New Mexico, of all the United States, today shows the greatest imprint of Spain in its history, culture, and people, with about half of its population identifying as Hispanic. The bulk of these New Mexicans relate to their Spanish Colonial heritage, although there is also a strong component who are proud of their long-time Mexican identity and also many recent Mexican and Central American immigrants.
The following is a previously unpublished paper of mine from 2002, which, although a bit out of date, provides a framework for the accompanying page on New Mexico Spanish Colonial Places and some information on the settlement process. This paper, which looks only at the Spanish settlements in Northern New Mexico, the Rio Arriba, formed the basis of a presentation at a Historical Society of New Mexico Conference in 2002. It was originally written for a New Mexico History class at Santa Fe Community College.
Spanish Settlement Expansion in 18th Century Northern New Mexico
Michael G. Stevenson
Introduction
This paper surveys the pattern of Spanish settlements that evolved in 18th Century New Mexico beginning with the Post-Pueblo Revolt reoccupation in 1693 and concentrating on the northern region, the Rio Arriba. We will examine how and when Spanish settlers, almost all farmers and stockmen, established new communities beyond the boundaries of previously settled areas, often to be subjected to raids by nomadic Indians including Apaches, Navajos, Utes and Comanches. The period covered will end with 1790, a time at which a new era of settlement began in New Mexico, spurred by the peace treaties of 1786 with the Comanches and Utes and the relative pacification of the Apaches.
The early years of the Post-Revolt Spanish reoccupation of New Mexico were a period of reaching accommodation with the Pueblos (albeit enforced with the swords of Governor Don Diego de Vargas and his soldiers) and of regaining the villages and homesteads lost by the Spanish colonists in the Revolt and the resulting retreat to El Paso. The villa of Santa Fe was initially the center of this process. However, the establishment of Santa Cruz de la Canada as a villa in 1695 provided a second focal point for expansion of settlements east up the Santa Cruz valley, much of which involved reclaiming pre-Revolt lands, and also to the north up both the Rio Grande valley, towards Taos, and the Chama valley, towards Abiquiu. Settlers from Santa Fe also spread south to found Bernalillo by at least 1706 and also the villa of Albuquerque in that year, these communities then serving as the centers for the spread of settlements to the south along the Rio Grande.
Because of the incursions and raids of Apaches and Comanches, the settlement area stayed until about 1790 bounded roughly to the north by the communities of Taos up the Rio Grande and Abiquiu up the Chama, to the south by Sabinal below Albuquerque, and to the east by Pecos (even at Pecos there was no Spanish community until later, although there may have been a few settlers on Pueblo lands). There were evidently no significant Spanish villages directly west of the Albuquerque area, although there were some isolated settlements in the Jemez and Rio Puerco areas far to the northwest. To the north of Santa Fe, communities such as Ojo Caliente were continually subject to Indian raids, and settlers often abandoned these outpost villages for many years, despite the governors insisting they return or lose their grants. Other settlements, particularly Las Trampas and Truchas above Chimayo, were established by community land grants to serve as outposts, called by at least one author “strategic hamlets,” to defend against the nomadic Indian raids. On the other hand, most of the settlement process involved individual families or, more generally, extended family groups occupying individual land grants.
The Settlers
The Pueblo Revolt led to a clear demarcation in the process of New Mexico Spanish settlement. All of the pre-Revolt colonists left New Mexico after the Revolt, except for the unknown few who may have been captives or who may have been living in Pueblos with relatives. Not only the Spanish colonists fled south to the area of El Paso del Norte but so did many genizaros, or Hispanicized Indians, of both Pueblo and nomadic Indian heritage, many Mexican Indians, such as Tlaxcatecans who had probably been in New Mexico since the beginnings of Spanish colonization, and, finally, some Pueblos, particularly Tiwas from Isleta. As discussed by Esquibel, the colonists who returned to Santa Fe with Vargas in December 1693 consisted of about 70 families and 800 people in total, including servants (some of whom were likely to have been genizaros). Nearly all of these were among those who had fled during the Revolt, but there were about 10 new families and 51 people recruited in Nueva Vizcaya and Nueva Galicia for the resettlement. A second group of 66 families, 217 people in all, the majority recruited from Mexico City, arrived in Santa Fe in June, 1694. Then in 1695 about 25 families and 21 individuals, 98 in total were recruited in the mining towns of Nueva Galicia and Nueva Vizcaya and arrived in Santa Fe with their recruiter, Captain Juan Paez Hurtado. In addition to these waves of colonization by primarily family groups there were some 30 to 40 soldiers and a few other individuals who came during the 1692-1696 period, most of them remaining in New Mexico and founding families. Finally, there were some 60-70 individuals, mostly soldiers, and a few family groups who came to New Mexico in the period 1697-1800. Esquibel lists about 210 individuals or heads-of-families immigrating to New Mexico before 1800 whose family names are still found in New Mexico today. The total number of colonists coming to New Mexico in the 1693-1790 period was somewhere between 1100 and 1500, most immigrating before 1700.1 This contrasts to a total Hispanic population of about 16,000 much later as estimated by Nostrand (45) based on the census of 1790.
