Comments on a California Legislative Bill by a Hispanic Newspaper in 1856

By Armando Miguélez.

In last week´s Hispanic Heritage piece, “Squatters in the Southwest United States,” we gave the social and historical context of a legislative bill that was under consideration in California in 1856, only eight years after the signing of the “Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo” between Mexico and the United States. The treaty also ensured safety of pre-existing property rights of Mexican citizens in the transferred territories. Despite assurances to the contrary, property rights of Mexican citizens were often not honored by the United States as per modifications to and interpretations of the treaty.

Here is the full version of the particular bill and the translated information made in Spanish in the Hispanic newspaper from Los Angeles, El Clamor Público, on April 5, 1856. The goal was for the Mexicans and Californios to be able to understand what the bill exactly said.

It is important to remember that at the time, many of those Mexican Californios suddenly living in U.S. territory spoke mainly Spanish because the geographical areas where they lived had been part of Mexico until just a few years earlier. It is key to understand that California had been part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and Mexico. The territory of California was annexed in 1848 by the United States following the Mexican-American War. Californios included the descendants of agricultural settlers and escort soldiers from Mexico.

Much of Californio society lived in ranchos or agricultural settlements near the many missions, which were established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By the start of the nineteenth century there were twenty-one missions under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church located along the royal highway, the Camino Real. The Californio rancho society produced the largest cowhide and tallow business in North America.

A Bill to Pacify California

Both chambers of the state legislature have approved this bill, and as it directly impacts many Spanish landowners, we are going to translate excerpts of it that were published in the Chronicle [San Francisco]. It goes like this:

Section 1. — All land in this state will be considered public domain until such time as the legal deed is duly granted by the government to a private individual.

Section 2. — The real and peaceful possession of the land will be prima facie evidence of the right to possession that is held by the individual in possession of said land.

Section 3. –  In all cases, when land is claimed by means of a United States patent or by a patent of this state, the claimant’s rights commence as of the date the patent goes into effect and he will have no right to the usufruct or use of the land until such date as the patent is obtained.

Section 4. –  In any action that involves divestment or other such actions that involve the right to possession or that will subsequently be heard in a court in this state, the respondent can refuse the complainant’s right to a plot of land or the possession of same, and can also state and give notice in his response that he or any other person against whom a claim is filed has recently made substantial improvements on the land, specifying exactly what those improvements are and their value, and if the land is cultivated, the claimant will also specify this fact, and the Court charged with ruling on the action will instruct the jury as to the verdict they must render:  1. What right the claimant has to the land or to the possession of the land, and if he indeed can claim a right to the land or to its possession; 2. Investigate the value of the plot of land in question, and the improvements that have been made by the respondent or his assignees; 3 The value of the improvements made; 4. The value of the land that is cultivated at the time of the action.

(Section 4 provides that if the ruling is in favor of the complainant, he must pay the respondent an amount equal to the value of the improvements and crops within six months, and that if the complainant fails to do so, he will pay the respondent the value of the land and improvements as determined by the jury.)

Section 10. – The provisions of this act are applicable to all litigation on land claims or land possession based on Spanish or Mexican land grants, or to any grant made by the governors of California except when said grants have been evaluated and their boundaries clearly and distinctly marked in such a way that they were easily identifiable and known when improvements were made to the land, or when said grant, the field notes and the results of the measurement were recorded in the County Recorder’s Office corresponding to the land in question prior to any improvements being made.

Sec. 11 –  No divestment or other type of action to recover possession of land will be upheld in the future unless said action is initiated within two years of the commencement of the cause of action, considered to be the date on which the land patent was issued,  against any occupant occupying any part of the land for which a patent has been issued, with the understanding, furthermore, that children and married women will be subject to the same deadlines and time periods as regards the commencement of action, once they are legally qualified, as established in this section.

We have tried to translate these excerpts as ad pedem literae as possible. As our readers can see, the California legislature couldn’t have made things easier for the settlers or squatters.  God bless them!

El Eco del Pacífico made the following comments:

The law we reproduced last week was passed by the Legislature, and if the patriotism and honor of the Executive Branch of this state does not veto it, we will witness the most monstrous of injustices become state law.

According to the universal principles of Law, in order for a law to be a law, it should be based on justice and equity. If that were not the case, instead of being a law, it would simply be a ridiculous illusion if it were not enforced, or a monstrous abuse of power of the type exercised only by tyrants if it were. Given this, let’s analyze the justice of the law in question.

Justification is sought for any action, no matter how unjust or barbaric, and so here attempts have been made to justify the divestments, violations, usurpations, and assassinations committed over the last seven years against landowners by this ignoble gang known as squatters by calling them good faith occupants. (We are not referring here to those who occupy public lands.)  As it has not been easy to offer a plausible reason for the horrendous pillaging that these “good faith occupants” have carried out, a member of the legislature took it upon himself to present a bill which begins as follows: “All land in this state will be considered public domain until such time as the legal deed is duly granted by the government to a private individual.”  This declaration in the law effectively abolishes squatters by qualifying their aggressions as the acts of honorable citizens who are occupying land that according to national law belongs to the public domain. This is proof of the debauchery and immorality that for seven long years has devastated and destroyed the interests of honorable families, and is now about to be sanctioned by state law! How far can the arbitrariness of the strong versus the weak, of the conquered versus the conquered, be allowed to go!

Does the legislature have the authority to declare all land to be public domain whenever an approved deed has not been produced? Not even the federal government could make such a declaration without violating the terms of the treaties they have signed which require respect for Spanish and Mexican land grants. And so we must ask, can the California state legislature exercise authority that the national government doesn’t have and at the same time completely disregard the commitments the country has assumed?

Legally issued Spanish and Mexican land grants can never be considered public domain even if they have not yet been approved by the federal government given that the delay in issuing the corresponding patents is a result of the long and ruinous procedures that the natives must follow, something for which the federal government is to blame, not the native landowners. Furthermore, is it fair that all of the weight of the inefficiency of the government is brought to bear on the natives and other landowners when in reality the government should be compensating them? We believe that we are not wrong in saying that the California legislature has not only overstepped its authority, but is also contravening what is right and just.

Section 2 of this law arises from Section 1 and so lacks the same legal legitimacy.

Section 3 strips landowners of their right to claim usufruct of the land for the time that the land is taken away from them prior to the date of the patent. It states that the rights of landowners commence when the patent is issued. In other words, the legislature does not respect the grants that the nation is obliged to respect, implying that the Mexican deeds are worthless and that the only valid document is the land patent issued by the federal government. This third section, based on the prior ones, is just as unfair.

It literally horrifies us to have to comment upon such unjust provisions. This bill has no other objective than to declare squatters as good faith occupants, approve their scandalous efforts to ruin the natives, and reward crime and attacks on the honor and solemn commitments of this country. Will this bill really become a law? Will such a thing be allowed to happen in California? Who knows? The only thing we can say is that California leaves much to be desired.

El Clamor Público, April 5, 1856 (Los Angeles)