Essay on the Cristobal Nieto Grant, the family history and origins.
"When Cristobal Nieto’s father, Alcalde José Nieto, heard the news of the Pueblo Indian uprising at Galisteo on August 10, 1680, he rounded up his family at his nearby estancia and tried to escape. Tragically, José Nieto, his wife Lucía, and his daughters María and Juana, were killed by Galisteo Indians. Fortunately for him, Cristobal Nieto was away from home, (apparently in Sonora or El Paso), and survived, but his wife Petrona Pacheco and two of their children were taken captive during the confusion. By May 10, 1700, when Cristobal Nieto returned to Santa Fe and received a small land grant on the south side of the Santa Fe River, his wife Petrona had been through a saga of loss and captivity that has the makings of a good Hollywood movie."
By Malcolm Ebright
When Cristobal Nieto’s father, Alcalde José Nieto, heard the news of the Pueblo Indian uprising at Galisteo on August 10, 1680, he rounded up his family at his nearby estancia and tried to escape. Tragically, José Nieto, his wife Lucía, and his daughters María and Juana, were killed by Galisteo Indians. Fortunately for him, Cristobal Nieto was away from home, (apparently in Sonora or El Paso), and survived, but his wife Petrona Pacheco and two of their children were taken captive during the confusion. By May 10, 1700, when Cristobal Nieto returned to Santa Fe and received a small land grant on the south side of the Santa Fe River, his wife Petrona had been through a saga of loss and captivity that has the makings of a good Hollywood movie.[2]
At the time of the Reconquest of New Mexico in 1692 Petrona Pacheco Nieto was “rescued” by Roque Madrid from Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), at which point Petrona had given birth to three more daughters in captivity. Little is known about the conditions under which Petrona Nieto was held captive, but apparently she was treated well and became part of an Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) family. It was not uncommon for captive Spaniards to be adopted into Pueblo families and clans, to marry and have children, and sometimes to be so well treated that they preferred to stay among their captors. This was the case throughout early America,[3] and was recently described in the book The Unredeemed Captive, about the capture in Deerfield, Massachusetts of the John Williams family by Mohawk Indians in 1704, and the subsequent refusal of Eunice Williams (age 7 at the time of her capture), to be redeemed.[4] Closer to New Mexico is the case of Juana (la Galvana) Hurtado living on a rancho near Zia Pueblo, who was also abducted at the outbreak of the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. Juana Hurtado lived with the Navajos for the next twelve years where she bore two children and may have been adopted into a Navajo clan. In 1692 Juana, la Galvana was ransomed by her half-brother and returned to Spanish society. “Instead of being stigmatized by her experience, Juana used her connections with Spanish, Pueblo, and Navajo society to make trading contacts that allowed her to acquire a substantial amount of property. When she died in 1753, Juana Hurtado owned a rancho with three houses and managed extensive herds of cattle and flocks of sheep.[5]
Unlike Juana Hurtado who was only seven at the time she was captured, Petrona Pacheco Nieto was married with three children when she was abducted. Petrona Nieto was also captured at the onset of the Pueblo Revolt and was held captive during the same time period, but her experience after the Pueblo Revolt was different from that of Juana Hurtado (though it may have been similar during captivity).
When Diego de Vargas entered Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) on October 2, 1692 as part of his Reconquest of New Mexico, three Spanish captives were released including Petrona Pacheco Nieto, while seventy-six people of all ages surrendered and were baptized. Nieto’s relatives recognized Petrona, who was released with “three sons and daughters, all of whom she had at this time.”[6] It was common knowledge among the New Mexico settlers at El Paso that “three or four mestizas” were being held captive by the Pueblos and rescuing them was one of the first priorities of the Reconquest of New Mexico.[7] Petrona was then taken to El Paso with a larger group of captives who had been held during the Revolt in various Pueblos. One of four Spaniards on the list of freed captives, Petrona Nieto is first on the list, “with five daughters and two sons” escorted by Captain Roque Madrid.[8] It can be seen that accounts varied as to the number of children Petrona had with her when she was released from captivity.