Settlement Processes and Patterns
In 1680 at the time of the Pueblo Revolt there were about 2500 Spanish settlers in New Mexico (Nostrand 35). Of these, about 400 may have lived in Santa Fe, with the rest being scattered along the Rio Grande in the Sandia and Isleta areas and north of Santa Fe in the valley areas near the various Pueblos. Many of these colonists held or were involved in encomiendas, which allowed the encomenderos to tax the Pueblo Indians, with the tax often paid by enforced labor. There was a maximum of perhaps 100 encomiendas held by 50 to 60 colonists (Nostrand 34). The colonists’ encomiendas were all withdrawn after the Revolt, and there were no more encomiendas in New Mexico.
There were also an unknown number (most records were destroyed in the Revolt) of large Pre-Revolt land grants made for estancias for farming and ranching, also generally near the Pueblos. During the reoccupation following 1693 some of the Pre-Revolt grants were reclaimed by their previous holders or their heirs, but even these had to be petitioned for and regranted. As discussed in Simmons (99-103), all lands in Spanish colonies including New Mexico were ultimately owned by the Crown, but both private individuals and groups could apply for land grants which would allow them to settle a previously “vacant” area for the purpose of either forming a new community with outlying lands for farming and ranching or, in the case of a few large grants, for the development of farms and ranching with no associated community. Generally, a community grant allowed the “town corporation” the charter to regrant unused lands, but those still remaining unused reverted to the Crown. Those applying for a grant had to make a formal petition, and the grantee was required to use the land and reside on it for a number of years, except for the rare grazing grant, or lose the grant. There were also separate grants to the Pueblos giving them full possession of the lands they used, even though there was frequent encroachment by Hispanic settlers on Pueblo land grants either through purchasing land or simply squatting, such as near San Ildefonso and San Juan (Carlson 44 and 173).
With no encomiendas and a scarcity of Indian labor even for pay, the resettlement process of eighteenth century New Mexico was typified by small landholdings, often called ranchos (Simmons 103-107). These were usually long strips of irrigable farmland, or “long lots,” with a narrow frontage on a ditch (acequia) or natural stream with several or many such strips strung together along the waterway to use up all the available irrigable land. Often the grant would include grazing and hunting lands extending into the hills or up small valleys without irrigation. Community grants also usually included common lands, or ejidos, for grazing or other communal purposes such as hunting and firewood cutting.
Despite the desires of the Crown and the Colonial Governors, the settlers were more likely to build their houses near their fields rather than contiguously together in a village. Nevertheless, there were a number of eighteenth century plazas with several families’ houses linked together forming a fortified wall around a central open area, sometimes with torreóns, or towers, to provide both lookouts for hostile Indians and a defensive stronghold. Eighteenth century defensive plazas in the northern region included those at Ojo Caliente, Chimayo (Plaza del Cerros), Truchas, Las Trampas, and Taos (Simmons 106). Some extended family dwellings, often called a placita, that is, small plaza, might also be large enough to be built around a central courtyard and to have a fortified outer wall. Sometimes livestock corrals would be included inside the fortified walls forming a casa-corral.
