page_title: Aboriginal title in California
section_title: U.S. territory
hierarchical_section_title: Aboriginal title in California / History / U.S. territory
caption_attribution_description: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Exchange Copy, cover. Treaty ending USA-Mexico War in 1848 and transfering large amount of territory from Mexico to USA.
context_page_description: Aboriginal title in California refers to the aboriginal title land rights of the indigenous peoples of California. The state is unique in that no Native American tribe in California is the counterparty to a ratified federal treaty. Therefore, all the Indian reservations in the state were created by federal statute or executive order.
  California has experienced less possessory land claim litigation than other states. This is primarily the result of the Land Claims Act of 1851 that required all claims deriving from the Spanish and Mexican governments to be filed within two years. Three U.S. Supreme Court decisions and one Ninth Circuit ruling have held that the Land Claims Act applied to aboriginal title, and thus extinguished all aboriginal title in the state. Two Deputy Attorneys General of California have advocated this view.
context_section_description: Mexico ceded California to the US in 1848 pursuant to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  Under Article Eight of that treaty, the United States agreed to respect the hundreds of land grants, many quite substantial, granted by the Spanish and Mexican governments to private landowners. Articles Nine and Ten guaranteed the property rights of Mexican nationals. The United States established procedures to review the validity of such land grants.
  That same year gold was discovered in California, rapidly accelerating migration to California. Reports commissioned by the federal government during this period uniformly downplayed the extent of indigenous land rights under Spanish and Mexican rule.
caption: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
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