Enduring Acequias: Wisdom of the Land, Knowledge of the Water

3: The Embudo Land Grant: A Brief History

97 3 The Embudo Land Grant A Brief History • THE LAWS OF THE INDIES AND NEW MEXICO’S LAND GRANTS L AND SET TLEMENT IN NEW MEXICO is a very complicated issue. Three documents in particular are critical for understanding how the land was settled after the arrival of the first settlers under the auspices of the Spanish Crown. The first is the “Ordenanzas de descubrimientos, nueva población, y pacificación de las Indias” promulgated by King Philip II in 1573. These ordinances were in effect when Juan de Oñate followed the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro from Zacatecas in 1596. The second is the ordinances that are most familiar to land grant scholars, activists, researchers, and historians: the Laws of the Indies of 1681. The third, issued about a century later, between 1783 and 1785, was the Plan of Pitic, written in what is now Hermosillo in the Mexican state of Sonora. The birth of a land grant, or merced, can be compared to the birth of a child in that there is a specific date when the land grant came to be. I will use the Embudo grant as an example to illustrate such a “birth” based on the cedulas (royal decrees) of the time. For a land grant, conception corresponds to the first inquiry into the availability 98 ch a p t e r 3 of a vacant piece of land, as in the case of Embudo de Picurís in the summer of 1725. I will attempt to take readers step by step through the process of how land for a grant was obtained by settlers according to the Laws of the Indies of 1681, the law in force after the resettlement of New Mexico by don Diego de Vargas in 1692, following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The discussion references the Laws of the Indies by book, title, and law number , with the text of the law in italics. The text from the “Ordenanzas de descubrimientos, nueva población, y pacificación de las Indias” of 1573 is also included, with the ordinance number given in brackets. Most of the laws discussed here are those under Title 7, “Concerning the Settlement of Cities, Villages and Towns”; Title 12, “Concerning Sale, Composition and Apportionment of Lands, House-Lots, and Water”; and Title 17, “Concerning Public Roads, Lodging Houses, Markets, Inns, Boundaries, Pasture, Mountain Waters, Trees, and the Planting of Grape Vines,” all in Book 4. Before a particular area was selected for settlement, certain criteria had to be met. For that we go to Book 4, Title 7, Law 1: The new settlements shall be established under the conditions of this law [Ordinances 39 and 40]. . . . In . . . inland settlements, the settlers shall choose the site from among those that are unoccupied, and may be occupied by Our order, without being prejudicial to the Indians or natives, unless it is with their free consent. When they make the plan of the place, they shall divide it into its squares, streets and house-lots, marked out with straight lines, starting from the main square and proceeding from it with the streets to the entrance and principal roads. They shall leave enough open area that, even if the settlement greatly increases, it will always be possible to follow the plan and expand in the same way. They shall try to have water close by so that it can be conducted to the town and properties, distributing it if possible, in order to make the best use of it. 99 The Embudo Land Grant They shall try to have the materials that are needed for buildings, farmlands, cultivation, and pastures, so as to do away with the considerable labor and expenses that result when the materials are far away. They shall not choose sites for settlement in places of very high elevation , because of troubles with the winds and the difficulty of service and transportation. Nor shall they choose sites in places of very low elevation because persons are apt to become ill. Settlements shall be made in moderate elevations which benefit from exposure to the winds from the north and the south; and if there are mountains or hills, the settlements shall be on the east and west sides. If high places cannot be avoided, they shall make the settlements in places where they are not subject to clouds, observing whatever is most conducive to...