The first new community established after the reoccupation of Santa Fe in 1693 was that of the villa of Santa Cruz de Cañada, about two miles east up the Rio de Santa Cruz from its confluence with the Rio Grande near what is now the town of Espanola, itself founded much later. Forty-four families from Santa Fe founded the new villa in 1695 (Nostrand 45), shortly after the expulsion by Vargas of Indians from the Galisteo Basin south of Santa Fe who after the Revolt had occupied the site of Santa Cruz and built their own new village. From both Santa Fe and Santa Cruz settlers then began repopulating areas throughout the region from Santa Fe north, gradually spreading along the streams where there was flat, irrigable land not being used by the Pueblos or in some cases, as in both Santa Cruz and also Chimayó, where Pueblos from south of Santa Fe had similarly taken occupancy after the Revolt and were later forced to leave by Vargas.
In the sections below the sequences for settlement or resettlement of specific areas in northern New Mexico are discussed in more detail. In each case a list is given of the best estimate of the year of the founding of significant settlements still extant today. As is evident from the information and discussion later in this paper, it is often difficult to identify a clear date of initial settlement, but we have used the most common dates or those dates given by original documentation such as land grants. In the lists below the dates are from Nostrand unless otherwise indicated. The original settlement name is given parenthetically if different from the current name.
Santa Fe and Pojoaque Valleys
Sequence
Santa Fe 1693
Cieneguilla 1693 (2)
Pojoaque 1701 (3)
Jacona 1702
San Ildefonso (El Rancho) 1714
La Cienega 1715
Cuyamunque 1720
As Santa Fe began to be resettled, both by those returning with Vargas and those new settlers coming in 1694 and 1695, some began moving out to lands that had likely been occupied before the Revolt, such as lands in the Pojoaque valley, including what is now Jacona and El Rancho near San Ildefonso Pueblo. One of these was Ignacio de Roybal y Torrado (Chavez 273), who was a young soldier, born in Galicia, Spain, who came to New Mexico with Vargas in the reentry and received a grant of nearly 7,000 acres in Jacona in 1702 (Westphall 275) and may have also received other lands “across from San Ildefonso Pueblo” (Salazar 96). Another native of Spain who came with Vargas in 1693 (Chavez 278) was Sebastian de Salas who sold land in Pojoaque in 1701 and must have received it before that time. Also, another Spanish-born soldier recruited by Vargas, Diego Arias de Quiros, was married in Santa Fe in 1694 and then later, after his first wife’s death, at San Ildefonso in 1714 (Chavez 134). Since he donated lands in Cuyamungue in 1720 (Salazar 34), it is likely he had settled there before that time.
These three soldiers were granted lands for their service to Vargas, but others settled in the area who were either regranted Pre-Revolt lands or bought them from the original grantees. Juan Truxillo, who bought the land in Pojoaque from Salas in 1701, was a pre-Revolt native of the Rio Abajo area (Chavez 296) who also returned with Vargas in 1693. Juan de Mestas Peralta, progenitor of the Maestas clan of northern New Mexico, was a native of Santa Fe who first came to New Mexico in 1655 and returned with Vargas in 1693 (Esquibel) and later settled to the north on the Chama River (discussed later). Mestas must have been granted lands early on in the Jacona area because he sold some to Ignacio Roybal in 1705 (Salazar 49) and was established in Pojoaque by 1710 (Chavez 218).
The La Cienega and Cieneguilla areas on the Santa Fe River and the Camino Real 10 and 15 miles southwest of Santa Fe respectively had been occupied by both a Keres Pueblo and some Spanish settlers before the Revolt. This Pueblo was abandoned during the Revolt, and Vargas attempted to see that the area was resettled as early as 1693 when he gave the Cieneguilla grant to Francisco de Anaya Alamazan (Westphall 20), although settlers may not have reoccupied the area until 1698 (Julyan 84). This was followed by the La Cienega grant made in 1715 to sixteen families (Westphall 20). The Cieneguilla grant was very large, about 45,000 acres originally (Carlson 223).
