USA > California > Land in California, the story of mission land, ranches, squatters, mining claims, railroad grants, land scrip, homesteads > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19
41
Four Square Leagues
of Santa Barbara, appointed commissioner for that pur- pose by Fages. Felix Villavicencio, who had been the first to enlist with Rivera, was the first Los Angeles settler to receive possession, his land being a house lot 20 varas wide and 40 varas long together with four farm lots each 200 varas square.
Pueblo claims to landownership were given full con- sideration in the act passed in 1851 by the Congress of the United States for the settlement of private land claims in California. The corporate authorities-instead of indi- vidual lot owners-were authorized to place their claims to lands granted for the establishment of a town by the Spanish or Mexican government or existing on July 7, 1846. Proof of the existence of a town on July 7, 1846, was to be prima facie evidence of a grant. For any town exist- ing at the time of the passing of the act, the corporate authority was authorized to make the claim for "the land embraced within the limits of the same." There was no specific limitation to four square leagues. Accordingly, San José and Los Angeles, together with the four presidio towns and also Sonoma-a pueblo recognized as such by Mexico and formed under Mexican laws-were claimants before the Commission. Each finally received confirma- tion of title and a United States patent, though the land was not always in the amount asked for nor was the con- firmation always without extended litigation. Los An- geles which asked for sixteen square leagues was reduced to four. San Francisco's long battle in the courts engaged the attention of the ablest attorneys and brought to light a vast quantity of historical data about the whole land- holding system during the Spanish and Mexican periods.
Our courts ruled that pueblos held title in trust for the inhabitants and that the State of California succeeded
42
Land in California
to the powers Mexico formerly held to regulate the dis- position of pueblo lands. Accordingly, it was necessary for the legislature of California, either through general laws or through approval of municipal charters, to determine the manner in which a former pueblo could grant its lands into private ownership. Most people who today hold title to lots within a pueblo's four-square-league (or con- firmed) area can base their claims on deeds directly from the municipality itself.
A few Indian pueblos-San Juan Capistrano, San Dieguito, and Las Flores-had a feeble flowering after the secularization of the missions in 1833, under the rules issued by Governor Figueroa providing for partial con- version of missions to pueblos. The ruins of the quad- rangle of adobe buildings of the Pueblita de las Flores can still be seen in a plowed field on the north side of Las Flores Creek near the coast highway in San Diego County. The story of Las Flores is told by Terry E. Stephenson from Land Commission proceedings involving Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores. Originating in an estación established by Mission San Luis Rey on El Camino Real, it was converted into an Indian pueblo by Don Santiago Argüello, civil administrator of the secularized mission, who described its boundaries as: "On the north, the gully called Temescal; south, the canyon called Sycamore; east, the Canyon Las Flores up to the fence of the garden that the padres had near a spring; west, the sea. It meas- ured a league and a half on each side." Year by year the pueblo disintegrated, and in 1843 the Indians consented to the transfer of Las Flores' 20 square miles to Pío Pico and Andrés Pico, owners of the adjoining Rancho Santa Margarita. The pueblo was then occupied by thirty-two families of Indians who owned 54 sheep, 69 beasts of
43
Four Square Leagues
burden, 31/2 yoke of oxen, 4 milk cows, a small cultivated area, and corn fields. As late as 1873 a few Indians still remained at Las Flores. It had long since been a part of Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores, and at that time was merely a place where passengers on the San Diego- Los Angeles stagecoach got out and stretched their legs.
Most California cities had their beginnings neither as presidio nor as pueblo. They arose in the American period and their story is that of men buying and subdividing land, whether of rancho or nonrancho origin, and of settlers on "public lands" obtaining federal grants of townsites.
CHAPTER V
First Rancheros
"LANDS FOR VETERANS," that familiar cry, was heard even in early-day Spanish California. As a result veterans of the Spanish army of occupation were the first individuals to own land in the state-if we may except the king him- self. And through veterans the whole rancho movement got under way. Great ranchos, thousands of acres in ex- tent, used by their soldier owners for the grazing of long- horned cattle, provided the pattern of the pastoral age in California and determined the character of its civiliza- tion.
