USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 26
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
as it is said, practically all the timber cut off from it and was worthless, save perhaps for a summer pasture range, and the land it took in lieu of it in eastern New Mexico-which amounted, I think, to something like three- quarters of a million of acres-was the finest kind of Pecos Valley pasture and semi-agricultural land. They also located a lot of this same scrip in western New Mexico, on timber land, and are doing so still. This scrip is at present worth $8.50 per acre and upward, and when the serip law was repealed, the last moment of the Fifty-eighth Congress, some interested person very shrewdly had an exception inserted in the act to protect this scrip.
"Bill after bill has been before you here, and will continue to be here eating up our best lands, until there will be nothing left of the patrimony. of our children if we do not get a bill like this statehood bill passed some time soon and become a state of this Union. When we can get $700,000,000 worth of property in both territories together put upon our tax rolls with a tax rate of one-half of I per cent, we can raise $3,500,000 per annum for the expenses of that great state. Capital will rush into such a tax-blessed commonwealth. That will be one of the blessings. * * * The larger the state area the harder it is for special interests to control things, as, for instance, see Texas. If we are a state we have some hope of putting that $700,000,000 worth of property on the tax list that I have shown you both territories possess, instead of about one-ninth of it, as is the case now.
"There is not in New Mexico, I know, nor in Arizona, as I am in- formed, a single line of law on the statute books restricting, limiting or controlling, in any sense, passenger or freight rates upon railroads. That is an astonishing thing after twenty-five years of railroad life in the terri- tories. I make also the astonishing statement that you may search the twelve volumes of New Mexico's Supreme Court Reports in vain without finding a single decision in a personal damage case against a railroad. Our appointive boards of equalization are known by their works; they are hampered by acts of Congress and by the territorial condition."
The original bill providing for the admission of Oklahoma and Indian Territory as one state and New Mexico and Arizona as one state, after having been favorably reported in both houses in Congress, was amended again and again. Senator Beveridge led the fight in behalf of the measure, which became one of the great issues of the term. Senator Foraker, the avowed friend of the railroad, mining and other special interests, who opposed statehood in any form, for the reasons which have been set forth in preceding pages, finally secured an amendment providing for the sub- mission of the question of the adoption of a state constitution separately to each of the territories of New Mexico and Arizona. It was the fond hope of the antagonistic element that this would kill the measure, it being firmly believed that enough votes against it could be mustered in Arizona to secure that result. By the provisions of the Foraker amendment, the result of spectacular filibustering and many delays in advancing the bill, a ma- jority of one vote against the proposal in Arizona would be fatal to the measure, even with the total vote of New Mexico in favor of its adoption. Probably never before had the Senate of the United States witnessed a more desperate and determined effort to annihilate all chances for the success of any statehood measure than that put forth by the railroad, mining and other corporations of Arizona, in the hope of escaping their
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just share of taxation, through Senator Foraker and his companions. The desperate expedients resorted to in the endeavor to encompass the defeat of this measure were almost without parallel. The president himself was powerless in the matter. The railroad rate regulation bill and kindred measures affecting great corporations kindled a strong popular sentiment in favor of the better regulation and control of these interests, and close observers of the public demand agreed that, could the question be sub- mitted to the voters of the country, the vexed question of the future status of these two western territories would be settled in accordance with the wishes of their inhabitants.
(NOTE .- Before this article went to press, the general elections were held, in November, 1906, and the statehood question was settled tem- porarily, just as the political strategists had planned, by the adverse vote of Arizona against joint statehood, although New Mexico returned a majority in its favor.)
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LAND GRANTS
Under Spanish rule lands were given to citizens, not in fee, as by the laws of England, but by federal tenure. The title remained in the king and the subject took the rents and profits, while on forfeiture all passed to the sovereign. After the revolt of Mexico, the republic succeeded to the rights of the king of Spain. A change in the policy of the government followed. Lands were granted to individuals for themselves and for the establishment of colonies. Private grants were limited in amount, generally to less than eleven leagues, dependent upon the purposes for which the grants were made. Grants to towns and settlements were more extensive, and consisted of farming or irrigable lands, which were parceled out to individuals, and pasture lands, or vegas, which were held in common, and which no person was permitted to appropriate to his individual use .. Such lands were generally situated apart from irrigable lands.