Santa Cruz Valley
Sequence
Santa Cruz de la Canada 1695
Chimayó (Plaza del Cerro) 1706 (5)
Cundiyó 1743
Penasco 1744 (6)
Cordova (Pueblo Quemado) 1748
Las Trampas 1751
Rodarte (Santa Barbara) 1751
Truchas 1754
During the period between the Pueblo Revolt and before Vargas’ reentry, Tano Indians from south of Santa Fe built two new pueblos, San Lazaro and San Cristóbal (presumably named for their original pueblos in the Galisteo basin), in the lower Santa Cruz River valley. In resettling Santa Cruz, Vargas persuaded these Indians to leave these pueblos and move up to near what is now Chimayo, although they agreed begrudgingly. As discussed in Usner (42-48), Vargas sent one of his officers, Luis Granillo, to Santa Cruz to reconnoiter the area and then to evict the Tanos and see to it that they moved to their new lands. In a report of his survey, Granillo noted that there were already at least 12 Spanish farms up the valley above Santa Cruz including the Martinez estancia a little over a mile down river from the later Plaza del Cerro at Chimayó, According to Granillo’s report this estancia was occupied at that time by the large Martinez family living in the ruins of their pre-Revolt home. Granillo also noted the Captain Juan Ruiz farm somewhere above that, perhaps in the small valley where the community of Rio Chiquito is now (on the Rio Quemado about a mile above the Plaza del Cerro which is where the Rio Quemado meets the Santa Cruz River) or perhaps where the Chimayo community of El Potrero and the Santuario are now .
Despite Granillo showing the Tanos where they should move to near Chimayo, they took refuge in the mountains above Chimayó and then joined the second Pueblo rebellion in 1696. After this rebellion was eventually put down by Vargas and the Tanos dispersed (some perhaps going to Hopi), the area was available for further settlement by the Spanish.
The first new grant documented in the Chimayo area was in 1706 to Luis Lopez, the son of a pre-Revolt family of Santa Cruz, who took possession of the lands where the Plaza del Cerro was later built. Other settlers were in the area in the next few years since one filed a complaint against a neighbor in 1712. It is not certain when the Plaza del Cerro was built, but it was likely to have been at least by the 1740s, and by the end of the eighteenth century the Plaza del Cerro lands were in the hands of the Ortega family (Usner 49) who are still there. Settlement continued up the Rio Quemado during the first part of the eighteenth century, with the village of Pueblo Quemado, now Cordova, established before 1748 (Nostrand 41) when residents of that valley petitioned to be allowed to abandon it because of Indian attacks. Nostrand sets the establishment of Pueblo Quemado as by 1748, but there is at least one reference to a land grant there as early as 1725 (Marquez 105).
The Chimayo area of El Potrero (“the pastures”), where the Santuario de Chimayo and its adjacent plaza is now, was also likely settled at least by the early part of the 1700s, and Usner (88) notes that Granillo’s description of the location of the Juan Ruiz farm matches closely that of El Potrero. When Don Bernardo Abeyta made his 1813 request to be allowed to build the small chapel that became the Santuario he noted the “nineteen families of the plaza of Potrero” (Usner 88). Cundiyó, about two miles up the Santa Cruz River and Rio Frijoles from El Potrero, was perhaps first settled in 1725 when Diego de Balasco received a grant (Salazar 71). Although this grant was revoked in 1738, it is likely El Potrero was established by at least the time of the original Cundiyó grant in 1725. Cundiyó was reestablished in 1743 through a community grant to four families.
A major leap up out of the valley of Chimayó occurred in 1751 when 12 families from Santa Fe under the leadership of Juan de Arguello were given a community land grant in Las Trampas, which was established for defensive purposes on the old Camino Alto (High Road) to Taos. These were families of little means, according to the Governor’s justification for the grant. Arguello, according to Esquibel, was a soldier who came to Santa Fe from Zacatecas by 1716. Also on the Camino Alto but between Chimayo and Las Trampas, the similar strategic defensive community of Truchas was established in 1754. Both Las Trampas and Truchas were fortified plaza communities.
The area of Peñasco, near the Picurís Pueblo, was settled by Hispanics by at least 1744, based on the petition of Jasinto Martin and several other families for a land grant at Picurís in that year and on a number of applications for registering mines from one-half to three leagues from Picurís Pueblo, all in 1744 (Salazar). Both Peñasco and the hamlet of Chamisal evidently arose through Spanish settlement on Picurís Pueblo lands between Las Trampas and Peñasco, since both Chamisal and Peñasco are within the boundaries of the Picurís grant (Shearer). Santa Barbara, now Rodarte, up the Santa Barbara Creek from Peñasco, had settlers by at least 1751 (Nostrand 41) although the area was later abandoned and not resettled until 1796.