Cristobal Nieto had no idea that his wife had been captured at the time of the Revolt and was apparently alive at Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo). Cristobal and his brother Francisco Nieto were part of the relief party mustered out at El Paso soon after the Revolt on August 25, 1680. Cristobal was described as “slender, medium stature, scant beard, aquiline face with the scar of a wound on the right eyelid.”[9] Francisco was listed as a bachelor, twenty-six years old, while Cristobal was listed as a widower twenty-nine years of age. He was apparently unaware that his wife had survived the revolt, when he enlisted on this relief mission. The circumstances of Cristobal’s reunion with the wife he thought was dead, and the children Petrona had borne in captivity, must have been quite emotional.[10] It is not clear which of Petrona Nieto’s six surviving children were born in captivity but the most likely are Josefa Pacheco who married Jacinto Perea, Sebastiána, and another Petrona.[11]
By 1697 Cristobal Nieto and Petrona were living in Santa Fe with their son Simón, and four daughters Sebastiána, María, Lucía, and Josefa (the young Petrona does not appear until 1712). As part of a general distribution of livestock and supplies by the Spanish government in that year they received some animals and 10.5 varas of wool, 8.75 of baize, and 22 mantas. The animals consisted of 25 sheep, 3 cows and a bull. Cristobal and Petrona (who is listed as Petronila in the livestock distribution) must have been farming land in Santa Fe and in August of 1697 they received a grant of the land they were occupying from Governor Pedro Rodriguez Cubero. [12]
Somehow the title papers to the 1697 land grant by Rodriguez Cubero to Cristobal Nieto were destroyed before possession of the land could be delivered, so Cristobal Nieto asked Governor Cubero (this time serving his second term), to revalidate the earlier grant. Apparently there was no investigation by local alcalde, Antonio de Aguilera, as to whether the grant would prejudice Nieto’s neighbors, and Alcalde Aguilera placed Nieto in possession of a tract of land along the Santa FeRiver. On August 1, 1700, Aguilera met Nieto at his home and performed a rudimentary survey which described the land as follows:
… from a small cedar standing behind the house, and some piles of stones, running in a straight line to the main road, and from a small acequia to a pile of small stones separating the lands of Domingo de la Barreda, and from said pile of stones running in a straight line to the ruins of an old house behind said house of Domingo de la Barreda to the river and running along the same to the first cedar. [13]
From later records it appears that the grant covered a small tract of land south of the Santa Fe River in the Analco barrio intersected by the Camino de los Carros (today’s Cerrillos Road). [14]
By early 1712 Cristobal Nieto had died, but the composition of his family was clarified by a distribution of tools to Santa Fe settlers later in 1712. According to the list, five members of the Nieto family were living in separate households, as heads of households on the Cristobal Nieto grant. In household 143 was Simón Nieto, who was buying and selling land in the area before and after the tool distribution. In household 144 was the widow Petrona Pacheco, who was living alone. Next to her was Jacinto Perea married to Josefa Pacheco, a daughter of Petrona by a Pueblo Indian man. Next to her in household 146 was Lucía Nieto, who was married to Salvador Olguín, a soldier at the Santa Fe presidio who was absent at the time of the tool distribution. Finally, next to Lucía in household 147 was Petrona Nieto, the younger, another daughter of Petrona Pacheco by a Pueblo Indian man.[15] At least two of those listed in the distribution of tools were probably children of Petrona by a Pueblo Indian man, apparently from San Juan, and some were clearly the children of Cristobal Nieto and Petrona Pacheco. In this latter category was Lucía Nieto, who became the wife of Salvador Olguin, and Simón Nieto, whose wife was Francisca Maese.[16] Nietos discovered from the 1712 tool distribution with Native American blood were probably the younger Petrona and Josefa Pacheco.
