After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War, the agreement guaranteed that Mexican citizens living in the ceded territories—including the Nueces Strip between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande—would retain ownership of their land grants. In theory, these original landowners were entitled to keep their property under U.S. law. However, in practice, many of these lands were illegally seized or manipulated away from Mexican families through Anglo ran court system, legal loopholes, sales on artificial debt, mass murders, Texas ranger intimidation & forced displacement of original ranch owners, burning of homes, and outright fraud. All known as “Blood Titles”.

Anglo cattle barons such as Richard King, Mifflin Kenedy, and Charles Stillman, started “acquiring” vast tracts of land and building ranching empires. This dispossession marked a profound shift in South Texas, where Hispanic landowners lost ancestral land holdings despite treaty protections, fueling long-standing tensions over land rights and cultural identity.

In 1850, the Anson Jones steamship sank off the Texas gulf coast while carrying a trunk filled with the states land grant commission reports including the original Spanish and Mexican land grant titles. The Anson’s Captain: Captain King.

This States commission had been appointed by the State of Texas after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) to verify and confirm land grants records.  James B. Miller collected the Land Grant documents in Brownsville and was to headed to Austin for his review. “Miller decided to make the voyage from Port Isabel to Galveston on the steamer Anson before going overland to Austin. Two days out, the Anson sank fifteen miles from Matagorda. Miller lost his trunk, the original titles, and about $800 in fees from claimants.”