San Miguel del Vado Land Grant

rdf:langString San Miguel del Vado Land Grant

rdf:langString The San Miguel del Vado Land Grant (also known as the San Miguel del Bado Land Grant) is one of the Spanish land grants in New Mexico. On November 24, 1794, 53 men submitted a petition for land and were granted temporary possession on November 24, 1794, pending satisfaction of prescribed criteria. A second grant was obtained by 58 men and their respective families on March 12, 1803. Two days later, the procedure was repeated at San José del Vado, 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) north of San Miguel del Vado, distributing farm land to an additional 47 heads of household, including two women. Thirteen of the original men who applied for the grant were genízaros, Native Americans who had been captured or sold into slavery. Some of them had complained of poor conditions and were granted lands by the governor for farming and grazing and to provide a buffer of protection against the raids of Plains Indians, primarily Comanche, who were menacing towns, such as Santa Fé. In 1896, the Supreme Court decreed in United States v. Sandoval to reduce the land in the grant from the surveyor general's estimated 315,000 acres, including common lands, to little more than 5,000 acres then under private ownership.