Simón Nieto purchased two fanegas of corn-planting land in the area in 1707 from Jose Manuel Gilthomey who said he received it by royal grant. The land was bounded by Salvador Archuleta on one side and Captain Luis Maese on the other.[17] Simón Nieto was married to Francisca Maese, one of the daughters of Luis Maese, who died prior to 1727.[18] In that year Francisca purchased her sister Antonia’s interest in a tract of land 340 paces wide on the edge of the river, near the Cristobal Nieto grant lands. The following year Simón sold a tract of land on the south side of the Santa FeRiver, that was probably the tract that Francisca had acquired from her sister the year before. Simón sold the land to Juan Garcia de Noriega, which he said was given to his father-in-law Luis Maese as a grant. The land was bounded on the north by Gertrudes Sanchez, on the south by Maria Maes, on the east by some hills, and on the west by an arroyo which served as a boundary for Cristobal Gongora. Simón Nieto stated in the deed that he was selling the land with the consent of his wife Francisca, though Francisca did not sign the deed. [19]
Simón Nieto the legitimate son of Cristóbal Nieto was more interested in selling land he acquired through his marriage to Francisca Maese[20] than he was in consolidating his holdings and adding to the Cristóbal Nieto grant.[21] Simón’s nephew, Francisco Nieto, the son of Simón’s sister Lucía and the soldier Salvador Olguín, was just the opposite. By 1750 when a census was taken for the Villa of Santa Fe, Francisco was the only Nieto head of household left in Santa Fe. Francisco Nieto was living with his wife Isabel Gutiérrez, his aunt María [Magdalena] Nieto daughter of Cristóbal, his mother Lucía Nieto, and his aunt Petrona Pacheco, daughter of a Pueblo Indian man. Francisco’s grandmother, Petrona Nieto, the elder, died in 1750, so the reference to Petrona Pacheco must have been to Francisco’s aunt, his mother Lucía’s half-sister, who was mentioned in the 1712 tool distribution. [22]
In 1765, Francisco Nieto, who was serving as a soldier in the Santa Fe Presidio, partitioned land south of Agua Fria that he had purchased from Andres Montoya of Cieneguilla. This is the first document that connects a Nieto with the place name El Pino. The land was described as being “in the locality of El Pueblo Quemado (Agua Fria), towards El Pino, Rio Abajo. Francisco Nieto had purchased the land from Montoya partly with funds provided by Jacinto Perea, husband to his aunt Josefa Pacheco. Josefa was one of the children fathered by a Pueblo Indian man during the time her mother, Petrona Nieto was a captive at San Juan. When Jacinto Perea married Josefa Pacheco she was described in the diligencia matrimonia as “of unknown parentage.”[23] Jacinto Perea was also a soldier at the Santa Fe Presidio, where he must have met Francisco Nieto. Jacinto was one of the few survivors of the 1720 surprise attack on the Villasur Expedition by Plains Indians when thirty-two Spaniards and twelve Pueblo Indians were killed.[24] In the partition with Francisco Nieto the property south of Agua Fria was divided in half giving Jacinto Perea 4463 Castilian varas from east to west. Jacinto Perea seemed to have accumulated sufficient funds to purchase this and other property in Santa Fe. [25]
After this point the documentation on the Nieto family in Santa Fe and the Rancho at El Pino is sparse. In 1788 the Ranch at El Pino was the subject of a partition suit by Rita Padilla, the daughter-in-law of Juan Garcia, who died owning an interest in “a Rancho of cultivable lands at the place of El Pino.” This land was not part of the 1765 partition between Jacinto Perea and Francisco Nieto nor was it part of the Cristobal Nieto grant. Nevertheless, when the Cristobal Nieto Grant was submitted for confirmation to the Court of Private Land Claims as the El Pino grant in 1893, this document was filed with the court. It seems to have been used by attorney James Purdy to expand the boundaries of the Nieto grant to 1200 acres, more than ten times the size of the original Cristobal Nieto grant. [26]
In 1818 Domingo Nieto, son of Francisco Nieto, sold a tract of land containing 137 varas from east to west to José Sebastian Montoya of Agua Fria for 50 pesos. The land was bounded on the north by the Santa FeRiver, on the south by the Camino de los Carros (today’s Cerrillos Road), on the east by Domingo Montoya and on the west by Domingo Nieto. In addition to the 137 pesos paid for the land, Sebastian Montoya paid an additional fifty dollars for a well on the land. [27]
Map showing Santa Fe Grants.[29]
The Francisco Anaya Almazan grant was a little southwest of the El Pino tract towards Cieneguilla, indicating that the El Pino tract was a separate tract quite a distance from, and quite a bit larger than the Cristobal Nieto grant. In fact, there was no connection between the two tracts, except that Francisco Nieto and Jacinto Perea were members of the Nieto/Pacheco family. Francisco Nieto was a grandson of Cristobal Nieto through his daughter Lucía while Jacinto Perea was married to Josefa Pacheco, the daughter of Petrona Pacheco. The first use of the name El Pino is in the 1765 transaction whereby Francisco Nieto and Jacinto Perea partition the large tract of land the two purchased near El Pino partly with Jacinto Perea’s money. By the 1890s this had morphed into the new Cristobal Nieto grant.
