might die without leaving heirs, should revert to the nation; that rancherias (hamlets of Indians) situa- ted at a distance from the missions, and which exceeded twenty-five families, might form separate pueblos, under the same rules as the principal one. This regulation was to begin with ten of the missions (without specifying them) and successively to be applied to the remaining ones.
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