Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1877.djvu/25

Rh treaty of 1853, is imperatively demanded. For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of said treaties, an act of Congress, approved July 22, 1854, charged the surveyor-general of the Territory of New Mexico with the duty of ascertaining and reporting to Congress the origin, nature, and extent of all private claims within his district, the title to which were derived from the Spanish or Mexican Government. The provisions of this act were subsequently extended to the Territories of Arizona and Colorado, (now the State of Colorado.)

During the twenty-three years in which this law has been in force, the surveyor-general of New Mexico has reported to Congress for confirmation one hundred and twenty-seven of said claims, of which number seventy-one have been confirmed, leaving fifty-six now pending before that body for confirmation.

It is impossible to state accurately the number of these claims still remaining unsettled; but I think it is safe to state that there are at least one thousand, and, at the rate at which they have heretofore been settled and determined, it is impossible to foretell when the last of them will be finally adjudicated. In the mean time, a cloud is cast upon titles perfect in themselves, a strong incentive is offered for the manufacture of fraudulent title-papers, witnesses die or remove to parts unknown, the ancient records upon which the claims are based are lost or defaced, the difficulties in detecting frauds and determining the validity of titles are multiplied, and the probability that many fraudulent claims may escape detection is increased.

Many of these claims are for a given quantity of land, within much larger exterior bounderies, yet by the act above mentioned the larger quantity is held in a state of reservation until the grant is finally adjusted, and thus thousands of acres of valuable lands are kept out of the market for an indefinite period, and this, too, whether the claim is genuine or fraudulent.

Congress has no doubt acted wisely in refusing thus far to confirm any greater number of said claims. Some of those already confirmed have been found, upon final survey, to contain a quantity of land largely in excess of the quantity originally intended.

The same act which provided the present system of ascertaining and determining the validity of these claims also extended the public-land system to the Territory within which they are situated, and the conflict arising from the want of harmony between the two systems has been the cause of much difficulty and strife between the grant claimants and settlers. This is especially true in the Territory of New Mexico.

The complaints which have reached me during the last few months, growing out of the difficulties arising from these conflicting systems, induce me to most earnestly recommend the passage of an act providing for the appointment of a commission, with full power to hear and determine the validity, subject to an appeal to the United States courts, of all the claims within the Territory named.