These town grants were applied for by several individuals, asking of the local state government the privilege of establishing a colony. If the petition was favorably received and granted, an order was issued by the governor placing the petitioners in possession of the land. The petitioners then divided the lands among themselves, and made a record of their doings, and the possessors held the land from thence forward in fee simple.
By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, May 26, 1848, under which New Mexico was acquired, the rights of holders of land were preserved un- broken, the United States being bound to recognize such rights so that one holding under a Mexican title should have right to a similar relation to the United States.
In order to make this beneficent provision of the treaty available to the holders of Mexican titles, on July 22, 1854, Congress passed what is known as the surveyor-general's act, providing that people claiming titles to public lands might go before the surveyor-general of New Mexico, prove their titles, and he should report to the commissioner of the general land office, that official to the secretary of the interior, and the secretary of the interior finally to Congress, Congress reserving the right in itself to finally say whether those lands should be patented or not. Interested people went down into New Mexico in the ante-railroad days, bought all of the best so-called claims, had the surveyor-general approve them, submitted proper proofs, and the result was that they had them confirmed for vast princi- palities of land, bigger than it ever was intended they should have been.
The Maxwell land grant, embracing about three thousand square miles, furnishes one of the most glaring examples of the injustice of this order of things. Other grants, each having from half a million to upwards of a million of acres of land, some of which is highly valuable for agricultural purposes, some abounding in mineral or timber wealth, passed in this manner into the hands of corporations or associations of individuals. Titles were found to be so insecure that, until the adjustment of all grant
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claims by the United States Land Court, established in 1891, capital could not be induced to enter the Territory in any appreciable amount, aside from such capital as was invested in these grants.
New Mexico was frequently referred to in official Spanish documents as the "Kingdom of New Mexico," on account of the vastness of its terri- tory, the variety of its topography and climate and the supposed richness of its natural resources. When it was surrendered to the United States by treaty the original province was still intact, except the portion east of the Rio Grande, which was claimed by the republic of Texas, which a few years before had attained its independence. It also included southern Colorado and nearly all of Utah, Nevada and Arizona. Nevada became a state in 1864, Colorado in 1876, and Utah in 1896.
By the organic act of 1850 the United States government offered to pay to Texas the sum of ten million dollars for a relinquishment of her claim, which offer that state accepted. In later years the point has been raised that if it could be successfully maintained that we derive the true title from Texas and not from Mexico, then the late Court of Private Land Claims was without jurisdiction to confirm or reject any private land claim within the immense tract conveyed to us by Texas; for the jurisdic- tion of that court was expressly limited to, territory which we had derived from Mexico.
Governor Armijo successfully withstood the Texas invasion and his exaggerated triumph was greeted in the City of Mexico by the ringing of bells and the salutes of artillery, and in reward he was vested with honors and, as he claimed, with almost dictatorial powers in the disposition of the public lands in his department. Santa Fé and Albuquerque were never occupied by a civilized enemy until our civil war. Nevertheless, Texas did exercise jurisdiction within the area of conflict. She made, for in- stance, a grant of the Salt Lakes to the southeast of Estancia Springs, and Congress recognized that grant and confirmed it, while the Land Court and the Supreme Court rejected the title to the same property which Governor Armijo had assumed to confer on the Prefect Antonio Sandoval.
The Supreme Court of the United States held, in one case, that the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo did not relate to property within the state of Texas. The republic of Texas had been recognized some time before by the United States, and by that act this government had conferred upon the people of Texas all the privileges which it was permitted by the constitution to grant. Texas, by an act passed December 19, 1836, defined the juris- diction of that republic to extend to the territory bounded as follows:
Beginning at the mouth of the Sabine river and running west along the Gulf of Mexico three leagues from land to the mouth of the Rio Grande, thence up the principal stream of said river to its source, thence due north to the forty-second degree of north latitude, thence along the boundary line as defined in the treaty of 1819 between the United States and Spain to the beginning.
