Heritage, 2008, Volume 2 Page: 15
31 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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It was October 1, 1837, when John P. Borden, the
first Texas General Land Office commissioner, began
operations in Houston. Created the previous December
by the First Congress of the Republic of Texas, the
Land Office is Texas' oldest government agency.Borden and the General Land Office had
been instructed to "superintend, execute, and
perform all acts touching or respecting the
public lands of Texas," a daunting task when
the young Republic's territory stretched all
the way to present-day Wyoming. Before he
could begin, Borden first had to collect in
the land office the records of Spanish and
Mexican land grants in Texas.
"In keeping with long-established international
principles, the Republic of Texas
chose to respect existing property rights
recognized by the previous government,
including the valid land grants issued under
Spanish and Mexican sovereignty," explained
Galen Greaser, Spanish translator
at the Texas GLO. "In order to determine
what land was covered by these existing
grants and what was still public domain,
gathering the land records was an essential
first step."
In time, the Texas General Land Office
obtained the more than 4,200 Spanish and
Mexican land grants that today constitute
the Spanish Collection of that office. Their
compilation and verification allowed the
state to distribute more than 200 million
acres of public land to settlers, soldiers,
and for public works between 1836 and
1898. The Spanish Collection also includes
another important group of records
extracted from the Spanish and
Mexican'government records kept at
San Antonio. The Bexar Archives,
as these records are known, wereand land distribution were separated and
retained in the General Land Office.
From a 16th-century book on Spanish
law to Stephen F. Austin's empresario papers
and the first draft of the Constitution of the
Republic of Texas, the rich and colorful history
of the state is literally written in the
vaults of the Land Office. Any randomly
removed file will contain the original land
grant for some parcel of Texas soil. These
include grants made to famous Texans such
as Travis, Bowie, or Houston as well as those
obtained by the many thousands of other individuals
and families who set out to make
their dreams on the Texas frontier.
One of the more recognizable
holdings at the General Land
Office is the 1849 Jacob De
Cordova Map of the state. Most
contemporary maps detailed
only the southern and eastern
portions of Texas, where the
population was centered, but
the De Cordova map includes
an inset of Texas with its full f
pre-1850 boundaries. These
lands, including parts of the -modern-day states of New Mexico, Colorado,
Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming, were
ceded by Texas as part of the 1850 Compromise.
The map was one of the first General
Land Office maps to be preserved through
private donations. That unique program allows
individuals to select a document to be
preserved using their donations and to have
their names written on an insert, which is
stored permanently with the document.
The Spanish crown was the first foreign
sovereign to lay claim to Texas lands by virtue
of its "discovery," conquest and occupation
of Mexico. The Spanish flag flew over-~~~~~* z --ow
.t ASr i -~t_ ^;-_X; F--
~ :
_L,* -., _C- . _ii..-r t.,_, ~- JELL ;*
--
_* _r J<e.< X~-- -r --a -
u- c ^I.<~-~- ^(- ^a <.^_ 'd*<>
"l, . a,. rl> fC-<i.^-.- A.^ o : '^ .'*~.,
~--i .'^S -^-t-^~ , <I*4. C~<<l^first brought to Austin in 1841
to avoid capture by invading
Mexican forces. Eventually San
Antonio officials requested return
of the records, but before
being sent back, the materialsassociated with colonization
amyy
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, 2008, Volume 2, periodical, 2008; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45358/m1/15/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.