This site is presented to explore the role of public land in Panamerica through the legacy of the Mexican Ranchos of California. As you explore, imagine broadly what remedies can be offered to repair the land and the people who were recently disposessed and evicted from your region.

Street scene in the Forty-Nine Camp at the Midwinter Fair, illustration from The Rural CalifornianBird's eye view of San Diego, California, 1876, from the north-east looking south-west (Library of Congress)

California Ranchos

During the two decades following Mexican Independence the northernmost reach of the Mexican State, named Alta California, was sparcely populated compared to any time before the Spanish conquest or after American colonization, which would come as a deluge starting in 1849.
In 1845, by events leading up to the annexation of Texas, it was likely clear to the governor of Alta California, Pío Pico, that the American armies would soon seize the northern lands of Mexico. During this year he quickly granted the prime California pasture lands in vast swaths of public land to petitioners, well represented by friends, family members, allies, and himself. The boundaries of these land divisions often loosely defined in coarse sketches of mountains and creeks .
Mexican Land Grants, recognized by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, within twenty years of annexation would be mostly be bought by speculators from Europe and Connecticut, and the many arms of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad Company.
Just as the earlier Mission system of Spain pushed indigenous people to the rocky boundaries of the Southern California landscape, the American colonization would by 1870 create defacto domination across previously sparely-populated land. By the year 1900 dammed rivers and citrus grove subdivisions would trace the grid of a Southern California that a comtemporary reader would faintly recognize. After the dam building binge of the 1930s the natural spaces dried up and so did most life making a living on the outskirts of the water department. San Diego Land and Town Co. advertisement: No Frosted Fruit, 40,000 acres around San Diego Bay, Sweetwater Dam irrigating system, National City
As I have, you will find these names are still inscribed in many small places on roads broken and unbroken that connect modern tracted-Southern California. And as we trace roads and creeks we will start to discover the layered landscape that has always been right here under our feet.

San Diego County

We begin our exploration starting with the southern most region of California, San Diego County.

Ranchos by Name

Rancho Cañada de San Vicente y Mesa del Padre Barona

Two lobes in one grant, the first name cañada is not submerged by reservoir of the same name. The second part, the mesa, is just to the east.

Grant name: Canada De San Vicente Y Mesa Del Padre Barona

Source: SanGIS Public Land Survey (LANDGRANT polygons)

Rancho Milejo

No surveyed boundary found; point is approximate.

Approximate location

Rancho Santa Maria de los Peñasquitos

Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve is the site of an important east-west passage along Poway-Peñasquitos Creek - while disrupted by subdivisions in the present-day city of Poway traces an old connection up the hill to the intersection of Poway Road and Route 67.

Grant name: Los Penasquitos

Source: SanGIS Public Land Survey (LANDGRANT polygons)

Rancho Valle de Pamo

This valley has undergone many name changes and through suburbanization has preserved rural contours of the land and easements. See street names.

Grant name: Valle De Pamo Or Santa Maria

Source: SanGIS Public Land Survey (LANDGRANT polygons)

Fire History