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. The Concept of Common Lands Defines Community Land Grants

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. In 78 of the community land grants, the common lands formed part of the grant according to the grant documentation. 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. We analyzed land grants in New Mexico for which we could find evidence to identify community land grants. We also found that Spain issued land grants to indigenous pueblo cultures already resident in the colonial territories. Spanish Government in New Mexico.
What GAO Found

Until the mid-nineteenth century, Spain made land grants to towns and individuals to promote development in the frontier lands that now constitute the American Southwest. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War, the United States agreed to recognize ownership of property of every kind in the ceded areas. Many people, including grantee heirs, scholars, and legal experts, still claim that the United States did not protect the property of Mexican-Americans and their descendants, particularly the common lands of community grants. Land grant documents contain no direct reference to "community land grants," nor do Spanish and Mexican laws define or use this term. GAO did find, however, that some grants refer to lands set aside for general communal use or for specific purposes, including hunting, pasture, wood gathering, or watering. Scholars, the land grant literature, and popular terminology commonly use the phrase "community land grants" to denote land grants that set aside common lands for the use of the entire community. GAO adopted this broad definition in determining which Spanish and Mexican land grants can be identified as community land grants. GAO identified 154 community land grants out of the total of 295 land grants in New Mexico. Seventy-eight were grants in which the shared lands formed part of the grant according to the original grant documentation; 53 were grants that scholars, grantee heirs, or others believed to contain common lands; and 23 were grants extended to the indigenous Pueblo cultures in New Mexico.