Sangre De Christo

Rich in history, religion, culture, and bio-diversity, the area preserves a special place in our nation's history where the villages and lifestyles of some of America's earliest Spanish settlements still exist alongside newer railroad communities.

Sangre De Christo [sic] Range from Bull Hill

Carlos Beaubien

When the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant was awarded in 1843, the vast tract extended along the flanks of the Sangre de Cristo Range, from an area north of contemporary Questa, New Mexico into the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. Encompassing Ute Territory the grant included mountains, watersheds, and an array of wildlife. Like the Quebecois manorial class from which he descended, Carlos Beaubien (the subrosa owner of the grant) controlled all aspects of development on his inland estate. After an unauthorized colony attempted to inhabit the land grant the group was forcefully evicted by Beaubien's men. Preferring to lay claim to this vast landscape on his terms, Beaubien recruited pobladores (settlers) from the Taos Valley, handpicked leaders, and authorized French and German merchants to establish trading posts.

Just after the onset of the American Period, Taosenos moved in two surges into lateral watersheds on the grant; first at the Rio Costilla late in the 1840s and on the Rio Culebra in 1853. Initially plazas in the Rio Costilla and Rio Culebra were similar despite being situated eighteen miles apart. Though separated by distance los primeros pobladores (first settlers) in both communities were interrelated by kinship, culture, and religion. In 1861, the grant was severed when Congress appropriated part of New Mexico to create the Territory of Colorado. Two years after annexation, Beaubien authored a covenant granting an easement to pobladores to use the surrounding uplands to graze and gather wood, designated a community commons near villages, and deeded varas, or long lots, extending from rivers to foothills. 

Subsequent to Beaubien's death, his heirs sold the grant to William Gilpin, the first Territorial Governor of Colorado. In accordance with Beaubien's wishes the sale required Gilpin to acknowledge the pobladores' private property and communal rights. Disingenuous from the onset, Gilpin circumvented the terms of the agreement.