Río Chama Land Grants

Land grants were meant to reward men who had served the state. They weren’t intended to encourage land speculation, nor were they supposed to countenance bribery. The Spanish government monitored them to ensure they were used as intended. In 1724, Juan de Bustamante questioned all the concessions made by Juan Flores Mogollón in 1714 along the Río Chama.

Antonio Trujillo claimed he had received land "which is wild and unsettled, on the opposite side of the Del Norte river" from Flores. He then "made a ditch and plowed up a field" that was shown as proof of occupancy.

His father, Diego Trujillo, had been granted land west of the Chama in 1714. Antonio’s apparently was the same San Gabriel-Yunque land granted to Bartolomé Sánchez that year. Trujillo described it as having a hill on the east bank of the Río Grande, and a table land reaching the Chama on the west and north. The Chama river was the south boundary.

Diego had married Catalina Griego, granddaughter of Juan Griego II. Antonio’s wife was María Márquez de Ayala, whose parents migrated from Mexico City in 1693. Witnesses for their diligencia matrimonial included Cristóbal Crespín.

Crespín’s grant also was called for revalidation. He said he had come north from Zacatecas with his mother, Juana de Ancizo de la Cruz. Since she was not given "even a small lot of land to enable her to build a house," he had enlisted with the Santa Fé presidio. He retired in 1714 because he had become too ill to serve. He had asked for an extension to prove settlement in 1715, because he was still ill. At the time, he complained José Trujillo was infringing on his land by building corrals.

His partner in the grant, Nicolás Griego, was the son of Augustín Griego and Josefa Luján. Angélico Chávez didn’t know Augustín’s relation to the family. Ralph Twitchell didn’t include the outcome of his grant inquiry in his summary of the Spanish archives in Santa Fé.

Cristóbal de Torres gave Antonio Trujillo "royal possession" of his grant in 1720 as chief justice and war captain for Santa Cruz. In 1724 he received his own grant for land on the Chama from Bustamante. He then gave lands to Nicolás Jorge, Juana Luján, Josefa de Madrid, Antonio de Sandoval, Juan de Serna, José Trujillo, Mateo Trujillo, Francisco Trujillo, and María Margarita Trujillo.

In 1731, Torres’ son Diego was tentiente alcalde in Santa Cruz when he petitioned Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora to clarify the grant. His father had died, and none of the subgrantees had made settlements.

This one was judged speculation by Cruzat, who revoked it in 1733. Mateo Trujillo had been granted land south of Santa Clara in 1700, that was revoked in 1724 because all he had done was erect a cross on two Sundays. Antonio de Sandoval lived in Santa Fé. Nicolás Jorge’s father had been sargento mayor of the presidio in 1694 when Crespín enlisted.

However, Diego must have been allowed to keep his family’s portion. His mother, Angela de Layva, made her will in 1727 in Chama. Angélico Chávez lists him as one of the original settlers of the community in 1731.

The term Chama was used for any settlement along the river, not just the one at San Gabriel-Yunque. In 1727 Pablo Manuel Trujillo of Pojoaque married Francisca Márquez of Chama. Marriages were contracted between all the families. One of Diego Torres’ sisters, María, married Antonio de Salazar. Another, Margarita, wed Bartolomé Trujillo, likely brother of José.

So many people were living west of the Río Grande by 1732 that Crozat ordered a ferry be established.

Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.

_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.

Christmas, Henrietta Martinez. "Cristobal Crespín - Lands near the Chama River 1714," 17 April 2013 posting for her blog, 1598 New Mexico; quotation from Crespín grant.

Páez Hurtado, Juan. Petition in regard to the calling of their grants, in Twitchell; includes Bartolomé Lobato, Salvador de Santisteban, Antonio Trujillo, Antonio de Salazar, Cristóbal Crespín, Nicolás Griego, Nicolás Valverde, and Juan de Mestas.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914.

Land Grants

Settlement patterns in northern Nueva México were closely tied to the presence of governors willing to make land grants and to the perceived safety of lands on the perimeter of settlement. Men given grants were considered accessory conquistadores. They were expected to use their own funds to recruit settlers and provide for their defense. They weren’t promised titles like Oñate or de Vargas. Instead, they were rewarded with whatever wealth they produced.