Although concessions for ranchos were not given until 1784, the leaders of New Spain had given serious thought to the private distribution of lands at established presidios as early as 1773. On August 17 of that year Viceroy Bucareli authorized the military commanders of San Diego and Monterey, the two existing presidios, to assign lands to Indians and colonists, at the same time cautioning
[45]
46
Land in California
such recipients of land not to move away from the town or mission where they were established.1
Under this authority, Manuel Butron, a soldier of the Monterey company, married to an Indian girl, Margarita, a Carmel Mission neophyte, was the first man in Spanish- ruled Upper California to get a plot of land he could call his own. That happened in 1775, the very year in which American colonists on the Atlantic seaboard were launch- ing the Revolutionary War against England. Butron asked Commander Rivera for a particular 140-vara parcel near the mission in Carmel Valley. Father Serra approved, and on November 27 Butron was given possession .? This pioneer landowner seems soon to have abandoned his plot, however, for in 1786 he was listed as a settler in the pueblo of San José.
The rancho movement in California, that is, the settle- ment by individuals of tracts of land outside presidio and pueblo boundaries, began in 1784 and in what is now Los Angeles County. In that year several retirement- minded, land-hungry veterans got permission from Gov- ernor Fages, their own commander, to put their cattle on lands of their own choosing.
Among the veterans was sixty-five-year-old Juan José Domínguez, bachelor, veteran of the Portolá expedition, a man who knew what Indian fighting, hard work, poor food, and scurvy were like. It was probably in the fall of 1784 that he drove his herd of horses and 200 head of cattle from San Diego to a site near the mouth of the Los Angeles River. On the slope of a hill he built several huts
1 H. W. Halleck's Report of March 1, 1849, House Ex. Doc. No. 17, App. 1; also Dwinelle, The Colonial History of San Francisco, Addenda III.
2 A copy of the expediente of this first private land concession is in the addenda of the third edition (1866) of Dwinelle's The Colonial History of San Francisco.
47
First Rancheros
and corrals and established what came to be known as Rancho San Pedro. As finally surveyed there were more than 43,000 acres in this rancho, though originally it had included also the 31,000-acre Rancho Los Palos Verdes.
194
-
Chamisal
9
4
1.
13 99
Jacal del ON
y de secur en tipodi
Desensación de tujunga
Lueders de Santatro Vardags
Lindera
Eufino
Sauces
Jau que
casa de parce
para 83
real
Coral
Romania Lundeco
Sierra
Portegualo
Escalade una lagua
e Cahiery
Figure 1. Diseño (typical of maps made after 1828), showing Cahuenga Pass and part of the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles County.
Domínguez' example was followed by Corporal José María Verdugo, who at this time was on "detached serv- ice" at San Gabriel Mission. Verdugo looked longingly on a tract of land, a league and a half from the mission, the broad, grass-covered acres of which rolled back to the wooded hills on the north. It was triangular in shape, the
Clareza
verano
Nacimiento del 20 de los Angeles
Llano
Miguel Mins
Llano
-
Jaquando
Carreño
48
Land in California
southern tip being the meeting place of the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River and pointing to the three-year- old pueblo of Los Angeles. In imagination Corporal Verdugo saw his own cattle pastured there, a water dam similar to the saca de agua of the pueblo, and irrigated fields. He placed before Governor Fages a petition for permission to keep his cattle and horses on this favored tract, citing the Domínguez concession as a precedent. The governor's answer, given on October 20, 1784, was "Yes." Corporal Verdugo sent his brother in his place to build a house, plant a garden and vineyard, and look after his cattle and horses. He remained with the army. Thir- teen years later, however, he was so weary of military life, according to his own statement, suffered so much from the dropsy, and felt so keenly the burden of his family, which included six children, that Governor Borica let him retire to his rancho. Verdugo's Rancho San Rafael comprised more than 36,000 acres, and within its bound- aries are today Glendale and part of Burbank.
