 In 1851, Congress passed the first legislation implementing the property protection provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, however it addressed only the Spanish and Mexican grants in California.Congress focused on California's land grants first because California was already a populous state, and it wanted to encourage further settlement of the public domain land there.In 1854 the U.S. Congress established the office of the Surveyor General of New Mexico to ascertain "the origin, nature, character, and extent to all claims to lands under the laws, usages, and customs of Spain and Mexico."