Gao Landgrants

United States General Accounting Office
GAO Report to Congressional Requesters
September 2001
TREATY OF
GUADALUPE
HIDALGO
Definition and List of
Community Land
Grants in New Mexico
GAO-01-951
Contents
Letter 1
Results in Brief 3
Background 3
The Concept of Common Lands Defines Community Land Grants 6
Approximately 52 Percent of All New Mexico Land Grants May Be
Classified as Community Land Grants 7
Public Comments 19
Appendix I Detailed Data on the 295 Spanish and Mexican Land

Grants in New Mexico 22
Appendix II Alternate Grant Identifiers 30
Appendix III Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 37
Appendix IV Public Comments 41
Appendix V Bibliography 52
Appendix VI Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 59
Tables
Table 1: 78 Community Land Grants Identified Through Original
Grant Documentation 9
Table 2: 53 Community Land Grants Identified by Grant Heirs and
Others 13
Table 3: 23 Community Land Grants Issued to Indian Pueblos 17
Table 4: New Mexico Attorney General’s Task Force Major
Comments and GAO’s Responses 49
Page i GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Figures
Figure 1: Territory Ceded by Mexico under the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo In 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase of
1853. 4
Figure 2: Community Land Grants Listed in Table 1, by County 12
Page ii GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

United States General Accounting Office
Washington, DC 20548
September 10, 2001
The Honorable Jeff Bingaman

The Honorable Pete Domenici
United States Senate
The Honorable Tom Udall

House of Representatives
From the end of the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century,

Spain (and later México) made land grants to individuals, towns, and
groups to promote development in the frontier lands that now constitute
the American Southwest. In New Mexico, these land grants1 fulfilled
several purposes: to encourage settlement, reward patrons of the Spanish
government, and create a buffer zone to separate hostile Native American
tribes from the more populated regions of New Spain. Spain also extended
land grants to several indigenous pueblo cultures, which had occupied the
areas granted long before Spanish settlers arrived in the Southwest. Under
Spanish and Mexican law, common land was set aside as part of the
original grant for the use of the entire community. Literature on land
grants in New Mexico and popular terminology generally distinguish
between two kinds of land grants: “community land grants” and “individual
land grants.” Our research identified a total of 295 grants made by Spain
and México during this period. Appendix I contains a list of these grants
and Appendix II contains a list of alternate grant identifiers.
The Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement of 1848, generally

known as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, formally ended the Mexican-
American War, and the United States assumed control over vast new
territories, including much of what is now the State of New Mexico. Under
the treaty, the United States agreed to recognize ownership of property of
every kind in the ceded areas. Over the next half century, the United States
developed procedures to validate land grants in the territory of New
Mexico in order to implement the treaty provisions. Whether the United
States carried out the provisions of the treaty, especially with regard to
community land grants, has been a controversial issue for generations.
Many persons, including grantee heirs, scholars, and legal experts, still
claim that the United States did not protect the property of Mexican-
1
In New Mexico, the term “land grant” is often referred to using the Spanish word merced.
Page 1 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Americans and their descendants, particularly the common lands of
community land grants. They charge that the common lands were lost in
many ways and that this loss threatened the economic stability of small
Mexican-American farms and the farmers’ rural lifestyle.
Concerned that the Congress and the courts have validated only about 25
percent of the total land grant claims in New Mexico and that most of the
lost lands stemmed from community land grants, you asked us to answer
several questions concerning community land grants and procedures
under the treaty. In this report, the first of two reports, we agreed to (1)
define the concept of community land grants and (2) identify the types of
community land grants in New Mexico that meet the definition.
Subsequently, we will describe the procedures established to implement
the treaty, identify concerns about how the treaty was implemented, and
what alternatives, if any are needed, may be available to address these
concerns.
To define community land grants, we reviewed land grant documents filed

with the U.S. government; Spanish colonial, Mexican, and current New
Mexico laws; federal, state, and territorial court cases; and the land grant
literature. To identify land grants meeting the definition of community
land grants, we reviewed U.S. records on Spanish and Mexican land grant
claims; literature on land grants, including materials on specific grants;
and federal court cases. We also spoke with scholars, legal experts, and
grant heirs familiar with the issues. For the most part, we relied on English
translations of Spanish documents in U.S. government files and other
sources. Our identification of a land grant as a community land grant in
this report, however, does not constitute our opinion as to the validity of
any land grant claim. Many of these land grants have already been subject
to congressional review or court adjudication. Appendix III contains a
complete description of our methodology.
This report was prepared after receiving comments and information on the
Exposure Draft issued in January 2001 in English and Spanish.2 The
Exposure Draft sought public comment on our definition of community
land grants, the three categories of community land grants we identified,
and the list of grants in each category. This report incorporates some of
the comments received during the comment period January 24 to May 2,
2
GAO-01-330 (English) and GAO-01-331 (Spanish)

2001. Comments were included when they were directly related to the
discussion in the report.
Land grant documents contain no direct reference to “community land

Results in Brief grants” nor do Spanish and Mexican laws define or use this term. We did
find, however, that some grants refer to lands set aside for general
communal use (ejidos) or for specific purposes, including hunting (caza),
pasture (pastos), wood gathering (leña), or watering (abrevederos).
Scholars, the land grant literature, and popular terminology commonly use
the phrase “community land grants” to denote land grants that set aside
common lands for the use of the entire community. We adopted this broad
definition in determining which Spanish and Mexican land grants can be
identified as community land grants.
We identified 154 community land grants (or approximately 52 percent)

out of the total of 295 land grants in New Mexico. We divided these
community land grants into three distinct types: 78 of these were grants in
which the shared lands formed part of the grant according to the original
grant documentation; 53 were grants that scholars, grantee heirs, or others
believed to contain common lands; and 23 were grants extended to the
indigenous pueblo cultures in New Mexico.
From the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth
Background century, Spain and México issued grants of land to individuals, groups,
towns, pueblos, and other settlements in order to populate present-day
New Mexico. Academic treatises and popular literature typically divide
these grants into two types: “individual grants” and “community land
grants.” Grants awarded to towns and other settlements were modeled on
similar communities created in Spain, where the king granted lands
adjacent to small towns for common use by all town residents. Under
Spanish and Mexican law in the territory of New Mexico, officials made
grants to towns and other communities. These grants usually contained
sufficient land and water resources to facilitate settlement and the
establishment of communities. Both land and water were essential
ingredients for sustaining agricultural communities in New Mexico. Such
grants were in keeping with Spanish laws, including the 1680 Recopilación
de las Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, which was a compendium of
laws governing settlements in the New World. However, local laws,
practices, and customs often dictated how grants were made and
confirmed.

After achieving independence from Spain in 1821, México continued to
adhere to Spanish law by extending additional land grants to individuals to
encourage settlements in unoccupied areas and to stave off U.S.
encroachment on Mexican territory. The Mexican-American War began in
1846 and formally ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo in 1848. Under the treaty, México ceded most of what is presently
the American Southwest, including the present day states of New Mexico
and California, to the United States for $15 million. Figure. 1 shows the
territory ceded by México under the treaty.
Figure 1: Territory Ceded by Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo In 1848
and the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.
a
In 1845 when Texas became a state, both Texas and México claimed the area shaded in light gray.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo resolved this dispute. Texas still claimed ownership of this land. In
1850, Texas transferred part of this land to the federal government, which became the eastern portion
of the territory of New Mexico.

While the treaty generally provided protection for property in the ceded
area, Article X expressly addressed land grant protection. However, U.S.
President James Polk objected to the provision, fearing that a revival of
land grant claims had the potential to jeopardize the grants already settled
in Texas. The Senate Resolution of advice and consent to ratification
contained several amendments to the treaty, including one that struck out
Article X. Subsequently, in 1848, the United States and México signed the
Protocol of Querétaro, which explained certain aspects of the treaty. In
Article 2 of the Protocol, the United States indicated in its interpretation
that the exclusion of Article X in no way meant that it planned to annul the
land grants. The Protocol specified the United States’ position that land
grant titles would be protected under the treaty and that grantees could
have their ownership of land acknowledged before American tribunals. In
the 1853 Gadsden Purchase,3 the United States purchased additional land
from México for $15 million, including the southwest corner of the present
State of New Mexico. The Gadsden Purchase incorporated by reference
the property protection provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
To implement the treaties, the Congress enacted legislation in 1854 to

establish the Office of Surveyor General of New Mexico. The Surveyor
General was charged with examining documents and verifying the
ownership of land grants. The U.S. government required individuals or
towns and other communities to prove ownership or property interests in
grant lands. After reviewing the land grant documentation, the Surveyor
General was to recommend to the Secretary of the Interior whether a
grant should be rejected or confirmed. If the Secretary of the Interior
agreed with a recommendation to confirm, he, in turn, would recommend
that Congress approve the grant. Upon congressional approval of the
grant, the U.S. government usually issued a patent,4 which conveyed the
property’s title to the owner. The Congress reviewed and confirmed 64 of
the surveyor generals’ recommendations, but in the late 1870s, the
congressional review of recommendations ceased.
3
The Gadsden Purchase was part of a larger treaty called the Treaty of Boundary, Cession
of Territory, Transit of Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which was signed on Dec. 30, 1853.
4
The patent did not convey full title to the owner of the grant. Rather it was a “quit claim or
relinquishment on the part of the United States” of any interest in the land patented. The
patent further provided that “it shall not affect the adverse right of any other person or
persons whatsoever.” Thus, third parties could challenge a patentee’s right to the land
based upon a claim of superior title. In fact, this is what happened in some cases. Patents
were frequently issued many years after congressional approval.

In 1891, the Congress established the Court of Private Land Claims to
adjudicate the outstanding claims that the surveyors general had reviewed
but the Congress had not yet approved , and other claims presented to the
court. In United States v. Sandoval et al., 167 U.S. 278 (1897), a case on
appeal from the Court of Private Land Claims, the Supreme Court held that
México, not the local community, held title to all common lands in
community land grants issued before 1848. Consequently, under the Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo, México had transferred ownership of these
communal lands to the United States. Although the Sandoval decision did
not overturn previous court confirmations of land grants, it did affect all
subsequent claims adjudicated by the Court of Private Land Claims. In
1904, the court finished its work, approving claims and land surveys that
represented approximately 6 percent of the acreage claimed. The Congress
and the Court of Private Land Claims confirmed 155 grants of the total of
295 grants we identified, and patents were issued for 142 of these grants.5
Appendix I lists all the land grants that we identified, the years of grant
confirmation and patent issuance, and the acreage patented.
The completion of the Court of Private Land Claims’ work did not quell the
controversy surrounding the loss of the common lands. Many persons,
including grantee heirs, scholars, and legal experts, still claim that the
United States failed to uphold the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo to protect the property of Mexican-Americans and their
descendants. They remain critical of the federal courts’ treatment of the
common lands and the failure to approve more of the acreage claimed.
They also assert that common lands were lost by other means, and that
this loss deprived many small Mexican-American farmers of their
livelihoods.
Land grant documents contain no direct reference to “community land

The Concept of grants” nor do Spanish and Mexican laws define or use this term. Scholars,
Common Lands land grant literature, and popular terminology use the phrase “community
land grants” to denote land grants that set aside common lands for the use
Defines Community of the entire community. We adopted this broad definition for the
Land Grants purposes of this report.
5
In some cases, no patent was issued. Individuals then had to rely on the legislation or the
Court of Private Land Claim’s decision confirming the grant as conveying the interest in the
property the United States possessed. (See previous footnote.)

