Rancho Milpitas was a

Mexican land grant The Spanish and Mexican governments made many concessions and land grants in Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish Concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an inducement for ...

Santa Clara County, California Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring Sa ...

. The name comes from the

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

word for

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

and could be translated "little cornfields". The grant included what is now the city of

Milpitas Milpitas (Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José Marí ...

History

The land was originally granted to Nicolás Tolantino Antonio Berreyesa (1789–1863) by the ''

alcalde Alcalde (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian '' cabildo'' (the municipal council) a ...

'' of San José, Pedro Chaboya, on May 6, 1834. A neighboring parcel was granted to

José María Alviso José María de Jesus Alviso (November 19, 1798 – June 18, 1853) was a Californio ranchero, soldier, and politician. He served as Alcalde of San José (mayor) in 1836 and was the rancho grantee for Rancho Milpitas. Alviso is considered the fo ...

(1798–1853) by the governor of

Alta California Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...

José Castro José Antonio Castro (1808 – February 1860) was a Californio politician, statesman, and general who served as interim Governor of Alta California and later Governor of Baja California. During the Bear Flag Revolt and the American Conquest of ...

on September 23, 1835. Alviso built the first story of the ranch house on the north east corner of the property and moved his family there. With the

cession The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdictio ...

of California to the United States following the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...

, the 1848

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ( es, Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo), officially the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, is the peace treaty that was signed on 2 ...

provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, Berreyesa filed a claim for Rancho Milpitas with the

Public Land Commission The California Land Act of 1851 (), enacted following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the admission of California as a state in 1850, established a three-member Public Land Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican la ...

in 1853, but was rejected. Some members of the Berreyesa family went mad defending their land: one son ran into the hills, another died in an asylum. The family was evicted from the rancho. Alviso hired an American lawyer (previously a butcher) to survey his land, and the new borders of the rancho included much of Berreyesa's claim. Alviso filed a claim for the grant with the Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was

patented A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

to Alviso in 1871. Both

Californio Californio (plural Californios) is a term used to designate a Hispanic Californian, especially those descended from Spanish and Mexican settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries. California's Spanish-speaking community has resided there sinc ...

-held parcels were subject to a rush of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

squatters Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

in 1852. Berreyesa and his three sons were tricked by Anglo settler James Jakes who told them they could cement the Berreyesa claim by building four new homes on outlying areas of the property and occupying them in a similar manner to the new squatters. Jakes seized the vacated Berreyesa adobe and claimed the whole grant for himself.Pitt, 1966, pp. 101–103. After Alviso died on 1853, his widow, Juana Galindo Alviso, rented a home to two of the Berreyesa sons. When she married the rancho manager, Jose Urridias, a native of

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...

, he made them leave. Eventually the Alviso family had to sell off most of the land to pay court fees to fight off American squatters.

Historic sites of the Rancho

Jose Maria Alviso Adobe The José María Alviso Adobe, located in Milpitas, California, United States, was the home of José María Alviso, an early '' alcalde'' (mayor) of neighboring Pueblo de San Jose. It was built in 1837 and enlarged in the early 1850s, and stand ...

. An 1835 ranch house, once owned by the Alviso family to whom the rancho was granted, still stands to the south east of the intersection of

Piedmont Road State Route 237 (SR 237) is a state highway located entirely within the city limits of Atlanta in the U.S. state of Georgia. Its path is entirely within Fulton County. Route description SR 237 begins just south of SR 13 ( ...

and

Calaveras Road ''Calavera'' (Spanish for ''skull'') or its plural ''calaveras'', may refer to: Culture * Calaveras, any of various skull-shaped things associated with the * Literary Calavera, traditional Mexican composition in verse Places * Calaveras Ri ...

at the edge of the city.José Maria Alviso Adobe
/ref> *

Dutton Hotel, Stagecoach Station Dutton Hotel, Stagecoach Station is located on Jolon Road in Jolon, California. What remains are ruins of an adobe inn that was established in 1849. The Dutton Hotel was a major stagecoach stop on El Camino Real (California), El Camino Real in th ...

was located on Jolon Road on the Rancho Milpitas in

Jolon, California Jolon (; Spanish: ''Jolón''; Salinan: ''Xolon'') is small unincorporated village in southern Monterey County, California. Jolon is located in the San Antonio River Valley, west of Salinas Valley. The origins of Jolon date to 1771, when the S ...

. It was a one-story rectangular adobe inn built by Antonio Ramirez in 1849 as a home for miners and travelers. What remains are ruins of an

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

inn. The Dutton Hotel was a major stagecoach stop on El Camino Real in the late 1880s. The landmark was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on October 14, 1971.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *Pitt, Leonard M. ''The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846–1890'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966 {{coord , 37.430, -121.870, region:US-CA_type:landmark, display=title

Milpitas, California

Buildings and structures in Milpitas, California

History

Historic sites of the Rancho

See also

References