Nuevo Santander, one of the last northern provinces of New Spain, was established by José de Escandón and encompassed the present Mexican state of Tamaulipas and part of trans-Nueces Texas. Known as the father of the lower Rio Grande Valley, Escandón organized an expedition, conquered the area, and settled 20 towns and 18 missions between 1749 and 1755. Settlers in the colonies in South Texas requested individual land allocations as early as 1753. In 1767, a Spanish royal commission began surveying and granting possession of land to individual colonists at the Rio Grande villas of Laredo, Mier, Camargo, Revilla, and Reynosa. The commissioners, Juan Armando de Palacio and José de Ossorio y Llamas, were instructed to survey the settlements and jurisdictions, distribute land to individual settlers, and record all transactions. The porciones, or partitions, in each of the five settlements were assigned a number and were required to be marked at the corners of each lot with recognizable markers as indicated by the surveyors. Mojoneras, or large pointed sandstones marked with the porcion number, year, and surveyor initials, were commonly used for this purpose. One surviving example is the Porcion 74 Mojonera. After the Spanish land grants, the part of Nuevo Santander in Texas north of the Rio Grande became involved in numerous border disputes between Mexico and Texas and between Mexico and the United States, yet the people of this region created a lasting cultural legacy.