A third soldier-ranchero was Manuel Pérez Nieto of the presidio of San Diego. His petition to keep his cattle and horses at a place called La Sanja (or La Zanja), three leagues from San Gabriel Mission, was granted by Gover- nor Fages on October 21, 1784. Both petition and grant are typical. The former, addressed to the Governor, reads: Sir:
Manuel Perez Nieto, soldier of the Royal Presidio of San Diego, before Your Worship with the greatest and due honour, appear and say: That in attention to the fact that I have my herd of horses, as well as of bovine stock at the Royal Presidio of San Diego, and because they are increasing and because I have no place to graze them, and likewise be- cause I have no designated place, I request Your Worship's charity that you be pleased to assign me a place situated at
49
First Rancheros
three leagues distance from the Mission of San Gabriel along the road to the Royal Presidio of San Carlos de Monterey named La Sanja, contemplating Sir, not to harm neither a living soul, principally the Mission of San Gabriel, nor even less the Pueblo of the Queen of the Angels. I humbly request of Your Worship's superior government that it see fit to decide as I have requested, for if it is so, I shall receive a gift, and shall consider myself most favored; and therefore:
To Your Worship I humbly beg and request that you be pleased to decide along the tenor of my petition or as it may be to your superior pleasure, and I swear to all the necessary and that this my petition is not done in malice, nor least of all to injure any one, and not knowing how to sign I made the sign of the Cross. +
Here is the Nieto grant, attached as a marginal note to the petition:
San Gabriel, October 21, 1784
I grant the petitioner the permission of having the bovine stock and horses at the place of La Sanja, or its environs; provided no harm is done to the Mission San Gabriel nor to the Pagan Indians of its environs in any manner whatsoever; and that he must have some one to watch it, and to go and sleep at the aforementioned Pueblo.
Pedro Fages®
When Manuel Nieto retired from the service to his rancho he was described as "an old man," but he was not too old to raise cattle and horses successfully, nor too old to plant wheat and corn, nor too old to avoid having title disputes with the priests of San Gabriel. His adobe hut was built southwest of the present city of Whittier and within what later became Rancho Santa Gertrudes. By 1800 it was the center of a colony of white settlers. Nieto
8 Petition and grant are in the National Archives, Washington, D.C., Expediente No. 103, Santa Gertrudes. The translation is by George Tays, a copy of which is in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
50
Land in California
died in 1804, his vast land holdings-Los Nietos-later forming five ranchos regranted during the Mexican period to his heirs and members of his family. These five ranchos were Santa Gertrudes, Los Coyotes, Los Cerritos, Los Alamitos, and Las Bolsas. A number of cities were to arise within their boundaries, the largest of which is today Long Beach.
There may have been a fourth concession of land in this same year, 1784, the favored one being soldier Mariano de la Luz Verdugo, brother of Corporal José María Verdugo, and one of the "leather jackets" who marched north from Loreto in 1769 with the first land expedition. This concession is indicated in the letter from Governor Fages to Commandante General Ugarte, written November 20, 1784, listing individuals to whom, owing to the increase in cattle, he had given provisional grants of land. He names (1) Domínguez; (2) Nieto; (3) the sons of the widow Ygnacia Carillo (de Verdugo). Mari- ano de la Luz Verdugo's rancho-later referred to as the Portezuelo (site of part of modern Burbank), adjoining his brother's on the west-was second on the list in the 1795 report of ranchos made to Governor Borica by Felipe Goycoechea, commander of the Santa Barbara company. Unlike the other three original ranchos, how- ever, the Portezuelo was abandoned, apparently as early as 1810.
By what right did Governor Fages make these first three or four concessions of California ranch land, the absolute title to which had been vested in the King of Spain since Spanish occupancy in 1769? Certainly not under the authority given by Viceroy Bucareli in 1773 to the presidio commanders of San Diego and Monterey, which was both limited and temporary.
51
First Rancheros
As if doubtful of his own authority to make allotments of tracts to settlers whether within or without pueblo boundaries, Fages referred the whole question to the Commandante General a month after he had given the first concessions of ranch land. From Galindo Navarro, whose office corresponded to that of our attorney general, came a legal opinion written October 27, 1785, in Chihua- hua, Mexico. It was transmitted to Fages in 1786 by the Commandante General. Tracts of land outside of the four square leagues of pueblos could be granted for farms and cattle raising, Navarro found, citing the specific Laws of the Indies on which he based his opinion.4 No injury, however, was to be done to missions, pueblos, and Indian villages. Pasture lands in the allotted areas must remain "for the common advantage." One settler might have not more than three tracts and he would be obligated to use the land, that is, put men in possession, build a house, and keep cattle. Within a pueblo's four-square-league area, however, the governor had no power under the laws to grant land.
Supreme authority in New Spain, during the Spanish period, was vested in the Viceroy as representative of the King, with his seat of office in the city of Mexico. Under him and appointed by him were military chiefs, such as Pedro Fages, serving as governors in the outlying terri- tories, such as California, who held extensive powers. Later, during the Mexican regime, the governors were not subject to the discipline of the Viceroy and the Com- mandante General but were answerable solely to the central government of Mexico.