To determine the meaning of the term “community land grants,” we first
reviewed land grant documents, and found that grant documents do not
describe grants as community land grants. We also did not find applicable
Spanish and Mexican laws that defined or used the term. However, as a
result of our review of land grant literature, court decisions, and
interviews with scholars, legal experts, and grantee heirs, we found that
the term is frequently used to refer to grants that set aside some land for
general communal use (ejidos) or for specific purposes, including hunting
(caza), pasture (pastos), wood gathering (leña), or watering
(abrevederos). Our definition coincides with the way in which scholars,
the land grant literature, and grant heirs use the term.
Under Spanish and Mexican law, common lands set aside as part of an
original grant could not be sold. Typically, in addition to use of common
lands, settlers on a community land grant would receive individual parcels
of land designated for dwelling (solar de casa) and growing food (suerte).
Unlike the common lands, these individual parcels could be sold or
otherwise disposed of by a settler who fulfilled the requirements of the
grant, such as occupying the individual parcel for a continuous period. For
example, the documentation for the Antón Chico grant, issued by México
in 1822, contains evidence that common lands were part of the original
grant. The granting document provided for individual private allotments
and common lands. Congress confirmed the Antón Chico grant in 1860 and
the grant was patented in 1883.
Using our definition, we identified three types of community land grants,

Approximately 52 totaling 154 grants, or approximately 52 percent of the 295 land grants in
Percent of All New New Mexico. In 78 of the community land grants, the common lands
formed part of the grant according to the grant documentation. Scholars,
Mexico Land Grants grant heirs, and others have found an additional 53 grants that they believe
May Be Classified as contain communal lands; and we located 23 grants of communal lands to
the indigenous pueblo cultures in New Mexico.
Community Land
Grants
Common Lands Formed The first type of community land grant we identified is a grant in which
Part of the Grant common lands formed part of the original grant. From our review of grant
According to Grant documents, Spanish and Mexican law, New Mexican law, and grant
literature, as well as interviews with grant heirs, scholars, legal experts,
Documentation and others, common lands were part of the original grant in the following
three instances:

• The grant document itself declares that part of the land be made available
for communal use, using such terms as “common lands” or “pasturage and
water in common.” We identified 29 grants that contain this or similar
language. For example, the 1815 Spanish Los Trigos grant, which was
issued to three individuals, made pasture available to the settlers of the
grant. Also, an 1846 Mexican land grant provided land to John Scolly and
several associates to set aside wood and common pasture for the use of all
the settlers. Current New Mexico law treats grants that make specific
reference to common lands as community land grants.6
• The grant was made for the purpose of establishing a town or other new
settlement. Spanish laws and customs concerning territories in the New
World provided that new settlements, cities, and towns would include
common lands. Although México obtained its independence in 1821,
Mexican land grants continued to follow Spanish laws and customs. We
identified 13 grants as Spanish and Mexican grants to towns. For example,
in 1768, Spain issued the Ojo de San José grant to six individuals for the
purpose of establishing a town. Similarly, México issued the Doña Ana
Bend Colony grant in 1840 to 116 petitioners to establish a town, which
would then set aside an area for the town commons. New Mexico law
currently considers grants to towns, communities, colonies, pueblos, or
individuals for the purpose of establishing a town to be community land
grants.7
• The grant was issued to 10 or more settlers. Spanish law governing
settlement in the New World stated that 10 or more married persons could
obtain a land grant, if they agreed to form a settlement indicating that a
grant would contain common lands. For example, the 1807 Spanish Juan
Bautista Valdez grant was made to 10 settlers and the 1842 Mexican
Angostura del Pecos grant to 54 settlers. We identified 36 grants of this
type.
Table 1 lists 78 grants in which common lands were part of the original
grant.
6
New Mexico law provides for the management of the common lands of Spanish and
Mexican community land grants by a board of trustees or a community land grant
corporation. N.M. Stat. Ann. 49-1-3 and 49-2-1 (2000).
7
N.M. Stat. Ann. 49-1-2 (2000).

Table 1: 78 Community Land Grants Identified Through Original Grant
Documentation
Year Location by
a
Grant granted county
Abiquiú (Town of) 1754 Río Arriba
Álamitos 1840 Santa Fé
Albuquerque (Town of) 1706 Bernalillo
Alexander Valle 1815 San Miguel
Angostura del Pecos 1842 Guadalupe
Antón Chico (Town of) 1822 Guadalupe
Arroyo Hondo 1815 Taos
Atrisco (Town of) 1692 Bernalillo
Badito 1835 Santa Fé
Barranca 1735 Río Arriba
Bartolomé Trujillo 1734 Río Arriba
Belén (Town of) 1740 Socorro
Bernabé Manuel Montaño 1753 Sandoval
Bracito 1823 Doña Ana
Cadillal 1846 Santa Fé
Caja del Río 1742 Santa Fé
Cañada de los Álamos (1) 1785 Santa Fé
Cañada de los Mestaños 1828 Taos
Cañada de San Francisco 1840 Santa Fé
Cañón de Carnue 1819 Bernalillo
Cañón de Chama 1806 Río Arriba
Cañón de San Diego 1798 Sandoval
Casa Colorado (Town of) 1823 Socorro
Cebolla 1846 Taos
Cebolleta (Town of) 1800 Cibola
Chaperito (Town of) 1846 San Miguel
Chililí (Town of) 1841 Bernalillo
Cieneguilla (Town of) 1795 Taos
Cubero (Town of) 1833 Cibola
Domingo Fernández 1827 Santa Fé
Don Fernando de Taos 1796 Taos
Doña Ana Bend Colony 1840 Doña Ana
Galisteo (Town of) 1814 Santa Fé
Gervacio Nolan 1845 Mora
John Scolly 1846 San Miguel
Juan Bautista Valdez 1807 Río Arriba
Juan de Gabaldón 1752 Santa Fé

Las Trampas 1751 Taos
Las Vegas (Town of) 1835 San Miguel
Los Conejos 1842 Río Arriba`
Los Manuelitas 1845 San Miguel
Los Serrillos 1692 Santa Fé
Los Trigos 1815 San Miguel
Manzano (Town of) 1829 Torrance
b
Mesilla Civil Colony 1853 Doña Ana
Mesita Blanca 1843 Santa Fé
Mora (Town of) 1835 Mora
Nicolás Durán de Cháves 1739 Valencia
Nuestra Señora del Rosario, San Fernando, y 1754 Río Arriba
Santiago
Ojo Caliente 1793 Río Arriba
Ojo de San José 1768 Sandoval
Petaca 1836 Río Arriba
Pueblo of Quemado 1721 Santa Fé
Ranchito 1700 Sandoval
Rancho de Ysleta 1828 Otero
Rancho del Río Grande 1795 Taos
Refugio Civil Colony 1852 Doña Ana
Río del Picurís 1832 Taos
San Antonio de las Huertas 1767 Sandoval
San Antonio del Río Colorado 1842 Taos
San Antoñito 1840 Bernalillo
San Joaquín del Nacimiento 1769 Sandoval
San Miguel del Vado 1794 San Miguel
San Pedro 1844 Sandoval
Santa Bárbara 1796 Taos
Santa Cruz 1695 Santa Fé
c
Santa Fé 1715 Santa Fé
Santo Tomás de Yturbide 1853 Doña Ana
d
Santo Toribio Sandoval
Sevilleta 1819 Socorro
Socorro (Town of) 1817 Socorro
Tajique (Town of) 1834 Torrance
Tejón (Town of) 1840 Sandoval
Tierra Amarilla 1832 Río Arriba
Tomé (Town of) 1739 Valencia

Torreón (Town of) 1841 Torrance
Vallecito de Lovato (Town of) 1824 Río Arriba
Vallecito (de San Antonio) 1807 Río Arriba
a
By principal county.
b
México issued this grant from lands subsequently included in the Gadsden Purchase.
c
The only grant actually given to Santa Fé residents was for some common pastureland and water
(1715).
d
Prior to 1800.

Figure 2: Community Land Grants Listed in Table 1, by County

Grant Heirs or Others The second type of community land grant we identified is a grant that a
State Grant Contained person or persons stated included common lands. Our review of the
Common Lands papers filed with each grant claim to the surveyors general and the Court
of Private Land Claims, and those of a legal scholar,1 disclosed that, in
some instances, the only mention of common lands was found in a
claimant’s petition or other documents. In these cases, the files did not
contain any grant documents showing that the common lands were part of
the original grant.
We also identified grants in this category as community land grants after

interviewing grantee heirs, scholars, and others knowledgeable about a
grant’s history, and reviewing other information provided to us. Again, no
existing grant document supported the claim, although some claimants
stated that such documentation had been lost or destroyed. Furthermore,
some scholars raised the issue that, in some individual grants, common
lands had been set aside by the grantees, their heirs, or other grant settlers
to encourage additional settlement after the original grant was made. In
these instances, there would not be any supporting official documentation
because the grant predated the setting aside of common lands. For
example, one scholar believed that the Sangre de Cristo grant, which
México originally issued as an individual grant in 1843, later evolved into a
community land grant when an heir of the original grantee provided land
to new settlers and set aside additional land for communal use. Table 2
lists 53 grants identified by grantee heirs, scholars, or others as having
common lands but lacking grant documentation.
Table 2: 53 Community Land Grants Identified by Grant Heirs and Others
Year Location
a
Grant Granted by county
Alameda (Town of) 1710 Bernalillo
Antonio Baca 1762 Sandoval
Antonio de Salazar 1714 Río Arriba
Arkansas 1826 Colfax
b
Arquito Sandoval
Bartolomé Sánchez 1707 Río Arriba
Bernalillo (Town of) 1708 Sandoval
Black Mesa 1743 Río Arriba
Bosque Grande 1767 Sandoval
1
J. J. Bowden, Private Land Claims in the Southwest (1969) (unpublished LLM. thesis [6
Vols.}, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas).

Year Location
a
c
Candelarios (Town of) 1600 Bernalillo
Chaca Mesa 1768 Sandoval
Chamita (Town of) 1724 Río Arriba
Cristóbal de la Serna 1710 Taos
Cuyamungué 1731 Santa Fé
El Rito (Town of) 1780 Río Arriba
Embudo 1725 Río Arriba
Francisco de Anaya Almazán 1693 Santa Fé
Francisco Montes Vigil 1754 Río Arriba
Gijosa 1715 Taos
Gotera 1830 Santa Fé
Guadalupita 1837 Mora
d
Hacienda del Álamo Santa Fé
Heath 1828 Doña Ana
José Ignacio Alarí 1768 Río Arriba
José Trujillo 1700 Santa Fé
Juan de Ulibarrí 1710 Río Arriba
La Majada 1695 Santa Fé
b
Las Lagunitas Bernalillo
Maragua 1826 Santa Fé
Mesita de Juana López 1782 Santa Fé
e
Montoya 1740
Ojito de Galisteo 1799 Santa Fé
f
Pajarito Bernalillo
Pedro Armendaris #33 1819 Socorro
Pedro Armendaris #34 1820 Socorro
Plaza Colorado 1739 Río Arriba
Polvadera 1766 Río Arriba
Rancho de Nuestra Señora de la Luz 1807 Santa Fé
Real de Dolores del Oro (Town of) 1830 Santa Fé
Río del Oso 1840 Río Arriba
Río Tesuque 1747 Santa Fé
San Clemente 1716 Valencia
San Cristóbal 1835 Taos
San Isidro (Town of) 1786 Sandoval
San Marcos Pueblo 1754 Santa Fé
Sangre de Cristo 1844 Taos
Sanguijuela 1843 San Miguel
Santa Rita del Cobre 1801 Grant
Santa Rosa de Cubero 1761 Sandoval
Santo Domingo de Cundiyó 1743 Santa Fé
Sebastián Martín 1705 Río Arriba
Tacubaya 1843 Santa Fé

Year Location
a
Tecolote (Town of) 1824 San Miguel
a
By principal county
b
No date specified.
c
Approximate date.
d
Prior to 1714.
e
No county specified.
f
Prior to 1746.


Common Lands of The third type of community land grants we identified encompasses grants
Indigenous Pueblo extended by Spain to the indigenous pueblo cultures in New Mexico to
Cultures Antedated Arrival protect communal lands that they had used and held for centuries before
the Spanish settlers arrived. For the most part, the pueblo settlements
of Spanish Explorers these colonists encountered in the sixteenth century were permanent,
communally owned villages, where inhabitants engaged in agricultural
pursuits. Spain declared itself guardian of these communities, respected
their rights to land adjacent to the pueblos, and protected pueblo lands
from encroachment by Spanish colonists. Spain made grants to these
communities in recognition of their communal ownership of village lands.
México continued to recognize pueblo ownership of land and considered
pueblo residents to be Mexican citizens.
With the establishment of the Office of Surveyor General in 1854, the

Congress required the Surveyor General to investigate and report on
pueblo claims. The Congress subsequently confirmed 22 Spanish grants to
pueblos on the recommendation of the Surveyor General. The Court of
Private Land Claims confirmed one pueblo grant. Table 3 lists the pueblo
grants.
Table 3: 23 Community Land Grants Issued to Indian Pueblos
Year Location
a
Original Spanish Grants Granted by county
b
Pueblo of Acoma 1689 Cibola
b
Pueblo of Cochití 1689 Sandoval
c
Pueblo of Isleta Valencia
b
Pueblo of Jémez 1689 Sandoval
b
Pueblo of Laguna 1689 Cibola
c
Pueblo of Nambé Santa Fé
e b
Pueblo of Pecos 1689 San Miguel
b
Pueblo of Picurís 1689 Taos
d
Pueblo of Pojoaque 1699 Santa Fé
b
Pueblo of San Cristóbal 1689 Santa Fé
b
Pueblo of San Felipe 1689 Sandoval
Pueblo of San Ildefonso 1704 Santa Fé
b
Pueblo of San Juan 1689 Río Arriba
Pueblo of Sandía 1748 Sandoval
c
Pueblo of Santa Ana Sandoval
d
Pueblo of Santa Clara 1699 Río Arriba
Cañada de Santa Clara 1763 Río Arriba
b
Pueblo of Santo Domingo 1689 Sandoval
c
Pueblo of Taos Taos

Year Location
a
Original Spanish Grants Granted by county
c
Pueblo of Tesuque Santa Fé
b
Pueblo of Zía 1689 Sandoval
b
Pueblo of Zuñí 1689 McKinley
Pueblos of Zía, Jémez, & Santa Ana (Ojo del Espíritu 1766 Sandoval
Santo)
a
By principal county.
b
The authenticity of the 1689 grants has been questioned.
c
No date specified.
d
Approximate date.
e
Abandoned in the late 19th century

