13.2.8: Spanish Land Grants

Spanish Land Grants

In the American Southwest, where vast areas were once governed by Spain (1521-1821) and later Mexico (1820-1846). Spain and Mexico both advanced land distribution policies that created massive land grants that are still evident on the landscape, especially in California.

Spanish (like the French) families were less likely to practice primogeniture, the tradition in which families bequeath all their lands to the oldest son. The Spanish and French were more likely to divide property among children. As a result, there was a smaller pool of landless people willing to move to the Americas from those areas. The British, as well as some other parts of Northern Europe, did practice primogeniture, which encouraged vast numbers of “second sons'' to move to North America. Without an excess of landless young men and/or significant religious minorities, the Spanish had some trouble getting Spaniards to colonize their lands in the Americas.

Figure: Solvang, CA - Mission Santa Ynez once controlled all the lands in this photo, a massive land grant from the King of Spain. Soon after the fall of the Spanish crown, these lands were acquired by wealthy elites (Californios). Land tenure issues would likely plague California today, like they do in Latin America, had the US not taken California from Mexico by force in 1848 and instituted metes and bounds

A lack of willing migrants and a very difficult path to the Pacific Coast, combined with challenging farming conditions discouraged European settlement of the western margins of North America for hundreds of years. To entice settlement of their claims in the Americas Spanish Kings made significant land grants available to those willing to move to “New Spain”, especially if the person was a political ally of the king. In California, about 30 grants were made by the Spanish crown, but corrupt and weak Mexican governors granted many thousands of acres in land grants to political allies, friends, and family members and the process created a huge network of plantation-style ranchos across California during the Mexican era.

A feudal style land tenure system evolved in California during the Mexican era, characterized by an exceptional concentration of land, wealth, and power into the hands of a few dozen families, almost all of whom operated massive cattle ranches, employing Indians and mestizo peasant-laborers. Dozens of huge ranchos remained in the late 19th century. Some mimicked the large agricultural plantations of the Deep South – but without the enslaved labor force. However, after the Mexican-American War(1848), mostelarge ranchos were broken up, because either the US government did not recognize the legitimacy of the property claims, or powerful American interests simply wanted to steal the land – which had been previously stolen from Native Californians. Real estate developers made fortunes by buying well-placed ranchos and turning them into thousands of small suburban home lots. A few have managed to survive, sometimes as state parks or wilderness areas, like the Ahmanson Ranch, at the western border of Los Angeles County, which was formerly part of the 113,000-acre Rancho San Jose de Gracias de Simi.

Where the Spanish system survived in Latin America, the maldistribution of land had profound effects on the region’s political, economic, and social structures. Where agriculture is the predominant industry, land equals wealth. Therefore, where large percentages of the land were given to a few powerful families, oligarchies developed alongside a disenfranchised peasantry.

The Spanish Land Grant system worked well to advance plantation economic systems discussed earlier in the text and together created enormous hardship for many people in Latin America. Democracy, urbanization, and industrialization diminished the effects of the Spanish Land Grant system in the US, but inequality remains high in regions of the country where this system was predominant.

Figure: San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, CA. The Spanish and Mexican governments made many very large land grants to powerful interests. For example, the El Encino ranch on this map was 4,460 acres. After the US acquired California, the US government allowed homesteaders access to the small 40-acre plots, but many American claimed more in the West.

Farm Buildings

Agricultural buildings provide clues about past and modern farm systems. Barns are the most obvious element of the agricultural landscape, but fencing, barbed wire, grain silos, and other outbuildings are sources of landscape information, readable by the trained geographer. As you ride in the agricultural countryside, try to understand the narrative evident in the landscape.

Consider for example the different styles of barns found across the United States. Barns can be general-purpose structures or may be built specifically for farmers engaged in a specific type of agriculture. The style of the barn and agricultural outbuildings sometimes reflect the ethnic groups that settled a region and simultaneously provide clues to the political, cultural, and religious environment in which barns were built. For example, the tobacco barn below serves as a reminder to passers-by of the economics of tobacco farming, slavery, inequality, and soil exhaustion. If you were to see Bavarian hay barns dotting the American roadside, you could expect the local culture to exhibit many other cultural traits from Germany.

Figure: Green County, TN. This tobacco barn is a good example of a purpose-built barn. The crop hangs from many poles arranged in the well-ventilated barn to allow proper drying before the product is shipped for processing. Source: Wikimedia.

Figure: Mittenwald, Germany. In the Bavarian Alps, settlement and land stewardship. Silage, animals and small hay barns, made of locally available logs, dot the equipment were stored in this barn. What are the risks of landscape and provide a clue to the folk heritage associated with such a building? community here. Similar structures were introduced to the American landscape, but are rare in the US today.

Figure: A Diary in the middle a green field