By this act that republic authorized and required the president of Texas to open a negotiation with the government of the United States of America, so soon as in his opinion the public interest might require it, to ascertain and define the boundary line as agreed upon in said treaty.
When Texas was admitted into the Union in 1845, there was no reservation as to the question of boundary except that regarding the true
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
interpretation of the treaty with Spain. It was not until near the close of the Mexican war that complaint arose over the claim of Texas to the Rio Grande as her western boundary. When General Kearny became military governor of New Mexico, his jurisdiction extended into portions of Col- orado, Utah, Nevada and Arizona. The Kearny Code was operative throughout all this domain, excepting the region where the laws of Texas could prevail. With the passage of the organic act New Mexico was re- lieved of the claim of Texas.
By the Gadsden purchase of 1853, the United States paid to Mexico fifteen million dollars for a great tract lying south of the middle line of the Gila river in Arizona and a gradually narrowing strip extending eastward in New Mexico to the Rio Grande, which was at once annexed to New Mexico.
Spain, and later Mexico, always assumed a beneficent attitude to the poor, declaring her mountains, woods and pastures to be free to the com- mon use. It was this spirit which actuated the home government in making such a large number of land grants to individuals or associations of individuals or communities.
THE MESILLA GRANT .- The Mesilla grant was made by the state of Chihuahua, and had its origin in the clause in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which provided that those Mexican citizens who did not desire to become and remain American citizens might remove from the limits of the United States to Mexico. Many persons desired to take advantage of this provision, and most of these selected La Mesilla (then in Chihuahua) as a desirable location for such a colony. Application for the location was made to the government, the grant was made and a tract of country of well-defined natural boundaries was assigned to the colony. The settlers entered upon it, subdivided the tract, cut their acequias, or community irrigating ditches, built their churches and residences, and before the next treaty, known as the Gadsden purchase, the settlement had become the strongest one in the valley of the Rio Grande south of the Jornada del Muerto and north of El Paso.
Both of the treaties with Mexico provided that the people should be secured in their rights, property and lands, and if no change in their status as citizens of Mexico had taken place, the rights they held under the laws of Mexico should continue to be held under the laws of the United States. The sole question that remained in future years to annoy the occupants of the Mesilla grant was whether there was a bona fide town grant, made by the Mexican government, through the state of Chihuahua.
The records of that state show conclusively that such a grant was made. Every requirement of the laws of Mexico was also complied with by the occupants of the grant. At an early day Congress passed an act empowering the surveyor general of New Mexico to take the evidence and decide upon the merits of land grants of all kinds in the Territory, and report the same to Congress for its action.
Acting under the provisions of that act, the grants made to all towns and settlements in the northern portion of the Territory were confirmed to the people, and until comparatively recent years they held their grants by those titles. But dangers incident to a journey from Mesilla and Doña Ana to Santa Fé, which included crossing the dreaded Jornada del Muerto, pre- vented many witnesses from making the trip. The Mesilla valley was then
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so isolated from the remainder of the Territory that even the territorial courts were not held there, and the people were compelled, through sheer necessity, to establish courts unknown to the laws of the Territory. Unaided, they defended their homes and flocks from the depredations of the mur- derous Apaches, and though robbed of all but their lands, they maintained their colonial rights. They even spoke of going to New Mexico as if they resided in another Territory. The surveyor general did nothing to enable them to make legal proofs of their occupation of the land grant, though he fully realized that few, if any, of the people were able to go to Santa Fé to do so.
While this land grant question was still pending in the office of the surveyor general, the Civil war broke out, putting an end to further action in the matter for the time being. The surveyor general refused to act, and all knowledge of the existence of the law seemed to have passed from the recollection of the people of the valley until 1872, when the commissioner of the general land office revived the matter. The evidence taken as the result of that revival of the question tended to prove that Mesilla had a better title to its land than was held by the occupants of most of the town grants previously confirmed by Congress.