We issued an Exposure Draft in January 2001 to seek public comments on

Public Comments our definition and identification of community land grants and to gather
information about community land grants not readily available to us in
public documents. In New Mexico, we distributed the English and Spanish
versions of the Exposure Draft widely to community groups, scholars,

land grant heirs, and Indian pueblos and made copies available through
local governmental offices and libraries in 18 counties, as well as U.S.
Forest Service ranger stations located throughout the state. We sent
announcements to English and Spanish newspapers and radio and
television stations in the state. Copies of the Exposure Draft were also
available through the offices of the Senators Bingaman and Domenici and
Congressman Udall of New Mexico. In addition, the public could access
and comment on the report on the GAO web page. We also received
comments and documentation by fax, regular mail and e-mail. In March
2001, we held open forums at five New Mexico locations, including Santa
Fé and Albuquerque, to gather comments.
We received over 200 oral and written comments to the Exposure Draft
during the comment period, some of which included information not
readily available from the research sources we used. The comment period,
which was originally scheduled to end on April 2, was extended until
May 2. Most of the comments did not address our definition of community
land grants and the three types of community land grants that we
identified. A significant number of the comments concerned the history of
particular community land grants. This information will be reviewed in
preparation of our next report.
Most of the comments concerning our definition and lists of community

land grants were in agreement with our analysis. A few commentators
disagreed with the classification of particular land grants. Based on
information received, the Elena Gallegos grant, which was identified as a
community land grant in table 1, was redesignated as an individual grant
under the name Diego Montoya. During our New Mexico visit in March,
heirs identified two other grants, the Francisco Montes Vigil and the
Cristóbal de la Serna grants, as being community land grants. We added
these two grants to table 2, which contains a list of grants that heirs and
others have identified as containing common lands. We also added the
Cañada de Santa Clara to the list of Indian Pueblo grants in table 3, based
upon documentation provided during the comment period. See Appendix
IV for a more extensive discussion on the comments received.
We placed maps after each table that graphically depict the number of
grants principally in each county and added the classification as to type of
grant to Appendix I to help identify grants. Some grants have more than

one name. To facilitate the identification of grants with multiple
identifiers, we added Appendix II, which alphabetizes these alternative
identifiers and links each to the appropriate grant in Appendix I.
As agreed with your offices, this report will be issued in English and
Spanish versions. We plan to send copies to the New Mexico
congressional delegation. We will distribute copies in both languages in
New Mexico and provide copies upon request. GAO contacts and key
contributors to this report are listed in Appendix VI.
If you have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-
7648. Key contributors to this report are listed in Appendix VI.
Susan A. Poling
Associate General Counsel
Natural Resources and Environment

Appendix I: Detailed Data on the 295 Spanish
and Mexican Land Grants in New Mexico
Date confirmed Date Acreage Types of

a b c
Grant Name or other action Patented patented Grants
Abiquiú (Town of) 1894 1909 16,547.20 C
Agapito Ortega Failed to pursue I
Agua Negra 1860 1900 17,361.11 I
Agua Salada 1893 1909 10,694.48 I
Alameda (Town of) 1892 1920 89,346.00 OI
Álamitos 1896 1914 297.55 C
Álamo Rejected I
Albuquerque (Town of) 1892 None specified Not specified C
Alexander Valle 1860 1927 1,242.00 C
Alfonso Rael de Aguilar (2) Failed to pursue I
Alphonso Rael de Aguilar (1) Failed to pursue I
Ancón Colorado Failed to pursue I
Angostura 1897 1906 1,579.48 I
Angostura del Pecos Failed to pursue C
Antoine Leroux 1869 1911 56,428.31 I
Antón Chico (Town of) 1860 1883 383,856.10 C
Antonio Armijo Failed to pursue I
Antonio Baca 1895 1902 47,196.50 OI
Antonio de Abeytia 1894 1910 721.42 I
Antonio de Salazar Failed to pursue OI
Antonio de Ulibarrí Failed to pursue I
Antonio Domínguez Rejected I
Antonio Martínez 1893 1896 61,605.46 I
Antonio Ortiz 1869 1877 163,921.68 I
Archuleta & González Failed to pursue I
Arkansas Rejected by the circuit OI
court
Arquito Failed to pursue OI
Arroyo de San Lorenzo Rejected I
Arroyo Hondo 1892 1908 20,000.38 C
Atrisco (Town of) 1894 1905 82,728.72 C
Badito Rejected C
Baltazar Baca Rejected I
Barranca Rejected C
Bartolomé Baca Rejected I
Bartolomé Fernández 1894 1903 25,455.24 I
Bartolomé Sánchez 1897 1914 4,469.83 OI
Bartolomé Trujillo Rejected C
Belén (Town of) 1858 1871 194,663.75 C
Bernabé Manuel Montaño 1892 1908 44,070.66 C
Bernal Spring Failed to pursue I
Bernalillo (Town of) 1897 1900 3,404.67 OI
Black Mesa 1894 1907 19,171.35 OI
Bosque Del Apache 1860 1877 60,117.39 I


a b c
Bosque Grande 1896 1925 2,967.57 OI
d d
Bracito 1860 C
e e
Cadillal C
Caja del Río 1893 1897 66,849.78 C
Cañada Ancha 1897 1917 200.82 I
Cañada de Cochití 1894 1901 19,112.78 I
Cañada de Los Álamos (1) 1893 1896 12,068.39 C
Cañada de los Álamos (2) 1894 1911 4,106.66 I
Cañada de Los Apaches 1892 1907 86,249.09 I
Cañada de Los Mestaños Rejected C
Cañada de San Francisco Rejected C
Cañada de Santa Clara 1894 1909 490.62 P
f f f
Candelarios (Town of ) OI
Cañón de Carnue 1894 1903 2,000.59 C
Cañón de Chama 1894 1905 1,422.62 C
Cañón de San Diego 1860 1881 116,286.89 C
Cañón del Agua 1866 1896 341.04 I
Cañón del Río Rejected I
Casa Colorado (Town of) 1858 1909 131,779.37 C
Catarina Maese Failed to pursue I
g g
Cebolla 1896 C
Cebolleta (Town of ) 1869 1882 199,567.92 C
Chaca Mesa 1895 1899 47,258.71 OI
Chamisos Arroyo Rejected I
Chamita (Town of ) 1860 1929 1,636.29 OI
Chaperito (Town of ) 1890 C
Chililí (Town of) 1858 1909 41,481.00 C
Chupaderos de la Lagunita Rejected I
Cieneguilla (Town of) Rejected C
Corpos Cristo Failed to pursue I
Cristóbal de la Serna 1892 1903 OI
Cristóval Crespín Failed to pursue I
Cubero (Town of) 1892 1900 16,490.94 C
Cuyamungué 1895 1909 604.27 OI
Diego Arias de Quirós Rejected I
Diego de Belasco Failed to pursue I
Diego Montoya 1893 1909 35,048.78 I
Domingo Fernández 1860 1880 81,032.67 C
Domingo Valdez Rejected I
Don Fernando de Taos 1897 1909 1,817.34 C
Doña Ana Bend Colony 1896 1907 35,399.01 C
El Pino Failed to pursue I
El Rito (Town of) Failed to pursue OI


a b c
Embudo Rejected OI
Estancia Rejected I
Felipe Pacheco Failed to pursue I
Felipe Tafoya (1) Failed to pursue I
Felipe Tafoya (2) 1895 1902 4,340.23 I
Francisco de Anaya Almazán 1897 1916 3,202.79 OI
Francisco García Failed to pursue I
Francisco Montes Vigil 1892 1899 8,253.74 OI
Francisco X. Romero Failed to pursue I
Galisteo (Town of) 1894 1927 260.79 C
h h
Gaspar Ortiz 1860 I
Gervacio Nolan Rejected C
Gijosa 1893 1908 16,240.64 OI
Gotera Rejected OI
Guadalupe Miranda Failed to pursue I
Guadalupita Failed to pursue OI
Hacienda del Álamo Rejected OI
Heath Rejected OI
Jacona (Town of) 1893 1909 6,952.84 I
Joaquín (de) Mestas Rejected I
Joaquín Sedillo & Antonio Gutiérrez 1897 1909 22,636.92 I
John Scolly 1860 1893 25,000.00 C
Jornado del Muerto Rejected I
José Antonio Lucero Rejected I
José Antonio Torres Failed to pursue I
José de Leyba Rejected I
José Domínguez Rejected by the Surveyor I
General
José García Rejected I
José Ignacio Alarí Failed to pursue OI
José Leandro Perea 1860 1877 17,712.00 I
José Manuel Sánchez Baca 1900 1902 3,530.60 I
José Rómula de Vera Failed to pursue I
José Sutton Rejected I
José Trujillo Failed to pursue OI
Juan Antonio Flores Failed to pursue I
Juan Bautista Valdez 1898 1913 1,468.57 C
Juan Cayentano Lovato Rejected I
Juan de Gabaldón 1893 1902 10,690.05 C
Juan de Mestas Failed to pursue I
Juan de Ulibarrí Failed to pursue OI
Juan Durán Rejected I
Juan Estevan García de Noriega Rejected I
Juan Felipe Rodríguez Failed to pursue I


a b c
Juan G. Pinard No action taken by the I
Surveyor General
Juan José Archuleta Rejected I
Juan José Lovato 1894 1902 205,615.72 I
Juan José Moreno Failed to pursue I
Juan José Sánchez Rejected I
Juan Manuel Córdova No action taken by the I
Surveyor General
i
Juan Montes Vigil 1931 by the district court 379.36 I
Juan Tafoya Failed to pursue I
Juana Baca Rejected I
La Majada 1894 1908 54,404.10 OI
La Nasa Failed to pursue I
Las Lagunitas Not acted on OI
Las Lomitas Failed to pursue I
Las Trampas (Town of) 1860 1903 28,131.67 C
Las Vegas (Town of) 1860 1903 431,653.65 C
Lo de Básquez Failed to pursue I
Lo de Padilla 1896 1908 51,940.82 I
Los Conejos Rejected C
Los Manuelitas Rejected C
Los Serrillos 1894 1897 1,478.81 C
Los Trigos 1860 1909 7,342.00 C
Luis de Armenta No claim filed with the I
Court
j
Luis María Cabeza de Baca 1860 198,578.78 I
k k k
Maes & Gallego I
Manuel Tenorio Failed to pursue I
Manuela García de las Ribas Failed to pursue I
Manzano (Town of) 1860 1907 17,360.24 C
Maragua Rejected OI
Maxwell Grant 1860 1879 1,714,764.94 I
Mesilla Civil Colony 1899 1909 21,628.52 C
Mesita Blanca Failed to pursue C
Mesita de Juana López 1879 OI
l l l
Montoya OI
Mora (Town of) 1860 1876 827,621.10 C
Nepumecina Martínez de Aragón Failed to pursue I
Nerio Antonio Montoya Rejected I
Nicolás Durán de Cháves 1896 No indication of C
issued patent
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Mine Rejected I
Nuestra Señora del los Dolores Mine Rejected I
Nuestra Señora del Rosario, San Fernando 1892 1905 14,786.58 C
y Santiago


a b c
Ocate Rejected I
Ojito de Galisteo Failed to pursue OI
Ojito de los Médanos Rejected I
Ojo Caliente 1894 1894 2,244.98 C
Ojo de Borrego 1894 1913 16,079.80 I
Ojo de la Cabra Rejected I
Ojo de San José 1894 1912 4,340.28 C
Ojo del Apache Rejected I
Ojo del Espíritu Santo 1869 1916 113,141.15 I
Orejas del Llano de los Aguajes Rejected I
Ortiz Mine 1861 1876 69,199.33 I
Pablo Montoya 1869 1877 655,468.07 I
Pacheco 1892 1913 500.00 I
Pajarito 1894 1914 28,724.22 OI
Paraje del Punche Failed to pursue I
Pedro Armendaris #33 1860 1878 352,504.50 OI
Pedro Armendaris #34 1860 1878 95,030.00 OI
Peralta (1) (La) Rejected I
Peralta (2) Rejected I
Petaca 1896 1901 1,392.10 C
Piedra Lumbre 1893 1902 49,747.89 I
Plaza Blanca 1894 1914 8,955.11 I
Plaza Colorado 1893 1907 7,577.92 OI
Polvadera 1893 1900 35,761.14 OI
Preston Beck Jr. 1860 1883 318,699.72 I
Pueblo of Acoma 1858 1877 95,791.66 P
Pueblo of Cochití 1858 1864 24,256.50 P
Pueblo of Isleta 1858 1864 131,495.30 P
Pueblo of Jémez 1858 1864 17,510.45 P
Pueblo of Laguna 1897 1909 17,328.91 P
Pueblo of Nambé 1858 1864 13,586.33 P
Pueblo of Pecos 1858 1864 18,763.33 P
Pueblo of Picurís 1858 1864 14,953.39 P
Pueblo of Pojoaque 1858 1864 13,520.38 P
Pueblo of Quemado Failed to pursue C
m m m
Pueblo of San Cristóbal P
Pueblo of San Felipe 1858 1864 34,766.86 P
Pueblo of San Ildefonso 1858 1864 17,292.64 P
Pueblo of San Juan 1858 1864 17,544.77 P
Pueblo of Sandía 1858 1864 24,034.87 P
Pueblo of Santa Ana 1869 1883 17,360.56 P
Pueblo of Santa Clara 1858 1864 17,368.52 P
Pueblo of Santo Domingo 1858 1864 74,743.11 P


