From the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, Spain and México issued grants of land to individuals, groups, towns, pueblos, and other settlements in order to populate present-day New Mexico. Academic treatises and popular literature typically divide these grants into two types: “individual grants” and “community land grants.” Grants awarded to towns and other settlements were modeled on similar communities created in Spain, where the king granted lands adjacent to small towns for common use by all town residents. Under Spanish and Mexican law in the territory of New Mexico, officials made grants to towns and other communities. These grants usually contained sufficient land and water resources to facilitate settlement and the establishment of communities. Both land and water were essential ingredients for sustaining agricultural communities in New Mexico. Such grants were in keeping with Spanish laws, including the 1680 Recopilación de las Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, which was a compendium of laws governing settlements in the New World. However, local laws, practices, and customs often dictated how grants were made and confirmed. After achieving independence from Spain in 1821, México continued to adhere to Spanish law by extending additional land grants to individuals to encourage settlements in unoccupied areas and to stave off U.S. encroachment on Mexican territory. The Mexican-American War began in 1846 and formally ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Under the treaty, México ceded most of what is presently the American Southwest, including the present day states of New Mexico and California, to the United States for $15 million. Figure. 1 shows the territory ceded by México under the treaty. While the treaty generally provided protection for property in the ceded area, Article X expressly addressed land grant protection. However, U.S. President James Polk objected to the provision, fearing that a revival of land grant claims had the potential to jeopardize the grants already settled in Texas. The Senate Resolution of advice and consent to ratification contained several amendments to the treaty, including one that struck out Article X. Subsequently, in 1848, the United States and México signed the Protocol of Querétaro, which explained certain aspects of the treaty. In Article 2 of the Protocol, the United States indicated in its interpretation that the exclusion of Article X in no way meant that it planned to annul the land grants. The Protocol specified the United States’ position that land grant titles would be protected under the treaty and that grantees could have their ownership of land acknowledged before American tribunals. In the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, the United States purchased additional land from México for $15 million, including the southwest corner of the present State of New Mexico. The Gadsden Purchase incorporated by reference the property protection provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. To implement the treaties, the Congress enacted legislation in 1854 to establish the Office of Surveyor General of New Mexico. The Surveyor General was charged with examining documents and verifying the ownership of land grants. The U.S. government required individuals or towns and other communities to prove ownership or property interests in grant lands. After reviewing the land grant documentation, the Surveyor General was to recommend to the Secretary of the Interior whether a grant should be rejected or confirmed. If the Secretary of the Interior agreed with a recommendation to confirm, he, in turn, would recommend that Congress approve the grant. Upon congressional approval of the grant, the U.S. government usually issued a patent, which conveyed the property’s title to the owner. The Congress reviewed and confirmed 64 of the surveyor generals’ recommendations, but in the late 1870s, the congressional review of recommendations ceased. In 1891, the Congress established the Court of Private Land Claims to adjudicate the outstanding claims that the surveyors general had reviewed but the Congress had not yet approved , and other claims presented to the court. In United States v. Sandoval et al., 167 U.S. 278 (1897), a case on appeal from the Court of Private Land Claims, the Supreme Court held that México, not the local community, held title to all common lands in community land grants issued before 1848. Consequently, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, México had transferred ownership of these communal lands to the United States. Although the Sandoval decision did not overturn previous court confirmations of land grants, it did affect all subsequent claims adjudicated by the Court of Private Land Claims. In 1904, the court finished its work, approving claims and land surveys that represented approximately 6 percent of the acreage claimed. The Congress and the Court of Private Land Claims confirmed 155 grants of the total of 295 grants we identified, and patents were issued for 142 of these grants.Appendix I lists all the land grants that we identified, the years of grant confirmation and patent issuance, and the acreage patented. The completion of the Court of Private Land Claims’ work did not quell the controversy surrounding the loss of the common lands. Many persons, including grantee heirs, scholars, and legal experts, still claim that the United States failed to uphold the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to protect the property of Mexican-Americans and their descendants. They remain critical of the federal courts’ treatment of the common lands and the failure to approve more of the acreage claimed. They also assert that common lands were lost by other means, and that this loss deprived many small Mexican-American farmers of their livelihoods. Land grant documents contain no direct reference to “community land grants” nor do Spanish and Mexican laws define or use this term. Scholars, land grant literature, and popular terminology use the phrase “community land grants” to denote land grants that set aside common lands for the use of the entire community. We adopted this broad definition for the purposes of this report. To determine the meaning of the term “community land grants,” we first reviewed land grant documents, and found that grant documents do not describe grants as community land grants. We also did not find applicable Spanish and Mexican laws that defined or used the term. However, as a result of our review of land grant literature, court decisions, and interviews with scholars, legal experts, and grantee heirs, we found that the term is frequently used to refer to grants that set aside some land for general communal use (ejidos) or for specific purposes, including hunting (caza), pasture (pastos), wood gathering (leña), or watering (abrevederos). Our definition coincides with the way in which scholars, the land grant literature, and grant heirs use the term. Under Spanish and Mexican law, common lands set aside as part of an original grant could not be sold. Typically, in addition to use of common lands, settlers on a community land grant would receive individual parcels of land designated for dwelling (solar de casa) and growing food (suerte). Unlike the common lands, these individual parcels could be sold or otherwise disposed of by a settler who fulfilled the requirements of the grant, such as occupying the individual parcel for a continuous period. For example, the documentation for the Antón Chico grant, issued by México in 1822, contains evidence that common lands were part of the original grant. The granting document provided for individual private allotments and common lands. Congress confirmed the Antón Chico grant in 1860 and the grant was patented in 1883. Using our definition, we identified three types of community land grants, totaling 154 grants, or approximately 52 percent of the 295 land grants in New Mexico. In 78 of the community land grants, the common lands formed part of the grant according to the grant documentation. Scholars, grant heirs, and others have found an additional 53 grants that they believe contain communal lands; and we located 23 grants of communal lands to the indigenous pueblo cultures in New Mexico. The first type of community land grant we identified is a grant in which common lands formed part of the original grant. From our review of grant documents, Spanish and Mexican law, New Mexican law, and grant literature, as well as interviews with grant heirs, scholars, legal experts, and others, common lands were part of the original grant in the following three instances: The grant document itself declares that part of the land be made available for communal use, using such terms as “common lands” or “pasturage and water in common.” We identified 29 grants that contain this or similar language. For example, the 1815 Spanish Los Trigos grant, which was issued to three individuals, made pasture available to the settlers of the grant. Also, an 1846 Mexican land grant provided land to John Scolly and several associates to set aside wood and common pasture for the use of all the settlers. Current New Mexico law treats grants that make specific reference to common lands as community land grants. The grant was made for the purpose of establishing a town or other new settlement. Spanish laws and customs concerning territories in the New World provided that new settlements, cities, and towns would include common lands. Although México obtained its independence in 1821, Mexican land grants continued to follow Spanish laws and customs. We identified 13 grants as Spanish and Mexican grants to towns. For example, in 1768, Spain issued the Ojo de San José grant to six individuals for the purpose of establishing a town. Similarly, México issued the Doña Ana Bend Colony grant in 1840 to 116 petitioners to establish a town, which would then set aside an area for the town commons. New Mexico law currently considers grants to towns, communities, colonies, pueblos, or individuals for the purpose of establishing a town to be community land grants. The grant was issued to 10 or more settlers. Spanish law governing settlement in the New World stated that 10 or more married persons could obtain a land grant, if they agreed to form a settlement indicating that a grant would contain common lands.