RGV.COM

Home
Businesses
Chamber
Churches
City
RGV-Classifieds
County
Information
Kids Corner
News
Places
Police Dept.
 

The Lands of the Carricitos, or the San Juan de Carricitos Land Grant
Speech by
Max Dreyer

To start with lets try to bring this land grant out of a purely abstract connotation and bring it closer to home. Consider that a lot of your friends and acquaintances are direct descendants of the original grantee, Jose Narciso Cavazos. Pretty well known are the local attorney , Oscar Cavazos and the Simo family who are descendants on their Mother's side. These two families are but two of many. Then consider that this was the largest land grant ever made in South Texas, and we are living right in the middle of it. To give you some idea of its size in modern terms lets start with the town of Sebastian, which is its southern boundary and go north to the town of Norias, a distance of thirty miles. Its eastern boundary is the Laguna Madre and its western boundary the town of Lasara, making it thirty miles wide. Thirty miles by thirty miles is 900 square miles. At roughly 600 acres to the square mile this comes out to 540,000 acres. The original survey was computed at 470,000 acres, later corrected to 584,496 acres. Then consider that if you own a square foot of land in this area, that your title to it will eventually go back to the original grantee, Jose Narciso Cavazos. I still like that story about the abstracter who was asked about the title to some property. You know, in years past when you bought a piece of property you received a lengthy document called an abstract of title, which traced the ownership of the property back to some court validation. Now you just get title insurance. Anyway this Yankee had come down here and bought some acreage and received his abstract of title. He went to the man who had prepared the abstract and asked him what he thought of the title, to which the old abstracter replied, "I have traced the title back to the King of Spain, who got it by right of discovery and conquest, and since he ruled by Divine Right, that takes it back to God Almighty himself and that is as far as I can go. My apologies to those of you who have heard it before.

And now lets see how all of this happened. In the year l790 Cavazos made a "Denouncement" that he owned the lands of the Carricitos. Carricitos being a Spanish word meaning a small reed like plant which grew in damp places. A small tribe of Indians used this plant to thatch their shelters and the Spaniards called them Carrizos. Cavazos vaguely described his land as having as its center the boundary of Carricitos, on the South the Noriecitas of Narciso, on the North Las Bahias, on the West La Sal Vieja, and the Palo Blanco on the East. Cavazos had wanted a better grant, something like the Espirito Santo on the river bank, where Brownsville is now located. To make up the difference he got the much larger San Juan de Carricitos grant.

And now the legal proceedings started in earnest. The Governor of Nuevo Santander appointed a "Vista de Ojos" or Board of View and Survey, with experts and witnesses of assistance to go to the lands of the Carricitos and survey same. They arrived on the 4th. of July, 1790 and found a well and tanque constructed by Don Narciso. The 1884 map of Cameron County shows this "Tanque de Carricitos".

On the 6th. of July, 1790, a survey was begun and on the10 th. it was completed. A map was then made and the land area was computed to be 106.5 leagues for large stock and was appraised at fifty cents per sitio. A sitio being a square league or 4428.4 acres. We have here a copy of the original map and field notes, along with a picture of Cavazos. The map does show buildings, and some historians contend that this was the oldest habitation in this part of South Texas.

As required by law the land was then advertised for sale and as Cavazos was the only bidder it was struck off to him for $53.62 which was the appraised price.

On Feb. 22nd. the Governor at San Luis Potosi approved the transaction and ordered that Cavazos be placed in possession of the land. Therefore on Oct. 28th. 1793, as was the custom, the adjacent land owners, the Governors representative and Cavazos proceeded to the Lands of the Carricitos where he was placed in actual possession and gave evidence of dominion by pulling grass, throwing water and dirt and scattering same to the four winds.

The place where Cavazos went to take possession of his land is 7 miles north of the present El Sauz Ranch headquarters at the Tanque de Carricitos. This location is shown on the 1884 map of Cameron County. Don Narciso stocked the ranch with 960 head of cattle and sheep, and prior to the establishment of the King Ranch it was the largest ranch in Texas. Consider for a moment that there were approximately 900 square miles in the ranch and that gives us about one cow or sheep to the square mile or every 640 acres. On top of that there were no fences. A roundup must have been lots of fun.

