CALIFORNIA BRIEF HISTORY 

California Land Grants

During the Spanish and Mexican periods, over 800 huge grants of land had been given to Hispanics and some whites who settled in California. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo explicitly guaranteed that these land grants would be honored by the United States. Several were larger than 40,500 hectares (100,000 acres). With the beginning of the Gold Rush and the influx of new settlers, Americans complained about the size of such land claims. The U.S. Senate sympathized with the new immigrants, not the rancheros, most of whom were Hispanic, and passed legislation that allowed multiple appeals on land claim decisions. Thus, most claims remained unresolved for years. Owners had to prove ownership, a difficult task because few accurate surveys had ever been made. The cost of court proceedings often consumed more than the property was worth.