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Show PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS 115 One might expect, therefore, when many hundreds of new claims in California, New Mexico, and Oregon had to be decided, Congress would have been prepared to draft an effective measure to adjudicate them. But it was not to be that simple. California Claims Rich and Vast Some 813 claims were waiting decision when the American government assumed control in California, of which 341 were either granted or alleged to have been granted in the 3Y2 years between January 1843 and July 7, 1846, 87 being granted in the last 6 months of Mexican rule. The grants not only included the best of the coastal valleys and much of the best land in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys but also the site of practically every city of significant size today. Some grants were fractions of an acre-near the missions-and ranchos as small as 18 acres, but most of them were from one to 11 square leagues, or 4,426 to 48,686 acres. Eight unusual grants were in excess of 11 leagues, the largest being 133,440 acres. Finally there were three extraordinary claims only one of which was presented for trial but the others were to annoy many Californians for years until they were abandoned. These were the 1,770,400-acre claim of the family of the Mexican Emperor Iturbide, the McNamara claim of 3,000 leagues or 13,314,000 acres, which Fremont used in part to justify his action in moving troops into California before he was aware war had been declared, and the Russian claim which John Sutter had bought. At least 40 grants had been given to Americans, Germans, Englishmen, and others who agreed to become Catholics and Mexican subjects, and numerous other grants had already passed or were in process of passing into the hands of Americans through intermarriage, mortgage foreclosure, and purchase. A rough estimate of the total acreage in private land claims in California would be 14 million acres, exclusive of the McNamara and Russian claims. A glance at the maps showing the claims makes clear that most of them were in the coastal valleys of the Santa Ana, Santa Anita, Los Angeles, Salinas, Russian Rivers, and other minor streams draining the valleys of the Coast range. Other claims were located on both sides of the Sacramento River. Included in these grants were the most accessible land and the best lands for grazing and agriculture.89 Most of them had been made for grazing livestock and were very little cultivated, if at all. None were fenced, few had any identifiable boundaries or discernible corners, some had not even been located before American occupation. Others were floating rights limited to an area three or four times larger than their size. It was the responsibility of the American government to translate this Spanish-Mexican maze of inchoate, incomplete, conditional, unsur-veyed, and unlocated grants (some of which were subject to retrocession or forfeiture if conditions were not fulfilled) into an entirely different land system which recognized only absolute fee simple titles or conditional rights whose obligations must be fulfilled before title could be issued. Congress did not get around to establishing a commission to try the California land claims until 1851 and not until 1853 did the commission get down to serious work. Meantime, the newly admitted state had been overrun almost overnight by hordes of immigrants- more than 300,000 by 1860-who came for gold but, disappointed, remained to till the land. Out of the 813 Mexican grants, the 341 made during the years 1843 to 1846 had scarcely a sign indicating they were privately owned or claimed and not vacant public land. With land values rising rapidly, the disillusioned gold seekers swept over the undeveloped claims, selected desirable locations, and demanded the right of preemption which was available elsewhere on the frontier. Even 89 \y YV. Robinson, Land in California (Berkeley, 1948), p. 68. |