In the Mesilla de San Ildefonso Grant we find some
interesting family groups and testimonies that appear in the adjudication of
the grant itself, initially made to Jose Trujillo.
First made to soldier, Jose Trujillo (Antonia Lujan) on
April 23, 1700, he later asked for more land as he was stationed at the puesto at Santa Cruz and needed more
grazing land. Then a Captain, he was
granted the additional lands on July 15, 1709.
Jose Trujillo does sign the document, showing that he knew how to sign his name. His witnesses were
Bartolome Sanchez, Domingo Martin and Jose Manuel Gilthomey with Roque Madrid
putting him in possession of the land in 1700, these lands today likely known
as Mesilla near Española. Juan de
Ulibarri is the acting government official in the second piece of the land
dated 1709.
The lands were in his family and in 1735 upon his death, his
second wife; Antonia Lopez is filing for her share and her own children. Jose Trujillo’s actual death is given as
December 5, 1732 at El Paso del Rio del Norte. A Diego Trujillo, resident of
said Paso, was the executor of the estate. The children from the first marriage were part
of the land distribution of this grant.
They are Maria (Cristobal Tafoya), Jose, Bartolome and Ysidro, all
Trujillo’s. Lands were set aside for
them all including land for Antonia Lopez and her four children, (in this I
think they are counting one of her children and the three from his first
marriage). The second land grant was
known as Arroyo Seco and when you drive from Pojoaque to Española you see
signage for an area called that, which are likely these same lands of grant
number two.
References: SANM I, Roll 23
Ⓒ 2012 Henrietta M. Christmas
Ⓒ 2012 Henrietta M. Christmas
