bcla
On our rugged Eastern foothills.....
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2012
But (and remember I'm not American so I am actually asking because I don't know) didn't they get the land for free from the State of California when they joined the Union?
Not exactly. The basic idea is that the federal government owned the land before statehood and gets to keep it. They can possibly acquire land after statehood, but they're generally not in a position to buy up large swaths of land. It was a lot easier if they just sort of owned it by default.
Most newly declared states were former territories under the control of an appointed civilian territorial Governor. The federal government has control of a territory before statehood, as well as the ownership of specific federal lands. The terms of statehood for western states typically included a declaration by the new state that they recognized that the federal government continues to have title to such land until such time they choose to dispose of it. In a way it's a bone of contention in several western states, as most of the land in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona are owned and directly controlled by the federal government. Nevada's land is about 90% owned by the federal government. Here's a map:
The red areas are Indian reservations, so they're not specifically federal lands, but they are under the protection of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
California was kind of an interesting case because it was annexed by the United States after the Mexican-American War. California was never formally a territory with a territorial government like Arizona or Nevada was. They just sort of went straight to statehood after being run by the military for a few years. A lot of the land was in private ownership under the Spanish, then the Mexicans. The treaty that settled the war recognized the private land ownership under the Mexican government.
If it ever came to any kind of legal secession, I don't know exactly how they would treat stuff like federal land ownership. The federal government didn't exactly "buy" such land, but just sort of had it when acquiring control. California doesn't even have as high a proportion of federal land compared to other western states like Oregon or Utah. It does get complicated because of water rights. The map may have borders with straight lines, but water doesn't really follow those lines. Water rights and the control of a place like Lake Tahoe would be really interesting. Currently the area around Lake Tahoe is heavily controlled by the US Forest Service. There is of course private land and state, but it's mostly federal land. It's currently a federal effort for forest management, which can be more consistent with one government making most of the decisions.