Quote:
Originally Posted by ilbegone
It is true that few wanted to come to the northern frontier (roughly equivalent to the modern border, with the exception of mostly coastal California, eastern Texas, and along the Rio Grande from Southern Texas through the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico into Southern Colorado), which was further separated from central Mexico by large deserts full of hostile Indians - many raiding from the northern frontier. Prior to the 20th century to possess in the Americas was was to populate by migration from a mother cultural center or assimilation of the local natives, and neither Spain nor Mexico could sufficiently populate or assimilate the north in order to possess. It was one thing dealing with Indians who were formerly sedentary subjects of meso American Indian empire and entirely another thing dealing with nomadic north American Indians. As well, the northern frontier was more economically tied to American traders than it was to central Mexico.
However, I'm not so sure that Mexico handed out land grants like candy.
And, the majority of land grant holders did eventually lose their properties in several ways, and off the top of my head (It's been quite a while since I looked into it):
The majority of Californios were unaccustomed to handling money, particularly in dealings with Yankee money lenders who could be quite ruthless in collecting debt.
Quite a number of land grant properties, while well understood by the Californios under the Spanish system and local tradition, were ill defined by American legal standard and didn't stand up in court under the US legal system when the ownership of those properties were challenged by squatters from eastern America.
Others were victims of biased court decisions rendered on baseless suits or were litigated until they ran out of whatever money they had for legal defense.
I'm not aware that Mexican land grants in California to those of American extraction prior to the Mexican American war were lost in a similar manner. I'm not very familiar with the land grant situation of New Mexico and Texas (I'm somewhat familiar with land grants to immigrants from America in Texas), but I believe a similar result happened in those areas.
As far as "Mexicans" not wanting to come here: every country has local, regional and national identities. Criollo Californio Osio declared himself to be a proud Mexican, but I perceive that he more identified as a Californio. He stated that a desired independence from Mexico would be impossible due to the lack of population and dearth of literacy in California. He also said that the old retired soldiers from the Spanish era would rally if called on by the King of Spain, but the tone doesn't seem to be so for the cause of Mexico. Contrary to the sneering, biased, untroubled by fact tale spun by the History Channel a few years ago (Conquerors series, Fremont?), there was no functioning Mexican army in California during the Mexican American war. Resistance was put up by a relative few rancheros with lances who might have been amenable to unification with America except that the Bear Flag clowns, Commodore Stanton, and knucklehead Fremont pissed them off with arrogance and stupidity.
On the other hand the UCLA professor who wrote the book Becoming Mexican - American (George Sanchez?) let out a rare tidbit on about page 70 of the paperback edition - that during the late 19th century when Mexicans began moving into Los Angeles, the Californios moved out. These two peoples once shared nationality and had cultural ties which together weren't enough to establish a common identity.
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California to this day, still follows Spanish Law when it comes to realestate. One of the many differences is that back at the time when the USA bought the government land from Mexico, British Law prevented women from owning land, but Spanish Land Laws allowed women to own land.
While in college, I studied Mexican history and History of the Americas. I don't remember much of what was said in those classes, but I do remember some of it. One thing I remember was the professor saying the grants were given out freely to anyone in Mexico who would settle here in California, especially when they started to realize they were losing the war. I also studied to take my realestate brokers license, which is why I know about which laws California follows in regards to realestate.
Your information is fresh to you and more than likely more accurate; its been years since I cracked those books.