Land grants in New Mexico and Colorado

Land grants in New Mexico and Colorado were awarded to individuals and communities by the Spanish, and later the Mexican, government to encourage settlement and expansion of the Territorio de Nuevo Mexico, which included southern Colorado. Many of the land grants were large and devoted to the raising of cattle and sheep. Smaller land grants were often utilized for irrigated agriculture. Land grants by the Spanish and Mexican governments between 1692 and 1846 numbered 295 and consisted of many thousands of square miles, most of it designated as common land. After its conquest of New Mexico in 1846, the United States adjudicated the grants and confirmed 154 as valid. However, over time the grantees and their descendants lost 98 percent of their land through legal decisions and (often fraudulent) land acquisition by Anglo politicians and lawyers. In the 21st century only 35 of the grants were still existent and owning land in common.

Context map showing the Mexican state of Nuevo México in much of the first decade after Mexican Independence (map represents territorial extent from November 1824 to 1830).
Rand McNally's 1897 map of New Mexico showing land grants recognized by the U.S.(red), not recognized (green), and Indian reservations (yellow).

"The two major types of land grants were private grants made to individuals, and communal grants made to groups of people for the purpose of establishing settlements. Communal land grants were also made to Pueblos for the lands they inhabited."[1] An objective of the grants was to encourage and expand settlements on the frontiers of New Mexico for defense from Indian raids. The peace treaty between the U.S. and Mexico guaranteed the right of former Mexican citizens to their land, but the adherence to that language was often compromised by legal actions biased in favor of Anglo claimants and Anglo land practices. Hispanic protests, legal action, and occasional violence to regain or retain their traditional rights to usage of grant land continued into the 21st century.

History during the colonial period

Juan de Oñate established a Spanish colony in New Mexico in 1598. The initial settlement comprised more than 500 soldiers and settlers, including at least 129 men of fighting age, ten Franciscan missionaries, and more than 7,000 head of livestock. New Mexico was at the time 600 miles (970 km) north of the nearest Spanish settlement of Santa Bárbara, Chihuahua. The remoteness of New Mexico from the seat of government in Mexico remained a characteristic of the settlement during the next two and one-half centuries.[2][3]

In 1598, about 50,000 Puebloans inhabited the valley of the Rio Grande River and its tributaries in New Mexico. They were sedentary agricultural people living in about 60 villages, mostly near sources of irrigation water. Their numbers decreased to about 16,500 by 1680. The decline was due to war, Spanish exploitation, and epidemics of diseases with European origins. Surrounding the New Mexico colony of Spanish settlers and Pueblo peoples were nomadic and semi-nomadic Indians: Apaches to the east, Navajo to the west, and Ute to the north.[4]

In the early years of the colony, Spanish governors rewarded their supporters and soldiers in New Mexico with encomiendas which gave the grantee the right to exploit Pueblo labor and extract tribute, but did not give the grantee legal ownership of the land itself. The encomienda system was one of the grievances which led to the Pueblo revolt (1680-1692) and the expulsion of the Spanish from New Mexico by the Pueblos. After the Spanish reconquered New Mexico in 1692-1693, their land policies became more conciliatory. They did not attempt to reimpose the encomienda system but rather made grants of land to communities (including Pueblo villages) and individuals.[5] Subsequently, the Spanish and their Pueblo subjects were forced into becoming allies due to raids, often retaliatory, by the surrounding Indian tribes, especially the Comanche who after 1706 became a major threat to the New Mexican colony. In 1821, Mexico (including the province of New Mexico) attained independence from Spain. The government of New Mexico continued to make grants to individuals and communities until Mexico became a possession of the United States after the Mexican–American War (1846-1848).[6][7]

Grants

From 1692 to 1848, the Spanish and Mexican governments awarded land grants to individuals, communities, and Pueblo villages. The U.S. recognized for adjudication 295 grants in New Mexico and southern Colorado. The land grants ranged in size from 200 acres (81 ha) for Cañada Ancha (now a suburb of Santa Fe) to 1,714,765 acres (6,939.41 km2) for the Maxwell Land Grant on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains extending northward into Colorado. Although the terms of each grant varied they fell into two broad categories: grants to communities and to individuals. Community grants included those made to Pueblo villages. The procedure for attaining a grant was for communities or individuals to submit petitions to the Governor of New Mexico who after investigation and consultation with local authorities approved the grant. The boundaries of a grant were often vague, "a river, a ridge, an arroyo," etc.[8][9]

