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Land grant names for sovereign nations
This is probably more history related:
Does anyone know what the respective names are for the land grants that England, Spain, Mexico, and France used while settling America?I was doing some additional reading to get a better grasp on the history of land rights in the US after reading chapter 1 of Brown’s Boundary Control & Legal Principles. But I couldn’t find what the “grants” from those countries were called specifically. I’m in California so I’m aware of “Ranchos”, but what about the others?
I’ve read that for England they were called “Headrights”, and in California I’m aware that for Mexico/Spain there’s “Ranchos”. But I remember hearing something about in Texas, they may be called something else.
I’m not sure where to look for this info.Anyway, thanks for your time,
Happy 4th to you all,
-Josh- -
7 Replies
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Oregon has “Donation Land Claims”. This applied to all of Oregon Territory, now the states of Oregon and Washington. But the actual DLCs are (mostly?) in the Willamette Valley area of Oregon.
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I believe England may have used “plantation”. You may be familiar with the plantation system in the southern states. Surprisingly, there are a number of towns in Massachusetts that started out as a “plantation” before being fully settled and establishing a municipal government. In Mass. the term plantation was applied by the colonial legislature, though. After England granted the charters for Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies, control over settlement in this area was exercised locally.
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Providence RI is actually Providence Plantation.
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Interesting,
I wouldn’t have thought of plantations being up in that area.
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Indeed. And a little quote from Wikipedia, “The state was officially named the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations since the colonial era but came to be commonly known as “Rhode Island”. In November 2020, the state’s voters approved an amendment to the state constitution formally dropping “and Providence Plantations” from its full name”
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In English areas, I believe the King granted charters to companies that gave them rights to certain areas of land. I assume the land was still technically held by the King?
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong. -
In the original 13 colonies the King handed out large land grants to many of his wealthy loyalists. Some of those grants were contested by other countries with lines being redrawn to settle claims. The grants given conveyed control of the land but not necessarily governance.
Several cases exist where the grants were modified based on prior claims held by others.
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