Ranchos of California
Unlike Spanish Concessions, Mexican land grants provided permanent, unencumbered ownership rights.
But the Native Americans were quickly brushed aside by Californios who, with the help of those in power, acquired the church lands as grants.
The "rancheros" (rancho owners) patterned themselves after the landed gentry of New Spain, and were primarily devoted to raising cattle and sheep.
[3] Two years later the governor received authority to grant tracts not exceeding three square leagues, as long as they did not conflict with the boundaries of existing pueblos.
Soldiers, rancheros, farmers, and those in power coveted the rich coastal lands that the missions controlled.
The Mexican government was also fearful about the missions which remained loyal to the Pope and the Catholic Church in Spain.
[7] Most mission property was bought by government officials or their wealthy friends, local Californios, individuals of Mexican or Spanish descent who had been born in Alta California.
They sometimes congregated at rancherías (living areas near a hacienda) where an indigenous Spanish and mestizo culture developed.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War, was signed February 2, 1848 and California became a Territory of the United States.
While the end of the 1840s saw the close of Mexican control over Alta California, this period also marked the beginning of the rancheros' greatest prosperity.
Cattle had been raised primarily for their hides and tallow, as there was no market for large quantities of beef, especially in the days prior to refrigeration, railroads or ice production.
Demand dramatically changed with the onset of the Gold Rush, as thousands of miners and other fortune seekers flooded into northern California.
To investigate and confirm titles in California, American officials acquired the provincial records of the Spanish and Mexican governments in Monterey.
[15][16] The new state's leaders soon discovered that the Mexican government had given a number of grants just before the Americans gained control.
The Mexican governors had rewarded faithful supporters, and hoped to prevent the new immigrants from gaining control of the land.
Land had until the gold rush been of little value and boundary locations were often quite vague, referring to an oak tree, a cow skull on a pile of rocks, a creek, and in some cases a mountain range.
[4] The 588 grants made by Spanish and Mexican authorities in California between 1769 and 1846 encompassed more than 8,850,000 acres (3,580,000 ha), or nearly 14,000 square miles (36,000 km2).
Aside from indefinite survey lines, the Land Commission had to determine whether the grantees had fulfilled the requirements of the Mexican colonization laws.
[21] The confirmation process required lawyers, translators, and surveyors, and took an average of 17 years (including the Civil War, 1861–1865) to resolve.
This resulted in additional pressure on Congress, and beginning with Rancho Suscol in 1863, it passed special acts that allowed certain claimants to pre-empt their land without regard to acreage.
A sharp decline in cattle prices, the Great Flood of 1862, and droughts of 1863–1864 also forced many of the overextended rancheros to sell their properties to Americans.
[27] A shift in the economic dominance of grain farming over cattle raising was marked by the passage of the California "No-Fence Law" of 1874.
The ranchers were faced with either the high expense of fencing large grazing tracts or selling their cattle at ruinous prices.
Modern communities often follow the original boundaries of the rancho, based on geographic features and abstract straight lines.
Only a few historic structures and an 8,000 square feet (740 m2) ranch house, built in the 1970s, occupy the 13,300 acres (5,400 ha).
After her death in 2006, ownership of the land passed to their daughter, Theodate Coates, an artist from New York City.
