Rancho Milpitas was a Mexican land grant in

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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

"milpan", a term meaning "in the field". Therefore, Milpitas could be translated as "little fields". The grant included what is now the city of Milpitas.

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 Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...

'' of San José, Pedro Chaboya, on May 6, 1834. A neighboring parcel was granted to José María Alviso (1798–1853) by the governor of

Alta California Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva 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 was made a separat ...

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 Conque ...

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 of California to the United States following the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

, the 1848

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on 2 February 1848 in the town of Villa de Guadalupe, Mexico City, Guadalupe Hidalgo. After the defeat of its army and the fall of the cap ...

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 the California State Lands Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican l ...

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 ...

to Alviso in 1871. Both

Californio Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...

-held parcels were subject to a rush of American

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 wer ...

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 (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, 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. 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 and Calaveras Road at the edge of the city.José Maria Alviso Adobe
/ref> * Dutton Hotel, Stagecoach Station was located on Jolon Road on the Rancho Milpitas in Jolon, California. 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 (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) 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 use ...

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 Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

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 Milpitas, California Milpitas Buildings and structures in Milpitas, California

History

Historic sites of the Rancho

See also

References