The Original Spanish Land Grant Families in San Diego

I'm delighted that many of you are enjoying the historical articles I've been writing lately. A couple of people have asked that I cover the history of Spanish and Mexican land grants in the area, since my previous manufactures about Buellton, Las Cruces and Benjamin Foxen involved the topic. As I researched land grants and their impact on our community, I found that grants are the basis of Santa Barbara Canton'due south evolution.

Most of California history, including Santa Barbara County and the Santa Ynez Valley, can be traced back to land grants from the Spanish and Mexican governments.

The colonization of California began when Spain in 1769 established a San Diego presidio – a military fort used to protect the mission and surrounding pueblos from invasion.

From then up until 1821, Spain congenital 21 missions and founded six major pueblos, each of which were given control of thousands of acres of state.

The 6 original pueblos, dates established and the number of acres of land awarded are as follows: San Diego, 1769: 42,323 acres; Monterey, 1770: 29,698 acres; San Francisco, 1776: 17,754 acres; San Jose, 1777: 55,891 acres; Los Angeles, 1781: 17,172 acres; Santa Barbara, 1782: 17,826 acres.

The Spanish regime awarded country grants surrounding the pueblos, missions, and presidios to retired soldiers as an inducement for them to remain on the frontier. These original land grants reverted to the Castilian crown upon the recipient's death. Spain awarded most 30 country grants to individuals between 1784 and 1821. The "rancheros" (rancho owners) patterned themselves later on the landed gentry of New Spain and were primarily devoted to raising cattle and sheep. Their workers included Native Americans who had learned Spanish while living at established missions.

The Mexican Era

When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, the rules inverse and land grants became the permanent property of the grantee. Mexico awarded about 270 state grants to retired soldiers, politicians, and influential friends, and sought to break the land monopoly of the missions and also pave the fashion for luring additional settlers to California by making land grants easier to obtain.

The Mexican governors of California had the power to grant mission lands, and oftentimes gave the land to friends and influential people. (This is how Benjamin Foxen got the 8,874-acre Tinaquaic land grant.)

Soldiers, rancheros, farmers, and those in power coveted the rich coastal lands that the missions controlled. The Mexican government was too fearful near the missions which remained loyal to the Pope and the Catholic Church in Spain.

In August 1833, the government secularized all of the missions and their valuable lands, about 1,000,000 acres per mission. The Mexican government allowed the padres to keep only the church, priest's quarters, and priest'due south garden. The regular army troops guarding each mission were dismissed. The governors of California so gave the mission lands to the retired soldiers, politicians, and influential friends mentioned in a higher place.

The real loser in the transfer of the missions from Spain to United mexican states and their subsequent secularization was the neophytes (native Americans). Nether the treaty with Espana giving Mexico control of the missions, information technology was stipulated that: "I-half of the mission lands and property was to exist given to neophytes in grants of 33 acres of arable land along with land in common sufficient to pasture their stock." A board of magistrates was to oversee the mission'southward crops and herds, while the land was to exist divided into communal pasture, a boondocks plot, and private plots intended for each Indian family unit. In addition, i half of the herds were to be divided proportionately amidst the neophyte families.

Of class, this never happened. Virtually mission belongings was given to authorities officials and their wealthy friends who were local Californios (individuals of Mexican or Spanish descent who had been born in California).

The Native Americans were exploited by the rancheros and in many cases became virtual slaves. Although they were freed from forced labor on the missions, but without country of their ain, and their former way of life destroyed, often had few choices but to go slaves. Their just culling was to abscond to Indian tribes who lived in the interior. They sometimes congregated at rancherías (living areas nigh a hacienda) where an ethnic Spanish and mestizo culture developed.

By 1846, the mission lands and its cattle had passed into the hands of 800 private landowners. Rancheros collectively owned 800,000,000 acres of land – nearly ⅛ of the future country – in units ranging in size from 4,500 acres to 50,000 acres. They primarily produced hides for the world leather market and largely relied on Indian labor. Leap to the rancho, Native Americans were treated like slaves, having died at twice the rate that of the southern Negro slaves.

In 1848, California became a Territory of the United States with the defeat of Mexico in the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty stated that the rancheros could keep their land granted by Mexico, but they had to prove buying. By American design, this proved to exist expensive, time-consuming and difficult. Information technology could accept as long as 20 years to settle an buying claim.

The American Era

While the end of the 1840s saw the close of Mexican control over Alta California, this flow also marked the get-go of the rancheros' greatest prosperity.

Cattle had been raised primarily for their hides and tallow, as there was no market place for large quantities of beef, especially in the days prior to refrigeration, railroads or ice production. Demand dramatically inverse with the onset of the Gold Rush, as thousands of miners and other fortune seekers flooded into California. These newcomers needed meat, and cattle prices soared with demand. The rancheros enjoyed the peaceful and prosperous days of Hispanic California.

However, this prosperity was to change.

The rancheros became land-rich and cash-poor, and the burden of defending their ownership claims was often financially overwhelming. Grantees lost their lands as a result of mortgage default, payment of chaser fees, or payment of other personal debts. Land was also lost equally a result of fraud.

A sharp decline in cattle prices due to the floods of 1861–1862, and droughts of 1863–1864, forced many of the overextended rancheros to sell their properties. They ofttimes speedily subdivided the land and sold it to American settlers. This is how W.W. Hollister and R.T Buell were able to buy their land grant properties.

Today

As y'all travel around Santa Barbara County you volition see our Spanish and Mexican land grant heritage is very much with u.s.a. today. There were 43 land grants awarded in Santa Barbara Canton for approximately 800,000 acres. Almost all of the land that could grow crops or could back up cattle and sheep grazing was given as land grants. Many of the original land grant names all the same exist today: Los Alamos, Higher Rancho (the boondocks of Santa Ynez), Casmalia, Las Cruces, Cuyama, Dos Pueblos, Goleta, Guadalupe, Lompoc, Nojoqui, Refugio, Rincon, San Marcos, Sisquoc, and Zaca. And of course, there are the iii missions in our county: Santa Barbara (1786), La Purisma (1787) and Santa Inez (1804).

If this topic interests y'all and you wish to acquire more than, our local libraries are full of great books. As well, the internet is a neat source. A map of the land grants in Santa Barbara Canton can exist found on-line at: Land Grants and Townships – Santa Barbara County (map of County country grants).

Meanwhile, value our rich heritage of Castilian, Mexican, Chumash, Asian and European peoples. In addition to an ideal climate and location, this is what makes our area so interesting and diverse.

Former mayor of Buellton,Judith Dale built her career in pedagogy and continues to serve the local customs equally Santa Barbara County 3rd District representative to the Library Informational Board and board member of the Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Infirmary Foundation. She tin be reached at judith@hwy246.net

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Source: https://syvnews.com/lifestyles/columns/judith-dale-historic-rancho-land-grants-of-california/article_b3477820-498a-526f-93d6-82c56a706749.html

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