Between 1854 and 1904 the U.S. government adjudicated and "confirmed" (recognized the validity of) 154 of the grants. Forty-seven were grants to individuals, 84 were grants to communities, and 23 were grants to Pueblo villages. Most of the grants were in New Mexico. Grants in the state originally comprised about 12,000 sq mi (31,000 km2) of land of which 98 percent was lost to the original owners and their descendants during and since the adjudication period. As of 2015, about 35 of the community grants in New Mexico continued to function, had boards of trustees, and owned in common about 200,000 acres (810 km2) of land.[10]

Grants had varying terms and conditions in their charters, but can be roughly divided into land grants given to communities and to individuals. Individual grants were more common in the 18th century and community grants in the 19th century.[11]

Grants to communities

Community grants were made to groups of settlers. Each settler received a house site and an irrigatable plot for agriculture. Most of the land, however, was held in common for all members of the community. Uses made of the common land included pastures for livestock, water, timber, firewood, hunting, fishing, foraging, and rock quarrying. Settlers owned their house sites and agricultural plots after four years of residence. The settler could sell his land and house, but the common property could not be sold. The primary economic activities of the settlers were subsistence agriculture and raising sheep or cattle. Many of the community grants were made for the purpose of defending the New Mexican frontier from Indian raids. After a durable peace with the Comanche was negotiated in 1786, settlement of frontier areas accelerated.[12]

Grants to Pueblos

Spanish community grants to Pueblo villages dated as early as the 1690s and grants were made to 23 villages.[13] The usual practice was for the Spanish to grant ownership of land in common to the residents of a pueblo. The standard size of a Pueblo land grant was one league in each cardinal direction from the church on the central plaza in the Pueblo. The acreage of each grant was, thus, four square leagues, later determined to be 17,712 acres (7,168 ha). A buffer area around the Pueblo land prohibited outsiders from grazing their livestock and growing crops. Nevertheless, encroachments on Pueblo land occurred. The sale of grant lands to non-Pueblos was permitted, but with restrictions.[14]

When the United States acquired New Mexico, it initially regarded the Pueblos as full citizens and not entitled to any special protection. Encroachment on and sales of Pueblo land continued into the 20th century. In a series of decisions in the early 20th century, the U.S. reversed course and asserted legal guardianship of Pueblo land and forbade Pueblo peoples from selling land without Congressional permission. Legal disputes concerning land ownership and the respective rights and obligations of the Pueblos and the U.S. government continued into the 21st century.[15]

Grants to individuals

The Spanish and Mexicans also granted land to individuals -- or in some cases two people -- as private property. The grantee could do as he wished with the land after the terms of the grant were met. In the case of some grants, such as the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant in southern Colorado, the individual grant functioned similar to a community grant. The grantee recruited settlers by providing them with tracts of land for agriculture and homes and access to common lands.[16] [11]

During the last years of Mexican rule, the New Mexican governor made several large individual grants to reward supporters and cronies, bolster possession of land on the periphery of New Mexico, and counter growing U.S. influence, including fear of invasion of New Mexico by either the U.S. or Texas which was independent from 1836-1845.[17]

U.S. rule

New Mexico in 1850 had a population of 56,223[18] mostly Spanish-speaking Hispanics and detribalized American Indians ("genizaros"), and including about 10,000 Puebloans. A salient fact is that it was an austere land in which sources of potential wealth were scarce -- with the exception of land -- for an increasing population of Anglo-Americans and ambitious Hispanics. Possession of land was the vehicle for wealth and prominence in the American territory of New Mexico (1848-1912).[19][20]

The United States agreed in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) that all residents of former Mexican territory would have the right of "retaining the property which they possess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds wherever they please." The history in New Mexico and southern Colorado of land grants since the treaty consists of attempts to reconcile U.S. land laws with those of Mexico and adjudicating disputes between grant owners and claimants and the largely Anglo new arrivals to the territory and state. These disputes have continued into the 21st century. In the legal controversies about land grants and their owners, millions of acres of land have ended up as the property of wealthy Anglos or in the public domain, mostly as National Forests, of the United States.[21][22]

