The Visita General and the South Texas Porciones
In June 1767 a group of men arrived in Laredo at the behest of the Marqués de Croix, the viceroy of New Spain. Chief among them were Juan Fernando de Palacio and José Osorio y Llamas, whom the viceroy had ordered to conduct an audit (visita general) on the settlement and colonization of the province of Nuevo Santander, and also to investigate the residents’ grievances against José de Escandón, the founder of the province. A major complaint from the colonists was Escandón’s abuse of power to advance his personal wealth. More importantly, the residents sought to gain title to the lands promised to them when they volunteered for Escandón’s expedition.[1]
The villas del norte were established as a key part of Escandón’s plan for the pacification and colonization of the province. These settlements, from Laredo to Reynosa, served as a defensive line for larger centers of population in the Mexican interior. Moreover, the villas functioned as a means to introduce Spanish “civilization” to the indigenous groups of the area.[2]
In terms of the colonization enterprise, Escandón’s calculated delay in the distribution of land proved successful: by keeping the residents sharing communal lands, he prevented them from spreading out over the territory and weakening the villas. In turn, the promise of land attracted more residents to the area, expanding the number of settlements from the original fourteen to twenty-three. In the first two decades of settlement, however, the settlers saw no tracts of land issued to them and they began to resent Escandón’s favoritism toward his allies, his personal gains, and the deplorable conditions of the province.[3]
Soon after their arrival the visitadores, or auditors, set out to fulfill the duties of their audit, among them to conduct an investigation on Escandón’s finances during his term as governor and captain general of the province; relocate towns and establish new settlements; organize the military forces of the region; and define the role of the missionaries in the province. Of these duties, the issuance of land to the residents of the villas is perhaps the most lasting legacy of the investigation.[4]
To expedite the issuance of land to the colonists, the visitadores needed to establish basic ground rules based on Spanish law. This process, however, proved difficult without trained surveyors and the visitadores were forced to rely on local residents. In Laredo, they appointed Domingo Tavoada and José Prudencio García as surveyors to delineate the municipal jurisdiction of the villa, lay out the town tract beginning from its main plaza, select the place for the communal and mission lands, and survey the individual tracts of land.[5]
The porciones, as the tracts were called, were numbered so that settlers could draw lots for them. When the surveying had been completed and the tracts assigned, the visitadores specified the conditions under which the grants were made and left final instructions before moving on to the next location. The methods established in Laredo served as the pattern for land distribution in the other villas.[6]
To avoid forfeiture of the land, original grantees needed to meet certain conditions, including the occupation of the tract within two months of the date of the grant and the establishment of permanent, recognizable markers at the corners of each lot as indicated by the surveyors. To prevent these tracts from falling into idle hands, the conditions also prohibited the sale or exchange of land with ecclesiastics or other persons prohibited by law. The captain of the town or his lieutenant was instructed to confirm the actual possession of the tracts and make a record of it. The record of the acts of possession was then to be added to the auditors’ proceedings, the originals of which remained at each of the villas.[7]
When the Trans-Nueces region was no longer contested after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, state officials struggled to integrate the porciónes into the state’s property regime, which had been structured primarily on the Empresario system developed by the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. They commissioned a lengthy investigation of the “legal and just titles to land situated between the Nueces river and the Rio Grande,” and by the early 1850s, the state had confirmed many of the land grants in the region. By the early 1870s, however, the Legislature found that the Texas General Land Office had not yet recovered any evidence in regards to the original titles to the porciones. On April 24, 1871, the Legislature appropriated $2,500 to pay for the acquisition of copies of the original proceedings.[8]
Through these means, the Land Office appointed John L. Haynes to visit the towns of Reynosa, Camargo, Mier, Guerrero, and Laredo and “obtain from the authorities of said towns access to the archives of the same, and make a correct and accurate transcript and translation of all the acts, charters or grants affecting the lands on the east side of the Rio Grande, and who shall obtain from the said authorities a certificate as to the correctness of said transcripts, which, together with the translation, shall be filed in the General Land Office.”[9] These records, generally referred to as the Visita General, contain the original survey and act of possession for each porción granted on the Texas side of the river.[10]
The records of the visita general represent an important historical link to the earliest Spanish settlements in southwestern Texas and are critical documents for researchers in fields such as land title and genealogy. They have been digitized and are in the process available online at the following links:
Visita General, Camargo
Visita General, Revilla [Guerrero]
Visita General, Laredo
Visita General, Mier
Visita General, Reynosa
The actual land grant files for the porciones can be researched via name searches in the online Land Grant Database.
This post is sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), and their Handbook of Tejano History, a project produced through the Handbook of Texas. Find out more about the Handbook of Tejano History, and other ways TSHA supports Hispanic Heritage Month here.
National Hispanic Heritage Month is a celebration of the contributions of Hispanics to U.S. history, culture, and society observed annually between September 15 and October 15, a time of many historical mileposts in the Americas. The observance emphasizes the deep historical imprint of Hispanic cultures on the United States and honors the place of Hispanics in the contemporary American melting pot, where they number nearly 62 million. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we’ll focus for several weeks on the impact of Hispanic historical figures in Texas.
[1] For additional reading, see A New Guide to Spanish and Mexican Land Grants in South Texas (Texas General Land Office, 2009).
[2] Gabriel Saldívar, Historia compendiada de Tamaulipas (facsimile of 1945 edition), (Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas: Gobierno del Estado de Tamaulipas, Dirección General de Educación y Cultura, 1988), pp. 94–45.
[3] Patricia Osante, Orígenes del Nuevo Santander (1748–1772), (México, D.F.: Universidad Autónoma de México, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, 1997), pp. 119–131. Hubert J. Miller, José de Escandón: Colonizer of Nuevo Santander, (Edinburg: New Santander Press, 1980). Armando C. Alonzo, Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, 1734–1900 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), pp. 25–39.
[4] As a result of the audits, Escandón returned to Mexico City to defend himself against charges of maladministration. He died during the court proceedings, but was eventually exonerated in 1770. Clotilde P. García, Handbook of Texas Online, “Escandon, Jose De,” accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fes01. Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
[5] Visita general de la villa de San Agustín de Laredo, Año de 1767. Transcribed and translated under an act of the legislature of the state of Texas approved April 24, 1871, appropriating funds to obtain and transcribe the several acts or charters founding the towns of Reynosa, Camargo, Mier, Guerrero, and Laredo; Spanish Collection, 1–12 (Spanish), 71–78 (English), Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.
[6] Ibid., 21–24 (Spanish), 83–85 (English)
[7] Ibid., 60–62 (Spanish), 110–111 (English)
[8] H. P. N. Gammel, comp., The Laws of Texas, 1866–1871, Volume VI, 958; Handbook of Texas Online, “Mexican-American Land Grant Adjudication,” accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fes01. Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
[9] Ibid.
[10] GLO records include surveys and acts of possession for all of the villas except Laredo; the acts of possession for Laredo are missing from the Visita General.