The Willacy County Historical Commission put up a Marker for this grant on highway 186 near the El Sauz Ranch Headquarters. The marker was stolen and to date has not been replaced.

The original survey was made by two men on horseback with a rawhide rope tied to the saddle horns. When one got to the end of the rope he stopped and let the other one go ahead. Places that couldn't be crossed were estimated. The meanders of the Laguna Madre and the Arroyo Colorado were not followed but instead a base line supposedly one-half league away was used. This turned out to be two leagues and added considerably to the acreage. Also it was discovered that there was an error of 10 leagues in the original computations which brought the total acreage to 584,496 acres. One other thing that should be remembered is that no minerals went with these grants. They were all retained by the Crown of Spain and when Mexico won its independence the minerals went to the Mexican Government, which still owns them. When Texas won its independence it also took possession of the minerals and it wasn't until along about 1880 that the landowners were given ownership.

And now legal problems began to trouble the grant. When Texas became a State it had to decide the validity of many land claimants. Accordingly the legislature appointed a commission to study title to all land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande rivers. This was known as the Miller-Bourland Commission. They investigated the title of Cavazos to the lands of the Carricitos and decided that he no longer owned it because he had failed to comply with one of the stipulations of the grant, namely that he had to maintain a presence on the land. Along about 1810 his people had been driven off the land by Indians and it was vacant for several years. However as the Commission was coming down river from Rio Grande City on the Steamer Anson it sank and the commission lost all their records. Strangely the Steamer Anson has also been reported sunk off Matagorda. The Legislature was not happy with the Commission and went ahead and confirmed most of the grants, including the one to Jose Narciso Cavazos. Then in l882 the State issued a patent and finally in 1889 the partition suit was settled. That suit forms the basis for most land titles in the grant and we will talk about it next.

Over the years the heirs of Cavazos had sold most of the grant, sometimes they owned what they sold and sometimes they didn't, resulting in many claimants to some of the land. Finally along about 1880 Richard King, one of the largest claimants. brought suit to have the ownership of the various claimants to the lands of the Carricitos settled once and for all. The court appointed what was known as a Master in Chancery to settle the matter, and after ten years of title examinations he came up with a ruling that still stands. Some of the larger awards were to Richard King, who got 323,000 acres, Francisco Yturria, who got 62,500 acres, and Chas. Stillman who got 22,000 acres. Altogether there were some 65 shares allotted. Today the number of shareholders probably number in the thousands, and all can look back through the same chain of title to Jose Narcisso Cavazos, and through him to the Crown of Spain.

One other interesting thing about this land grant was the sale by Mrs. King of 23, 060 acres to the Gulf Coast Irrigation Co. for $207,540.00, or less than $10.00 an acre. in 1907.' The Gulf Coast Irrigation Co. or GCI as it was known locally, was going to clear the land, drill water wells, build reservoirs, and sell the land at a profit. GCI was a Texas Corporation owned out of Chicago and a company official, Mr. C. E. Craig moved down here to oversee the operation. The reservoirs which they built covered about a city block and made wonderful swimming pools. One on the north side of Raymondville was used by all of us kids as a swimming hole. Mr. Korth, who lived just across the road from Tommy Rains, had a reservoir on his property and fixed it up real nice. He plastered the inside of it, put in two diving boards, build a couple of bath house, and charged a small fee to use it. It was one of the most popular places in Willacy County, and I have a few pictures of it on exhibit in the Museum.

GCI also had a commissary at Santa Margarita to take care of the grubbing crews who were clearing the land. W.H. (Bill) Mead was in charge of the commissary. Mead was also Justice of the Peace and later on County Judge. He was killed in a holdup of his store.

It didn't take long to discover that the well water was to salty to be used for irrigation and that phase of GCI came to an end. However since that was the only source of water it was piped into households and used for domestic purposes for many years. Mrs. King's deed to GCI also contained the famous spirituous liquor clause, providing that no alcoholic beverage could be sold at retail on the land. thus effectively making it a dry country.

1. We have the family tree of Cavazos up to 1890, with a share map of 1890 and list of the shareholders, plus a copy of Mrs. Kings deed to GCI.

All trademarks and copyrights in this site are held by their respective owners.

This page was created and is maintained by Valley Web Site Design and Hosting Services. Copyright © 1997 Valley Web Site Design and Hosting Services.  All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions.   Report any problems to webmaster .