The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, July 1953 - April, 1954 Page: 12
585 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
manufacturing, in distinction from the "natural" use of water
for drinking, household needs, and the watering of stock. While
the Spanish law preserved the old Roman distinction, it extended
the concept of "natural" or indispensable uses to include irriga-
tion. The "reasonable" use of water from a stream for irrigation
thus became a vested right of the owner of riparian land, just as
much as the title to the land itself.35
Spanish and Mexican land grants are the basis of title to 26,280,-
ooo acres of Texas real estate,"6 amounting to approximately one-
seventh of the state's land area and having a value in 1952 of
several billion dollars; it includes, in addition to valuable farm
and ranch lands, oil properties, the entire extent of the fertile,
irrigated Lower Rio Grande Valley, and the city of San Antonio
as well as many other urban communities. The Spanish royal
grants, alone, are estimated at ten million acres.87
Titles in these lands are supported by laws reaching back in a
direct chain of legal tradition to the ancient Romans. The Roman
laws were codified in the sixth century in the Corpus Juris Civilis
(also called the Codes and Pandects) of the Emperor Justinian.
This Corpus Juris was the principal basis of Las Siete Partidas, the
codification of Spanish law which was accomplished under Alfonso
XI (the Wise) in the thirteenth century.s8 This code remained the
fundamental law of Spain and the Spanish empire until modern
times, being supplemented by various decrees of the successive
monarchs. The decrees which had special application to the over-
seas colonies were collected under the general title of The Laws of
the Indies.
Land grants made under these laws generally included the
following elements: (i) Title was dependent upon the perform-
ance of certain conditions, which usually included use and oc-
cupancy for a term of years. (2) Mineral rights were theoretically
retained by the king, although in practice the landowner was
encouraged to take out gold, silver, and other minerals on pay-
ment of the "royal fifth." (3) The grantee received full riparian
8sHarbert Davenport and J. T. Canales, The Texas Law of Flowing Waters, with
Special Reference to Irrigation from the Lower Rio Grande (Brownsville, 1949), 20.
8aTexas Almanac and State Industrial Guide (Dallas, 1949), 613.
8TDudley G. Wooten, A Comprehensive History of Texas (2 vols.; Dallas, 1898), I,
792.
88Davenport and Canales, Texas Law of Flowing Waters, 20.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, July 1953 - April, 1954, periodical, 1954; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101152/m1/30/: accessed May 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.