Domínguez and his co-veterans, California's first ran- cheros, received no grants directly from the King of Spain
4 Book 4 of the Recopilacion, Title 12, Laws 1-13.
52
Land in California
in whom the title to the land was vested. Instead, they secured provisional concessions, cattle-grazing permits- little more-from Governor Fages, who was the appointee of the Viceroy.
Popular talk of "Spanish grants" is often misinformed. It comes chiefly from descendants of first settlers and from writers of romantic fiction who like to think of a far- distant ruler taking kindly thought of Californians and signing beribboned documents that gave whole valleys to aristocratic men.
Viceregal authority over lands in New Spain dates back at least to October 15, 1754-fifteen years before the be- ginning of the occupancy by Spain of Alta California. By a royal regulation of that date, affirming the powers of viceroys, the necessity of applying to the King for con- firmation of title to non-pueblo, non-presidio lands was abolished.5
Hence we shall find that the ranch or cattle-grazing concessions made in California before 1822-the begin- ning of the Mexican period-came from governors of the state, from military commanders of a district, such as Santa Barbara, and even from the Viceroy himself, as in the case of Mariano Castro's viceregal license in 1802 to occupy Las Animas or Sitio de la Brea (in Santa Clara County).
The transformation of soldiers into rancheros got well under way in Spanish California during the period that began in 1784 with the Fages concessions already men- tioned and that ended in 1822 with those made by Gover- nor Solá. The ranchos of these soldiers comprised some of the best valley and grazing land between the San Fran-
5 Alfred Wheeler, Land Titles in California (San Francisco, 1852), quot- ing from the Laws of the Indies.
53
First Rancheros
cisco Bay on the north and the Santa Ana River on the south.
Rancho San Antonio, for example, whose boundaries include Berkeley, Oakland, and Alameda, was granted in 1820 to Sergeant Luís Peralta. Peralta, who had come to California with the Anza expedition of 1776, became a corporal in the San Francisco company, headed the San José Mission guard, and led a number of punitive expedi- tions against non-Christian Indians. Peralta put his four sons in charge of San Antonio, and remained with the service until 1826.
Rancho Buena Vista on the Salinas River was occupied at least as early as 1795 by José María Soberanes, a soldier of the Portola party, and his father-in-law, Joaquín Castro, of the San Francisco company. The Buena Vista was not far from the Monterey presidio's "rancho del rey" where the military pastured their horses, cattle, mules, and sheep. It was one of a group of six early and rather tem- porary private ranchos on the Salinas River near Mon- terey. Of the six, the names of the Buena Vista and Las Salinas appear in the list of ranchos the titles of which were finally confirmed.6 The Buena Vista itself, long after the death of the first Soberanes and its abandonment by the family, was regranted to another soldier, José Mariano Estrada.
El Refugio Rancho, in the Santa Barbara area, was owned by soldiers; it was first granted either to Captain José Francisco Ortega or to his soldier son, José María Ortega. Ortega, senior, was the famous scout of the Por- tolá party and had a distinguished record as soldier and officer and as the founder and commander of Santa Bar- bara. The rancho was long in the Ortega family.
" The other four are: Bajada á Huerta Vieja; Cañada de Huerta Vieja; Mesa de la Pólvera; and Chupadero.
Ferrando
Siena de
TIIT TIT
11
-
M
nunte -
922.99
Kanchude ir. Vicente
9999
1
Casa y Cual
! 1
1
0
álamo que se halla actuado en medio del casa ;
-
Z
1
Escala de una legua
Figure 2. Diseño of Rancho San José de Buenos Ayres, Los Angeles County, embracing the Westwood area.
Rodeo de las aguas
1 1
55
First Rancheros
Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, comprising ten square leagues in what is now Orange County, went to José Antonio Yorba and his nephew Pablo Peralta in the year 1810. Yorba was one of Fages' original Catalonian volun- teers, retiring as a sergeant in 1797.
There were a number of other concessions to Spanish soldiers-and to some who may not have been military men. The vast Simi Rancho, most of it now in Ventura County, was granted Francisco Javier Pico, a soldier of the Santa Barbara company, and his two brothers, Patricio and Miguel. Adjoining the pueblo boundaries of Los Angeles, Rancho Los Felis-as it came to be called and which today includes Griffith Park-was given to Corporal Vicente Felis (Felix), and Rancho San Antonio-which today includes the site of Huntington Park and other modern cities-went to Corporal Antonio María Lugo.
