La Merced de Santa Gertrudis de lo de Mora (Mora Land Grant)

Aquí se cuenta la historia de cómo nació el pueblo de Mora.

Here is the story of how the town of Mora was born.

Spain and Mexico granted concessions of lands to individuals, groups, Indian communities/hunting areas and various settlements, in order to populate what is now New Mexico. Once independence from Spain in 1821, was achieved Mexico continued to adhere to many laws of Spain and granting new concessions, in order to encourage settlements in the unoccupied areas and prevent the usurpations of the United States. However, for the record, there were no uninhabited areas, because the first settlers and owners of the territory were the indigenous people.

In 1835 the Mexican government formalized this eastward moving migration by granting to Jose Tapia, his daughter, Carmen Arce, and seventy-four other settlers 827,621 acres of land, known as the Mora Grant, or "La Merced de Mora." The grant was one of several huge grants issued by the Mexican government as it sought to establish a buffer zone between itself and the encroaching Americans along the eastern slopes of the Sangres. The decree was issued by Governor Albino Perez on September 28, 1835, and Alcalde Manual Sanchez of San Jose de las Trampas conveyed the grant on October 20, 1835.

The war between Mexico and the United States began in 1846 and officially ended when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (TGH) was signed in 1848.

Before Territory and County

Colonized by Spain, the land that is now New Mexico became U.S. territory as part of the Mexican American War, the Treaty (TGH), a small portion through the Gadsen Purchase of 1853, and then statehood for New Mexico which did not become a U.S. state until 1912. Counties did not come on line until around 1920 with property deeds, birth certificates and so forth. Remember what happened here in Mora with the burning of the courthouse and the Catholic church, all those documents destroyed and lost.

The boundaries of the grant were described in a petition to the surveyor general of New Mexico in 1861 as "bounded on the north by the Rio de Ocate, on the east by the Aguage de le Llegua, on the south by the mouth of the Sapello, where it empties into the Rio de Mora, and on the west by the Estillero, all of which points and boundaries are well-known landmarks in the said county of Taos."(Twitchell 1914:173) As was often the case with the conveyance of grants, the administrative justice, or alcalde, accompanied the grantees to their land. Upon surveying the land, he determined how it would be divided. A certain portion was set aside for the village, or plaza, and for public roadways into the plaza, and then each grantee was assigned a portion of irrigable land, measured in varas (ca. 33 inches). The balance of the land was designated as common lands for grazing and wood cutting. Judge Sanchez designated two plazas, one known as San Antonio de lo de Mora (now Cleveland), and one lying three miles to the east, Santa Gertrudis de lo de Mora (now the village of Mora). Since the names of these plazas appear in earlier documents, it is quite likely that the conveyance simply recognized already existing settlements.