In 1703, Pedro Cubero granted lands at Chimayó to Francisco Martín, grandson of the first Luis Martín Serrano. The area had been used before the Revolt, and was rarely attacked. It’s major impact on natives living in the valley was an encroachment on traditional lands of San Juan.

Sebastían Martín Serrano, another grandson of Luis and second cousin of Francisco, requested confirmation of his lands south of the Embudo in 1712 from José Chacón. While this reestablished the Español presence in an area settled before the Pueblo Revolt, it also propelled families into an area where tribal territories were being renegotiated by force. This was discussed in the post for 9 July 2015.

While the first round of grants were given to families who had large landholdings before the Pueblo Revolt, many concessions to the north and west of Santa Cruz were given to retired soldiers. The governors were following the tradition of the Romans who settled veterans in the Estremadura to exploit and protect mines.

Juan Flores Magollón granted a number of allotments in 1714 along the Río Chama. Some of the land had been used before the Revolt. The Navajo had exploited the rest when they raided Santa Clara and San Juan in 1705, 1708, and 1709. As mentioned in the post for 21 May 2015, the last battle with them had been in March of 1714.

Chacón had refused a request from men in Santa Cruz in 1712 to resettle the area west of San Juan between the Río Grande and the Chama that had been the site of the first settlement "known as San Gabriel and by other name the Town of Yunque." His aide, Juan Páez Hurtado, had warned it would leave Santa Cruz "practically abandoned."

The group who had requested the grant included children of Roque Madrid. José and Matías Madrid were his sons. Ysabel de la Serna had married his son Pedro. Tomás de Bejarano had married Teresa Madrid, whose parentage was unknown.

It also included Bartolomé Lobato, who had risen to the rank of capitán, and his son or nephew Blas. Lobato was from Sombrerete, as was Andres González. Simón de Córdoba and Cristóbal de Castran were from Zacatecas. Córdoba was in the presidio. Angélico Chávez believed the second surname was actually Castro.

The other two in the group who requested rights to Yunque were Sebastían Durán, who was married to Ana María Martín, and Diego Márquez, who was married to Juana Martín. The parentage of the two Martín girls was unknown to Chávez. Capitán Márquez was the son of Esther Luján.

Flores had no qualms about ceding the same land to Bartolomé Sánchez, who had come from Queretaro and was living in Santa Fé under the name Bartolomé Garduño. He apparently was given priority over the protests of local military families because he carried papers for the viceroy.

Flores also granted land on the west side of the Chama in 1714 to Cristóbal Crespín, Diego Trujillo, and Salvador de Santisteban. The last was described as "las sobras de tierras" of land granted Lobato for wheat and corn. The literal translation is "leftover lands." Santisteban said he would plant wheat and corn.

The land ceded to Crespín was next to that requested by Santisteban. He planned to divide it evenly with Nicolás Griego to grow corn and wheat. It was described as "whatever is left after granting four fanegas to Salvador de Santisteban and Nicolás de Valverde, and the two fanegas with a house, lot and garden which in their outskirts I granted to Capt. Bartolome Lobato."

Next south on the west side of the Río Grande, Flores validated the claims made by Antonio de Salazar that were mentioned in the post for 6 July 2014. He also may have given José López Naranjo the land mentioned in the post for 14 July 2014, or Naranjo may have acquired it directly from Salazar. There are no records in the archive and no one filed a claim in the nineteenth century for the Naranjo land. Angélico Chávez found the reference in William Ritch’s collection of manuscripts.

These grants were dependent on goodwill between neighbors. They didn’t use the English system of metes and bounds, which identified permanent topological features. William Penn’s use of a grid, mentioned in the post for 13 September 2015, foreshadowed the use of surveys with brass posts at specified coordinates that replaced the metes.

Notes: Salvador de Santisteban was an officer of the presidio who went on the Páez expedition of 1715. Diego Trujillo survived the Villasur expedition of 1720. Sebastían Martín’s grant is often located in Taos; the term apparently was used to refer to any land between the San Juan and Taos pueblos.

Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.

Christmas, Henrietta Martinez. "Cristobal Crespín - Lands near the Chama River 1714," 17 April 2013 posting for her blog, 1598 New Mexico; quotation on Crespín grant.

Ritch, W. G. According to Chávez, 1992, the territorial secretary salavage papers from the archives before they were destroyed; they’re now in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914; quotations on Yunque and Santisteban grants.