Rio Chama Valley
Sequence
Chamita 1724
El Rito(Rito Colorado) 1734
Ojo Caliente 1735
Abiquiu 1744
Canjilon 1774
Vallecitos (El Rito area) 1776
Several families, including the large Martin-Serrano family (later most took the Martin and then Martinez, or “son of Martin,” surname), returned with Vargas and early on reclaimed pre-Revolt royal grants directly north of San Juan Pueblo.(8) The vast Sebastian Martín grant of over 50,000 acres (Carlson 221), first made in 1705 and reconfirmed in 1712 (Ebright), extended up the Rio Grande for several miles north of San Juan Pueblo and as far east as what later became Las Trampas.(9) In 1714 Antonio de Salazar reclaimed lands of his grandfather from before the Revolt and received a large grant on the west side of the Chama above Santa Cruz (Chavez 279). Some of these grants encroached on San Juan Pueblo lands but survived as Hispanic communities, including Chamita on the east bank of the Chama, dating from a land grant of 1724 but completely surrounded by San Juan Pueblo lands, and Hernandez directly across the Chama from Chamita, part of the Bartolome Sanchez grant (Shearer) of 1707 (Salazar 55).
Later, beginning in 1724 when Juan de Mestas and his sons received a large grant on the east side of the Chama above its confluence with the Rio del Ojo Caliente (Quintana 41), numerous grants were made to individuals up both sides of the Chama all the way up to near what is now Abiquiu. This included grants near the confluences of the Chama and the Rio Oso (near the present Chili) and Rito Colorado. A large grant was made, also in 1724, to Cristóbal Torres, his married children and several other families (a total of eight families in all, including the widow Juana Lopez de Lujan) on the Rito Colorado drainage to the west of Mestas near what is now Medanales (Quintana 41). Also, large grants were made up the Rio Oso for several miles to its headwaters on the slopes of Tschicoma (Santa Clara Peak), including the community of Pueblo Quemado (not the same Pueblo Quemado that later became the village of Cordova) (Swadesh). During this period grants were also made up the Rio del Ojo Caliente above its confluence with the Chama, the largest of which was the Antonio Abeyta grant strung along the Rio del Ojo Caliente for several miles (Shearer). Antonio de Beytia (Abeyta) was a son of Diego Beytia who was one of the new colonists recruited by Vargas for the return to New Mexico from either Zacatecas (Chavez 119) or Durango (Esquibel 151) .
The area up the Rito Colorado from the Chama and to the north of the Rio del Ojo Caliente was initially settled by several families, including that of Juan Estevan Garcia de Noriega who in 1735 received a grant that resulted in the Poblazon community being established at what is now El Rito (Quintana 44). This grant was subsequently officially revoked because the occupation requirements were not completely fulfilled by Garcia, but somehow held on to by the family since much later (1808) a member of the Garcia family sold land there (Quintana 44). Settlement in the outpost area of Vallecitos, about 10 miles north of El Rito and perhaps 14 miles north of Ojo Caliente up Vallecitos Creek, may have occurred as early as 1774.(6)
On up the Chama, Abiquiu was settled as early as 1734 by Bartolome Trujillo and others (Noble 137), and a grant in the vicinity of Abiquiu is recorded as having been made in 1735 to several settlers, including Geronimo and Ignacio Martin, Juana de Gamboa, and Pascual Manzanares (Salazar 34). However, the settlements at Abiquiu, Ojo Caliente, and Pueblo Quemado were all abandoned in 1748 because of Comanche attacks. Pueblo Quemado was apparently never reoccupied and its site on the Rio del Oso is now on U.S. Forest Service land (Shearer).