ARMENDARIS GRANT .- In 1820 Peter Armendaris applied to the Spanish government for a grant of land lying on the west bank of the Rio Grande opposite his ranch of Val Verde. His application was granted, and certain lands, embracing the limits of Fort Craig reservation and the old and new towns of San Marcial, together with the mesa lands to the west, were allotted to him. Several years later Armendaris was driven from his ranch by Navajo Indians, and sought refuge in Chihuahua, Mexico. In 1849, after the cession of New Mexico to the United States, Armendaris, desiring to secure the services of Hugh N. Smith, an attorney, and Thomas Biggs, an old Santa Fé trader, in the perfection of his land claims and the colonization of the granted lands, deeded to them four thousand acres opposite the "ruins of Val Verde," covering the present town site of San Marcial.
December 6, 1858, Colonel Robert Stapleton bought Smith's share of the four thousand acres, lying along the west bank of the Rio Grande, im- mediately south of the north boundary of the Armendaris grant and includ- ing a part of the Fort Craig reservation. In 1866 a little town called La Mesa, on the east bank of the river, was submerged by a flood, and the people in their distress crossed the river and laid out a town which they called San Marcial. Colonel Stapleton received from one of the number a document which he understood to be a lease of his lands signed by all, but it eventually transpired that they acted as mere squatters, not recognizing the Smith and Biggs title.
The grant was confirmed by Congress in 1860, finally surveyed in 1877 and patented in 1878. The court held that the mere possession by the La Mesa squatters could not be set up against the grant and patent.
The San Marcial Land & Improvement Company subsequently ac- quired the Stapleton title and that of the Biggs heirs, this action quieting all titles in the town site of San Marcial.
Present titles in San Marcial came through deed to Smith and Biggs. The courts of New Mexico decided in the case of the San Marcial Land & Improvement Company vs. Simon Leyser that the San Marcial Land
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& Improvement Company were the owners of the four thousand acre tract by purchase from Martin Zimmerman, who purchased one undivided half interest from Robert H. Stapleton, and the rest from the heirs of Thomas Biggs. It developed during the trial of this suit that all the heirs of Thomas Biggs were of age and able to convey, and that they all did convey to Martin Zimmerman. This four thousand acre tract was exempted from the deed made to William A. Bell on October 13, 1870.
Manuel Armendaris was a son of Don Pedro Armendaris, with power of attorney from his father. It is questionable if even deeds had to be recorded in New Mexico before January 1, 1888, and there were no laws demanding the recording of power of attorneys or deeds in New Mexico in 1858. The town of San Marcial is located near the center of this tract. Original grants to Armendaris (two) were four hundred and ninety thou- sand acres, ninety-two thousand acres of which were located on the west side of the river. Practically all property outside of land included in San Marcial town site is now owned by the Victoria Land & Cattle Company, having passed through three or four hands prior to their title.
ALBUQUERQUE GRANT .- The land embraced in the Albuquerque grant was occupied as early as 1680, and again in 1693-after the return of the Spaniards at the close of the pueblo insurrection-and from that time on was constantly occupied. The title to the grant is easily traceable back to 1693.