On February 11, 1893 a Juan Nieto, claiming to be a direct descendant of Cristobal Nieto, filed a claim with the Court of Private Land Claims for confirmation of the Cristobal Nieto grant. The land claimed was said to be known as El Pino or the El Pino Ranch and was described as containing 1200 acres; but this was not the Cristobal Nieto grant. The boundaries of the tract claimed contained a combination of boundaries from the Cristobal Nieto grant and the 1765 Francisco Nieto/Jacinto Perea purchase and partition. The boundaries claimed were the Santa FeRiver on the north and the Camino de los Carros on the south, the land of Domingo de la Barreda on the west, and the house of Domingo de la Barreda on the east. It appears that the attorney for the Cristobal Nieto/El Pino grant conflated boundaries from the Cristobal Nieto grant with boundaries from the much larger 1765 El Pino purchase/partition to make it seem like this was one large grant made to Cristobal Nieto. Attorney James Purdy, who prosecuted most of the claims for land within the Santa Fe area, took the south boundary of the Nieto/Perea El Pino tract, the Camino de los Carros, which does not appear in the Cristobal Nieto grant description, and combined it with the house and lands of Domingo de la Barreda on the east and west, boundaries which appear in the original Cristobal Nieto grant and not in the 1765 Nieto/Perea El Pino purchase and partition.
Given this fictitious legal description, the land claimed by Juan Nieto could not be located on the ground. But no one realized it at the time because the land claims case never came to trial. The land shown on J. J. Bowden’s map of Santa Fe grants is the 1765 Nieto/Perea purchase/partition, not the Cristobal Nieto grant.[32] Lawyer James Purdy had combined the legal descriptions of the two tracts (the Cristobal Nieto grant in the Analco region of the Villa of Santa Fe, and the much larger El Pino Ranch purchase south of Agua Fria), to make a non-existent tract of land. Juan Nieto, the plaintiff before the Court of Private Land Claims, could tie himself to Cristobal Nieto and his grant, but since that grant was relatively small, lawyer Purdy tried to tie Juan Nieto to other members of the Nieto family who owned land in the Santa Fe area. Purdy did not worry about competing claims since he represented most of the small Santa Fe grants before the Court of Private Land Claims; Purdy simply drew the map of Santa Fe land grants to suit his purpose. Grants like the Sebastian de Vargas grant, south of the El Pino tract, were simply expanded without regard to the original boundaries.[33] When adjoining land grants were represented by the same lawyer there was a potential conflict of interest, but lawyer James Purdy had no interest in having the boundary between his clients property correctly determined since he received a portion of all the confirmed grants no matter where the boundaries were between them.
In addition to the creative construction of a new legal description to increase the size of the Cristobal Nieto grant, James Purdy submitted a genealogy for Juan Nieto, which was mostly false. While it seemed to connect Juan Nieto with Cristobal Nieto, there were several other Nieto family lines that might have had a claim to the Cristobal Nieto grant that were unaccounted for.[35] The Nieto genealogy submitted to the Court of Private Land Claims showed the plaintiff Juan Nieto to be a direct descendant of Cristobal Nieto through his only son Francisco Nieto. As we have seen, Cristobal Nieto had three children who survived the Pueblo Revolt, and Petrona Pacheco’s captivity at Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo): Simón, Maria, and Lucía. All three show up in the Santa Fe censuses and other records, and it is the heirs of these three who were the descendants of Cristobal Nieto. Lucía Nieto and Salvador Olguin had a son named Francisco, who used the name Nieto though his father was Olguin, and was probably the one involved in the 1765 El Pino partition with Jacinto Perea. It was convenient to link Juan Nieto, the petitioner, with Francisco Nieto since attorney Purdy needed to connect the 1765 El Pino tract partition document with the Cristobal Nieto grant. But there was no connection. The El Pino tract was not a land grant and was several miles from the Cristobal Nieto grant. The only reason that could have justified inclusion of the El Pino tract would be if it had been acquired by the Nieto family as an addition to the Nieto grant and was adjacent to that grant. This was clearly not the case since the El Pino tract was south of Agua Fria toward la Cienega and Cieneguilla.
