A Legal Confiscation: The 1851 Land Act and the Transformation of Californios into Colonized Colonizers

In 1848, the US Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which held that treaty citizens' land claims would be "inviolably respected." Three years later, the US Senate passed the 1851 Land Claims Act, which violated the treaty by requiring private Mexican land grant holders to prove the legitimacy of their claims to the US Land Commission. This article examines Anglo-American and Californio settlers' efforts to establish legitimate landholding practices according to their culturally specific racial logic. By tracing encounters between the commission and Californios, this article argues that through their participation in the land claims process, Californios became "colonized colonizers" and were instrumental to statemaking in California.