How many rancho concessions were made during the Spanish period? At least thirty, if we add the references to various ranchos found in the works of historians Ban- croft and Hittell or listed in claims made before the United States Land Commission. These include a num- ber of ranchos that reverted because of abandonment by the ranchero owners. Among those abandoned were the Portezuelo, already mentioned; the Encino (or Reyes) Rancho, relinquished by Francisco Reyes to the mission- ary fathers who founded San Fernando Rey Mission in 1797, and not to be confused with the Encino of the Mexican period; and El Pilar, an indefinite tract along the San Mateo County coast, given in 1797 to José Dario Argüello.
No complete list of Spanish California land concessions is available. To make such a list would require detailed research on every land claim presented before the Board
56
Land in California
of Land Commissioners-and there were more than 800 of them-as well as those claims that never reached the Board. It is possible to make a fairly complete summing up, however, of those ranchos that originated in the Spanish period and that survived the Mexican with name intact-usually with a regranting and sometimes with in- tervening abandonment. Presented in approximate order of date, they include:
San Pedro, in Los Angeles County, Juan José Domínguez San Rafael (originally La Zanja), in Los Angeles County, José María Verdugo
Los Nietos (originally La Zanja), in Los Angeles and Orange counties, Manuel Nieto
(This was broken into five ranchos during the Mexican period and granted as Santa Gertrudes, Los Coyotes, Los Alamitos, Los Cerritos and Las Bolsas.)
Buena Vista, in Monterey County, José María Soberanes and Joaquín Castro
Las Salinas, in Monterey County, Antonio Aceves and Antonio Romero
Los Felis, in Los Angeles County, Vicente Felis
Simi, in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, Francisco Javier Pico, Patricio Pico, and Miguel Pico
Las Pulgas, in San Mateo County, José Dario Argüello
El Refugio, in Santa Barbara County, José Francisco Ortega or José María Ortega
Las Virgenes, in Los Angeles County, Miguel Ortega
Las Animas (or La Brea), in Santa Clara County, Mariano Castro
El Conejo, in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, José Polanco and Ignacio Rodríguez
Topanga Malibu Sequit, in Los Angeles County, José Bartolomé Tapia
Santiago de Santa Ana, in Orange County, José Antonio Yorba and Pablo Peralta
San Ysidro, in Santa Clara County, Ygnacio Ortega
57
First Rancheros
San Antonio, in Los Angeles County, Antonio María Lugo
Agustín Machado
La Ballona, in Los Angeles County r Ygnacio Machado
Felipe Talamantes Tomás Talamantes
Vega del Rio del Pajaro, in Monterey County, Antonio María Castro
San Antonio, in Alameda County, Luis Peralta
Tularcitos, in Santa Clara and Alameda counties, José Higuera
Rincón de los Bueyes, in Los Angeles County, Bernardo Higuera and Cornelio López
Salsipuedes, in Santa Cruz County, Mariano Castro
Sausal Redondo, in Los Angeles County, Antonio Ygnacio Avila
Bolsa del Potrero y Moro Cojo, or La Sagrada Familia, in Monterey County, José Joaquín de la Torre
The list should probably include the San José de Buenos Ayres, whose grantee was Máximo Alanis, as well as the Rodeo de las Aguas, granted to María Rita Váldez. Both are in Los Angeles County, the former occupying the Westwood area, and the latter Beverly Hills. Alanis, a soldier who accompanied the party of Los Angeles set- tlers from Los Alamos in 1781, appears to have been in possession as early as 1820. Testimony before the Land Commission indicates that Sergeant Vicente Villa of "the Spanish army," husband of María Rita, was retired with a pension and that "when he left the service he went to live on" Rodeo de las Aguas. Possibly Santa Teresa, in Santa Clara County, should be included, for, when this rancho was granted by a Mexican governor in 1834, the grantee, Joaquín Bernal, a native of Spain, was ninety- four years old, had been in possession long enough to build four adobe houses and to have large flocks and herds and 78 children and grandchildren.
58
Land in California
The first rancheros in California were veterans of the Spanish army of occupation. Most, if not all, of the holders of ranch concessions during the Spanish period were veterans. The rancho movement, however, did not fully get under way in California until the missions, with their vast land holdings, were secularized. Secularization took place during the 1830's, more than a decade after the passing of Spanish rule.
.
-
CHAPTER VI
Gifts of Land
WHEN PÍO PICO, California's last Mexican governor and one of the great landowners in the state, realized the in- evitability of the American invasion, he is credited with having made an extraordinary last-stand speech before a military council in Monterey in 1846.
Here are Pico's words, or at least the words that have been put in his mouth:
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.