I 
115TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 6365 
To establish the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Land Grant-Merced Claims 
Commission and other Federal policies for the restoration of land for 
hardships resulting from the incomplete and inequitable implementation 
of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to affirm Land Grant-Merced prop-
erty rights protected by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and for 
other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 13, 2018 
Mr. PEARCE introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Natural Resources 
A BILL 
To establish the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Land Grant- 
Merced Claims Commission and other Federal policies 
for the restoration of land for hardships resulting from 
the incomplete and inequitable implementation of the 
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to affirm Land Grant- 
Merced property rights protected by the Treaty of Gua-
dalupe Hidalgo, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo Land Claims Act of 2018’’. 
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents of 
this Act is as follows: 
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. 
Sec. 2. Findings. 
Sec. 3. Definitions. 
Sec. 4. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Land Grant-Merced Claims Commission. 
Sec. 5. Hearings on qualifying petitions. 
Sec. 6. Reports. 
Sec. 7. Federal land disposal authority. 
Sec. 8. Authorization of appropriation. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The Western and Southwestern United 
States have a unique history regarding land acquisi-
tion and ownership consequent to the substantial 
number of Spanish and Mexican land grants-mer-
cedes. These land grants-mercedes were an integral 
part of the colonization and growth of the region be-
fore the United States acquisition under the Treaty 
of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 
(2) Under the laws of Spain and Mexico, land 
grant-mercedes included thousands of acres of land 
that was owned and used by the communities, within 
the land grant-merced boundaries, in common. This 
included guaranteed right to the use of water, forest, 
pasture, minerals and other natural resources lo-
cated on the common lands. 
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(3) The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as af-
firmed by the Protocol of Quere´taro protects prop-
erty rights of land grants-mercedes in the territory 
ceded by Mexico to the United States of America. 
(4) Property rights include land, land title, 
water rights, natural resource rights, mineral rights, 
and rights to physical access. 
(5) Congress has enacted several major public 
land laws subject to valid existing rights including 
the Organic Administration Act of 1897 (16 U.S.C. 
473 et seq.), the Taylor Grazing Act (43 U.S.C. 315 
et seq.), the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act 
of 1960 (16 U.S.C. 528 et seq.), and the Federal 
Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 
U.S.C. 1701 et seq.). 
(6) Various provisions of the Treaty of Guada-
lupe Hidalgo have not yet been fully implemented in 
the spirit of the United States Constitution, article 
VI, section 2. 
(7) Serious questions remain regarding the 
rightful ownership of lands in several western and 
southwestern States. Certain public lands are the 
focus of such questions. 
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(8) The Gadsden Purchase incorporated by ref-
erence the property protection provisions of the 
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 
(9) Land claim commissions, appointed by Con-
gress, have successfully examined disputed land pos-
session claims. 
(10) The United States Government has recog-
nized and upheld usufruct rights for other indige-
nous groups. 
(11) Between 1968 and 1981, the Forest Serv-
ice recognized the uniqueness of the land tenure his-
tory in New Mexico and instituted what became 
known as the Northern New Mexico Policy for the 
Southwest Region to address the socioeconomic and 
cultural needs of the forest-dependent land grant- 
merced communities in New Mexico. 
(12) The United States General Accounting Of-
fice Report to Congressional Requesters, dated June 
2004, numbered GAO–04–59, and entitled the 
‘‘Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Findings and Pos-
sible Options Regarding Longstanding Community 
Land Grant Claims in New Mexico’’, found the New 
Mexico land claims confirmation process was ineffi-
cient and caused hardships to claimants. Such re-
port provided the following options for congressional 
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consideration in addressing land grant-merced 
claims: 
(A) Consider establishing a commission or 
other body to reexamine specific Land Grant- 
Merced claims that were rejected or not con-
firmed for the full acreage claimed. 
(B) Consider transferring Federal land to 
communities that did not receive all of the acre-
age originally claimed for their community land 
grants. 
(C) Consider making financial payments to 
claimants’ heirs or other entities for the non- 
use of land originally claimed but not awarded. 
(13) The General Accounting Office also noted 
that ‘‘Congress may disagree with the U.S. Supreme 
Court’s Sandoval 1897 decision and decide that it 
should be ‘legislatively overruled’, by addressing the 
affected land grants in some way or taking other ac-
tion’’. 
(14) The State of New Mexico’s response to 
such report, dated August 14, 2008, and entitled 
‘‘Report to the New Mexico Attorney General—A 
Response to the GAO’s 2004 Report ‘Treaty of Gua-
dalupe Hidalgo: Findings and Possible Options Re-
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garding Longstanding Community Land Grant 
Claims in New Mexico’ ’’, found the following: 
(A) The Federal Government had a duty 
to correctly confirm land grants-mercedes in 
New Mexico and that duty was understated by 
the analysis of the General Accounting Office. 
(B) Most land grants-mercedes were not 
confirmed by the Federal Government in the 
correct type of land ownership pattern, as 
granted by Spain or Mexico to be held in com-
mon by the entire community, but rather the 
vast majority were confirmed as privately owned 
by the family of a single petitioner or as ten-
ancy-in-common. The tenancy-in-common des-
ignation was foreign to Spanish and Mexican 
jurisprudence and left land grants-mercedes 
subject to partition suits that resulted in the 
significant loss of common land. These facts 
were omitted by the General Accounting Office 
report. 
(C) Most postconfirmation land losses were 
the direct result of the improper nature of the 
Federal confirmation, and erroneous Federal 
confirmations could not be remedied in the 
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