a b c
Pueblo of Santo Domingo & San Felipe 1898 1905 1,070.68 I
Pueblo of Taos 1859 1864 17,360.55 P
Pueblo of Tesuque 1858 1864 17,471.12 P
Pueblo of Zía 1858 1864 17,514.63 P
n n n
Pueblo of Zuñí P
Pueblos of Zía, Jémez, & Santa Ana Rejected P
Ramón Vigil 1860 1908 31,209.52 I
Ranchito 1897 1909 4,250.63 C
Rancho de Abiquiú Failed to pursue I
Rancho de Coyote Failed to Pursue I
Rancho de Gigante 1860 1884 25,233.18 I
Rancho de la Gallina Failed to pursue I
Rancho de la Santísima Trinidad Rejected ; Failed to I
pursue
Rancho de los Comanches Failed to pursue I
Rancho de los Corrales Failed to pursue I
Rancho de los Rincones Failed to pursue I
Rancho de Nuestra Señora de la Luz 1860 1874 16,546.85 OI
Rancho de Paguate 1860 75,406.27 I
Rancho de Río Arriba Failed to pursue I
Rancho de Río Puerco Failed to pursue I
Rancho de San Juan 1860 1884 25,233.18 I
Rancho de Santa Ana 1860 1884 871.33 I
Rancho de Ysleta Rejected C
Rancho del Río Grande 1892 1901 91,813.15 C
Rancho el Rito 1860 1884 25,233.18 I
Real de Dolores del Oro (Town of) Rejected OI
Refugio Civil Colony 1901 1910 11,524.30 C
Río de Chama Failed to pursue I
Río del Oso Failed to pursue OI
Río del Picurís Rejected C
Río Tesuque (Town of) 1897 OI
Rito de los Frijoles Rejected I
Rómulo Barela Rejected I
Roque Jacinto Jaramillo Rejected I
Roque Lovato Rejected I
Salvador Lovato Failed to pursue I
San Acasio Failed to pursue I
San Antonio de Las Huertas 1897 1907 4,763.85 C
San Antonio del Río Colorado Rejected C
San Antoñito Rejected C
San Clemente 1896 1909 37,099.29 OI
San Cristóbal Rejected by the Surveyor OI
General


a b c
San Isidro (Town of) 1860 1936 11,476.88 OI
San Joaquín del Nacimiento Rejected C
San Marcos Pueblo 1892 1896 1,895.44 OI
San Mateo Spring(s) 1895 1907 4,340.276 I
San Miguel del Vado 1894 1910 5,207.73 C
San Pedro 1860 1875 31,594.76 C
Sangre de Cristo 1860 1880 998,780.46 OI
Sanguijuela Rejected OI
Santa Bárbara 1894 1905 30,638.28 C
Santa Cruz 1899 & 1900 1910 4,567.60 C
o o
Santa Fé 1894 C
Santa Fé Cañón Rejected I
Santa Rita Del Cobre Rejected by the OI
Commissioner of the
General Land Office
Santa Rosa de Cubero 1898 OI
Santa Teresa 1900 1909 8,478.51 I
Santiago Bone Failed to pursue I
Santiago Ramírez 1897 1912 272.17 I
Santo Domingo de Cundiyó 1900 1903 2,137.08 OI
Santo Tomás de Yturbide 1900 1905 9,622.34 C
Santo Toribio Rejected C
Sebastián De Vargas 1893 1900 I
Sebastián Martín 1860 1893 51,387.20 OI
Sevilleta 1893 Dispersals begun in Not specified C
1915
p p
Sierra Mosca 1896 I
Sitio de Juana López 1894 1897 1,108.61 I
Sitio de Los Serrillos 1894 1897 572.04 I
Socorro (Town of) 1892 1896 17,371.18 C
Tacubaya Failed to pursue OI
Tajique (Town of) 1860 1912 7,185.55 C
Talaya Hill 1895 1917 922.52 I
Tecolote (Town of) 1858 1902 48,123.38 OI
Tejón (Town of) 1860 1882 12,801.46 C
The Baird’s Ranch Rejected I
Tierra Amarilla 1860 1881 594,515.55 C
Tomé (Town of) 1858 1871 121,594.53 C
Tomás Tapia Rejected I
Torreón (Town of) 1860 1909 14,146.11 C
Uña Del Gato Rejected by the Secretary I
of Interior
Vallecito de San Antonio Failed to pursue C
Vallecito de Lovato (Town of) Rejected C


a b c
Vertientes de Navajó Rejected I
a
Grant confirmed by the Congress or Court of Private Land Claims.
b
A patent conveys legal title to the grant. (See fn. 4, letter report.)
c
“C” refers to community land grants identified through original grant documentation as listed in Table
1. “OI “ refers to grants identified by grant heirs, scholars, or others as having common lands, but
which lack supporting grant documentation, as listed in Table 2. “P” for pueblo refers to grants made
by Spain to indigenous pueblo cultures as identified in Table 3. “I” refers to grants made to
individuals.
d
The Court of Private Land Claims recognized the grant as valid and ordered it surveyed and
partitioned. However, problems arose when attempts were made to identify the common boundary
with the Santo Tomás Yturbide Grant. A patent was not issued because claimants argued the
Confirmation Act of 1860 conveyed the title; a final survey yielded 14,808.075 acres.
e
The grant was located within the confirmed Domingo Fernández grant, so no action was taken on the
claim.
f
Although a petition was filed in 1872, no further action was taken by the claimants to pursue
recognition of the claim. Therefore, there is no formal decision on the matter.
g
Based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision that found, among other things, that the grant had not been
given in accordance with Mexican law.
h
The grant apparently lies within the Pueblo of Nambé grant and has not been patented.
i
No actual claim was presented to the Court, and therefore no actual confirmation was made by either
the Congress or the Court. When the La Majada grant was confirmed, this was apparently sufficient
for the Town of Peña Blanca residents. In 1931, the New Mexico Federal District Court confirmed
acreage not previously part of the Pueblo of Cochití lands.
j
The Town of Las Vegas grant was apparently in conflict with the Baca grant. The Congress
recognized the conflict and allowed the Baca heirs to obtain equivalent acreage elsewhere in the
Territory. Of five tracts selected two were in New Mexico, known as Float # 1 (Sandoval County) and
Float # 2 (San Miguel County), each containing 99,289.39 acres.
k
The claimants probably obtained title through the Act of March 3, 1891. This act allowed each of
those settlers, who had lived on the land for more than 20 years before an official survey of a
township was conducted, to a patent of up to 160 acres of land. There was no documentation of the
grant, and no claim was submitted to the Court of Private Land Claims.
l
No specific information available.
m
The purported grant document was filed with the Office of the Surveyor General, but was later
proven to be fraudulent.
n
As the result of the establishment of a reservation in 1877, as revised in 1883, 1885 and 1917, the
pueblo’s claim was not presented to the Court of Private Land Claims.
o
The only grant actually given to Santa Fé residents was in 1715 for some common pastureland and
water. The Congress ultimately granted to the City of Santa Fé all lands not already used by the
United States or confirmed private land grants. The confirmed amount is based on the Surveyor
General’s preliminary survey of 4 square leagues.
p
The U.S. Supreme Court found the Court of Private Land Claims to be in error and directed a
reversal. The grant was rejected in 1900.

Appendix II: Alternate Grant Identifiers
Type of
a
Alternate Identifiers Grant Grant
Abo Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe I
Mine
Anastacio Romero Juan de Mestas I
Andrés Montoya Francisco de Anaya Almazán OI
Andrés Montoya Rito de los Frijoles I
Antonio Cano Ortiz Mine I
Antonio Chávez Arroyo De San Lorenzo I
Antonio Elias Armenta Cañón Del Río I
Antonio Joseph Ojo Caliente C
Antonio Lucero Cañada de Cochití I
Antonio Martínez Estancia I
Antonio Ortiz Lo de Básquez I
Antonio Ortiz Ojo del Espíritu Santo I
Antonio Salas Rito de los Frijoles I
Antonio Sandoval Bosque Del Apache I
Antonio Sandoval Estancia I
Antonio Sandoval Las Lagunitas OI
Antonio Sedillo Cañada de los Apaches I
Apache Spring Ojo del Apache I
Apolonio Vigil Los Manuelitas C
Arroyo Seco José Trujillo OI
Baca Location #1 Luis María Cabeza de Baca I
Baltazar Cisneros Antonio de Abeytia I
Barrancas Joaquín Sedillo & Antonio I
Gutiérrez
Bartolomé Fernandez de la Pedresa Bartolomé Fernandez I
Bartolomé Marques Chamisos Arroyo I
Basilio González Juan Manuel Córdova I
Bautista Llara Juan G. Pinard I
Beales Colony Arkansas OI
Beaubien & Miranda Maxwell Grant I
Bentura Truxillo Ojo del Apache I
Bishop John Lamy Rancho de Nuestra Señora de OI
la Luz
Bishop’s Ranch Río Tesuque OI
Borrego Spring Nerio Antonio Montoya I
Borrego Spring Ojo De Borrego I
Bosque de los Pinos Joaquín Sedillo & Antonio I
Gutiérrez
Brazito Bracito C
Cañada de las Mestenas Cañada De Los Mestanos C
Cañada de los Álamos Vertientes de Navajo I
Cañón de Carmel Cañón de Carnue C
Cañón de Carnuel Cañón de Carnue C

Type of
a
Cañón de Pecos Alexander Valle C
Cañón de Pedernal Juan Bautista Valdez C
Carlos Salazar Juan G. Pinard I
Casa de José Riano Piedra Lumbre I
Casa de Riano Piedra Lumbre I
Cevilleta Sevilleta C
Chama River Cañón Cañón de Chama C
Ciénega Francisco de Anaya Almazán OI
Cieneguilla Francisco de Anaya Almazán OI
Cition de Juana López Sitio de Juana López I
City of Albuquerque Albuquerque (Town of) C
City of Socorro Socorro (Town of) C
Cristóbal de Torres Juan José Lovato I
Cristóbal Jaramillo San Antoñito C
Cristóval de la Serna San Cristóbal OI
Cubero Land Cubero (Town of ) C
Diego Gallego Pueblo of Santo Domingo & I
San Felipe
Diego Lucero Godoi Estancia I
Diego Padilla Lo De Padilla I
Diego Velasco Diego de Belasco I
Domingo Romero Ojo De Borrego I
Donaciano Gurulé Diego Montoya I
El Badito Badito C
El Bracito Bracito C
El Coyote Rancho de Coyote I
Elena Gallegos Diego Montoya I
El Ranchito Ranchito C
El Rillito Rancho El Rito I
El Rito (Colorado) Rancho El Rito I
El Tajo Lo De Padilla I
Elisha Whittlesey Ortiz Mine I
Embudo of Picures Embudo OI
Encinas Juan Bautista Valdez C
Estanislado Sandoval Santiago Bone I
Ethan W. Eaton Domingo Fernández C
Father José Antonio Martínez San Cristóbal OI
Feliciano Montoyo Francisco de Anaya Almazán OI
Felipe Delgado Caja del Río C
Felipe Gonzales Bernalillo (Town of) OI
Felipe Gutiérrez Bernalillo (Town of) OI
Felipe Medina Arroyo Hondo C
Fernando de Taos Don Fernando De Taos C
Francisco Almazán Galisteo (Town of) C

Type of
a
Francisco Antonia de Gijosa Gijosa OI
Francisco Montes Vigil Alameda (Town of) OI
Francisco Ortiz Ortiz Mine I
Francisco Padilla Chamisos Arroyo I
Francisco Sandoval Rancho De La Santísima I
Trinidad
Franz Huning Lo De Padilla I
Fray Cristóbal Pedro Armendaris #33 OI
Gabriel Quintana José Ignacio Alarí OI
Gaspar Ortiz Arroyo Hondo C
Gerónimo Martin Barranca C
Gerónimo Martin Juan Estévan García de I
Noriega
Gijosa Pancho de Taos Gijosa OI
Gregorio Dabolas Doña Ana Bend Colony C
Guadalupe Bartolomé Fernández I
Hugh Stephenson Bracito C
Ignacio Cano Ortiz Mine I
Ignacio Chávez Chaca Mesa OI
Ignacio de Roibal Jacona (Town of) I
Ignacio Sánchez Vergara Rancho De La Santísima I
Trinidad
Isabel Jaramillo de Romero Nuestra Señora del Rosario, C
San Fernando, y Santiago
Isabel Montoya Manuela García de las Ribas I
Jacinto Peláes Juan Montes Vigil I
James Boney Santiago Bone I
Jesús Crespín Cristóval Crespín I
Joaquín García El Rito (Town of) OI
John Heath Heath OI
José Antonio García Petaca C
José Antonio Valdez Río del Oso OI
José Antonio Vigil Santo Domingo de Cundiyó OI
José Dolores Fernández Río Del Picurís C
José Francisco Baca y Pino Maragua OI
José Francisco Baca y Terrus Cañada de San Francisco C
José Francisco Durán Juan Manuel Córdova I
José Ignacio Alarid José Ignacio Alarí OI
José Ignacio Martínez Arroyo Hondo C
José Manuel Córdova Santiago Bone I
José R. Zamora Vallecito de Lovato (Town of ) C
José Salazar y Ortiz Vallecito de Lovato (Town of ) C
José Serafin Ramírez y Casanova Cañón del Agua I
Jose Tapia Juan Manuel Córdova I

