While earthquakes shaped Southern California over the eons – moving mountains, changing the course of rivers and reducing landscapes to rubble – perhaps no manmade event has changed the face of Southern California so much as the On Aug. 17, 1833, Governor Juan B. Alvarado oversaw the Decree of the Congress of Mexico Secularizing the Missions - the transfer of the San Gabriel mission lands extending from San Bernardino to Los Angeles granting huge tracts of acreage to favored citizens to build ranches that would

Today, every city in the foothills communities can trace their roots to one of four great land grants: Rancho San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga, Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, and Rancho San Jose.

Mission system

The mission system came about as an effort by Spain to protect its claims in the New World.

The original plan was for the missions to redistribute the mission lands to the newly civilized natives after a decade. However, tensions arose between the church leadership and the Spanish and later Mexican government over the purpose of the missions. The military generally scorned the priests and church personnel as “frailistas” and church leaders complained that the stated goal of enlightening native populations simply masked efforts to enslave them.

Because the missions were used to supply necessities to local military outposts, the government soon racked up considerable debt to the missions.

Tracts granted

As noted California historian John Steven McGroarty wrote, the Spanish and Mexican governments “had successively on their hands military establishments in California which subsisted on the industry of the missions. The soldiers did not work, but had to be fed of thrones and nations in the pain of poverty resulting from criminal waste and extravagance, they decided that it would be easier to and herds than to pay the debts owed to them.”ply granted huge tracts to private citizens and their families. Grantees were required to submit applications and a rough map of the requested tract called a diseno.

When approved, the grantee claimed dominion over the land by tossing handfuls of grass, stones and broken twigs into the air shouting “Viva el Presidente y la Nacion Mexican” (Long live the president and the Mexican nation).

The land grants moved the region from the Mission era to the Hacienda era in which accommodate America’s westward expansion.