Even if the El Pino tract had been adjacent to the Cristobal Nieto grant, it was not only the descendants of Francisco Nieto who would be entitled to the grant. Also entitled were the heirs of Cristobal Nieto’s other children through Petrona Pacheco (Simón and María Magdalena), and one of Petrona Pacheco’s children through the Pueblo Indian: Josefa Pacheco. Josefa was married to Jacinto Perea and who put up at least half and possibly more of the purchase price for the El Pino tract. In a supreme irony, even if the Nieto grant and the El Pino tract were connected, Juan Nieto, the claimant before the CPLC, would have had to share the land not only with the descendants of Simón Nieto and Maria Magdalena Nieto, but also with those of Josefa Pacheco who was the daughter of a Pueblo Indian man and not of Cristobal Nieto.
The Court of Private Land Claims did not unravel this mystery because there was never a trial. When the case came up for trial on June 11, 1898, Attorney Purdy announced that the plaintiff no longer wished to prosecute the suit and the court rejected the claim. Attorney Purdy had been successful in obtaining a few confirmations of Santa Fe grants, such as the large Sebastian de Vargas grant (also based on sketchy evidence), and he could see that it was unlikely that the Land Claims Court would confirm the Cristobal Nieto grant.[36] The city of Santa Fe had been successful in 1894 in establishing its right to the so-called Santa Fe league, comprising a little over 17,000 acres, which partially conflicted with the Nieto/El Pino grant. Even though the opinion of the CPLC confirming the Santa Fe league was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving the ownership of all the land in Santa Fe in limbo for a few years, the U.S. Congress “passed an act releasing and quitclaiming to the city of Santa Fe all the lands within the four square leagues” on April 9, 1900.
After the house of cards that was the Cristobal Nieto grant fell, and the house of cards that was the Santa Fe league also crumbled what are we left with? We are left with a great deal of information about the Nieto family and their place in the early history of Santa Fe which helps replace the myths of Santa Fe with a more nuanced history. Working with living members of the Nieto family like Dawn Nieto, who has investigated her DNA in order to find her place in the Nieto family story, we begin to see that many of the first generation Nietos were actually Pachecos, with ties to San Juan and possibly other pueblos. Like Juana Galvan mentioned earlier, who used her captivity by Navajos during the Pueblo Revolt to her advantage, it seems likely that Josefa Pacheco was able to use her mestizo status, along with her mestizo husband Jacinto Perea, to their mutual advantage. This could be an example of James Brooks’ theory about the special status of women captives during the Pueblo Revolt and their children:
“children born in captivity seemed to be implicitly accepted as attached dependents, if not affinal kinspeople, in their mothers’ transition from captivity to freedom. Thus, even in the severance of one set of kin relations, an undercurrent of affinity between former captors and redeemed women and children tugged against the segregation of societies.”
In other words, children like Josefa Pacheco, born in captivity, and married to the mestizo Jacinto Perea, retained “an undercurrent of affinity” with her former captors that may have benefited the couple economically. This can be inferred from the fact that Jacinto Perea was a landowner at El Pino and was the one who put up a portion of the purchase price of the 1765 El Pino tract.
As Genízaros living in the Barrio of Analco, Jacinto Perea and Josefa Pacheco must have been able to negotiate between two worlds: the world of the Spanish landowner and the world of the Pueblo Indian.
Learning a little about both sides of the Nieto/Pacheco family helps us piece together a more complete picture of early Santa Fe and the settlement south of the Santa Fe River known as Analco, where Tlaxcalan Indians, Genízaros, soldiers in the Santa Fe presidio, and servants of the Spanish elite lived. Analco’s inhabitants who were servants to Spanish families, presidial soldiers, and Indian auxiliaries,[40] were people like Domingo de la Barreda, the presidial armorer whose land bordered the Cristóbal Nieto grant in 1697. They were people like Petrona Pacheco’s grandfather Geronimo Pacheco. He was a mestizo, probably the reason Petrona Pacheco was referred to as a mestiza. Geronimo Pacheco also had some connection with Ohkeh Owingeh Pueblo (San Juan Pueblo) that might explain why Petrona was taken captive there in 1680 and held for twelve years. Geronimo was charged by the Inquisition with taking part in some type of ceremony at the pueblo in 1628.[41] Although he was a mestizo with ties to the pueblos, his daughters and granddaughters were married to Roque Madrid and Diego Arias de Quiros, both distinguished elites who each played a part in the events narrated earlier in this article. Arias de Quiros had battled the municipal villa of Santa Fe over the Ciénega in 1715 and Roque Madrid escorted Petrona Pacheco to El Paso in 1692, along with the other former captives of the pueblos. Since Petrona and Roque Madrid were related, this explains why he recognized her at Ohkeh Owingeh Pueblo (San Juan Pueblo) and why he was the one to escort her to El Paso.
