OCR Text |
Show 458 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN HISTORY SPANISH and extent of all claims to land under the laws, usages, and customs of Spain and Mexico. He was authorized to issue notices, summon witnesses, administer oaths, etc., and required to make full reports to the secretary of the interior, to be laid before congress for final action, ‘‘with a view to confirm bona fide grants,’’ on all claims originating before the cession by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, denoting the various grades of title, with his decision as to their validity or invalidity; locality, number also to report of inhabitants, and as to all pueblos, nature the extent, of title of each; and, until final action by congress on such claims, all lands covered thereby to be reserved from sale or other disposal by the government, Pelham and not subject was appointed to the donation surveyor clause general and in the act. on August William 25, 1854, John Wilson, commissioner of the general land office, issued an order containing a most elaborate set of instructions,?7* which order 878 The honorable, the secretary of the interior must have had a high appreciation of the attainments of the presidential appointee, William Pelham, for among the ‘‘necessary acts’’ contemplated by the act of congress and required of him, as set out in the ‘‘instructions,’’ he was ordered, among other duties, to acquaint himself ‘‘with the land system of Spain as applied to her ultra marine possessions, the general features of which are found — modified, of course by local requirements and usages—in the former provinces and dependencies of that monarchy on this continent. For this purpose you must examine the laws of Spain, the royal ordinances, decrees, and regulations as collected in White’s Recopilacion, 2 vols.’’ He was referred to the decisions of the supreme court of the United States, reported in Peters’s and Howard 8 Reports and required ‘‘to examine them carefully in connection with the Spanish law, and the legislation of congress on the subject, in order that you may understand and be able to apply the principles of the Spanish system as understood and expounded by the authorities of our government. i Upon his arrival at Santa Fé he was required ‘‘to make application to the governor of the Territory for such of the archives as relate to grants of land by the former authorities of the country.’’? He was instructed to “'see that they [the archives] are kept in a place of security from fire, or other accidents, and that access is allowed only to land owners who may find . necessary to refer to their title records, and such references must be made under your eye, or that of a sworn employe of the government.’’ He was ordered ‘‘to proceed at once to arrange and classify the papers in the order of date, and have them properly and substantially bound; . . you will then have schedules,’’ he was instructed, ‘‘ Marked 1, of them made out in duplieat and will prepare abstracts (No. 2), also in duplicate, of all the grants foun in the records, showing the names of grantees, date, area, locality, by whom conceded, and under what authority.’’ He was ordered ‘‘to prepare in duplicate, from the archives or an itative sources, a document (marked No. 3), exhibiting the names of all on officers of the Territory who held the power of distributing lands from. ~ earliest settlements of the Territory until the change of government, indicating the several periods of their incumbency, the nature and extent of ~~ powers, concerning lands; whether, and to what extent, and under what cond AND MEXICAN LAND GRANTS 459 was approved on the same day by the secretary of the interior, R. McClelland. It is not recorded whether Surveyor-General Pelham was able to carry out to the letter the instructions given him by the secretary of the interior. It is known that he made application to the governor of the territory, David Merriwether,*”® for such of the archives as related to land grants, which he declined to deliver, giving as his reason that their selection from the large amount of papers composing the public archives of the territory would involve an immense amount of labor and a heavy expenditure, which he was not Governor Merriwether permitted the surveyauthorized to incur. or-general to remove the archives to the office of the latter, where On the 18th of January, 1855, they were examined and separated. Surveyor-General Pelham issued a notice to ‘‘The Inhabitants of New Mexico”’ relative to the filing of claims for lands to be passed upon by him under the provisions of the act of 1854. Many of the owners of grants were averse to responding to this notice and declined to file any papers **° relative to their titles to lands in the territory. tions and limitations, authority existed in the governors or political chiefs to distribute (repartir) the public domain; whether in any class of cases they had the power to make an absolute grant; and if so, for what maximum in area; or whether subject to the affirmance of the department or supreme government; whether the Spanish surveying system was in operation, and since what period in the country, and under what organization; also with verified Copies in the original, and translations of the laws and decrees of the Mex- ican republic, and regulations which may have been adopted by the general government of that republic for the disposal of the public lands in New Mexico.’? 879 William Pelham, surveyor-general, Report, September 30, 1855: “‘ He, however, allowed me to remove the packages containing such papers as related to the grants of land in the country from their deposit, and examine them im my own office; whereupon, I immediately assigned two of my clerks to Separate them. On the last day of July this difficult duty was accomplished, and from one hundred and sixty-eight packages, averaging one hundred and Sixty-eight thousand papers, of every nature and description imaginable, one thousand seven hundred and fifteen grants, conveyances of land, and other documents referring to claims to lands, have been selected, and are now being arranged and classified in a systematical form in this office. It will, however, be impossible to have them properly and substantially bound, as required by your instructions on account of the different shapes and forms im which they are found — some existing on large sheets of foolscap paper, While others are to be found on half sheets, and others again on scraps of Paper, which can never be bound in any convenient form.’’ cn’ The commissioner of the general land office in his Report for 1856, says: The Selection from the archives of the Spanish and Mexican governments, which were turned over to the surveyor general’s office by the governor of |