About

The Santo Tomás Apostol del Río de las Trampas Land Grant was granted in 1751 by Governor Tomás Vélez de Cachupín to a group of 12 families led by Juan de Arguello. Ancestors of the 12 families gradually expanded from the initial settlement, Las Trampas, to found the communities of Llano de San Juan Nepomuceno, Ojo Sarco, El Valle, Ojito, Cañada de los Alamos, Diamante and Chamisal. These communities prospered, jointly maintaining acequias that watered their private pieces of land and sharing in a vast common land that provided pasture for their herds and wood to build and warm their homes.

In June of 1859, the heirs of the 12 original families submitted a petition to Surveyor General William Pelham for the confirmation of the grant. Congress confirmed the grant one year later, but doubts were raised over the validity of the original 1876 survey, causing a delay and significant land loss claimed by ancestors of the 12 families. An 1891 survey reduced the Las Trampas Grant to 28,131.67 acres from the original 46,457 acres. A federal patent was withheld until 1903.

While the Las Trampas Land Grant was confirmed, the federal government erred in considering it a “tenancy in common,” a property status that did not exist under Spain or Mexico. Rather than recognizing the communal land as commonly owned, “tenancy in common” status considered the commons as owned by a group of individuals that held an interest in the land. This exposed ancestors of the 12 families to a partition suit, which was filed in 1900 by an heir who was in debt and no longer lived in the community.

By 1903, the Las Trampas Land Grant sold at a public auction to Frank Bond for $17,012 and, after back taxes and fees were paid to attorneys who acted against the community’s interest, the heirs received just $25 for their communal patrimony.