William Redmond: “Well, the land grants that were lost to the Federal Government, to the inventory of government land, were lost in…”

“Well, the land grants that were lost to the Federal Government, to the inventory of government land, were lost in various ways. There is not a single way in which the land was lost. But let me give my colleague an example. When New Mexico became a territory, the economy of New Mexico was basically a barter economy. It did not operate on a cash basis like the States in the East. And so what happened was, when taxes were levied, quite often against the Hispanics, which, by the way, at the time that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, many of the families had occupied the land almost 300 years. So if we can imagine a farmer in the Midwest owning a farm for 300 years and then all of a sudden the government coming and saying, ``You can no longer own this'' after you have many generations that have invested in that piece of real estate. Basically what happened in many cases is that because they did not understand the English language at the time, because they did not understand the English law because American law is based on British common law, which was different from Spanish common law, that many of the folks just did not understand what their obligations were to their new government and so taxes were levied and many times the notice of taxation was never sent or sent in a very incomplete way, or sent in English and they could not read it. You have to remember that this area was a conquered area.”