Perhaps the clues found in this history of the Cristobal Nieto grant will help us write a more complete history of early Santa Fe, before the 400th anniversary of its founding rolls around in 2010.
Urrutia map of Santa Fe.[43]
Appendix A – Santa Fe Grants
|
Date |
Name of Grant |
Bowden Volume and page |
SG/PLC Number |
|
1769 |
Alamo |
B 389 |
|
|
1742 |
Archuleta and Gonzales |
B 383 |
PLC 104-44/ 1019 |
|
1742 |
Archuleta, Juan Antonio |
B |
|
|
1742 |
Archuleta, Juan José |
B 392 |
PLC 124-45 |
|
|
Arias de Quiros, Diego |
B 390 |
PLC 190-50/ SG 68-20 |
|
1733 |
Armenta, Luis |
B 370 |
SG 68-20/ |
|
1769 |
Armijo, Antonio |
B 385 |
PLC 102-44 |
|
1742 |
Brito, Juan de Leon |
B |
SANM I: 85 |
|
1785 |
Cañada de los Alamos |
B 305 |
SG 53-18/ PLC 53-38/ PLC 76-41 |
|
1742 |
Dominguez, Antonio |
B 367 |
PLC 105-441 |
|
1743 |
Duran, José |
B 376 |
PLC 12-34 |
|
1743 |
Flores, Juan Antonio |
B 380 |
PLC 125-45/ |
|
|
Francisco de Anaya Almazan |
B 425 |
|
|
1742 |
Gonzales, Salvador – Cañada Ancha |
B 342 |
SG 82-21/ PLC 85-42 |
|
1695 |
Griego, Maria |
|
SANM I: #337 |
|
1714 |
Hacienda del Alamo |
B 435 |
PLC 155-49/ |
|
1699 |
Jorge, Isabel |
|
SANM I: 411 |
|
1728 |
Leyba, José de |
B 319 |
PLC 278-54/ |
|
1742 |
Lovato, Juan Cayetano |
B 364 |
PLC 103-4/ |
|
1785 |
Lovato, Roque |
B 413 |
SG 52-18/ PLC 180-50 |
|
1693 |
Lucero de Godoy, Juan |
|
SANM I: 422 |
|
1732 |
Lucero, José Anto |
B 350 |
SG 147 27/ PLC 117-345 |
|
1701 |
Lujan, Ana |
|
SANM I: 77 |
|
1693 |
Madrid, Roque de |
|
SANM I: 476 |
|
|
Maes and Gallegos |
B 418 |
|
|
|
Maese, Catarina |
B 396 |
PLC 119-45 |
|
1695 |
Maese, Luis |
|
SANM I: 478 |
|
1742 |
Marquez and Padilla – |
B 361 |
SG 74-20 |
|
1695 |
Martín, Domingo |
|
SANM I: 477 |
|
1697 |
Nieto, Cristóbal – El Pino Grant |
B 421 |
PLC 81-42/ 454 |
|
|
Pacheco, Felipe |
B 411 |
PLC 192-50 |
|
1769 |
Pacheco, Joseph |
B 423 |
SG File 218-29/ PLC 18-34 |
|
1742 |
Padilla |
|
|
|
1744 |
Rael de Aguilar, Alfonso |
B 403 |
Purdy |
|
NG |
Rodriguez, Juan Felipe |
B 382 |
Purdy PLC 120-45 |
|
|
Romo de Vera, José |
B 394 |
PLC 121-45/ 1198 |
|
1698 |
Roybal, Ignacio |
|
|
|
1742 |
Tafoya, Felipe |
B 408 |
SG 99-22/ PLC 67-41/ PLC 187-50/ |
|
1731 |
Talaya Hill |
B 354 |
SG 89/PLC 116 |
|
1742 |
Tapia, Tomás |
B 406 |
PLC 189-50 |
|
1732 (prior) |
Tenorio, Manuel |
B 375 |
PLC 188-50 |
|
1740 |
Trujillo, Andres |
|
SANM II, Roll 21, Fr. 300-01 |
|
1742 |
Valdez, Domingo |
B 399 |
SG 141-26/ PLC 49-38 |
|
1710 (prior) |
Vargas, Sebastian de |
B 309 |
SG 137-25/ PLC 6-33 |
[1]. The research and writing of this land grant history was partially funded by the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board
[2]. The Indians also killed their priest Father Domingo de Vera and the priests from Pecos and San Marcos Pueblos in their wrath over the suppression of their religious ceremonies, among other grievances. Declaration of Pedro García, August 25, 1680, translated in Charles Wilson Hackett and Charmion Clair Shelby, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermin’s Attempted Reconquest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1942), 23-26. Two of the daughters born to Petrona Nieto were: Petrona Nieto, and Josefa, who kept her mother’s surname of Pacheco.
