Las Trampas Land Grant
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The Las Trampas Land Grant was awarded in 1751 by the colonial government of Spain to twelve Hispano families. The community of Las Trampas, New Mexico was founded the same year. The grant consisted of 28,132 acres (11,385 ha) of land on the western slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The settlers served as a buffer on the frontiers of New Mexico to fend off Comanche raids. By the mid 19th century the population of the grant area had grown to about 1,500 in nine different farming and ranching settlements.
The farming land in the grant was owned by individual settlers and their descendants and could be bought and sold, but most of the land in the grant area was held in common and used for grazing and timber. After the U.S. conquest of New Mexico in 1846, Anglo-American and Hispano land speculators and attorneys used the U.S. legal system to get ownership of the common land. In 1903, the common lands in their entirety were sold to private owners with the settlers on the grant receiving only a pittance of the proceeds. Following legal struggles, the former common lands became part of the Carson National Forest in 1926. Controversies regarding the uses of the land by the descendants of the original settlers continue into the 21st century.
Although not one of the largest land grants, the legal and political history of the Las Trampas Land Grant is illustrative of land grant issues in New Mexico and southern Colorado.
From 1692 to 1846, the Spanish and Mexican governments awarded about 300 land grants to individuals, communities, and Pueblo villages in New Mexico and Colorado. After its conquest of New Mexico in the Mexican-American War, the U.S. and New Mexican governments adjudicated and "confirmed" (recognized the validity of) 154 of the grants in a long, slow, and corrupt legal process. The size of the confirmed 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. As a consequence of the adjudication, the original grantees and their descendants, mostly poor Hispano farmers and ranchers, lost about 98 percent of their land to Anglos and Hispano land speculators and attorneys, especially to the members of the influential Santa Fe Ring. Much of the land ended up in publicly owned national forests. 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.[1][2][3]
The Las Trampas grant
In 1751, New Mexico governor Tomás Vélez Cachupín, awarded the Las Trampas land grant to twelve families who established the village of Las Trampas. The grant was one of the first made by New Mexico to expand the frontiers of New Mexico and protect the colony from raids of Indian tribes, especially the Comanche who both raided and traded with New Mexico. Specifically, the settlers of Las Trampas had the job of shielding Santa Cruz, 17 miles (27 km) to the southwest from Comanche raids. Other grants with the same objective were being created. Many of the early settlers were genízaros, detribalized Indians with a history of serving as slaves and servants of the Spanish colonists. They were important in the frontier defense of New Mexico. For the genízaros, relocation to Las Trampas and other frontier settlements was a means of acquiring land.[4] The village grew despite the danger of Indian attacks and, by 1776, 63 families comprising 278 individuals were residents.[5]
The boundaries of Spanish and Mexican grants were often vaguely defined but Las Trampas was later authenticated by the U.S. government to consist of 28,132 acres (11,385 ha). A durable peace treaty with the Comanche in 1786 permitted additional settlements in the grant area.[6] Elevations in the grant area ranged from 7,300 ft (2,200 m) at Las Trampas village to Trampas Peak with an elevation of 12,200 ft (3,700 m)[7] Vegetation ranged from piñon woodland at the lowest elevations up to tundra at the highest. No weather stations are located in the grant area but nearby Truchas at an elevation of 8,040 ft (2,450 m) receives 14.7 in (370 mm) annually[8] which makes irrigation important or essential for most crops. By the time of the American conquest of New Mexico in 1846, the population in the grant area is estimated at 1,500 in several settlements in addition to Las Trampas: Ojo Sarco, Romero, El Valle, Diamante, Chamisal, Ojito, Llano and Rodarte.[9]
The Las Trampas Land Grant had a typical pattern of land allocation for a grant to a community (rather than to an individual or an Indian tribe). As private property, each head of household received a narrow strip of land extending from the Trampas River, across the mostly-flat, irrigatable valley bordering the river, and extending to the top of the ridge surrounding the stream valley. With new generations, the strips of land were sub-divided among descendants. This land could be bought and sold.[10]
Outside of the privately owned strips of land, most of the land within the grant was common property, managed by the community and utilized in common for livestock grazing, timber harvesting, firewood, and hunting and gathering. The common property, under Spanish and Mexican law, was not salable or transferable. It belonged to the community as a whole.[11]
Mexican vs U.S. law
After its conquest of New Mexico in 1846, the United States agreed in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) that all residents of former Mexican territory would have the rights of U.S. citizens and "their liberty, property, and civil rights shall be protected." However, U.S. and Mexican land law and custom differed. The U.S. regarded land as a commodity which could be bought and sold and the precise ownership verified by documentation and registration of ownership with the appropriate government authority. Spanish and Mexican practices, by contrast, saw land as a community asset to be used by the community rather than a commodity to be bought and sold. Boundaries of land were imprecise and custom, rather than documentation, often dictated land ownership and rights of use. To sort out who owned what in New Mexico, the U.S. created the Office of the Surveyor General in 1854.[12] The Las Trampas Land Grant was one of the first land grants adjudicated by the Surveyor General, confirmed in 1860 and surveyed to contain 28,131.66 acres (11,384.48 ha).[13]
The Santa Fe Ring
The millions of acres of land in land grants in New Mexico were a target of opportunity for Anglo land speculators and many Hispanos who became their allies. Some of the Surveyors General became allied with the Santa Fe Ring, a group of "ambitious, unscrupulous Anglo lawyers who regarded the confused legal status of the land grants as an ideal opportunity for adding money and land to their personal assets."[14]
Most of the Hispano residents living on grant lands were poor, uneducated, unable to speak English, and unfamiliar with the American legal system. Many of them would be dispossessed of their land in court proceedings unknown to them and taking place far from their homes.[15][16]
