...Third. That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to
the unappropriated public lands
lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States;”
This is clearly a complicated situation, at least in its history.
“If they’d been occupied and in use at the time of statehood, that would not seem to apply. There are other treaty provisions requiring the U.S. government to recognize U.S. citizenship and property title for Mexican owners in the territories at the time of the Treaty of Hildago.”
Very true. In the Hage case, which asserted many of the same things Bundy claims, the judge wrote:
“If Defendants’ predecessors-in-interest had vested grazing rights in the disputed areas prior to the TGH [Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo], the United States may be bound to respect these rights. The TGH required the United States to honor the property rights of Mexicans in the ceded territories, and Indians were apparently viewed by the Mexican government to be full Mexican citizens under the Mexican Constitution of 1824 in effect when the TGH was signed. If there had been some right to graze upon land owned by the Mexican government vested in the owners of the lands constituting the Pine Creek Ranch under Mexican private property law, such rights would potentially be protected even in succession as against the United States under the TGH. However, because there was no evidence presented that any of Defendants’ predecessors-in-interest engaged in ranching operations on the lands that eventually became the Pine Creek Ranch prior to the signing of the TGH, there is no need to determine whether any such predecessors were “Mexicans” under the TGH and Ritchie, or whether as Indians such predecessors inherently lacked the property rights protections of the TGH under Sandoval regardless of whether the Mexican government considered them to be Mexicans.
The Court concludes that Defendants do not have a general right to graze their cattle on federal lands without a permit...”