In 1854, the U.S. established the Office of the Surveyor General for New Mexico to investigate land grants and recommend their disposition to the U.S. Congress. Claimants of land grants had to petition the Surveyor General to confirm their grant, but the claimants often did not speak English and were suspicious of and unfamiliar with the American legal system -- so different from the Hispanic. Many of the claimants were poor and unable to pursue the lengthy and expensive legal process of getting a claim confirmed. Moreover, the first and succeeding Surveyors General likewise had little knowledge of Hispanic land practices and customs. "The situation was ripe for fraud."[23][24] The results were "large grants owned by speculators were erroneously confirmed; other grants which should have been confirmed were not...[and]...some valid grants were confirmed, but to the wrong people." The notorious Santa Fe Ring of lawyers and politicians, often in league with the Surveyors General, abused the adjudication system.[25]

The shortcomings of the Office of Surveyor General resulted in the creation by the U.S. government of the Court of Private Land Claims in 1891 which established an adversarial system in which a panel five judges decided land grant disputes. However, the attorney's office representing the United States had far greater legal resources than the claimants. In 1897, the Supreme Court made a ruling which also disadvantaged claimants. Title to the common lands of Spanish and Mexican land grants, the Court decided, was held by the sovereign, i.e. the government of the United States. The consequences of losing access to resources on former common lands were severe for many Hispanic settlements. The small garden plots individuals and families retained were inadequate for their subsistence.[26]

Hispanics resisted the land policies of the United States. Among the movements and events at least partially related to land disputes were the Taos Revolt (1847), which saw the murder of several large land grantees. Attempts to expel both Hispanic and Anglo settlers from the Maxwell Land Grant resulted in violent resistance from 1866 until 1899. Las Gorras Blancas (the White Caps) in San Miguel County from the 1880s until the 1920s opposed fenced pastures and committed several violent acts. Causes of the famous Lincoln County War (late 1860s to 1881), involving, among others, Billy the Kid; and the Colfax County War (1873-1888) included land disputes. The shadowy La Mana Negra (the Black Hand) flourished in Rio Arriba County in the 1920s and 1930s.[27]

In 1967, the Alianza Federal de Mercedes, led by Reies Tijerina, raided the Rio Arriba County Courthouse. The objective was to make a citizen's arrest of the district attorney "to bring attention to the unscrupulous means by which government and Anglo settlers had usurped Hispanic land grant properties." An armed struggle resulted in which two persons were wounded and Tijerina was arrested and sentenced to prison.[28] In 2014, also in Rio Arriba County, the Forest Service was accused of using "Gestapo-like tactics" to prevent local residents from accessing the National Forest for traditional uses such as grazing livestock. [29]

In Colorado in 2021, a judge settled a long-running dispute in which descendants of settlers on the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant sued for access to the former common lands of the grant (the property of an Anglo rancher) by deciding in favor of the descendants.[30]

The following list of notable land grants in New Mexico and Colorado highlights some of the issues and controversies associated with land grants.

Notable land grants in New Mexico
  • Alameda Land Grant- Situated on the west bank of the Rio Grande and presently a part of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, the Alameda Land Grant (also the Town of Alameda Grant) was a 89,000-acre (360 km2) parcel of land given by King Philip IV of Spain in 1710 to Francisco Montes Vigil, who later sold the land, which included only some farmland along the Rio Grande, to Captain Juan Gonzales of the Spanish Army. In 1929, 20,500 acres (83 km2) were purchased by Albert F. Black who established the Seven Bar Ranch. The Black family built an adobe home and in 1947 a small airport which was known as the "Alameda Airport". Surrounded by growing urban areas, the Black family sold off much of the remaining ranch for the development of new residential subdivisions. The Alameda Airport remained in operation until 1986, when it was closed to make way for 1983 plans for a 95-acre (380,000 m2) mall project.[31]
  • Atrisco Land Grant
  • Elena Gallegos Land Grant-The Elena Gallegos Land Grant was created in 1694 for Diego Montoya, though settlers may have occupied it even earlier, prior to the Pueblo Revolt. In 1712 the grant, stretching from the crest of the Sandia Mountains to the Rio Grande, was reissued to Elena Gallegos. Her descendants further subdivided the approximately 70,000-acre (280 km2) plot such that when the land grant was re-adjudicated by American authorities in 1893 it was treated as a communal land grant. Much of northern Albuquerque is built on the former land grant. A large open space preserve is named for the grant.[32]
  • San Miguel del Vado Land Grant originally 350,000 acres in the Pecos River valley south of Pecos Pueblo. This land grant was a contributing factor in the demise of the Pecos Pueblo, which deteriorated from one of the leading pueblos to the point of the last families abandoning their land and moving to Jemez Pueblo. Overpopulation pressure and military protection centered at the San Miguel del Vado also contributed to the establishment of other land grants northeast of it, including the Las Vegas Land Grant.
  • Maxwell Land Grant
  • Tierra Amarilla Land Grant

