When doing my research into South Texas Land Grants and Land titles the terms "leguas" and "varas" would show up very often if not in most documents. Since till this day the Porciones are still mentioned on land titles as they have been mentioned in such documetns since they were granted by the king of Spain. In a nut shell I found the following chart on wikipidia.com that will help us bring into context all those Spanish Measurement terms. I noted the Castillian system since it is the most important one.
Spanish
|
English
|
Length in pie
|
U.S. Units
|
|
punto
|
1⁄1728
|
0.1613
mm
|
0.00635
in
|
|
línea
|
1⁄144
|
1.935
mm
|
.0762
in
|
|
pulgada
|
"inch"
|
1⁄12
|
23.22
mm
|
.9142
in
|
pie
|
1
|
27.86
cm
|
10.969
in
|
|
vara
|
"yard"
|
3
|
0.8359
m
|
32.909
in
|
paso
|
5
|
1.3932
m
|
54.850
in
|
|
legua
|
15,000
|
4.1795
km
|
2.597
mi
|
|
1 Vara (Texas-Spanish) = 33 1/3 inches (as decided by the first Texas Land Commissioner)
1 Vara (Southern Colorado) 32.993 inches
1 Vara (Florida) 33.372 inches
I put an emphasis on "varas" because they are the type of measurement that is widely used in these documents as you all will see once I start transcribing some of them.
Sources:
http://people.smu.edu
http://www.convert-me.com/en/bb/viewtopic.php?t=497#p1170
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_customary_units
Copyright © Moises Garza. All rights reserved. Article may be reused for whatever purpose, and it is encouraged, as long as it is in its entirety including this notice. moisesgarza@gmail.com
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