HIST 442: Natural Resources and the Law in the Spanish Borderlands of North America

This course examines the intersection of law and natural resources in the Spanish Borderlands of North America. We will study how the Spanish empire (and later an independent Mexico) defined natural resources as property rights and allocated such resources to Spanish settlers and Native peoples who lived in the dry expanse of the far northern frontier of New Spain (present day Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California). Assigned readings and class discussion will emphasize the myriad ways in which the Spanish civil law of property distributed land, water, grazing rights, and minerals, including the economic activities associated with these natural resources: farming, ranching, and mining. Conceptually speaking, the course also includes the transition to U.S. sovereignty and the introduction of American common law in places such as Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California. A clash of legal systems followed, as American common law often approached natural resources and property rights differently than Hispanic civil law. In order to better understand this clash, students will compare and contrast the fundamentals of the common and civil law systems, as well as the two international treaties that obliged the United States to apply the law of the prior sovereign to its recently acquired territory (the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase of 1854).

Course Credits
3