A Promised Land: Grantees, Squatters, and Speculators in the Healdsburg Land Wars

Purpose of the Study: Conflict over land ownership was a critical and prominent factor in the early history of the State of California. Throughout the 1850's, 1860's, and 1870's many American settlers occupied and defended land they did not legally own. Usually this contested land was part of large tracts previously granted by the Mexican government to its citizens. Historians have maintained that these "squatter wars" were at base a contest between the rights of American citizens and those of the newly-vanquished Mexican Californians. With few exceptions they have maintained that American settlers victimized these original land grantees. The purpose of this study is to examine in detail one squatter uprising in northern California, the Healdsburg Land Wars from 1852 to 1864, thereby testing prior assumptions and interpretations. Procedure: All known documentary evidence regarding these land wars was consulted, including local, state, and regional governmental and judicial records, newspaper accounts, and information contained in personal diaries, journals, and other studies and publications. In addition, a wide variety of local/regional historical literature was consulted to gather biographical data on all parties involved in these squatter uprisings. Findings: Conflict between the American settlers and the original Mexican land grantees, although at times extremely violent, lasted only a short time, and actually preceded the outbreak of organized squatter rebellion in this area. The ownership of the contested land had already been transferred to other parties, usually land speculator/attorneys, by the time major large-scale hostilities broke out. A majority of the militant squatters were rural agriculturalists from the slave states of the southern United States. During the course of these wars political affiliations emerged in the local press. The Republican or "Union Party" newspaper was the nominal advocate of the squatters, while the Democratic newspapers consistently sided with the landowners. Conclusions: The Healdsburg Land Wars were a manifestation of a conflict between American citizens of distinctly different backgrounds and beliefs. The attitude of the land speculator/attorneys, advocating large-scale enterprise, economic growth, and monopolistic ownership, was directly at odds with the ultra-nativistic "Americanism" of the rural agrarians who believed that the land was a sacred trust that should be democratically distributed to the people. The political parties in the region polarized on these issues, as they did on the larger manifestation of some of these same issues during the Civil War. The Mexican land grantees were victimized by, but unaligned, with either camp. This was a war between, for, and about Americans.