See also

References
  1. New Mexico Commission of Public Records, Land Grants Archived 2011-11-28 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 28 October 2009.
  2. Simmons, Marc (1991). The Last Conquistador. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 96, 111. ISBN 0806123680.
  3. Kessell, John L. "Chapter Three: Onate's Disenchantment, 1595-1597". National Park Service. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
  4. Riley, Carroll L. (1987). The Frontier People. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. pp. 12, 230–232. ISBN 0826309984.
  5. Ebright, Malcolm (1987). New Mexican Land Grants: The Legal Background. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. p. 21. Chapter One in Land, Water, and Culture, edited by Charles L. Briggs and John R. Van Ness. ISBN 0826309895.
  6. Ebright 1987, pp. 21–26.
  7. "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo". General Accounting Office. p. 3-4,17. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  8. Ebright 1987, pp. 21–23.
  9. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 2001, pp. 3, 22–28.
  10. Garcia y Griego, L. M. "Community Land Grants in New Mexico: some background" (PDF). New Mexico Legislature. UNM Land Grant Studies Program. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  11. Ebright 1987, p. 23.
  12. Ebright 1987, pp. 23–25.
  13. "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo". General Accounting Office. p. 17. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  14. Lucero, Jr., Robert L. (2007). "State v. Romero: The Legacy of Pueblo Land Grants and the Contours of Jurisdiction of Indian County". New Mexico Law Review. 37 (3/8): 675. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  15. Lucero, 2007 & pages-675-679.
  16. "Sangre de Cristo Land Grant". Colorado Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  17. Lamar, Howard R. (December 1962). "Land Policy in the Spanish Southwest: 1846-1891". The Journal of Economic History. 22 (4): 498–501. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  18. Darling, J. Andrew and Eiselt, B. Sunday (nd), from New Mexico and the Pimeria Alta, eds. John G. Douglass and William M. Graves, Boulder: University Press of Colorado, p. 192,
  19. Lamar 1962, p. 503.
  20. Gonzales, Phillip (Spring 2003). "Struggle for Survival: The Hispanic Land Grants of New Mexico, 1848-2001". Agricultural History. 77 (2): 298–301. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
  21. "History: Land Grants". Albuquerque Historical Society. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  22. Raish, Carol; McSweeney, Alice M. (Fall 2008). "Land Grants and the U.S. Forest Service". Natural Resources Journal. 48 (4): 1039. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  23. Albuquerque Historical Society.
  24. Lamar 1962, pp. 502–504.
  25. Gomez, Placido (1985). "The History and Adjudication of the Common Lands of Spanish and Mexican Land Grants". Natural Resources Journal. 25 (4): 1039, 1070–1071. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  26. Gomez 1985, pp. 1057–1058, 1072–1076.
  27. Rosenbaum, Robert J. and Larson, Robert W. (1987), "Mexicano Resistance to the Expropriation of Grant Lands," in Land Water and Culture," eds. Charles L. Briggs and John R. Van Ness, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pages 278-297
  28. Pike, Douglas (2004). Roadside New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. pp. 81–82. ISBN 9780826355690.
  29. Oswald, Mark. "El Norte: A New Mexico Mess -- Land Grants, Rodella and the Feds". Albuquerque Journal. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  30. Perdoni, Kate (September 30, 2021). "Plaintiffs in Costilla County land rights hearing describe a 'campaign of harassment' Facebook shareTwitter shareEmail share". Rocky Mountain PBS.
  31. Paul, Paula (November 1996). "The intriguing provenance of Cottonwood Mall". New Mexico Business Journal. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  32. Damico, Denise Holladay (2009). "Elena Gallegos Grant". New Mexico Office of the State Historian. Retrieved 6 February 2010.
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