In 1750 an attempt was made to resettle at La Puente, about 3 miles east of Abiquiu (near what is now Bode’s Store). This resettlement included 13 genîzaros, some of whom may have been from Hopi (Noble 137), who were assigned to an existing house in what is now the townsite of Abiquiu. Other genîzaro land grants were made at both Abiquiu and Ojo Caliente in 1754. Sustaining these resettlement attempts was difficult, and the area of Ojo Caliente in particular was occupied at best sporadically since it was noted by Governor Juan Bautista de Anza as being deserted when he came through with his troops in 1779 (Thomas 124). In 1790, nineteen families from Bernalillo petitioned for land at the site of Ojo Caliente, and 53 others, probably genîzaros, who were already living in the vicinity were also given formal grants.
Abiquiu was occupied continuously from at least 1754 on, according to mission records, by a combination of genîzaros and Hispanic families. In an Abiquiu mission census of 1760 there were 57 genîzaro families (166 in total) and 104 “Spanish and Casta” families (617 in total). Some settlement also seems to have taken place beyond Abiquiu at a location called Plaza de San Miguel where two brothers, Pedro Martin-Serrano and Juan Pablo Martin, were given the Piedra Lumbre and Polvadera grants in 1766, now U.S. Forest Service land (Shearer).
Generally, the early settlement up the Chama was in the form of scattered ranchos involving extended family groups rather than multifamily communities. The first houses were small, but with time larger houses of up to 10 rooms began to be built (Quintana 50). Although some of these were substantial enough to be termed plazas, Abiquiu seems to have been the first true enclosed plaza (Quintana 50) and the only substantial multifamily community until the nineteenth century.
Initially, the process of Spanish settlement up the Chama seems to have been largely one of families reclaiming lands lost during the Revolt. However, in the 1730s both pre-Revolt families, such as members of the Martin-Serrano family, and those who came after 1693 received grants for new lands distant from San Juan Pueblo and presumably not occupied pre-Revolt (such as the Piedra Lumbre and Polvadera grants). Overall, though, in examining the names given in Swadesh and Quintana as the early grantees and using both Chavez and Esquibel for family histories, most of the settlements close to San Juan and Santa Cruz that survived the Comanche attacks of the early eighteenth century without abandonment were settled by those reclaiming pre-Revolt family lands. The regranting seems to have been largely as rewards for those who returned with Vargas. After the abandonments in 1748 of the more exposed areas around Abiquiu and Ojo Caliente, the process was more one of reestablishing defensive outposts, largely though genízaro grants.
Although some of the early Hispanic grantees may well have been considered to be ricos or “upper class” and some did have large land grants, most ranchos seem to have been lived on and largely worked by the grantees and their extended family members. This is evidenced by some of the settlers who abandoned their farms after Comanche attacks protesting to the Governor that they could not return because they could not both defend their lands and “attend to their business” (Swadesh 36). These were subsistence farms and ranches, and the work was mostly done by the Hispanic farmers and their families themselves.
Rio Grande Valley north from Santa Cruz
Sequence
Don Fernando de Taos (Serna grant) 1710
La Villita/Los Luceros (Soledad) 1712
Ranchos de Taos 1716
Dixon (Embudo) 1725
Velarde (La Joya or La Jolla) 1750
Although no Spanish community had been established at Taos before the Revolt, Don Fernando de Chavez and other farmers and ranchers had settled in the area near the Pueblo of Taos, but Chavez’ family was killed during the Revolt and the area was not resettled until several years after Vargas’ reentry (Julyan 346). There is a record of a grant to Juan Dominguez in the area by 1702, but the first lasting land grant was made to Cristobal de la Serna in 1710 that included the area that became the later village of Don Fernando de Taos (today’s Taos townsite, part of a land grant in 1795) adjacent to the Pueblo (Westphall 276). The Ranchos de Taos area about three miles south was settled beginning at least by 1715 when the Serna grant lands were occupied. A large grant of over 60,000 acres (Carlson 221) just to the northwest of the Serna grant was made to Antonio Martinez in 1716, some of which was later included in Taos Pueblo lands (Shearer). All of the Taos area Spanish ranchos and settlements were twice abandoned due to Comanche attacks in the 1760s, and by 1770 all the settlers had moved into a newly enlarged and fortified Pueblo shared with the Taos Indians (Westphall 21). Here the Spanish and Taos Indians jointly and successfully staved off further Comanche attacks, including the last attack by Cuerno Verde and his warriors in 1779 shortly before their defeat by Governor Anza and his troops near present Pueblo, Colorado (Thomas 121-139).
