The land commission opened its sessions at San Francisco on January 2, 1852. It then consisted, by appointment of President
Millard Fillmore, of
Hiland Hall,
Harry I. Thornton, and
James Wilson as commissioners. In 1853 President
Franklin Pierce changed the board by the appointment of
Alpheus Felch,
Thompson Campbell and R. Augustus Thompson as commissioners. Their commissions would, in accordance with the terms of the act, have expired in March 1854; but previous to that time the operation of its provisions as to their power to act was extended for one year longer and afterward for another year. In 1854, Peter Lott was appointed commissioner in place of Campbell; and in 1855 S. B. Farwell was appointed commissioner in place of Lott. On March 3, 1856, five years after the passage of the original act, the board finally
adjourned sine die. The new state's leaders soon discovered that the Mexican government had given a number of grants to
Californios just before the Americans gained control. The Mexican governors had rewarded faithful supporters and hoped to prevent the recent American arrivals from gaining control of the land. The confirmation process required lawyers, translators, and surveyors, and took an average of 17 years (including the
Civil War, 1861–1865) to resolve. It proved expensive for landholders to defend their titles through the court system. In many cases, they had to sell a portion of their land to pay for defense fees or gave attorneys land in lieu of payment.
Conflicting claims Land under Spanish and Mexican land titles that were rejected by the courts entered the public domain. This resulted in conflicting claims by the grantees, squatters, and settlers seeking the same land. Congress was pressured to change the law. Under the earlier
Preemption Act of 1841, squatters were able to
pre-empt others' claims to land and acquire clear title by paying $1.25 an acre for up to a maximum of . After the federal
Homestead Act of 1862 was passed, anyone could claim up to of public land. This resulted in additional pressure on Congress, and beginning with
Rancho Suscol in 1863, it passed special acts that allowed certain claimants to pre-empt their land without regard to acreage. By 1866 this privilege was extended to all owners of rejected claims.
Mexican grants A number of
ranchos remained in whole or part in the sliver of
Alta California that Mexico retained under the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which became part of
Baja California.
Rancho Tía Juana lost the title to its land in
San Diego County but the balance of the rancho in Mexico was confirmed by the Mexican government in the 1880s.
Rancho El Rosario,
Rancho Cueros de Venado and
Rancho Tecate were each granted to citizens of San Diego in the 1820s or 1830s and lay wholly in what is now Baja California as was the
Rancho San Antonio Abad, whose origin and title is more obscure. Their titles were never subjected to dispute in U.S. courts. Juana Briones, whose early life started with her selling milk in Yerba Buena (today
San Francisco), became the owner of
Rancho La Purísima Concepción in
Santa Clara County. The rancho had been part of
Mission Santa Clara and was granted to Gorgonio, a well-respected Indian of that mission. Juana was a friend of Gorgonio and his family bought the 4,400-acre rancho from Gorgonio in 1844. The rancho took in what is today
Sunnyvale and
Los Altos. Later, she was one of the founding members of Mayfield (today's
Palo Alto), where she lived until she died in 1889.
California Indians Although the commission was instructed and presumed to have made a report on the status of Native land claims in the region, no evidence suggests that reports were ever completed except for those at Pauma and Santa Ynez, which eventually became reservations. Other than those two settlements, the commission gathered no information about the settlements of Native people who had been on the land since time immemorial or who claimed title under Mexican or Spanish law which had recognized their prior, aboriginal claims. The 1851 Act gave two years for people to submit claims but most Native people were not made aware of the Act or its requirements, and therefore missed the opportunity to codify their title to the lands where they had always lived. The 1851 Act is therefore one of the major vehicles by which California Indians lost their ancestral lands and were made homeless when their territory passed into the public domain after the two-year deadline. The prevalence of public domain allotments in California is a direct result of these circumstances, since the government granted those allotments after realizing the problem it had created by its circumvention of Indian aboriginal title with the 1851 Act. A later court case, U.S. ex rel. Chunie v. Ringrose, held that the claims of California's Mission Indians (those removed from their ancestral homes and relocated, with other Tribes unknown to them and subject to forced labor, on California's missions) were held through the Mexican government and were therefore also subject to this Act.
Lengthy legal action The Commission eventually confirmed 604 of the 813 claims received.
John Bautista Rogers Cooper filed a claim for
Rancho El Sur with the Public Land Commission in 1852 but he only received the legal
land patent after years of litigation in 1866. Jose Castro filed a claim for
Rancho San Jose y Sur Chiquito in 1853. He sold his land before his claim was decided. Before his case was decided, 32 others filed claims with the court that they owned a portion of his rancho. His successors litigated the claim for years. In 1882, Castro's original claim was finally validated by the court, and President
Grover Cleveland signed the
land patent on May 4, 1888, 35 years after Castro's initial filing.
Prior Land Grants Article X of the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, drafted by Bernardo Couto, Miguel Aristáin, and Luis Cuevas
, was intended to protect the
land grants made during the Spanish and Mexican administrations in
Alta California. This article established that
"All grants of land, made by the Mexican Government... will be respected as valid, to the same extent as they were granted". However, the Congress of the United States eliminated this article on March 10, 1848. In its place, the Protocol of Querétaro agreement restored the validity of Mexican land grants, but only if grantees could prove their claims in U.S. courts. That requirement led to the California Land Act of 1851. The state, however, did little to help grantees prove their claims. For example, the Act required that official proceedings in California be printed only in
English, the first "English only" rule in the US that lasted until 1966. California had very few English speakers until the
1848 gold rush. "Legal battles have continued into the 21st century over the ownership of the land grants" and many people claim their land was unfairly seized as a direct consequence of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the
Mexican-American War.
Restoration of Catholic missions One of the more significant sets of claims was filed on February 19, 1853, on behalf of the
Roman Catholic Church by
Archbishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany, wherein he sought the return of all former
mission lands in the State. Ownership of (for all practical intents being the exact area of land occupied by the original mission buildings, cemeteries, and gardens) was subsequently conveyed to the Church, along with the
Cañada de los Pinos (or College Rancho) in
Santa Barbara County comprising , and
La Laguna in
San Luis Obispo County, consisting of . ==See also==