[3]. Colin G. Calloway, The Shawnees and the War for America (New York: Viking; the Penguin Library of American Indian History, 2007), xxxii-xxxiii.
[4]. John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), passim.
[5]. Ebright and Rick Hendricks, The Witches of Abiquiú: The Governor, the Priest, the Genízaro Indians and the Devil (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006), 33-34. James F. Brooks, “This Evil Extends Especially to the Feminine Sex: Negotiating Captivity in the New Mexico Borderlands,” Feminist Studies 22 (Summer 1996): 279-309. J. Manuel Espinosa, trans. and ed. The First Expedition of Vargas into New Mexico, 1692 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1940), 237. Rancho de Galván grant, NMLG, PLC 282, r. 54, f. 1095 et seq. For a discussion of this grant and Juana Galván, see Frances Swadesh [Quintana], “They Settled by Little Bubbling Springs,” El Palacio 84 (Fall 1978): 19-20, 42-49. Malcolm
[6]. John L. Kessell and Rick Hendricks eds., By Force of Arms: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992), 444. Petrona had three daughters during her captivity, not three sons and daughters.
[7] Declaration of Sargento Mayor don Fernándo de Chávez, Guadalupe del Paso, April 5, 1681 in Hackett and Shelby, Revolt, 2: 17.
[8] Kessell and Hendricks, By Force of Arms, 525. Other Spaniards taken to El Paso on October 28, 1692 were Juana Dominguez, sister of José Dominguez, with four daughters and a son; two daughters of José Nevares of Janos; and Lucía Marquez wife of Pedro Marquez of Casas Grandes with a grown daughter. Kessell and Hendricks, By Force of Arms, 525-30.
[9] Cristobal Nieto enlisted as a settler, as did his brother Francisco Nieto, both receiving farming equipment. Francisco received a ploughshare, an axe, and four iron hoes, and Cristobal received a similar distribution of “the assistance due him in goods.” Record and list of payments made to settlers. El Paso, September 22 – October 16, 1681. Payments and enlistments made on September 27, 1681. Hackett and Shelby, Revolt 2: 119-120.
[10] Kessell and Hendricks, By Force of Arms, 525-530, 488.
[11] Fray Angélico Chávez, New Mexico Roots, Ltd., 1482. Petrona Pacheco the younger first appears on a 1712 tool distribution list.
[12] Diego De Vargas, Distribution of livestock and supplies, Santa Fe, May 1, 1697 in John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks and Meredith Dodge, eds., Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, Book 2 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), 1138-4).
[13] SANM I: 638.
[14] A carro was a four-wheel wooden cart. Marc Simmons, “Carros y Carretas: Vehicular Traffic on the Camino Real,” in Weigle et al ed., Hispanic Arts and Ethnohistory in the Southwest, (Santa Fe: Ancient City Press, 1983), 325-34.
[15] Chávez, New Mexico Families, 243; José Antonio Esquibel “Notes on Cristobal Nieto (and others),” unpublished manuscript in the possession of the author.
[16] Fray Angélico Chávez, Origins of New Mexico Families (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1992), 242.
[17] Deed from José Manuel Gilthomey to Simón Nieto, December 5, 1707. SANM I: 639.
[18] Fray Angélico Chávez, New Mexico Families, 217.
[19] Deed from Simón Nieto to Juan Garcia de Noriega, September 25, 1728. SANM I: 642.
[20]. Deed from Simón Nieto to Juan Garcia de Noriega, September 25, 1728. SANM I: 642. Fray Angélico Chávez, New Mexico Families, 217.
[21]. Simón Nieto also purchased two fanegas of corn-planting land in the area in 1707 from Jose Manuel Gilthomey who said he received it by royal grant. The land was bounded by Salvador Archuleta on one side and Captain Luis Maese on the other. Deed from José Manuel Gilthomey to Simón Nieto, December 5, 1707. SANM I: 639.