After the establishment of the villa of Santa Cruz de la Cañada in 1695 there was a gradual resettlement up the Rio Grande above its confluence with the Chama. Sebastian Martin settled on his grant and built a chapel at Nuestra Senora de Soledad (Our Lady of Solitude), which may have been what was later known as Los Luceros, about four miles northeast of the Rio Grande-Chama confluence and almost adjacent to the northern boundary of the San Juan Pueblo Grant. The last community to be established up the valley before reaching the Rio Grande gorge was that of La Joya, today’s Velarde, probably by 1750 (Nostrand 41), right at the northern edge of the Sebastian Martin grant.
Farther up, through the southern part of the Rio Grande gorge, the community of Dixon began with the Embudo grant of 1725, made to Francisco Martín, a brother of Sebastian (Chavez 222-223), Juan Marquez, and Lasaro de Cordova, east along the Rio Embudo above its confluence with the Rio Grande (Ebright 74). The original grant extended from the north of Sebastian Martin’s grant and as far east up the Rio Embudo as to near Picurís Pueblo. Embudo, like Ojo Caliente and other northern communities, was abandoned for a period in the mid-1700s because of Comanche attacks.
Summary Comments
There are several comments and conclusions that can be made based on the above:
(1) Much of the early resettlement involved regranting lands claimed by those who either themselves had occupied the lands before the Revolt or were relatives of those who had. Others were given as rewards to soldiers who returned with Vargas, most of whom were not natives of New Mexico.
(2) The early grants were large, but in most cases the original grantees were extended family or kinship groups, or they may have sold some of their lands to others shortly after being granted it. In either case the result was that the large grants were divided into smaller farms and ranchos over the course of a few years.
(3) The date of earliest Spanish settlement is difficult to establish in many cases. For example, often what was documented was the grant process, which required that the grant be occupied shortly after being approved but does not establish the actual date of occupation. It is also likely that in many cases, such as in the Chimayó valley, some farms or ranchos were in the area before the first known land grants. Also, isolated valleys, such as at Cundiyó, were probably used as pasture land and at least temporarily occupied before land grants were given and probably even after land was granted. In the case of Cundiyó the first known land grant was given in 1725 but declared abandoned in 1738 and then a new grant was issued in 1743. Finally, several areas, such as Ojo Caliente were settled and then abandoned for many years because of Indian attacks.
(4) The early resettlement process could be described as more entrepreneurial than strategic. Even though Vargas and later governors certainly encouraged settlement expansion through generous grants, the grants were made to those actively seeking land for them and their families to use or, in several cases, simply to make a profit through reselling it. Later, in the mid-1700s, the governors’ insistence that lands abandoned because of nomadic Indian attacks be quickly reoccupied shows more attention to strategic defensive needs, as did the establishment of the outpost communities at Las Trampas and Truchas.
(5) Finally, the overall pattern resulting from the Spanish reoccupation and resettlement of Northern New Mexico, the Rio Arriba, after 1693 is one of small subsistence farms and ranchos, not large haciendas. That this pattern lasted and helped preserve the Spanish culture of the 1700s until current times, albeit supplemented by some cultural mixing with their Pueblo neighbors and the assimilation of genízaros, is perhaps partly due to the changes after the Pueblo Revolt, but it is also a tribute to the perseverance of the early settlers, the pobladores.
Bibliographic Notes
1. This estimate is not given explicitly by Esquibel but can be obtained from his information.
2. The original resettlement grant was in 1693 (Westphall 20), but the area may not have been settled until 1698 (Julyan 84).
3. Cuyamungue likely had settlers before this time, but this is the earliest date in any documentation (Salazar) found.
4. Harris (208) states that Captain Jacinto Paleaz received the grant in 1702 and then transferred it to Ignacio Roybal in 1705.
