Signs are positive for land-grant movement
State’s leaders are working to set up framework for resolving past injustice
On June 5, 1967, Reies López Tijerina and several armed members of the Alianza Federal de Mercedes burst into the Tierra Amarilla Courthouse, and landgrant politics in New Mexico has never been the same. Many New Mexicans are familiar with this story, but oddly seem to be unaware that much has changed since then.
Today there is a new land grant movement seeking to advance land recovery and economic development for rural communities. It employs different tactics and is achieving different results. Last week marked an important event: A U.S. House subcommittee considered H.R. 6365, a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., to establish a commission to review the poorly administered adjudication of community land grants from over a century ago.
This is not your grandfather’s land-grant movement. About 40 land grants in New Mexico — also known by the Spanish term mercedes — have active boards of trustees; two dozen community land grants function as units of government. They have engaged both the state and federal government and are uniquely positioned to recover some of their lost lands.
The buzz around H.R. 6365 is not the only sign of progress. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., introduced H.R. 6487, a bill to require federal agency consultation with mercedes and acequias. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M., and U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., each have introduced amendments to the Farm Bill to make land grants eligible for conservation program funds. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich is working with land grants to return ancient cemeteries on federal lands. The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have invited land-grant representatives to participate in forest revision plans, the Río Grande del Norte National Monument management plan, and the resource management plan for San Juan and Farmington.
This modest progress with the federal government builds on 15 years of previous work with the state. In 2003 the Legislature established the Land Grant Committee, recognizing that mercedes are a vital component of the state’s heritage and its rural communities. Community land grants became eligible to function as units of government. Common lands are now immune to adverse possession. Between 2006 and 2009 the New Mexico Land Grant Consejo, a statewide consortium of land grants, and the New Mexico Land Grant Council, a state board that provides various services to land grants, were established. More recently, the Abiquiú and Tomé grants have seen the return of modest acreage of lost common lands — the first occasion when any land grant saw any land recovery since the 1960s.
None of these efforts have gone as far as we and other land grant activists would want, and we are a long way from recovering access for traditional uses, much less ownership, of former common lands now managed by the state or federal government. We are even further away from acquiring the necessary resources to purchase some of the lands lost to private owners. But much has changed, despite the commonly held views that land grants-mercedes have disappeared completely or that landgrant leaders still pursue the tactics of the 1960s.
The hearing last week in Congress will not produce a straightline resolution of the historic injustices of faulty 19th-century land-grant adjudications, but it, and other ongoing efforts, represent the most positive steps we have seen at the federal level in 20 years. We know this is long-term work. We hope to generate public support to correct an injustice and provide opportunities for some of the poorest residents of the state.