Are You of Spanish Descent? State May Owe You Cash

HOUSTON - They were carving out a living in this country long before folks named Smith or Jones, Austin or Houston, claimed the title "Texian."

On treacherous and untouched territory north of what they called the "Rio Bravo" settlers with Spanish blood in their veins scratched out farms and herded cattle, patiently awaiting royal land grants earned during danger-filled decades of sweat, death and perseverance.

"Beautiful people, decent, lots of kids," says Al Cisneros with a smile.

For the retired airline pilot, it is a powerful legacy that inspires as much pride as his scores of combat missions or years flying with the Navy Blue Angels.

But simmering beneath his love of country is a fury over what he believes is a terrible wrong, yet to be made right.

"The old faces that I remember as a child and their suffering, their anguish, their tears 'los terenos mijo, we lost the lands,'" recalls Cisneros, who grew up in the Rio Grande Valley.

The surface of that south Texas land today is laden with the signs of the vast mineral wealth below, wells old and new yielding immense fortunes in natural gas and oil.

Year after year, a portion of the profits from these hydrocarbons goes unclaimed, royalty income for which energy companies insist they can locate no rightful owner.

By law, that money is now surrendered to the state for safekeeping, roughly $211 million dollars so far, according to the Texas Comptroller.

Al Cisneros and thousands of other Spanish descendants insist the state need search no further.

"It is not your money, it is not your money, it's ours," he says.

To understand that claim, you must first understand the history.

Ownership of hundreds of thousands of acres date back to the "Visita General" of 1767, the land grants for which those original settlers had long waited, "porciones" sanctioned by the Spanish crown and later affirmed by the governments of Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the United States.

Over the past five years, a lady lawyer in La Porte has convinced no fewer than 11,000 descendants that mineral wealth beneath land long lost or sold is still their rightful inheritance.

"About a $1 billion in unclaimed royalty interest that belong to these unknown heirs," says attorney Eileen Fowler, who readily admits she's a crusader.

Fowler says her research proves many of these land grant families never relinquished their mineral rights when their ancestors sold or were pushed off the property.

Much later when wildcatters made huge energy finds many oil companies made only token attempts to learn who truly retained the rights, a practice Fowler calls "grand theft".

"You took these people's inheritance for a hundred years and they should be compensated," she says.

With the hope of a big pay day, small groups of land grant descendants regularly gather in Fowler's office.

"We don't go to court unless our proof is a hundred percent," she tells them.

Each pays $300 up front, the cost Fowler says of confirming their descendance and running a title search on their ancestor's property.

It's the kind of evidence she takes to court houses across south Texas where many of her clients have been declared legal heirs of the original grantees.

"Most of the judges are Hispanic, they understand and say 'finally somebody is trying to do something for us', " Fowler explains.

It's fair to say the land grant families will need plenty of help from politicians at the state capitol in Austin where the unclaimed energy wealth has sat basically untouched accumulating interest for decades. Blasting that money out of the state treasury won't be easy.

Especially when decision makers hear what Galen Greaser of the Texas Land Office has to say. He's an historian who literally wrote the book on Spanish and Mexican land grants.

"In Texas, mineral rights essentially begin in 1866. Grants from the Spanish crown did not convey minerals," he says.

Greaser sights a centuries old Spanish law which awards without exception "all minerals and metals in the realm" exclusively to the king. Mexico left in place the same law, retaining all minerals for the national government.

"The idea that these grants were in perpetuity is definitely erroneous and can't be verified by documents or even common sense," he adds.

Greaser does concede that many descendants of the original Spanish grantees were still on their ancestral "porciones" after the Civil War when Texas lawmakers awarded mineral rights to anyone who had legal title to the surface.

But it was during the turbulent century that followed that many Hispanics lost the land their forefathers had earned them.

"It wasn't always simply a matter of fraud and deception and violence there were economic and social reasons land changed hand," contends Greaser.

It is that century of loss and dispossession that Al Cisneros and others are fighting to reverse.

"This is about the American way, this is about justice," says the decorated Naval aviator.

A reckoning for Texans who believe their claim on the unclaimed is righteous and payment long over due.