5. This is discussed in Usner (40-42). The Luis Lopez grant was the land on which the Plaza del Cerro was later built.
6. Two books on the place names of New Mexico, Pearce and Julyan, provide much useful information on the founding of communities; however, specific sources are not given in either. Julyan’s book is a rewritten version of Pearce’s earlier book and repeats much of Pearce’s information, but with some differences. For example, Pearce (25) says that Canjilon was settled in 1774 “by descendants of followers of De Vargas,” but Julyan (59) says that permanent settlement dates from the 1880s. On the other hand Julyan notes that the report of the Dominguez expedition of 1776 mentioned an “upper Cangillon,” consistent with it being in existence at that time.
7. Julyan (369) gives 1776 as the date for the founding of Vallecitos, but we have found no confirmation of this date. Nostrand (84) notes that Vallecitos was founded in 1824.
8. Much of the information given here is from Los Primeros Pobladores by Frances Leon Swadesh (Swadesh 31-52), but there is more detailed information on the Rio del Ojo Caliente and Rito Colorado (El Rito) areas in the later article by Frances Leon (Swadesh) Quintana and David Snow, referenced as (Quintana).
9. The large-scale maps in The Roads of New Mexico (Shearer Publishing, 1990) are an excellent source for examining the extent of and the boundaries of the larger Spanish and Mexican land grants that were later confirmed in the American period.
10. These dates are from Westphall (276), and specific references are given in the text.
Works Cited
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Chavez, Fray Angelico. Origins of New Mexico Families. William Gannon, Santa Fe, 1975.
Ebright, Malcolm. “The Embudo Grant,” in Spanish and Mexican Land Grants in New Mexico and Colorado, John R. and Christine M. Van Ness, eds., republished by the Center for Land Grant Studies, Santa Fe, originally published and copyrighted by Journal of the West, 1980.
Esquibel, Jose Antonio. “The People of the Camino Real” in Douglas Preston and Jose Antonio Esquibel, The Royal Road: El Camino Real from Mexico City to Santa Fe. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, .
Harris, Richard. National Trust Guide: Santa Fe. John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1997.
Julyan, Robert. The Place Names of New Mexico, Revised Edition. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, Second Edition, 1998.
Marquez, Ruben Salaz. New Mexico: A Brief Multihistory. Cosmic House, Albuquerque, 1999.
Noble, David Grant. Pueblos, Villages, Forts, and Trails. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1994.
Nostrand, Richard L. The Hispano Homeland. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1992.
Pearce, T. M., ed. New Mexico Place Names. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1965.
Quintana, Frances Leon and David H. Snow. “Historical Archaeology of the Rito Colorado Valley, New Mexico,” in Spanish and Mexican Land Grants in New Mexico and Colorado, John R. and Christine M. Van Ness, eds., republished by the Center for Land Grant Studies, Santa Fe, originally published and copyrighted by Journal of the West, 1980.
Salazar, J. Richard, ed. and comp. Calendar to the Microfilm Edition of the Land Records of New Mexico, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, Santa Fe, 1987.
Shearer Publishing, The Roads of New Mexico, 1990, Fredericksburg, Texas.
Simmons, Marc. “Settlement Patterns and Village Plans in Colonial New Mexico,” in New Spain’s Far Northern Frontier, David Weber, ed., University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1979 (originally published in the Journal of the West, 1969).
Swadesh, Frances Leon. Los Primeros Pobladores, Hispanic Americans on the Ute Frontier. University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1974.
Thomas, Albert. Forgotten Frontiers: A Study of the Spanish Indian Policy of Don Juan Bautista de Anza, Governor of New Mexico 1777-1787. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1932.
Usner, Don J. Sabino’s Map: Life in Chimayo’s Old Plaza. Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, 1995.
Westphall, Victor. Mercedes Reales: Hispanic Land Grants of the Upper Rio Grande Region. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1983.
Other Works Consulted
DeBuys, William. Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1985.
Ebright, Malcolm. Land Grants and Lawsuits in Northern New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1994.
Esquibel, Jose Antonio and John B. Colligan. The Spanish Recolonization of New Mexico. Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico, 1999.
Fugate, Francis L. and Roberta B. Roadside History of New Mexico. Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula, MT, 1989.
Gerhard, Peter. The North Frontier of New Spain. Revised Edition, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1993.
Jones, Oakah L., Jr. Los Paisanos: Spanish Settlers on the Northern Frontier of New Spain. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1979.
Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1992.