Sangre de Cristo Land Grant

By expanding the area inhabited by Mexicans, the grants were intended to counter the influence and presence of the United States and Anglo-Americans which had been growing since the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821.

Expansion northward from New Mexico to what would become the area of the Sangre de Cristo grant was prevented for more than 100 years by the Ute who inhabited the San Luis Valley of what would later become the state of Colorado.

The Sangre de Cristo mountains in the east have higher precipitation and the runoff from snow melt and rainfall provides most of the water for irrigation in the valleys of the three major tributaries of the Rio Grande in the grant.

[3][4] In 1843, New Mexico governor Manuel Armijo awarded 1,000,000 acres (4,000 km2) of land to Mexican citizens Narciso Beaubien and Stephen Luis Lee.

[5] In 1851, ten Hispanic settlers from Taos, New Mexico established the town of San Luis on the banks of the Rio Culebra in the Sangre de Cristo Grant.

In 1852, the settlers began digging what became known as the San Luis People's Ditch to irrigate farmland with the water of the Rio Culebra.

Each settler received a narrow strip of land 25 to 100 "varas" (70 to 275 feet) wide fronting on an acequia and extending as much as 30 km (19 miles) north to south across the valley.

[11] In the northern part of the grant, the U.S. army established Fort Massachusetts in 1852 to protect the settlers from the Ute, still sporadically hostile to the settlements.

Fort Garland was abandoned by the army in 1883 as the Ute had been confined to reservations and were no longer a threat to the people in the grant area.

The Hispanic descendants generally held title to the lands they used for irrigated agriculture, but exerted their rights to access larger properties, usually owned by Anglos, for grazing, timber, and other uses.

[15] [18] The issue of access to the land by the descendants of the Hispanic settlers re-ignited after businessman William Bruce Harrison purchased the Cielo Vista ranch in 2017.

Harrison attempted to overturn the 2002 legal decision and limit access to the Cielo Vista ranch by the 5,000 descendants of the 19th century settlers.

Negotiations between Harrison and the San Luis Land Use Council failed and in 2021 Judge Kenneth Plotz was appointed to decide the issue based on the proposals of both sides.