Don Melitón de Leon Carlos

Some of the agricultural estates in the province (Nueva Ecija) began as land claims made by the local principales or from nearby provinces, which converted public lands to private haciendas devoted to wet-rice cultivation. The principales who staked out a claim to ownership of the land, led forest clearance projects and recruited tenants “with the promise of free or nominal rent during the early years of occupance in exchange for their clearing land designated by the would-be hacenderos.” The typical tenancy arrangement for the first settlers was the inquilinato or the lease system which was more often referred to as the canon system when it involved pioneering. In the 1920s, this system gave way to the kasamá system or sharecropping as “labour became more plentiful forest clearance came to an end.”

Don Meliton Carlos was one among the recognized principales of Talavera, Nueva Ecija. He had a land claim for Sitio Tila Kaingin.

References:

• https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.dl... date accessed: August 9, 2019
• Death certificate https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FNK3-M4H date accessed: August 9, 2019