U. S. Civil War Debt 8

Charles Beaubien

In 1864 the most successful of the northern Mexico trappers and traders was Charles Beaubien, or Carlos as he was known after leaving Illinois for the far west. Beaubien had been a great friend of former Mexican provincial governor, Manuel Armijo. He had several children and would leave a land grant of substantial size to his heirs. Governor Armijo, under Mexican rule, had broad powers over his province and one of them was to grant large tracts of land to productive and influential people. The land was usually given to each man to induce settlement. Some few land grants of the province were given to communities who had emigrated from southern Mexico provinces. A few were granted to peaceful Pueblo Indians. Armijo was replaced by the American governor, Charles Bent, after the Mexican War. But meanwhile, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo insured these early land barons that they could keep their enormous grants. The treaty had been made between Armijo and James McGoffin, a Missouri merchant.

During the early Civil War years Governor William Gilpin of Colorado arranged with Carlos Beaubien to purchase one of his two huge land grants in the southern Colorado Arkansas Valley area. That land grant was known as the Sangre de Cristo. It encompassed a mountainous area in the Sangre de Cristo mountain chain. The other land grant in Beaubien’s possession was in north-eastern New Mexico, very close to the Sangre de Cristo. It was known as the Beaubien Miranda Grant. Beaubien, with Armijo’s secretary, Guadalupe Miranda, were in possession of it, but Miranda had conceded or sold out his interest before Beaubien died. Neither of these grants had been surveyed and “registered” in the manner of American legal ownership. They were simply so vast that the undertaking was deemed too difficult and expensive. However, in 1860 the Beaubien-Miranda, and a few other large grants (usually 250,000 to 500,000 acres) were recognized by Congress as properly owned by these men.