Type of
a
Joseph Pacheco Pacheco I
Juan Antonio Archuleta Archuleta & Gonzáles I
Juan Antonio Quintana José Ignacio Alarí OI
Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid Jornado Del Muerto I
Juan Benabides Río Tesque (Town of) OI
Juan Carlos Santistevan Cebolla C
Juan Cruz Aragón Ojito de Galisteo OI
Juan de Dios Peña Alexander Valle C
Juan de Jesús Lucero Orejas del Llano de los I
Aguajes
Juan Estevan Pino Preston Beck Jr. I
Juan Fernández de la Pesnera Juan Montes Vigil I
Juan Gid Heath OI
Juan José Gallegos Angostura I
Juan Luis Ortiz Sierra Mosca I
Juan Manuel de Herrera Rómulo Barela I
Juan Martín Juan Manuel Córdova I
Juan Miguel Maes Maes & Gallego I
Juan Ortiz Galisteo (Town of) C
Juan Ortiz Badito C
Juan Otero Ojo De La Cabra I
Juan Pablo Martín Polvadera OI
Juan Salas Álamitos C
Juan Salas Santa Cruz C
La Joya (Town of) Sevilleta C
La Junta de los Ríos Mora y Sanello John Scolly C
La Peralta Peralta (1) I
La Petaca Petaca C
La Talaya Arroyo Hondo C
Laguna Pueblo tracts Rancho de San Juan I
Laguna Pueblo tracts Rancho de Gigante I
Laguna Pueblo tracts Rancho de Paguate I
Laguna Pueblo tracts Rancho de Santa Ana I
Laguna Pueblo tracts Rancho El Rito I
Las Cieneguitas Maes & Gallego I
Las Lamitas Las Lomitas I
Las Manuelitas Los Manuelitas C
Leonardo Gonzáles Archuleta & Gonzáles I
Lorenzo Lobato Salvador Lovato I
Lorenzo Marquez Cañada De Los Álamos (1) C
Los Cerrillos Los Serrillos C
Los Luceros Antoine Leroux I
Los Padillas Lo de Padilla I
Los Ranchos Diego Montoya I

Type of
a
Los Ranchos de Taos Cristóbal de la Serna OI
Lucero de Godoi Antonio Martínez I
Lucero Spring Ojito De Los Médanos I
Luis Jaramilo Agua Salada I
Luis María Baca Ojo del Espirítu Santo I
Manuel Álvarez Ocate I
Manuel Bustos Plaza Blanca I
Manuel Fernández Arroyo Hondo C
Manuel Hurtado Cañada de Cochití I
Manuel Ortiz Ojo de Borrego I
Manuel Trujillo Talaya Hill I
María Cleofás Bone Santiago Bone I
Medina Black Mesa OI
Merced de Fernándes de Taos Don Fernando de Taos C
Meregildo Guerra Mesilla Civil Colony C
Mesilla of San Ildefonso Tract José Trujillo OI
Mesilla Tract José Trujillo OI
Miera y Pacheco Cañada de los Álamos (2) I
Miguel Chávez Arroyo Hondo C
Miguel Montoya Bosque Grande OI
Miguel Ortiz Ojo De Borrego I
Miranda Guadalupe Miranda I
Nacimiento San Joaquín del Nacimiento C
Nacimiento del Rio Puerco San Joaquín del Nacimiento C
Nazario Gonzáles Cañada de San Francisco C
Nereo (Nerio) Antonio Montoya Ojo de Borrego I
Nuestra Señora de la Luz de las Antonio Baca OI
Lagunitas
Ojo de Borrego Nerio Antonio Montoya I
Ojo del Espíritu Santo Pueblos of Zía, Jémez & P
Santa Ana
Ojo de San Juan Ojo de San José C
Padilla Cañada de los Álamos (2) I
Pedro Gallego Maes & Gallego I
Pedro José Perea José Leandro Perea I
Pedro Martín Serrano Piedra Lumbre I
Pedro Sánchez Ramón Vigil I
Pedro Montes Vigil de Santillana Antoine Leroux I
Peña Blanca (Town of) Juan Montes Vigil I
Peñasco Largo Santiago Ramírez I
Plaza Colorado Valdez Plaza Colorado OI
Plaza of the Santa Bárbara Santa Bárbara C
P.M.Thompson Doña Ana Bend Colony C
Polvareda Polvadera OI

Type of
a
Pueblo Colorado Antonio de Ulibarrí I
Pueblo de Quemado Pueblo of Quemado C
Pueblo de San Antonio de Isleta Rancho De Ysleta C
Pueblo de San Cristóbal Domingo Fernández C
Pueblo de Santiago Juan Manuel Córdova I
Pueblo of Cochití Pasture Juana Baca I
Pueblo of San José Ojo de San José C
Rafael Armijo Vertientes de Navajo I
Rancho de Coyote Rancho de Abiquiú
Rancho de Coyote Nepumecina Martínez de I
Aragón
Rancho de Coyote Rancho de la Gallina I
Rancho de Coyote Rancho de Los Rincones I
Rancho de Coyote Rancho de Río Arriba I
Rancho de Coyote Río de Chama I
Rancho de Galvan Rancho de la Santísima I
Trinidad
Rancho de la Merced del San Joaquín Río de Chama I
del Río Chama
Rancho de los Comales Rancho de los Corrales I
Rancho de los Esteros José Leandro Perea I
Rancho Las Truchas Nuestra Señora del Rosario, C
San Fernando y Santiago
Rancho Río Arriba Rancho de Río Arriba I
Ranchos de Albuquerque Diego Montoya I
Ranchos de Chino Tejano The Baird’s Ranch I
Reavis Peralta (2) I
Refugio Colony Refugio Civil Colony C
Río de las Gallinas Antonio Ortiz I
Río del Pueblo Río Del Picurís C
Rito Quemado Pueblo of Quemado C
Rómulo Varela Rómulo Barela I
Roque Lobato Roque Lovato I
Rumaldo Archiveque Arquito OI
S. Endicott Peabody Vallecito de Lovato (Town of ) C
Salvador Gonzáles Cañada Ancha I
Salvador Montoya et al. Tecolote (Town of) OI
San Antonio & Rancho del Río San Antonio del Río Colorado C
Colorado
San Clemente Joaquín Sedillo & Antonio I
Gutiérrez
San Diego de Jémez Cañón de San Diego C
San Fernando de Taos Don Fernando de Taos C
San Joaquín del Nacimiento Chupaderos de la Lagunita I
San Joaquín Río de Chama Cañón de Chama C

Type of
a
San José de García Bartolomé Trujillo C
San José del Encinal Baltazar Baca I
San José y Santo Toribio de Jémez Ojo de San Jose C
San Marcos Springs San Marcos Pueblo OI
San Miguel de Laredo Cañón De Carnue C
San Miguel del Bado San Miguel del Vado C
San Pablo y Nacimiento San Joaquín del Nacimiento C
Sánchez Juan José Sánchez I
Santa Cruz Francisco X. Romero I
Santa Cruz de la Cañada Santa Cruz C
Santa Rita Mine Santa Rita del Cobre OI
Santa Teresa de Jesús Joaquín (de) Mestas I
Santiago Bone Juan Manuel Córdova I
Santiago Durán y Chaves San Mateo Spring(s) I
Santiago Montoya Bosque Grande OI
Santo Domingo de Maragua Maragua OI
Santo Tomás Apóstal del Río de Las Las Trampas (Town of) C
Trampas
Santo Tomás de Iturbide Colony Santo Tomás de Yturbide C
Santo Tomás del Río de Las Trampas Las Trampas (Town of) C
Santo Toribo Ojo de San José C
Santo Toribo de Jémez Santo Toribo C
Sitio de Juana López Mesita de Juana López OI
Sitio de Parajito Pajarito OI
Sitio del Navajo Vertientes de Navajo I
Sitión de Los Cerrillos Sitio de Los Serrillos I
Tajaque Tajique (Town of) C
Tomás Cabeza de Baca Ojo del Espíritu Santo I
Town of Río San Antonio del Rio Colorado C
Town of Río Tesque Río Tesuque OI
Tres Álamo Álamo I
Tungue Tejón (Town of) C
Úrsula Chaves Agua Negra I
Vallecito de Lobato Vallecito de Lovato (Town of ) C
Valverde Cristóbal Pedro Armendaris #33 OI
Villa de Albuquerque Town of Albuquerque C
Vincente Durán de Armijo Gaspar Ortiz I
Vincente Romero Alfonso Rael de Aguilar (2) I
William T. Russell Juan de Gabaldón C
a
“C” refers to community land grants identified through original grant documentation as listed in Table
1. “OI ” refers to grants identified by grantee heirs, scholars, or others as having common lands, but
which lack supporting grant documentation, as listed in Table 2. “P” for pueblo, refers to grants made
by Spain to indigenous pueblo cultures as identified in Table 3. “I” refers to grants made to
individuals.

Appendix III: Objectives, Scope, and
Methodology
Methodology
Concerned about whether the United States fulfilled its obligations under
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with regard to community land grants
made by Spain and México in what is now the State of New Mexico,
Senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici asked us to study numerous
issues regarding the treaty and its implementation. Subsequently, New
Mexico Congressman Tom Udall joined in the request. We plan to answer
their questions in two reports. This first report defines the concept of
community land grants, identifies three types of grants that meet this
definition, and lists the grants that we identified in each category. The
second report will review the United States legal obligations under the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to protect community land grants and the
procedures established to implement these obligations.
In accordance with the request, we limited our review to community land

grants made by Spain or México between the end of the 17th century and
1846 that were wholly or partially situated within the present State of New
Mexico and subject to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. We also included
grants in what is now New Mexico that were made until the 1853 Gadsden
Purchase, since they too were made subject to the treaty. We analyzed
land grants in New Mexico for which we could find evidence to identify
community land grants.
To respond to this request, we collected and reviewed documents from the

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.;
the National Archives and Records Administration in Denver; the New
Mexico State Records Center and Archives; archives at the U.S. Bureau of
Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service; various libraries, including
the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico
Zimmerman Library and the Special Collections at the University of New
Mexico Law School Library; the U.S. National Park Service’s Spanish
Colonial Research Center at the University of New Mexico; scholars, land
grant heirs, lawyers representing land grant interests; and other
individuals or entities associated with land grants in New Mexico.
We researched, collected, and reviewed published and unpublished

material on land grants, including books, articles, monographs, and
unpublished theses. Our search for relevant materials included a search
for articles published in México that address the issues in this report. A list
of materials that we consulted can be found in Appendix V.
During the course of our review, we interviewed dozens of land grant heirs
in New Mexico and contacted the Governors of Indian pueblos; historians,
researchers, and other academicians studying land grant issues, including

Methodology
scholars in México; lawyers representing the interests of land grant heirs

and an Indian pueblo; officials at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service; local government officials with the
State of New Mexico, including the Office of the Attorney General, and
with several counties in which land grants exist; and various
representatives of other entities or interests associated with land grant
issues in New Mexico to gain a better understanding of community land
grant issues.
To determine how community land grants are defined, we reviewed

numerous documents that addressed land grants in New Mexico, including
English translations of original grant documents; English translations of
Spanish and Mexican laws; federal, state, and territorial court decisions on
land grants; scholarly articles describing customs associated with land
grants; and various academic materials analyzing land grants. In interviews
with academicians and other experts on land grants, lawyers dealing with
land grant issues or cases, land grant heirs, and other observers of land
grants (e.g., federal employees, librarians, graduate students at the
University of New Mexico Law School Library and University of New
Mexico Library), we asked for their views on defining community land
grants. We also asked several experts to comment on our preliminary
definition of community land grants. We received over 200 oral and
written comments and documentary evidence related to Spanish and
Mexican land grants during the comment period from January 24 to May 2,
2001. The scope and nature of these comments and our responses can be
found in Appendix IV, “Public Comments.”
To identify the universe of Spanish and Mexican land grants in New

Mexico, we used a variety of historical data. We started with an
unpublished Master of Laws (LLM.) thesis by J. J. Bowden at Southern
Methodist University Law School, entitled Private Land Claims in the
Southwest, to develop our initial list of Spanish and Mexican grants. This
six-volume thesis describes 280 grants, made in what is today the State of
New Mexico, in great detail and includes English translations of parts of
the granting documents. The work also identifies many of the different
names for the grants. We next examined documents on file at various
archives from the Office of the Surveyor General and Court of Private
Land Claims -the two entities responsible for carrying out the legal
processes set in place in the nineteenth century to implement the treaty.
Where possible, we reviewed English translations of the original granting
documents. We also used other sources of information, including those
provided by land grant heirs. If discrepancies were found among various
documents, we deferred to the archived files of the Office of the Surveyor

