Beginning in the 1690s, the Spanish gave large tracts of land to individuals or groups in New Mexico.  The Spanish settlers were isolated and had limited access to goods from Mexico City and became increasingly dependent on trade with Puebloan groups and other Indigenous tribes.  The settlers, also known as Hispanos, established distinct traditions and customs in the Spanish Empire’s Northern Frontier.  After Mexico won their independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico granted land to Mexican citizens in the present-day states of Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. The land grants were meant to encourage settlement in Mexico’s northern boundary, where the United States was also interested in expanding. Hundreds of land grants were given out, mostly by the Mexican government to Hispanos and Mexicans.

Between 1832 and 1843, the governor of New Mexico made six land grants in present-day Colorado:

When the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846, the land grants and the communities settled on them faced uncertainty. Overnight, with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war, the land and the people living on the land became part of the United States. The treaty protected the rights of Hispano and Mexican landowners, but the inability to speak English to defend and protect their rights in court, resulted in many defendants losing their land.  Eventually, the Conejos Grant was thrown out, the Vigil and St. Vrain and Nolan Grants became smaller, and the Maxwell, Sangre de Cristo and Baca Grants were upheld.



Shows land grants in Colorado and northern New Mexico; gives pictorial representations of historical places, events and people. Includes trails, forts, and old settlements.

The Mexican land grants in Colorado

History Colorado

Map, Mexican land grants in Colorado

The Tierra Amarilla Land Grant, which was in present-day New Mexico, was granted to Manuel Martinez and other settlers in 1832. In 1860, after the area had become part of the United States, the U.S. government ruled that it was a private land grant and not a community land grant. (This happened because documents were mistranslated or lost.) Some of Manuel Martinez’s family members sold some of their land to U.S. speculators and to the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.


Tierra O Muerte silkscreen poster by Emanuel Martinez printed on manila folder. Features image of man holding a gun in one hand and a sword in the other. He wears a sombrero and bandolier.

Poster, Tierra O Muerte silkscreen

Hispano and Mexican American families in New Mexico and Southern Colorado who lost their homes during land disputes have been fighting legal battles for generations to get their land back. Many Hispanos and Mexican Americans who lost their land, settled in small towns like Trinidad, Pueblo, and Walsenburg to work in coal mines, on the railroads or in the sugar beet fields. Southern Colorado and northern New Mexico share much of the same Hispano traditions, even though they are separated by a state boundary.  Hispano and Mexican Americans from Colorado often state “We did not cross the border, the border crossed us!”


View of Commercial Street in Trinidad (Las Animas County), Colorado. A Trinidad Electric Railroad trolley car and pedestrians are in the street. Signs read: "Trinidad Hotel," "Owl Cigar," "Metropolitan Saloon," "Bell's Furnished [Rooms]," and "Rooms."

Negative, Trinidad Street Scene Commercial Street

The Sangre de Cristo Land Grant, in present-day New Mexico, was given to Narcisco Beaubein in 1843. When he died, the land was sold to William Gilpin who did not let the community use the land like it had before. The community fought to get their rights to their land back and hold the land in common, and in 1942 they bought the Costilla estate back. Today, the community shares the land and uses the land to graze livestock and harvest wood.

The Society of Mutual Protection of United Workers (SPMDTU) was founded November 26, 1900 by Celedonio Mondragon and six others to fight discrimination in the fields, the railroads, the mining industry, and to defend their property rights.  The SPMDTU helped Hispano and Mexican American landowners from property loss and racism after their land became part of the United States. Hispano and Mexican American landowners organized to protect themselves from large-scale Anglo-American landowners and mine owners because that violated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  SPMDTU continues to serve and protect the rights of Hispano and Mexican American communities throughout Colorado. 

The SPMDTU building in Antonito is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties.


Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

Standards for Land Grants

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework