"Archives and Records Division, Texas General Land Office".

"Archives and Records Division, Texas General Land Office".

The Texas land grants were one of the largest public land distributions in American history. Induced by titles and estates, Spanish adventurers ventured into the frontier, followed by traders and artisans. West Texas was described as "Great Space of Land Unknown" and Spanish sovereigns wanted to fill that void. Gaining independence from Spain, Mexico launched a land grant program with contractors who recruited emigrants. After the Texas Revolution in 1835, a system of Castilian edicts and English common law came into use. Lacking hard currency, land became the coin of the realm and the Republic gave generous grants to loyal first families and veterans. Through multiple homestead programs, more than 200 million acres had been deeded by the end of the 19th century. The author has relied on close examination of special acts, charters and litigation, including many previously overlooked documents.

That They May Possess the Land: The Spanish and Mexican Land Commissioners of Texas (1720-1836) by Galen D. Greaser (author) The grievances accumulated by Anglo-American settlers in Mexican Texas in the 1830s did not include complaints about the generous land grants the government had offered them on advantageous terms. Land ownership is central to the history of Texas, and the land grants awarded in Spanish and Mexican Texas are intrinsic to the story. Population in exchange for land was the prevailing strategy of Spain’s and Mexico’s colonization policy in what is now Texas. Population was the objective; colonization the strategy; and land the incentive. Spain and Mexico defined the formal procedures, qualifications, and conditions for obtaining a land grant. Colonization was a two-part process involving, first, the relocation of colonists from their place of origin to the new site and, second, the placement of colonists on the land in conditions that would enable them to become productive citizens. The colonization effort featured the use of private recruiting agents – empresarios - to assist with the first task. Government agents - land commissioners –oversaw the second objective. Title to some twenty-six million acres of Texas land, about one-seventh of its present area, derives from the land grants made by Spain and Mexico to its settlers. A land commissioner played a part in every case. The story of the empresarios who contributed to the colonization of Texas is a staple of Texas history, but an account of the land commissioners engaged in this process is given here for the first time. The cast of commissioners features, among others, a Spanish field marshal, a Dutch baron, a cashiered United States army colonel, a philandering state official, a self-serving opportunist, an Alamo defender, and a Tejano patriot. Drawn largely from primary sources and richly documented, this sometimes contentious story of the Spanish and Mexican land commissioners of Texas helps complete the narrative of the colonization of Texas and the history of its public domain. This study is a reminder of another lasting legacy of Spanish and Mexican sovereignty in Texas, their land grants.