Nuevo Santander Land Grants
Roma, Starr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of the last northern provinces of New Spain, Nuevo Santander was established by José de Escandón, and encompassed the present Mexican state of Tamaulipas and part of trans-Nueces Texas. Escandón, known as the father of the lower Rio Grande Valley, organized an expedition and conquered the area, settling 20 towns and 18 missions between 1749 and 1755. Settlers in the colonies in South Texas requested individual land allocations as early as 1753. In 1767, a Spanish royal commission began the work of surveying and granting possession of land to individual colonists at the Rio Grande villas of Laredo, Mier, Camargo, Revilla and Reynosa. The commissioners, Juan Armando de Palacio and José de Ossorio y Llamas, were instructed to survey the various settlements and jurisdictions, to distribute the land to individual settlers, and record all transactions. The porciones, or partitions, in each of the five settlements were assigned a number and required to be delineated by recognizable markers at the corners of each lot as indicated by the surveyors. Mojoneras, or large pointed sandstones marked with the porcion number, year and surveyor initials, were commonly used as markers. The Porcion 74 Mojonera is one of the last surviving markers of its kind. In the years after the Spanish land grants, the area of Nuevo Santander that extended into Texas, north of the Rio Grande, became involved in numerous border disputes between Mexico and Texas, and Mexico and the United States. Despite these difficulties, the people of this region created a lasting cultural legacy. (2013)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Nuevo Santander, one of New Spain's last northern provinces, was founded by José de Escandón, who settled roughly twenty towns and eighteen missions along the lower Rio Grande between 1749 and 1755. A Spanish royal commission began surveying and granting land to individual colonists at villas such as Mier, Camargo, and Revilla in 1767, dividing it into numbered porciones staked out by carved sandstone markers. The rare surviving Porcion 74 mojonera recalls that first careful mapping of the frontier.
Why it matters
These land grants laid the legal and cultural foundation of the Rio Grande borderlands, whose Hispanic communities predate and outlasted the border disputes between Mexico and the United States.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the mid-1700s, the lower Rio Grande was one of the emptiest corners of Spain's vast American empire, at least as Spanish officials saw it. Between the settled heart of Mexico and the missions of East Texas lay a long stretch of coastal plain and brush country. Spain worried that rival powers, especially France and later Britain, might slip into that gap. Native peoples who resisted Spanish control also lived across the region.
Spain's answer was Nuevo Santander, one of the last new provinces it created in the northern reaches of New Spain. The province covered what is now the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and it also reached north across the Rio Grande into the land between that river and the Nueces. This was not a single fort or mission. It was a planned colony made of towns, families, and livestock ranching, meant to hold the land by settling it.
At the time, the thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic coast were still decades away from independence. The Spanish families who planted villas along the Rio Grande were building a borderland society long before the United States existed, and long before anyone imagined a border running down the middle of the river.
People & events
The central figure is José de Escandón, remembered as the father of the lower Rio Grande Valley. He organized an expedition into the region and, over a few remarkable years from 1749 to 1755, founded about twenty towns and eighteen missions. Settlers came north with their families and herds, attracted by the promise of land in a hard, open country.
At first the land was held largely in common, and colonists soon wanted parcels of their own. They were asking for individual allotments as early as 1753. In 1767 a royal commission finally arrived to do the work. Commissioners Juan Armando de Palacio and José de Ossorio y Llamas were ordered to survey the settlements at Laredo, Mier, Camargo, Revilla, and Reynosa, divide the land among individual settlers, and record every transaction.
The result was the porciones, numbered land partitions laid out along the river so that families had access to water. Each porción was bounded by markers set at its corners. The most durable of these were mojoneras: large, pointed sandstones carved with the porción number, the year, and the surveyor's initials. Most have been lost to time, floods, and development. The Porcion 74 mojonera is one of the last of its kind to survive, a stone that the surveyors themselves set in the ground.
Its place in the American story
These land grants are a reminder that the story of the American Southwest did not begin with Anglo settlers moving west. Along the Rio Grande, Hispanic families were surveying land, recording titles, and raising towns generations before Texas independence or American annexation. Much of the property history of South Texas traces back to those Spanish grants.
The region's later history was turbulent. After Mexican independence, the Texas Revolution, and the U.S.-Mexican War, the land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande became contested ground. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 made the Rio Grande the international boundary, splitting old communities and old grants between two nations. Questions of land title and ownership followed for years afterward.
Through it all, as the marker points out, the people of the region built a lasting culture. Their language, ranching traditions, food, faith, and family ties stretch across the river. The porciones and their stone markers are the oldest paper and physical record of that shared borderland world, which predates the border itself.
If you visit
Roma sits on bluffs above the Rio Grande, and it is one of the best places in Texas to feel the old borderland. Its historic core preserves sandstone and brick buildings in the traditional style of the region's river towns, so the setting tells the same story the marker does. Across the water lies Mexico, and the town of Ciudad Miguel Alemán. The two communities have long been tied together.
Look for the idea of the porción in the landscape. The old grants ran in long, narrow strips back from the river so each family could reach the water. If you know the pattern, you can start to see how the lower valley was first carved up. And if you get the chance to see a surviving mojonera, remember that you are looking at a stone set by Spanish surveyors more than two and a half centuries ago.
Roma fits well on a road trip along the river between Laredo and Brownsville, through a string of towns whose roots go back to Escandón's settlements. Bring water and sun protection, because this is hot, open country. Slow down, too: the pleasure of the place is in wandering the old streets and looking out over the river.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · José de Escandón
Themes & tags
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