[22]. Virgina Langham Olmsted, comp., Spanish and Mexican Censuses of New Mexico, 1750 to 1830 (Albuquerque: The New Mexico Genealogical Society, 1981), 9.
[23] “Hija de la Iglesia.” Diligencia Matrimonia, 1711, no. 5.
[24] Partition of land at Pueblo Quemado (Agua Fria) between Francisco Nieto and Jacinto Perea, Santa Fe, July 10, 1765. SANM I: 644.
[25] Deed from Jacinto Perea to Juan Tafoya, 1761, Puesto del Pino, Santa Fe. SANM I: 985.
[26] Rita Padilla, the wife of Francisco Garcia, son of the deceased Juan Garcia; petitioned Alcalde Antonio José Ortiz for a fair partition of the estate of Juan García. She successfully claimed that the executor of the estate Lazaro García had wrongfully divided the estate only among his brothers. Alcalde Ortiz ordered an equitable distribution of the property, which measured 163 varas from the eastern boundary of Francisco Nieto to the western boundary of the heirs of Urban. El Pino Grant, PLC 81, Roll 42, fr. 482-83.
[27] Deed from Domingo Nieto to Jose Sebastian Montoya, Santa Fe, April 20, 1818. El Pino grant; PLC 81, Roll 42, fr. 499-500, State Records Center and Archives (SRCA), Santa Fe.
[28] David H. Snow, “A Note on Encomienda Economics in Seventeenth Century New Mexico,” in Weigle et al., ed., Hispanic Arts and Ethnohistory in the Southwest.
[29] J. J. Bowden, “Private Land Claims in the Southwest,” 6 vols. MA thesis, Southern Methodist University, 1969, 2: 269.
[30]. SANM I: 644.
[31]. Petition by Juan Nieto for confirmation of the El Pino (Cristobal Nieto) grant, El Pino grant, PLC 81, Roll 42, fr. 455-57.
[32] J. J. Bowden, “Private Land Claims in the Southwest,” 6 vols. MA thesis, Southern Methodist University, 1969, 2: 269.
[33] Claimants map, El Pino grant, PLC 81, Roll 42, fr. 524-27.
[34] As David Benavides has pointed out “fairness is ensured in our adversarial system because [then] each party has the services of a zealous advocate.” David Benavides, “Lawyer-Induced Partitioning of New Mexico Land Grants: An Ethical Travesty.” Center for Land Grant Studies Research Paper, www.southwestbooks.org.
[35]. Deraignment of title, El Pino grant, PLC 81, Roll 42, fr. 529.
[36] The Sebastian de Vargas grant was confirmed by the Land Claims Court on a split decision: Justices Fuller and Stone recommended confirmation of the entire grant, Chief Justice Reed and Justice Murray recommended rejection of the entire grant, and Justice Sluss voted to confirm the east tract but reject the western tract. No grant document was submitted; instead references to the grant from adjoining grants like the Juan de Leon Brito grant were used to infer the boundaries of the Sebastian de Vargas grant. Bowden, “Spanish and Mexican Land Grants,” 2: 314-18. The grant was surveyed to contain 13,434 acres.
[37] Answer of seventeen defendants with grants inside the Santa Fe League, Villa of Santa Fe Grant, PLC 80, Roll 42, fr. 148-51. Dissenting opinion of Justice Murray, Villa of Santa Fe Grant, PLC 80, Roll 42, fr. 189-202. U.S. v. Santa Fe, 165 U.S. 675 (1879). Malcolm Ebright “The Santa Fe Grant,” a research paper partially funded by the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board.
[38] James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 56.
[39] Genízaros were a class of mixed blood former captives that by 1776 would comprise 14 percent of the population of Santa Fe. Malcolm Ebright and Rick Hendricks, The Witches of Abiquiú: The Governor, the Priest, the Genízaro Indians, and the Devil (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006), 30.
[40] Carroll Riley, Kachina and Cross, 129-30.
[41] Declaration of Pedro de la Cruz, September 14, 1632 in France V. Scholes, “The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico,” 240-41; David Snow, “So Many Mestizos,” 10.
[42] Chavez, New Mexico Families, 83.
[43]. David Weber, “Santa Fe,” in James C. Kelly and Barbara Clark Smith, eds., Jamestown, Quebec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2007), p. 145.
Cristobal Nieto Grant; Land Grants;