Methodology
General or Court of Private Land Claims. Our research identified 295

Spanish and Mexican land grants made by Spain and Mexico in the area,
which now comprises the State of New Mexico.
To distill community land grants from this universe of land grants, we

applied our definition, searching for clues in the granting documents and
other sources. For example, some grants contained the following language
and would be considered community land grants: “pasturage and watering
places shall be in common” (Caja del Río), the “pastures and woodlands in
common” (Barranca), “the public square is also common among all”
(Cañón de Carnue), and “set aside for the commons of the town” (Doña
Ana Bend Colony). Criteria for inclusion as a community land grant
included not just language denoting common lands but language indicating
that a grant had been made to a town or settlement, since under Spanish
and Mexican law and custom, grants to towns included common lands. We
also included grants made to 10 or more people, since Spanish law states
in the Recopilación de las Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias that a grant
could be made to 10 or more married persons to form a settlement,
indicating that the grant was a community grant.
Historical treatises and interviews with scholars and grant heirs alerted us
to the possibility of additional community grants. Although grants may
have originally been issued to individuals, sometimes land was
subsequently set aside for common use and thus these grants should be
considered community land grants. Such evolutions are not captured in
grant documents. Other grant heirs and advocates assert that certain
grants are community land grants, but we do not know the basis for the
assertion. We included grants identified by heirs and others as being
community land grants in a second list. We make no judgment as to the
efficacy of these assertions but list them for the Congress’ consideration.
We also found that Spain issued land grants to indigenous pueblo cultures
already resident in the colonial territories. According to scholars, these
cultures held the lands communally and did not have a concept of private
ownership of real property. We list these grants separately because the
lands in common existed before Spanish settlement and because of the
unique relationship between Native Americans and the Spanish, Mexican
and United States governments. We used surveyor general documents and
public laws to ascertain the number of grants made to Native Americans.
To list each land grant by county, we compared county data in several

federal, state and independent databases listing New Mexican land grants
to determine the level of reliability of the databases. We also recognized

Methodology
that the county boundaries have changed markedly since 1850. We found
significant discrepancies among the various databases because of, in part,
conflicting interpretations of which county contained the largest area
when a grant straddled county lines. This is particularly problematic in
unsurveyed grants. In an effort to maintain consistency in listing counties
and to minimize errors, we used official federal, state and county
government maps and J. J. Bowden’s thesis. The maps relied on actual
survey data of certain land grants. We visually reviewed the maps to
determine the primary county for each of the land grants illustrated.
However, we recognized that the maps contained limited information. We
therefore used Bowden’s thesis—one of the more thorough reports on
land grants in New Mexico—to complete the county listings. We did not
verify the accuracy of either the official maps or of Bowden’s thesis.
In creating the map to represent the location of each land grant, we

learned that no map illustrating all grants existed. Officials from federal
and state agencies, as well as independent researchers, told us that current
maps only listed certain land grants, such as those grants that had been
confirmed and surveyed.
It should be noted that we relied on published and unpublished documents

and archives, primarily in New Mexico, Colorado and Washington, D.C.
The quantity, quality, availability and reliability of the evidence for the
many grants varied considerably. For example, the Doña Ana Bend Colony
files contain extensive documents pertaining to the establishment of the
colony and the location of tracts, while the Hacienda del Álamo file
contains only the claimant’s petition with no original grant documents to
verify the claim. We relied on official translations of the original granting
documents wherever possible. Documents from the Office of the Surveyor
General included the name of the individual who was responsible for
translating the submitted documents. However, we did not independently
assess any translation. We also note that the names of some grants in
Bowden’s thesis, the documents of the Office of Surveyor General, and the
Court of Private Land Claims’ files are not always consistent. We have
identified the other names of grants in Appendix II.
We conducted our review from April 2000 through August 2001, in

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix IV: Public Comments
We received over 200 oral and written comments concerning the Exposure
Draft during the comment period. The period was originally scheduled to
end on April 2, but was extended until May 2. This allowed more time for
presenting information and documentation. We received comments
electronically via the GAO Web page, e-mail, fax, regular mail, and
meetings in New Mexico held from March 23 through March 28, 2001.
Some of the comments received asked for information about our study
and particular land grants and how to find out whether the persons
commenting were heirs to particular grants.
We received documentation submitted in support of suggested changes to

the Exposure Draft by fax and regular mail and in our meetings. Most of
the comments did not address the definition and list of community land
grants. We obtained information about many grants, including the detailed
histories of some, which will be reviewed in our future work. The
comments on the definition and lists generally agreed with both. We made
some changes in the background and categorization of four land grants in
response to specific comments, and the changes are discussed below.
Many suggested changes did not include supporting documentation.
Generally, we made only those changes for which there was documentary
support. Our analysis of the public comments to a large extent follows the
order of the report:
1. Background. We received comments concerning the legal background

for community land grants. Some individuals stated that the report did not
contain enough detail about Spanish and Mexican laws applicable to
community settlements. One letter cited the influence of Roman law on
the development of Spanish towns and settlements both in Spain and New
Mexico. It also discussed the different kind of lands that belonged to a
community that the author of the letter believed the Supreme Court did
not recognize in United States v. Sandoval, 167 U.S. 278 (1897). The
Sandoval case concluded that the common lands of community land
grants belonged to the sovereign and in this case to the American
government as the successor sovereign to Mexico under the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo. Because this initial report deals with the definition of
community land grant and the kinds of community land grants, we decided
not to include a detailed description of Spanish and Mexican law affecting
community land grants and the types of lands that were part of a
community settlement in this report. We defer consideration of this
information in connection with our next report. We made several technical
changes at the suggestion of the Department of State.

2. Concept of Community Land Grants Defines Community Land Grants.

Some commentators said that it was important that we include additional
terminology to help define community land grants . They also emphasized
the importance of water as a community resource and the importance of
custom and tradition in community grants. Our definition of “community
land grant” is very broad and identifies all grants that have land for
communal use. The Exposure Draft already makes reference to the
significant role of local laws, custom, and practices in the making and
confirmation of grants. We have added a statement on the important
linkage between land and water in communities.
3. Common Lands Formed Part of the Original Grant According to Grant

Documentation (Table 1). We made one change to Table 1, which is a list
of community land grants identified through original grant documentation.
As a result of a review of documentation obtained subsequent to the
January 24 issuance of the Exposure Draft, it appears that the Elena
Gallegos grant does not fit any of the three criteria that we developed to
identify the first category of community land grants. The three criteria are:
(1) the original grant document declares part of the lands be made
available for communal use; (2) the grant was made for the purpose of
establishing a new town or settlement; and (3) the grant was made to 10 or
more settlers. Consequently, we removed the Elena Gallegos grant from
the community grants listed in Table I and identified it as an individual
grant in Appendix I under the name “Diego Montoya.” The Court of Private
Land Claims decision confirming the petition of several hundred
individuals to parts of the Elena Gallegos grant set out the history of the
grant.1 The grant had been originally made in the latter part of the 17th
century and then reissued in 1716 to Diego Montoya as a private grant.
Subsequently, the grant was conveyed to Elena Gallegos. Later, a large
number of individuals settled on the grant and small communities
(ranchos) developed. Because the grant was originally made to Diego
Montoya, an alternate identifier for this grant in the Exposure Draft,
“Diego Montoya,” will now become the name of the grant in Appendix I
and “Elena Gallegos” will become an alternate identifier in Appendix II.
1
See Report to the Attorney General by Mathew Reynolds, United States Attorney and
Joseph R. Reid, Chief Justice, Court of Private Land Claims, concerning Tomas C.
Gutierrez v. United States, Los Ranchos Tract No. 106 and Donaciano Gurule v. United
States, Elena Gallegos or Ranchos de Albuquerque.

We also received a comment that the Tierra Amarilla grant did not belong
in Table 1 as a community land grant since it is a private grant. The
commentator cited several federal and New Mexico cases that have held
that the Congress confirmed the Tierra Amarilla grant as a private grant
rather than as a community one. 2 We recognize that Congress confirmed
the Tierra Amarilla grant in 1860 by statute as a private grant and that its
determination is legally conclusive of this question under present
American law. However, the purpose of our report is to define the types of
“community land grants” associated with both Spain and Mexico and also
to identify the grants that are included in each type. This identification is
not a legal determination as to whether a particular land grant is a private
or community one. Rather, it provides a framework for our ongoing work.
We are presently examining the United States implementation of its
obligations under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo concerning community
land grants. We have identified grants in which common lands formed part
of the original grant. Such grants must meet one of three criteria to be so
included. One of these criteria is that the original grant document
“declares part of the land be made available for communal use.” The
document creating the Tierra Amarilla grant contains such language. The
grant document provided that “pastures, watering places and roads remain
free according to the customs generally prevailing in all settlements.”3
4. Grants Identified by Grant Heirs and Others (Table 2). This category
includes grants that heirs, scholars, and other persons knowledgeable
about a grant’s history have stated contained common lands. Also, it
includes some individual grants where, according to such persons,
grantees, their heirs, or other grant settlers, certain lands were set aside
for common use as an inducement to attract new settlers to the grant. In
other cases, we were told that settlements arose on individual land grants
that contained some of the features of community land grants, e.g., a
common area for grazing livestock. These grants are also reflected in
Table 2.
2 th
See Martinez v. Rivera, 196 F.2d 192, 194 (10 Cir. 1952), cert. denied, 344 U.S. 828
th
(1952); Flores v. Bruesselbach, 149 F.2d 616 (10 Cir. 1945); and Rio Arriba, New Mexico
Bd. of County Comm. v. Acting Southwest Reg. Dir., Bureau of Indian Affairs, 36 IBIA 14
(2001).
3 th rd
Report of the Secretary of the Interior, H.R. Exec. Doc. No. 1, 34 Cong., 3 Sess., 1856–
1857, pp. 489–90.

We received a comment that we remove both Pedro Armendaris grants,

Numbers 33 and 34, from table 2 because they were private land grants.
We received materials supporting this request, which included copies of
Surveyor General documents and two United States patents for private
grants issued by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. These materials
recite the history of the grants as presented to the Surveyor General and
that formed the basis of congressional confirmation of these grants as
private grants in 1860.4 These documents establish that the Spanish
officials made grants to Pedro Armendaris in 1819 (No. 33) and 1820
(No.34).
However, our purpose in this report is to be as comprehensive as possible

in identifying the universe of community land grants. We wanted to
identify grants that fit certain evidentiary criteria, as well as grants that
heirs and others identified as containing common lands. This self-
identification is important because adequate grant documentation is often
lacking. In the case of these two grants, the documentary evidence shows
that the grants were made to Pedro Armendaris. However, some persons
have identified the grants as having common lands set aside for the use of
settlers. This characterization does not affect their legal status as
individual grants. As stated above, this report makes no legal
determinations. The grants are included in Table 2 because someone has
identified the grants as containing common lands. We make no
determination of whether the assertion is true.
We also added two grants to Table 2: Francisco Montes Vigil and Cristóbal
de la Serna. During our March interviews in New Mexico, heirs to these
grants stated that they were community land grants, but provided no
evidence that common lands formed part of the original grant. However,
since identification by grant heirs was sufficient for a grant to be included
in the second category of community land grants, these grants are listed in
Table 2. We are aware that in several instances courts in the New Mexico
Eighth Judicial District have concluded that the Cristóbal de la Serna grant
was an individual land grant, based on a detailed examination of its
4
The Congress also approved grants to communities. For example, Congress confirmed a
grant to the Town of Las Vegas in 1860, ch. 167, 12 Stat. 71 (1860), H.R EXEC. DOC. NO. 14,
TH ST
36 CONG. 1 SESS. 45 (1860).

history. 5 As stated previously, our inclusion of this grant in Table 2 does

not affect this conclusion.
We received two different comments that the Tecolote land grant did not
belong in Table 2. One comment would place the grant in Table 1 as a
community land grant for which allegedly there is documentary support.
The other comment suggested that the grant be listed in Appendix I as an
individual grant. Originally, we had included it in Table 2 because an
individual had identified it as a community land grant. These different
views reflect the positions taken in current litigation in New Mexico State
court.6 The issue in the litigation is whether the heirs of the original
grantee have a superior right to part of the grant than the Town of
Tecolote. According to the parties to the litigation, a Mexican court in 1838
divided the grant between the heirs of the original grantee, Salvador
Montoya, and the settlement of Tecolote. The Town of Tecolote received a
patent (title) from the United States in 1902 covering the acreage of the
original grant. The patent provides that it should only be construed as the
relinquishment by the United States of any claim to the land in question.
The patent further provides that it does not adversely affect the rights of
any other person to the land. In the litigation, heirs of the original grantee
are claiming that they have a superior right than the Town of Tecolote to
about one-half of the grant. To be included in the first category of
community land grants, original grant documentation is necessary and in
this instance none was provided to us. However, to be included in the
second category, someone only has to identify a grant as having common
lands. We take no position on the litigation.
We also received comments that the Alameda, Embudo, La Majada, San

Marcos Pueblo,7 Sebastían Martín, and Gijosa grants did not belong in
Table 2. However, we had previously received information that others had
identified these as community land grants. This information was sufficient
to include these grants in Table 2.
5 th
See Kristen Selph a/k/a Christine Padilla v. Alger, No. 79-223-CV (8 D.C. N.M. 1984);
th th
Selph v. Armijo, No. 7928 (8 D.C. N.M. 1968), Kiraly v. Trujillo, No. 96-331-CV (8 D.C.
th
N.M. 2000); and Adams v. Abeyta, No. 96-285-CV (8 D.C. N.M. 2000).
6 th
Montoya v. Tecolote Land Grant and Bd., No. 99-322-CV (4 D.C. N.M. 1999).
7
One scholar prepared a history of the grant to show that the grant belonged in Appendix I
as a individual grant, but it did not include original documentation. Consequently, the grant
is in Table 2 because someone had previously identified it as a community land grant. We
are not making any determination about which of the two assertions is true.

