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Hispanic family
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Courtesy, Colorado Historical Society
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Los Caminos Antiguos
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Segment 3: Tierra Incognita
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| In April 1598, all territory drained by the Rio Grande, including the San Luis Valley, was claimed for King Phillip II of Spain by Don Juan de Oñate. At the time, almost nothing was known of this vast territory known as Tierra Incognita or Land Unknown. Although a few exploration parties did venture into the San Luis Valley between 1598 and 1680, most of the Spaniards’ settlement activity took place in New Mexico, which became a Spanish colony in 1609. |
| Spanish interest in the lands of Los Caminos
Antiguos was initially based on the search for gold, and the religious
conversion of various native tribes throughout the region. A popular
legend tells of Francisco Torres, who while accompanying a party
of gold seekers into the San Luis Valley, was so moved by the beauty
of the place that he named it after his native city, San Luis, in
Seville, Spain. According to legend, during the same expedition
Francisco Torres was wounded in a skirmish with members of a native
tribe. As he was dying from the wound, Torres is said to have looked
up at the snowcapped mountains reflected in the late afternoon sun
and exclaimed, “Sangre de Cristo, Sangre de Cristo,” (Blood
of Christ). Thus the names of both the San Luis Valley and the Sangre
de Cristo Mountains are attributed to Francisco Torres. |
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Trinidad, Colorado
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Courtesy, Colorado Historical Society
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| Although the Spanish made some attempt to explore the area of the San Luis Valley throughout the 1600s and 1700s, little changed in the region. Unable to gather the resources necessary to challenge the tribes who controlled the valley, the Spanish settlers were content to live on its southern fringes and focus their settlement efforts on New Mexico. |
| At the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars in 1763, France lost Louisiana Territory, located west of the Mississippi, to Spain. Americans were genuinely alarmed when it was discovered that Spain had transferred the Louisiana Territory back to France in 1800 by secret treaty. However, in 1803, France sold the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States and expeditions were immediately outfitted to explore the new territory. One such expedition was headed by Zebulon Montgomery Pike of the U.S. Army. |
| On October 9, 1806, Pike left Belle Fontaine, near St. Louis, to begin an expedition that would last 11 months and take him into the heart of Spanish territory and the San Luis Valley, where he built a rough stockade to protect his troops from would-be hostile native tribes. In February 1807, while Pike was camped in the San Luis Valley, he was arrested and then escorted out of the valley by a Spanish militia. He was taken to Santa Fe and later to Mexico where he was released to return to Louisiana by way of Texas. Pike’s expedition was enormous in its importance to contributing to an understanding of the new frontier. |
| In 1821, Mexico became independent of Spain, and Spanish territory in what is today the southwestern United States came under the control of Mexico. However, during the first two decades after Mexican independence, the San Luis Valley remained unsettled, although it was frequently visited by trappers and traders from the east. Then in 1836, Texas gained its independence from Mexico and was annexed to the United States in December 1845. |
| In 1846 war broke out between Mexico and the United States. Two years later, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought the war to a close. Under the treaty, a defeated Mexico was forced to give up all claims to Texas and to all of its territory north of the Rio Grande, which included the San Luis Valley. The treaty gave the inhabitants of the newly acquired lands a year in which to resettle in Mexico, should they choose to remain Mexican citizens, or they could stay in the San Luis Valley and become citizens of the United States. |
| Plans to colonize the valley began several years before the United States took possession of New Mexico. In 1843 and 1844, four land grants were made in what is today Colorado. The Sangre De Cristo grant, located in the southeastern portion of the San Luis Valley, contained more than a million acres. No settlement was attempted on this grant until 1849 when eighty families traveled from New Mexico to take up residence on Costilla Creek, where Garcia, Colorado is now located. Following a year of constant threats by the Utes, the United States negotiated a treaty with them in 1850 and more and more New Mexicans traveled Los Antiguos Caminos to their new home in the San Luis Valley. |
| The first permanent settlement in the valley, San Luis, was built in 1851. Following Spanish tradition, farmers laid out fields in long narrow strips from 55 to 1000 feet long. They also built acequias, irrigation ditches, and planted crops of wheat, beans, and corn. On the east side of San Luis, citizens shared a 900 acre communal pasture called a vega where livestock grazed. To the citizens of San Luis and other settlers, the San Luis Valley had truly become a land of paradise. |
| From the earliest days, religion was central in the lives of the settlers. One story, told and retold from generation to generation, recounts how residents of the village of San Acacio, sure that they were going to be attacked by a band of hostile Utes, prayed to God and promised that they would build a church if they were saved. As the story is told, when the Ute warriors approached San Acacio, they saw in the heavy clouds a larger-than-life horseman wielding a large sword. Afraid, the warriors turned around and the town and its residents were spared. As promised, a church was erected. Today, the church in San Acacio stands as a monument to the strong faith of the settlers and their descendants. |
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