Page 12 - LLR-Exploration II

Mexican Era

It was not until the Mexican era (1821–1846) that the titles to the plots of land were granted to individuals.
In 1821, Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, and California came under control of the Mexican
government. The 1824 Mexican Colony Law established rules for petitioning for land grants in California; and
by 1828, the rules for establishing land grants were codified in the Mexican Reglamento (Regulation). The
Acts sought to break the land monopoly of the missions and also paved the way for luring additional settlers
to California by making land grants easier to obtain. The Mexican Governors of Alta California gained the
power to grant state lands, and many of the Spanish concessions were subsequently patented under
Mexican law—frequently to local "friends" of the governor.
Through the Mexican secularization act of 1833, the Mexican government repossessed most of the lands
initially "granted" to the Franciscan missions (about 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) per mission) by the
Spanish crown who had "appropriated" the land "for the Mission Indians". Secularization was implemented
between 1834 and 1836. The Mexican government allowed the padres to keep only the church, priest's
quarters and priest's garden. The army troops guarding each Mission were dismissed. A commissioner would
oversee the mission's crops and herds, while the land was divided up as communal pasture, a town plot, and
individual plots for each Indian family. The Mission Indians, freed from the missions, often joined other
interior tribes or sought work on the new ranchos along the troops formerly assigned to each mission.

The number of Mexican land grants greatly increased after the secularization of the missions in 1834.
Although the original intent of the secularization legislation was to have the property divided among former
surviving Mission Indians, most of the grants were made to local Californios, individuals who had been born
in Alta California.

The Mexican rancho grants were provisional. The boundaries, on paper, had to be "officially" surveyed and
marked. This produced a 'diseño', a hand-drawn topological map, to define the area. Since there were very
few surveyors this requirement was seldom met. The grantee could not initially subdivide or rent out the
land. The land had to be used for grazing or cultivated. Residential house had to be built within a year—most
were initially simple adobe walled cabins. Public roads crossing through the property could not be closed.
Most rancho grants boundaries and other requirements were not checked by the poorly paid and organized
"government" of California who had little interest in land that brought in no taxes—money to run the
government came from tariffs collected at Monterey, California.