5. Common Lands of Indigenous Pueblo Cultures (Table 3). An official

from the Santa Clara Pueblo wrote that we had omitted from Table 3 the
Cañada de Santa Clara grant, which is contained only in Appendix I. He
provided an English translation and a copy of the original 1763 Spanish
grant. The grant provides that the whole of the Valley of Santa Clara “shall
be for cultivable and common lands of the said Pueblo for their flocks and
horses with all its pastures and waters.” We have added this grant to table
3 because of this documentary evidence. Table 3 consists of grants made
directly to the Indian pueblos. It does not include the subsequent purchase
or acquisition by an Indian pueblo of a grant from the grantee or any other
person who has the right to dispose of it.
We also received a request from representatives of the Ysleta del Sur

Pueblo, which is located in Texas, to be included in our review of
community land grants. According to the request, following the Pueblo
Revolt in 1680, the Spaniards moved the ancestors of the present tribe
from Isleta Pueblo, near modern day Albuquerque, to the El Paso, Texas
area, where they remain today. The Ysleta del Sur Pueblo received a grant
from the Spanish Governor of New Mexico in 1751. At the time of the
signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the area the Pueblo
occupied was located in New Mexico. However, it became part of Texas
two years later, as a part of the Compromise of 1850.8 Neither the Surveyor
General of New Mexico nor the Court of Private Land Claims approved the
Spanish grant because the Pueblo was located in Texas. The Pueblo
believes it should be included in the GAO study because it has a common
basis for complaint with the individuals and tribes that comprise it.
Our requestors have asked that we examine the United States obligations
under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and its implementation with
reference to community land grants in New Mexico. In the Exposure Draft,
which defines “community land grant” and identifies such grants in New
Mexico, we included the Indian Pueblos that fit our definition and criteria
for community land grants. Because the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo is located in
Texas, however, it does not fall within the ambit of our study.
We received a letter from Taos Pueblo expressing concern about the lack
of attention given to Pueblo grants in our study. The letter noted that
8
The Compromise of 1850 refers to legislation that among other things, admitted
California as a state and added part of Texas to the New Mexico territory at a price of $15
million.

dozens of land grant heirs and governmental officials were interviewed,

but only a few individuals involved with the problems of one Pueblo were
interviewed. We provided copies of the Exposure Draft to the Governors
of each of the New Mexico Pueblos and held open forums in 5 locations in
the state. The Taos Pueblo also stated that without a comprehensive study
concerning Indian Pueblo lands, the Pueblo would be unable to accept the
findings of the GAO study. We are aware that problems over land
ownership have frequently arisen between settlers and the Pueblos. As
Taos Pueblo recognizes, our congressional requestors specifically asked
GAO to assess the United States legal obligations under the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo and their implementation with respect to community
land grants. In the event that we identify potential options for resolving
any U.S. failure, the congressional requestors want GAO to discuss the
potential effects of these options on tribal land claims. The treatment of
the pueblo grants in the second report will depend on the factors
mentioned in the response to comment (b) in Table 4 below.
The Taos Pueblo letter did not contain any comments about Table 3 of the
Exposure Draft, which lists all the Pueblo grants and the dates they were
made. The Exposure Draft showed that the Taos Pueblo had received its
grant in 1815, which was much later than the dates for the other Pueblos.
We reviewed our work papers and concluded that the date was not
accurate. We spoke with an employee of Taos Pueblo familiar with its
history. The employee indicated that little information could be found that
established a date certain for the original Spanish grant. Accordingly, we
have left the space for the grant’s date blank and added a footnote
indicating that the date of the grant is uncertain.
6. Detailed Data on the 295 Spanish and Mexican Land Grants (Appendix
I). On the basis of comments received, we realized that some grants listed
in Appendix I overlap or are included in other grants. For example, we
received information that the Juan Montes Vigil grant listed in Appendix I
was part of the La Majada grant. Neither Congress nor the Court of Private
Land Claims confirmed the Vigil grant, although it was presented to the
Surveyor General for his approval. However, the Court of Private Land
Claims confirmed the La Majada grant in 1894 with a patent issued in 1908.
Also, we received information that the José Domínguez grant and the
Sebastían Martín grant covered the same area. In fact, Sebastían Martín
purchased the grant from José Domínguez’s daughter and son-in-law.

Congress confirmed the Sebastían Martín grant in 1860 and a patent issued
in 1893. The Surveyor General rejected the Domínguez grant.9
We also made changes to Appendix I to make it easier to use. First, it

proved difficult to identify grants that had other names, which we had
included as alternate identifiers in Appendix I. We removed the column in
Appendix I designated as “Alternative grant identifiers” and replaced it
with a new Appendix II that alphabetizes all the alternate identifiers and
links each identifier to a particular grant in Appendix I. Second, we added
a column to Appendix I, which identifies what kind of a grant it is for the
purposes of this report: (1) “C” for community grants with original
documentation listed in Table 1; (2) “OI” for community land grants
identified by grant heirs and others listed in Table 2; (3) “P” for Indian
Pueblo grants listed in Table 3; and (4) “I” for “individual grants.” Third,
instead of one New Mexico map showing the grants identified in Tables 1
through 3 by county, we created three separate New Mexico county maps
in the report showing the location of grants in each table. Lastly, in Table
1, as well as in Table 2 and Appendixes I and II we have removed the
words “Town of” from the name of certain grants and placed these words
in parentheses after the name of the grant. We then realphabetized each
list. We made these changes to make it easier to locate the name usually
associated with these grants.
7. New Mexico Attorney General’s Task Force. We received oral and

written comments from New Mexico Attorney General’s Task Force set up
to assist GAO in its study of community land grants. Table 4 summarizes
their major comments, some of which we have grouped together, and our
responses.
9
We received several comments that we had failed to list certain grants. These grants were
actually alternate identifiers for another grant.

Table 4: New Mexico Attorney General’s Task Force Major Comments and GAO’s
Responses
Comments Responses
(a) The definition of “community land grant” We define “community land grant” as a
should reflect the communal uses of property grant that had common lands, which
set out in the original Spanish and Mexican reflects their communal use. We have
laws, the important role of water, and local added to the background section
custom, culture and tradition. sentences that point out the importance
of land and water, the essential
ingredients for developing sustainable
agricultural settlements and communities
in New Mexico. The report already refers
to the important role of practices and
customs in the granting and confirmation
of grants.
(b) Individual and Pueblo land grants In keeping with the congressional
encountered many of the same problems that request, our study focuses on community
faced community land grants and their land grants that were used to establish
problems should be addressed in the GAO new settlements and communities in New
study. Mexico. The problems encountered by
individual grants as a result of the United
States’ implementation of the Treaty are
outside the scope of our study. The
Pueblo grants have differed from the
other community grants in New Mexico
since their inception. During the 20th
century, the resolution of pueblo land
claims differed from the other community
land grants in New Mexico because of
their unique Indian status. Treatment of
the pueblo grants in the second report will
depend on (1) the problems encountered
by the pueblos as a result of the United
States’ implementation of the Treaty and
(2) the extent to which those problems or
their resolution differ from the other
community land grants.
(c) The use of English translations of Spanish We relied on the English translations of
and Mexican documents is unreliable and the Spanish and Mexican documents that
Spanish translation of the Exposure Draft were used by the surveyors general, the
was done by someone unfamiliar with the Court of Private Land Claims, scholars,
Spanish spoken in New Mexico. legal experts, and historians. We do not
have the resources and expertise to read
the original Spanish documents, even if
they were available. For the purposes of
the Exposure Draft this was not essential
because our definition of “community land
grant” and the three categories of such
grants were very broad. In addition, our
listing of a grant is not a determination as
to the grant’s legal status. We used
Department of State translators since
State is the agency responsible for

Comments Responses
translating official United States
government documents.
(d) Future GAO reports should discuss the GAO’s next report will concern the United
issues that affected Hispanic ownership of States implementation of its obligations
land grants, including conflicts of interest, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It
crooked lawyers, adverse possession laws, will discuss these obligations and how
state taxation, fraud, misinterpretation of they were carried out. The report may
Spanish and Mexican land laws, lack of also describe what persons have said
fluency in English, and racism. these obligations included.
(e) GAO staff should continue to consult with GAO plans to continue to consult with
scholars, legal experts, and historians. scholars, legal experts, and historians, as
the next report is prepared.
8. Taos County Community Centers. We received several comments and

materials from Taos County Community Centers Association, Inc. One of
these comments claimed that the 295 grants listed in Appendix I of the
Exposure Draft covered only one third of the grants made in New Mexico
and that there were 719 grants that had not been accounted for. The
comment was based on a statement in a book by a New Mexico historian
that the Surveyor General in his 1856 report to Congress indicated that he
had received “a collection of 1,014 grants and documents relating to land
titles of which (197) were private grants” (emphasis added).10 The
Association sponsored a New Mexico House Joint Memorial, stating that
there were 719 grants unaccounted for in the GAO Exposure Draft.11 The
1856 Surveyor General’s report showed, as the quoted passage from the
history book stated, that indeed there were 1,014 grants and documents
given to the Surveyor General. This number refers to other documents too,
not just grants, including conveyances and wills. The 1856 Surveyor
General’s report lists fewer grants than the 295 that we found.
9. Identification of Source Materials. We were asked why the Exposure

Draft does not, as scholarly articles do, cite the specific support or source
for statements or information in the report. GAO reports are not scholarly
studies, but are prepared for the use of the Congress and they should be
written in a clear and concise manner. Consequently, it is not our usual
practice to footnote each statement in our reports. Both Appendixes III
10
See letter, dated January 19, 2001, from the Executive Director, Taos County Community
Centers Association, Inc. to the U.S. General Accounting Office, quoting from Leading
Facts of New Mexican History, Spanish and Mexican Land Grants, Ralph Emerson
Twitchell, Cedar Rapids, IA: Torch Press, 1911–1912, p. 459-60.
11
H.J. Memorial 45, 45th Leg., 1st Sess. (N.M. 2001).

and V list the materials used in the preparation of this report. These
Appendixes contain more detailed information that we usually provide in
reports so that scholars and others could see what information we used to
develop the definition and lists of community land grants.
To assure report accuracy, GAO staff, which have not been involved in a
study, independently review the sources for each statement and the
information in the report. Our process of quality control requires that each
statement be supported by appropriate and valid documentation and that
the person performing the quality control checks must independently
assess the adequacy of the support. When a study is completed, the
documentary sources for the report, as well as any data bases developed,
will usually be available to the public upon request.
10. Spanish Version of Exposure Draft.- A few commentators noted that

the translation of the English version of the Exposure Draft into Spanish
did not reflect the Spanish used in New Mexico. Specifically, it used
technical terms that are not familiar to New Mexican Spanish speakers.
For example, the Exposure Draft uses the word “concesión” for a “grant”
made by Spain and Mexico while the word for a Spanish grant in New
Mexico is “merced.” We added a footnote regarding “merced.”

Appendix V: Bibliography
“Algunos Documentos Sobre el Tratado de Guadalupe y la Situación de

México Durante la Invasión Americana.” Archivo Historico Diplomatico
Méxicano No. 31 (1930).
Arellano, Anselmo F. “The Never Ending Land Grant Struggle.” (Austin,

Texas, University of Texas, undated) www.dla.utexas.edu/depts/
anthro/activist/ Essay8.htm (downloaded Apr. 6, 2000).
_____. Through Thick and Thin: Evolutionary Transitions of Las Vegas

Grandes and Its Pobladores (1990) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
University of New Mexico).
Beck, Warren A. New Mexico: A History of Four Centuries. Norman, OK:

University of Oklahoma Press.
Blackmar, Frank W. Spanish Institutions of the Southwest. Glorieta, NM:

The Rio Grande Press, 1976.
Bloom, John Porter, ed. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848: Papers
of the Sesquicentennial Symposium. Las Cruces, NM: Doña Ana County
Historical Society and Yucca Tree Press, 1999.
Bowden, J.J. Private Land Claims in the Southwest (1969) (unpublished

LL.M. thesis [6 Vols.], Southern Methodist University).
_____. Spanish and Mexican Land Grants in the Chihuahuan

Acquisition. El Paso, TX: University of Texas at El Paso, 1971.
_____. “Spanish and Mexican Land Grants in the Southwest.” Land and
Water Law Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1973), pp. 467-512.
Bradfute, Richard Wells. The Court of Private Land Claims: The

Adjudication of Spanish and Mexican Land Grant Titles, 1841-1904.
Albuquerque, NM: The University of New Mexico Press, 1975.
Brayer, Herbert O. Pueblo Indian Land Grants of the “Rio Abajo”.

Briggs, Charles L. and John R. Van Ness, eds. Land, Water, and Culture:
New Perspectives on Hispanic Land Grants. Albuquerque, NM: The
University of New Mexico Press, 1987.

