Still, Granillo seems to have described a settlement that was an embryo of what would emerge after the reconquest when the colony regulated the land allocations of community land grants. Alvar Carlson has described that in some detail in The Spanish-American Homeland.
According to him, land would come to be allocated in strips 420' wide running between highlands and irrigation ditches, so each farmer had access to bottom lands where he could grow chile, beans and corn on the heavier, more fertile soils, upper lands where he could grow fruit trees on the coarser soils, and grazing lands without irrigation. Houses were built between the farm land and the fruit land, and roads were up land on non-productive soil.
The average width was probably less a matter of legal precedent, than the amount of land that could effectively be watered by an irrigation branch. Carlson said the fields could be any length, depending on the topography.
The most important difference between La Cañada and the later long lots is there was no acequia system with a main ditch above the settlement with laterals distributing water downslope to settlers. Instead, Granillo suggested there was a single canal with homesteads of both sides.
No matter how level the land, those on the down stream side to the north would have had more moisture, especially since they were also closer to the Santa Cruz river from whence moisture could migrate under ground. They would also have had potentially more fertile land.
As it happens, Granillo indicates most of those people had suertes or agricultural lands or irrigation. The three terms were synonymous, and referred to land that could grow corn, wheat or other crops that required water. The people on the other side of the canal were said to have had lands that could support a family.
If the settlement was between the mound and the Río Grande as I suspect, it was a triangular area with the apex to the east. Men on both sides of the canal at the west end were said to have pastures or vegas. Again the two terms were synonymous. They may all have been on the less productive, more recent quaternary soils next to the Santa Cruz and Río Grande rivers where animals could forage the scrub.
The houses that were damaged by water were at the narrow end on the mound or south side. It’s likely, the men didn’t have long enough lots to build out of harm’s way. I have no idea if the use of house and houses implied more than one dwelling, or more than one building on a holding.
Carlson believes long lots developed from the rigors of farming in an arid environment and that the earlier development of such lots by the French in the 1630's in Quebec was an independent invention.
There is much to be said for that view. When Granillo was saying the larger holdings could be subdivided, it’s clear he meant they should be split lengthwise.
However, when this land use pattern is compared to that of the later Americans who came and dammed rivers to keep the water to themselves and starved those downriver or fenced common pasture lands, it’s also clear there was a cultural component in the development of long lots.
The La Cañada settlers did not believe every man in the settlement should have an equal amount of land - some had enough frontage for three along the canal, and some had barely enough for one. Some had land elsewhere and weren’t dependent on just this acreage, and some were truly yeomen.
After the reconquest, the colony would make two kinds of grants - large land grants to men like the Martín Serranos and regulated community grants described by Carlson for settlers without resources. In a sense, the latter continued Santa Fé’s early promise that every settler should be given two lots for a house and garden, two suertes for crops, and four large caballerias for grazing.
The important difference between the two periods is that the government of Spain transferred to the French Bourbons soon after the reconquest and French bureaucratic values were probably filtering through, at least in the written protocols for the community grants.
The La Cañada settlers did not have a strong sense of community or common cause, although they did care about some of their kin and their children married neighbors. They probably owed their views of equal access to water to the Moors. However, like the French, they did create a settlement where every family had access to water and every type of land needed to grow food.
Land descriptions (Name, number of families the land would support, buildings that had existed, irrigated land, unirrigated land):
North side, from west to east
* Miguel Luján - 1 - houses - lands for agriculture and irrigation - pastures
* Marcos de Herrera - 1 - no dwelling - suerte, agricultural fields
* Nicolás de la Cruz - 1 - dwelling - lot, agricultural fields - pastures
* Melchor de Archuleta - 1 - house - agricultural field - pastures
* Juan Griego - 2 - no mention - suerte - pastures
* Sebastián González - 3 - no mention - lands
* Francisco Xavier - 2 - houses, torreón - ample lands
* Pedro de la Cruz - 1- house - lands
South side, from east to west
* Bartolomé Montoya 1- house, arroyo damage - lands
* Diego López - 1 - house, torreón - lands
* Marcos de Herrera - 1 - house, destroyed by arroyo - land
* Convento of Santa Clara pueblo - suerte
* Francisco Gómez Robledo - 1 - house
* Ambrosio Sáez - 3 - dwellings - land planted by natives - vega
* Agustín Romero - 1 - not mention - fields - middle of vega
Notes:
Carlson, Alvar W. The Spanish-American Homeland, 1990.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695 describing the settlement of La Cañada, included in Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
Photographs:
1. Simple irrigation system in Cundiyo valley, 23 March 2012; the Río Frijoles is flowing across the photograph (you can just see some water in the center back) and irrigation channels have been dug to both sides (marked by taller vegetation). The land hasn’t been leveled; it’s used for pasturage. Horses were there last week.
2. Long lot near La Puebla, 23 March 2012. The Santa Cruz river is at the back, before the Tertiary mound, where the cottonwoods are growing. There is probably a ditch to the right, marked by the red branches of sandbar willow.
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