MEXICAN GEAXTS. 455 



back was a superior animal and their master, yet they consid- 

 ered a man on foot as a base and ferocious beast, and attacked 

 him as they would attack a wolf. Their owner knew his 

 property only by the brand placed on them when they were 

 calves. From the time when the redhot iron burned into 

 their flesh, they roamed untouched by the hands of man, until 

 fate decreed that they should be slaughtered to furnish fresh 

 meat for their master's household, or hide and tallow for for- 

 eign commerce. Evidently this people, with such habits and 

 -such occupations, did not need to have their lands precisely 

 described. Most of the titles were legally valid under the 

 Mexican law. There was no motive to commit fraud, because 

 land was of little value, and great tracts of rich soil were, up 

 to the time of the American conquest, open to CA^ery pe- 

 titioner. In most cases the actual occupation took place pre- 

 vious to 1840, and had never been interrupted. This occupa- 

 tion, the most conclusi\% proof of good faith, and an equitable 

 title in itself, was notorious, and susceptible of proof by hun- 

 dreds of witnesses. The paper titles were mostly of indu- 

 bitable genuineness, written by the hands of well-known of- 

 ficials, bearing regular numbers, referred to in public lists of 

 land-titles, and mentioned in government documents of various 

 kinds. The proof of the genuineness of the title-papers, the 

 good faith of the claimants, and the equitable validity of the 

 claims, in nine cases out of ten, was abundant, and, to any man 

 at all acquainted with the subject, indubitable. It was then 

 evidently the duty of the government of the United States to 

 provide for the summary examination of the documents, and 

 in every case, where genuine title-papers were found with 

 ancient occupation, to order a survey for the establishment of 

 boundaries, giving to the claimant at least a prima faHe rec- 

 ognition of title, subject, perhaps, to investigation in the courts, 

 if any person should see fit to assail the validity of the grant. 

 But the federal government pursued a policy very difierent 

 from this plain duty. It delayed action through 1848, 1849, 

 and 1850 ; and first, in 1851, passed an act nominally to " set- 



