Chapter 1 - § 1.1 • MEXICAN GRANTS
| Jurisdiction | Colorado |
§ 1.1.1—In General
From the time of the establishment by Spain of colonies in North America, the king and his provisional governors were in the habit of making extensive grants of land to individuals for pastoral, agricultural, and colonization purposes. After Mexico had achieved her independence, the same policy was pursued by the supreme and local governments of that country.1
§ 1.1.2—Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
In 1848, the United States and the Republic of Mexico entered into the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending hostilities between the two nations.2 By Article V of the treaty, Mexico ceded certain lands to the United States.3 Article VIII of the treaty required the United States to respect the property of Mexican citizens in the ceded lands.4
In order to establish a process for determination of land claims, Congress provided that the surveyor general of the Territory of New Mexico be given the duty "to ascertain the origin, nature, character, and extent of all claims to lands under the laws, usages, and customs of Spain and Mexico" and to report to Congress on the validity of such claims so that Congress could take "such action thereon as may be deemed just and proper, with a view to confirm bona fide grants, and give full effect to the treaty of eighteen hundred and forty-eight between the United States and Mexico."5 No jurisdiction over such claims in New Mexico was conferred upon the courts. The surveyor general was to decide such claims in the first instance, and the final action was reserved to Congress. The action of Congress was conclusive, and not subject to review in the courts.6
Mexican land grants confirmed by Congress7 did not create the estate but recognized a pre-existing right in the grantee, conferred by the Mexican Government.8 In Colorado, these grants were the Tierra Amarilla, the Beaubien and Miranda (Maxwell), the Vigil and St. Vrain (Las Animas), the Nolan, and the Sangre de Cristo.9 The Baca No. 4 grant, which is also in Colorado, is unique in that, while its origin is founded in the circumstances of a Mexican grant, title to the grant was not conferred by the Mexican government.
The accompanying map10 in Exhibit 1A shows the grants as originally claimed and as adjudicated.
§ 1.1.3—Particular Grants
Baca Grant11
In 1821, Luis Marie Cabeza de Baca, on behalf of himself and a number of his male children, petitioned Mexican governmental authorities for the grant of a tract of land containing nearly 500,000 acres12 and known as the Vegas Grandes, in the vicinity of the present-day city of Las Vegas, New Mexico. (The Vegas Grandes was included in the lands ceded to the United States under Article V of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.) The tract was granted to Baca, who settled on the land, remained for some time, and then left.13 Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821. The grant to Baca was made by the provincial deputation of Durango on May 29, 1821, and was later ratified and confirmed in February 1825 by the departmental assembly of New Mexico, then a province of the Republic of Mexico.14 In 1835, certain other persons petitioned Mexican governmental authorities for the same land, and the petition was granted shortly thereafter with the proviso that persons who owned no land were to be permitted the same privileges of settling upon the grant as the persons who had petitioned.15 Thereafter several hundred families settled on the grant.16
On December 18, 1858, the surveyor general issued his report with respect to the claims of the heirs of Baca and of the town of Las Vegas to the Vegas Grandes. He concluded:
that the land embraced in either of the two grants is lawfully separated from the public domain and entirely beyond the disposal of the general government, and that in the absence of the one the other would be a good and valid grant; but as this office has no power to decide between conflicting parties, they are referred to the proper tribunals of the country for the adjudication of their respective claims, and the case is hereby respectfully referred to Congress through the proper channel for its action in the premises.17
On May 19, 1860, the United States Senate Committee on Private Land Claims issued its report. It determined that the grant to Baca and his sons "is a genuine and valid title," and that later, on a petition that represented the land to be public, the same land was granted to the predecessors of the town of Las Vegas, the persons presenting the petition were put in possession, "and several hundred families are located on it." The report noted that the surveyor general "has recommended the confirmation of both these titles, leaving to the respective claimants the right of adjusting their conflicting claims in the courts." The report observed, however, that "the plunging of an entire settlement of families into litigation, at the imminent hazard of being turned out of their homes, or made to purchase a second time, from a private owner, lands for which they paid their government a full equivalent, in the labor, risk, and exposure by which they have converted a wilderness, surrounded by hostile savages, into a civilized and thriving settlement" would be a disastrous result. It then stated that an alternative involving "little loss or cost to the government" was available:
The claimants under the title to Baca . . . represented by . . . counsel, have expressed a willingness to waive their older title in favor of the settlers, if allowed to enter an equivalent quantity of land elsewhere within the Territory; and your committee cannot doubt that Congress will cheerfully accept the proposal, which, indeed, would undoubtedly have been acceded to by Mexico if the Territory had remained hers, and to whose rights and duties the United States have succeeded.18
Congress confirmed, among others, claim number 20, embracing the competing claims of the Baca heirs and the town of Las Vegas to the Vegas Grandes, which was among the claims confirmed "as recommended for confirmation by said surveyor-general in his reports."19 As the Colorado Supreme Court explained:
We use the term "confirmed" with respect to each of these competing claims even though Congress clearly recognized the conflict between them and provided a means for its resolution. Congress undoubtedly meant no more than to acknowledge and approve the surveyor general's conclusion that in the absence of either claim the other would be a good and valid grant. See Senate Rep. No. 228 at 3-4 . . . ; see also Lane v. Watts, 234 U.S. at 528 (referring to both grants as "confirmed"); but see Shaw v. Kellogg, 170 U.S. 312 . . . (1898) (speaking of the claim of the heirs of Baca to the Vegas Grandes, the court said, "Here there had been no claim confirmed to any tract of land, but only the grant of a right to locate.").20
Congress made the following provision for the heirs of Baca:
That it shall be lawful for the heirs of Luis Maria Baca, who make claim to the said tract of land as is claimed by the town of Las Begas [sic], to select instead of the land claimed by them, an equal quantity of vacant land, not mineral, in the Territory of New Mexico, to be located by them in square bodies, not exceeding five in number. And it shall be the duty of the surveyor-general of New Mexico, to make survey and location of the lands so selected by said heirs of Baca when thereunto required by them: Provided, however, That the right hereby granted to said heirs of Baca shall continue in force during three years from the passage of this act, and no longer.21
As the United States Supreme Court characterized it, "Congress accommodated the dispute by a magnificent donation of lands to the heirs of Baca, and confirmed the original land to the town."22
The surveyor general of the Territory of New Mexico was directed by proper federal authorities to survey the Vegas Grandes to determine the area of the...
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