Thread: Interior: Region's Hispanic heritage worth honoring, preserving

Interior: Region's Hispanic heritage worth honoring, preserving

Cheiftain.com
Posted: Saturday, December 24, 2011 12:00 am By MATT HILDNE

ALAMOSA — When Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar comes to Adams State College on Jan. 4, he'll come armed with a report he hopes can convince Congress and the National Park Service that Southern Colorado's Hispanic heritage is worthy of their attention.

The 56-page survey argues that the settlement of a 5,100 square-mile area, once part of the Mexican frontier, made up a significant chapter in American history that has left a legacy found today in the region's, language, art, religion and agriculture.

The area includes parts of Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla and Saguache counties, reaches across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to take in parts of Huerfano and Las Animas counties and extends south into two northern New Mexico counties.

It would be up to the Park Service, with direction from Congress, to determine whether it would be feasible or suitable to bring the area into the park system and whether it required direct management from the agency.

But the report looks at the history of the region, noting the impact of the five large land grants that were issued by the Mexican government to lure settlers to the area and fortify Mexico from Texan encroachment and threats from Native Americans.

While the Sangre de Cristo land grant remains very much in today's headlines as heirs continue the legal process to gain access to a portion of it east of San Luis, the report highlights the settlement patterns that sprung from all of them.

Often settled around a plaza, the communities included irrigation ditches, known as acequias, that watered long narrow lots.
San Luis, founded in 1851, would become the state's oldest town, while the People's Ditch that runs across the town's southern end to neighboring farms would mark the state's first water right.

The settlements also included common grazing areas and communal rights for settlers to gather firewood and take game.
And at the center of each plaza was often a church.


Salazar's study area includes the state's oldest parish — Our Lady of Guadalupe just north of Antonito and the oldest church in the San Acacio Mission just west of San Luis.


Moreover, the religious laymen's fraternities that sprung up across the region and were home to the Penitente Brotherhood, are still active in some places.

The report notes that if Congress were to authorize further study it could look to the management example found in the Blackstone River National Heritage Corridor, which honors the birth of the industrial revolution in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

It might also look simply at the creation of a commemorative center in the area that could host a museum, research center or cultural events.

But there are also other recommendations in the survey that don't involve the Park Service.
The report encourages the use of conservation easements in the region, particularly in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where three large ranches dominate the landscape.

The largely undeveloped terrain that make up the Trinchera and Cielo Vista ranches in Colorado and the Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico, could provide an important wildlife corridor, linking eastern prairies and the high mountain valleys.

Source: http://www.chieftain.com/news/region...871e3ce6c.html

Very interesting article. I grew up one in one of the New Mexico counties in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The Hispanic cultures of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico are very different from other Hispanic cultures in the U.S. Those people speak a Spanish dialect that is rooted from 17th century. The descendants of the original colonizers in New Mexico didn't move around that much for a long time and the dialect became unique. The heritage of these people is very mixed, they do have some mesitzo heritage from Mexico, Spanish heritage that was directly from Spain, some are descendants of Sephardi crypto Jews, and they also have heritage of Pueblo Indians, Apaches, Comanches and Utes. Also during the 1800's, French trappers and other European men intermarried with mixed background Hispanic women.

The culture of northern New Mexico/southern Colorado is different in some ways from the culture of illegal alien Hispanics.

Another thing to add, many Hispanics whose families have been in Colorado and New Mexico for several generations are very much against illegal immigration and they dislike a lot of cultural traditions and events that Mexican illegals bring here to the states. A lot of Hispanics in New Mexico don't give a shit about Dia de los Muertos, marachi music, certain foods, and other things from Mexico.