THE CANADA DE COCHITI GRANT .- The Cañada de Cochiti grant is alleged to have been made to Antonio Lucero, of Albuquerque, by the Spanish government, August 2, 1728. It was located on the mesa of Cochiti, east of the center of Sandoval county, and the petition of Lucero gave the boundaries as follows: On the north by the old pueblo of Cochiti; on the east by the Del Norte river; on the south by the lands of the natives of the pueblo; on the west by the Jemez mountains. The total area claimed by the heirs of Lucero was one hundred and four thousand five hundred and fifty-four acres. The petition gave as the northerly limit the old pueblo to which the Indians retreated during the uprising of 1680. When the case was brought before the United States Land Court, the boundary question was investigated by Levi A. Hughes and others, the result of their researches among the Indians showing that the members of the tribe uniformly agreed that their traditions were to the effect that during the uprising of 1680 their ancestors retreated to the pueblo located much further south than the location designated in the petition for con- firmation of the grant. It was clearly proved in the trial of the case that the applicants were endeavoring to secure, by fraudulent means, title to a much larger tract than was conferred upon Lucero by the Spanish govern- ment, the fraud consisting in an endeavor to establish the northern limit of the grant upon a pueblo to which the Indians did not retreat, instead of the pueblo to which reference was made by Luecro in his petition to the Spanish government. An attempt was also made by the claimants to prove that the original grant extended to the west side of the Jemez mountains instead of the east side. The title to the grant was assigned to James G. and J. P. Whitney and others, whose petition for confirmation was filed July 22, 1882.
No record or evidence of the alleged grant was found in the old Spanish or Mexican archives, the title of the claimants resting safely upon
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LAND GRANTS
a copy of an alleged original grant signed by Bustamante, then governor of New Mexico. Under the act of Congress approved March 3, 1891, the United States Land Court, on February 16, 1898, confirmed the grant and ordered the survey to be made, the north boundary to be located through the center of the old pueblo of Cochiti, and the western boundary to follow the "crest of the first sierra of the Jemez mountains." The eastern boundary was established at the Rio Grande, and the southern at "the northern line of the lands" belonging to the Indians. By the action of the court the amount finally conferred upon the claimants was but 19,112.78 acres, instead of the 104,554 acres claimed.
ATRISCO GRANT .- In 1905 the general land office at Washington, D. C., handed down a final decision in the famous town of Atrisco grant suit, which had been in the courts since 1885. By the decision the title to the town of Atrisco grant, comprising 82,728.72 acres is restored to the original grantees, and the land will be partitioned among the many descendants of the original grantees.
SEBASTIAN MARTIN GRANT .- The Sebastian Martin land grant was originally made in 1711 hy a Spanish governor to Captain Sebastian Martin, who was the most important man in the north of the Territory, after the conquest by de Vargas, and it embraced the Rio Grande valley on both sides of the river, from the boundary of the San Juan pueblo grant on the south to the end of La Joya on the 'north, and east as far as Las Trampas. Plaza del Alcalde, Los Luceras, La Villita and La Joya are all within the original grant, but the occupied land was not affected by the recent partition suit, which only had to do with the common lands that have never been reduced to actual possession.
The grant contains over forty thousand acres, of which, perhaps, ten thousand are occupied, leaving from 30,000 to 35,000 as the subject of litigation. The suit was begun by A. B. McMillen, of Albuquerque, rep- resenting a considerable number of the heirs, and many others are repre- sented by ex-Governor L. B. Prince and other attorneys. As nearly two centuries have elapsed since the grant was originally made, the number of heirs is naturally very large, and those best informed believe that they really exceed a thousand in number; about 600 have been proved in the genealogy, and the remainder are so scattered from Colorado to California that they will probably never be heard from.
A curious feature of the case was the claim made by the Indians of the pueblo of San Juan, who proved by tradition that in consideration of the services of the Indians in the building of the first great acequia which runs down the east side of the river, Captain Sebastian Martin gave them a piece of land in the valley, which they have ever since possessed. They are represented by Judge A. J. Abbott.
ORTIZ MINE GRANT .- About 69,458 acres in Santa Fé county were granted in 1833 to Jose Francisco Ortiz and Ignacio Cano. The latter in 1836, conveyed to Ortiz all his title and interest in the grant. Ortiz died in 1848, leaving the grant in possession of his widow, Maria Inez Montoya, who, in 1853, conveyed it to John Grenier. August 19, 1854, Grenier con- veyed it to Charles E. Sherman and his associates, who, July 10, 1864, con- veyed it to the New Mexico Mining Company. The grant to Ortiz was confirmed by Congress in 1861, and the United States government gave a quit claim to the New Mexico Mining Company May 20, 1876, "not
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