- 1763 Grant – Click to learn more about how & why we originally came to this land grant!
- 1819 Grant – Click to learn more about how our land grant expanded 200 years ago!
- Recent History
- Map – Click to see a map of our original grant of 48,000 acres and how it has changed to the current 2000 acres.
- NM State Historian writings – Click to visit the NM Office of the State Historian’s article.
Stories of family history have been documented, pictures of then and now, and a map that reveals landmarks and special settlements can be found on the East Mountain Historical Society website.
Click here to learn from the New Mexico Historical Society, and here to learn more about the Albuquerque Historical Society, and here to visit the website of Historic Albuquerque, Inc.!
In 1763, the community of San Miguel de Laredo de Carnué was established at the mouth of Tijeras Canyon to serve as a protective settlement east of the Villa de Albuquerque by Governor Tomás Vélez Cachupín. The settlers at Carnué, “Ethnically, the settlers were a mixed lot, in addition to Spaniards, there were several coyotes, mixed bloods, and a handful of genizaros, the Hispanicized Indians who formed a kind of floating population in many New Mexico towns.” Similar to previously established genizaro settlements, the Carnué land grant was planned for settlement in a location that proved difficult to defend since the canyon is located at the entrance pass from the Plains into the middle Rio Grande valley, which was in the migration corridor of the Plains Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes. Carnué would be hit by many raids and in April 1771, some of the settlers would request to abandon the settlement. The residents of Carnué, in the request to the alcalde (mayor) of Albuquerque, stated that Carnué was far too dangerous to maintain and that they were poorly armed to defend the constant attack of the village. The resettlement of Carnué would not occur until 1819 when some of the descendants of the 1763 genizaro and coyote settlers petitioned to reestablish the settlement at Carnué along with additional landless land less residents of various villages in the Albuquerque area. The petitioners for the 1819 land grant were seeking opportunity as opposed to the servitude and peonage. During the re-settlement of the grant, two settlements were established, one in Carnuel at the mouth of the Tijeras Canyon and the other, San Antonio de Padua, located on the east slope of the Sandía Mountains. The boundaries of the grant were described by Josef Marian de la Peña, secretary for Governor Facundo Melgares, as “the entrance of the Cañon de San Miguel de Carnué to the Tijera, the width of the canyon west to east and here South to North as far as the cross set up to the North of San Antonio” (SANM I, Reel 27, Frame 864-868). At San Antonio and Carnué, two defensible compact plazas were established measuring fifty varas (yards) square, and solares on the plaza were assigned. On February 5, 1819 suertes were assigned in Carnué along the Rito de Carnue (Carnue Creek) and on February 26 of that same year, suertes also were assigned at San Antonio de Padua. The land grant organized as a Community Land Grant under the laws of New Mexico.