Calendar to the Microfilm Edition of the Land Records of New Mexico:

Spanish Archives of New Mexico, Series I, Surveyor General Records,
and the Records of the Court of Private Land Claims. Santa Fé, NM:
National Historical Publications and Records Commission
1
and the New
Mexico State Records Center and Archives, 1987 (a microfilm project).
Cameron, Christopher D.R. “Symposium: Understanding the Treaty of

Guadalupe Hidalgo on Its 150th Anniversary: ‘Friends’ or ‘Enemies?’ The
Status of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States on the
Sesquicentennial of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.” Southwestern
Journal of Law and Trade in the Americas, Vol. 5 (1998), pp. 5 et seq.
Carlson, Alvar W. The Spanish-American Homeland. Baltimore, MD: The

John Hopkins University Press, 1990.
Cheever, Federico M. “Comment: A New Approach to Spanish and

Mexican Land Grants and the Public Trust Doctrine: Defining The
Property Interest Protected by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.” UCLA
Law Review, Vol. 33 (1986), pp. 1364-1409.
Codgell, Thomas. “A Brief Historical Survey of the Treaty of Guadalupe

Hidalgo.” (Austin, Texas, undated) www.jump.net/-treaty/survey
(downloaded Aug. 10, 2000).
DeBuys, William. “Fractions of Justice: A Legal and Social History of the

Las Trampas Land Grant, New Mexico.” New Mexico Historical Review,
Vol. 56, No. 1 (1981), pp. 71 et seq..
Ebright, Malcolm. Land Grant Community Associations in New Mexico

(1994) (research paper, Center for Land Grant Studies, University of New
Mexico).
_____. Land Grants and Law Suits in Northern New Mexico.

_____. ed. Spanish and Mexican Land Grants and the Law. Manhattan,
KS: Sunflower University Press, 1991.
1
The microfilm archives were accessed at the New Mexico State Records Center and
Archives in Santa Fé, New Mexico; at the National Archives and Records Administration in
Denver, Colorado; and at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington,
D.C.

_____. “The San Joaquin Grant: Who Owned the Common Lands? A
Historical-Legal Puzzle.” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 57, No. 1
(1982), pp. 5-26.
_____. The Tierra Amarilla Grant: A History of Chicanery. Santa Fé, NM:
The Center for Land Grant Studies Press, 1993.
Espinosa, Gilberto. “New Mexico Land Grants.” The State Bar of New
Mexico 1962 Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1962), pp. 3-13.
Forrest, Suzanne Sims. “A Trail of Tangled Titles: Mining, Land

Speculation, and the Dismemberment of the San Antonio de las Huertas
Grant.” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 71 (Oct. 1996), pp. 361-393.
Gates, Paul W. and Robert W. Swenson. History of Public Land Law

Development. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968.
Gomez, Placido. “The History and Adjudication of the Common Lands of

Spanish and Mexican Land Grants.” Natural Resources Journal, Vol. 25,
No.1 (1985), pp. 1039-80.
Griswold del Castillo, Richard. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A

Legacy of Conflict. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.
Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty of Peace 1848 and The Gadsden Treaty with
Mexico 1853. Seattle, WA: Tate Gallery Publisher, 1963.
Hall, G. Emlen. Four Leagues of Pecos: A Legal History of the Pecos

Grant, 1800-1933. Albuquerque, NM: The University of New Mexico
Press, 1984.
. “ San Miguel del Bado and the Loss of the Common Lands of New
Mexico Community Land Grants.” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 66
(Oct. 1991), pp. 413-432.
_____. “Tularosa and the Dismantling of New Mexico Community

Ditches.” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 1 (2000), pp. 77-106.
Index to Special District Governments in New Mexico. Santa Fé, NM:

New Mexico Legislative Council Service, 1983.
Jenkins, Myra Ellen. “The Baltasar Baca ‘Grant’: History of an

Encroachment.” El Palacio (Spring 1961), pp. 47-105.

Knowlton, Clark S. Land-Grant Problems Among the State’s Spanish

Americans (undated) (unpublished paper, University of Texas).
_____. The Las Vegas Community Land Grant: Its Decline and Fall. Salt
Lake City, UT: Center for Land Grant Studies, University of Utah, 1980.
_____. “The Mora Land Grant: A New Mexican Tragedy.” Journal of the
West, Vol. 27, No. 3 (undated), pp. 189-218.
_____. “The Study of Land Grants as an Academic Discipline.” The Social

Science Journal, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1976), pp. 3-7.
Kutsche, Paul and John R. Van Ness. Canones: Values, Crisis, and
Survival in a Northern New Mexico Village. Salem, WI: Sheffield
Publishing Co., 1981.
Lamar, Howard R. The Far Southwest 1846-1912. A Territorial History.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966.
Land Title Study Prospectus: Prospectus No.2. Santa Fé, NM: State
Planning Office, 1969.
Leonard, Olen E. The Role of the Land Grant in the Social Organization
and Social Processes of a Spanish-American Village in New Mexico.
Albuquerque, NM: Calvin Horn Publisher, Inc., 1970.
Luna, Guadalupe T. “Symposium: En El Nombre de Dios Todo-Poderoso:

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Narrativos Legales.” Southwestern
Journal of Law and Trade in the Americas, Vol. 5 (1998) pp. 45 et seq.
Luna, Hilario. San Joaquin del Nacimiento. No city, state or publisher

indicated, 1975.
Lutz, Robert E. “Symposium: The Mexican War and the Treaty of

Guadalupe Hidalgo: What’s Best and Worst About Us.” Southwestern
Journal of Law and Trade in the America, Vol. 5 (1998) pp. 27-29.
Matthews-Lamb, Sandra K. The “Nineteenth” Century Cruzate Grants:

Pueblos, Peddlers, and the Great Confidence Scam? (1998) (unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico).
Meyer, Michael C. The Contemporary Significance of the Treaty of

Guadalupe Hidalgo to Land Use Issues in Northern New Mexico. Tucson,

AZ: Northern New Mexico Stockman’s Association and the Institute of

Hispanic American Culture, 1998.
_____. Water in the Hispanic Southwest: A Social and Legal History

1550-1850. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press, 1984.
Meyer, Michael C. and Michael M. Brescia. “The Treaty of Guadalupe

Hidalgo as a Living Document: Water and Land Use Issues in Northern
New Mexico.” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 73 (Oct. 1998), pp. 321-
345.
Morrow, William W. Spanish and Mexican Private Land Grants. San

Francisco and Los Angeles, CA: Bancroft-Whitney Company, 1923.
Nabokov, Peter. Tijerina and the Courthouse Raid. Albuquerque, NM:

The University of New Mexico Press, 1970.
“New Mexico Land Grant Claims.” AMIGOS—Quien junto al agua tiene

su tierra, primero riega, Vol. 7, Nivel 2, No. 6 (undated).
Poldervaart, Arie W. Black-Robed Justice. Santa Fé, NM: Historical Society

of New Mexico, 1948.
Remote Claims Impact Study: Lot II-A, Study of the Problems that Result
from Spanish and Mexican Land Grant Claims. Albuquerque, NM.
Submitted to the Farmers Home Administration in Washington, D.C. by the
Natural Resources Center, University of New Mexico School of Law, 1980.
Reynolds, Matthew G. Spanish and Mexican Land Laws. St. Louis, MO:
Buxton & Skinner Stationery Co., 1895.
Rivera, Jose A. Acequia Culture: Water, Land, & Community in the

Southwest. Albuquerque, NM: The University of New Mexico Press, 1998.
Rock, Michael J. “The Change in Tenure New Mexico Supreme Court

Decisions Have Effected Upon the Common Lands of Community Land
Grants in New Mexico. “The Social Science Journal, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1976),
pp. 53-63.
Rowley, Ralph A. Precedents and Influences Affecting the Treaty of

Guadalupe Hidalgo (1970) (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of New
Mexico).

Sanchez, George I. Forgotten People: A Study of New Mexicans.

Albuquerque, NM: Calvin Horn, Publisher, 1967.
Sanchez, Jane C. “Law of the Land Grant: The Land Laws of Spain.”
(Albuquerque, NM: Los Sanchez, Jan. 2000)
http://home.sprintmail.com/~sanchezj/1-title.htm (downloaded Aug. 23,
2000).
Sando, Joe S. Pueblo Nations: Eight Centuries of Pueblo Indian History.

Santa Fé, NM: Clear Light Publishers, 1992.
Simmons, Marc. Spanish Government in New Mexico. Albuquerque, NM:

Smith, Andrew T. “The Founding of the San Antonio de las Huertas Grant.”
The Social Science Journal, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1976), pp. 35-43.
Status Database of New Mexico Land Grants. Santa Fé, NM: Bureau of
Land Management, 2000.
The Lands of New Mexico Supplement. No city indicated, NM: Museum of

New Mexico, date unreadable.
The New Mexico Legal Rights Demonstration Land Grant Project-An

Analysis of the Land Title Problems in the Santo Domingo De Cundiyo
Land Grant. Albuquerque, NM: New Mexico Legal Rights Demonstration
Land Grant Project, Legal Aid Society of Albuquerque, Inc., 1976.
Torrez, Robert J. “‘El Bornes’: La Tierra Amarilla and T.D. Burns.” New
Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 56, No. 2 (1981), pp. 161-75.
. “From Empire to Statehood: A History of New Mexico’s Spanish

and Mexican Archives.” Colonial Latin American Historical Review
(Spring 1996), pp. 333-53.
_____. “New Mexico’s Spanish and Mexican Land Grants.” New Mexico
Genealogist (Dec. 1997), pp. 143 et seq.
_____. “Sale Burro y Entre Burro.” A Historical Perspective on the Tierra

Amarilla Grant (1989) (unpublished paper).

. The Enduring Legacy of Spanish Land and Water Policy in New

Mexico (undated) (unpublished paper, New Mexico State Records Center
and Archives).
. “The San Juan Gold Rush of 1860 and Its Effect on the Development
of Northern New Mexico.” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 63 (July
1988), pp. 257-72.
. “The Tierra Amarilla Land Grant.” Southwest Heritage, Vol. 13, Nos.
3 and 4 (Fall 1983 and Winter 1984), pp. 2-4, 16.
Van Ness, John R. “Spanish American vs. Anglo American Land Tenure
and the Study of Economic Change in New Mexico.” The Social Science
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_____. and Christine M. Van Ness, eds. Spanish & Mexican Land Grants
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Studies, 1980.
Westphall, Victor. “Fraud and Implications of Fraud in the Land Grants of

New Mexico." New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 49, No. 3 (1974), pp.
189-218.
_____. Mercedes Reales: Hispanic Land Grants of the Upper Rio Grande
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_____. Thomas Benton Catron and His Era. Tucson, AZ: The University
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Office, 1971 (reprinted 1981).

Appendix VI: Contacts and Staff
Appendix VI: Contacts and Staff
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
Susan A. Poling and Alan R. Kasdan, (202) 512-7648

GAO Contacts
In addition to those named above, Robert C. Arsenoff, John C. Furutani,
Staff Robert E. Sánchez, José Alfredo Gómez, Barry T. Hill, Jeffrey D. Malcolm,
Acknowledgments David A. Rogers, James R. Yeager, Jonathan S. McMurray, Carol
Herrnstadt Shulman, Alice A. Feldesman, William D. Updegraff, Stephen F.
Palincsar, Etana Finkler, Veronica C. Sandidge, Randy Byle,
Heather Taylor, Bridget Beverly, Tonya Ford, Wanda Okoro, Susan
Conlon, Oliver H. Easterwood, Robert G. Crystal, Margie Armen, James M.
Rebbe, Jessica A. Botsford, Amy Webbink, Moza Al-Suylaiti, and Heather
Tierney made key contributions to this report. We also wish to
acknowledge the following staff of the GAO Library, whose research
assistance and help in locating materials and court cases greatly facilitated
our work on this report: librarians, Rennese D. Bumbray, Maureen K.
Cummings, Eunhwa Kim, Bonita L. Mueller, Audrey L. Ruge, Kimberly R.
Walton; and technicians, Patricia A. Givens, William R. Haynos, Geraldine
B. Howard, Edna Legrant, Alice E. Paris, and Ester L. Saunders.
(976052)
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United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to Congressional Requesters

Appendix I Detailed Data on the 295 Spanish and Mexican Land

Appendix II Alternate Grant Identifiers 30

Appendix III Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 37

Appendix IV Public Comments 41

Appendix VI Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 59

Page i GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page ii GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

September 10, 2001

The Honorable Jeff Bingaman

The Honorable Tom Udall

From the end of the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century,

The Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement of 1848, generally

Page 1 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

To define community land grants, we reviewed land grant documents filed

Page 2 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Land grant documents contain no direct reference to “community land

We identified 154 community land grants (or approximately 52 percent)

Page 3 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 4 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

To implement the treaties, the Congress enacted legislation in 1854 to

Page 5 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Land grant documents contain no direct reference to “community land

Page 6 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Using our definition, we identified three types of community land grants,

Page 7 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 8 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 9 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 10 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 11 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 12 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

We also identified grants in this category as community land grants after

Table 2: 53 Community Land Grants Identified by Grant Heirs and Others

Page 13 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 14 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 15 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 16 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

With the establishment of the Office of Surveyor General in 1854, the

Table 3: 23 Community Land Grants Issued to Indian Pueblos

Page 17 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 18 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

We issued an Exposure Draft in January 2001 to seek public comments on

Page 19 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Most of the comments concerning our definition and lists of community

Page 20 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Page 21 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

and Mexican Land Grants in New Mexico

Date confirmed Date Acreage Types of

Page 22 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Date confirmed Date Acreage Types of

Page 23 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Date confirmed Date Acreage Types of

Page 24 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Date confirmed Date Acreage Types of

Page 25 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Date confirmed Date Acreage Types of

Page 26 GAO-01-951 New Mexico Land Grants

Date confirmed Date Acreage Types of