Editing Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico (section)

==History==
There is evidence of 5000 years of habitation in the [[Rio Chama (Rio Grande)|Chama River Valley]] including pueblo sites south of Abiquiu. The area served as a trade route for peoples in the present-day [[Four Corners]] region and the [[Rio Grande|Rio Grande Valley]]. Navajos later used the valley as a staging area for raids on Spanish settlements along the Rio Grande. Written accounts of the Tierra Amarilla locality by pathfinding Spanish friars in 1776 described it as suitable for pastoral and agricultural use. The route taken by the friars from [[Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe]] to [[California]] became the [[Old Spanish Trail (trade route)|Spanish Trail]]. During the [[Californian Gold Rush]] the area became a staging point for westward fortune seekers.<ref name="SCS">{{cite web|url=http://southwestcrossroads.org/record.php?num=738|title=Tierra Amarilla|author=Southwest Crossroads Spotlight|year=2006|publisher=SAR Press, School for Advanced Research|access-date=2009-10-29}}</ref>

===Tierra Amarilla Grant===
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The [[Tierra Amarilla Land Grant]] was created in 1832 by the [[Mexico|Mexican]] government for Manuel Martinez and settlers from [[Abiquiu]].<ref name="Toponym">{{cite book|last=Julyan|first=Robert Hickson|title=The Place Names of New Mexico|publisher=[[University of New Mexico Press]]|location=Albuquerque|year=1998|edition=Revised/2nd|isbn=0-8263-1689-1}}</ref>{{rp|352–353}}<ref name="roadside">{{cite book|last=Pike|first=David|title=Roadside New Mexico: a guide to historic markers|publisher=[[University of New Mexico Press]]|location=Albuquerque|year=2004|pages=81–82|isbn=978-0-8263-3118-2 <!--|ISBN=0-8263-3118-1 -->|oclc=53967286|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SSXRGB21WH4C&q=Tierra%20Amarilla%20in%20navajo&pg=PA81|access-date=4 August 2009}}</ref> The [[Land grants in New Mexico and Colorado|land grant]] encompassed a more general area than the contemporary community known as ''Tierra Amarilla''.<ref name="Toponym" />{{rp|352–353}} The grant holders were unable to maintain a permanent settlement due to "raids by [[Ute Tribe|Ute]]s, [[Navajo people|Navajo]]s and [[Jicarilla Apache]]s" until early in the 1860s.<ref name="roadside" /> In 1860 the United States Congress confirmed the land grant as a private grant, rather than a community grant, due to mistranslated and concealed documents.<ref name="Wilson" />  Although a [[land patent]] for the grant required the completion of a geographical survey before issuance, some of Manuel Martinez' heirs began to sell the land to Anglo speculators. In 1880 [[Thomas Catron]] sold some of the grant to the [[Denver and Rio Grande Railway]] for the construction of their San Juan line and a service center at Chama.  By 1883 Catron had consolidated the deeds he held for the whole of the grant sans the original villages and their associated fields. In 1950, the descendants of the original grant holders' court petitions to reclaim communal land were rebuked.<ref name="Wilson">{{cite web|url=http://southwestcrossroads.org/record.php?num=810|title=La Tierra Amarilla: Its History, Architecture and Cultural Landscape|last=Wilson|first=Chris |author2=David Kammer|year=1989|publisher=[[Museum of New Mexico]] Press|access-date=2009-10-29|location=Santa Fe}}</ref>

===Rio Arriba's county seat===
In 1866 the [[United States Army]] established Camp Plummer just south of Los Ojos (established in 1860) to rein in already decreased Native American activity on the grant. The military encampment was deserted in 1869.<ref name="Toponym" />{{Rp|57, 210, 352–353}} Las Nutrias, the site of the contemporary community, was founded nearby c.1862. The first [[post office]] in Las Nutrias was established in 1866 and bore the name ''Tierra Amarilla'', as did the present one which was established in 1870 after an approximately two-year absence.<ref name="Toponym" />{{Rp|352–353}} In 1877 a U.S. Army lieutenant described the village as "the center of the Mexican population of northwestern New Mexico".<ref name="roadside" />  The territorial legislature located [[Rio Arriba County, New Mexico|Rio Arriba]]'s county seat in Las Nutrias and renamed the village in 1880.<ref name="Toponym" />{{Rp|352–353}} The Denver and Rio Grande Railway's 1881 arrival at [[Chama, New Mexico|Chama]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Myrick|first=David F.|title=New Mexico's Railroads: An Historical Survey|publisher=Colorado Railroad Museum |location=Golden|year=1970|pages=104}}</ref> about ten miles to the north, had profound effects on the development of the region by bringing the area out of economic and cultural isolation.<ref name="Wilson" />

When Tierra Amarilla was designated as the [[county seat]] the villagers set about building a courthouse.<ref name="roadside" /> This structure was demolished to make way for the present one, which was built in 1917 and gained notoriety fifty years later when it was the location of a gunfight between land rights activists and authorities.<ref name="Whisenhunt">{{cite book|last=Whisenhunt|first=Donald W.|title=New Mexico Courthouses|publisher=Texas Western Press, [[University of Texas at El Paso]]|location=El Paso|year=1979|edition=annotated|pages=31}}</ref> The [[Neoclassical architecture|neoclassical]] design by [[Isaac Rapp]] is now on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/nm/Rio+Arriba/state2.html|title=State Listings|publisher=National Register of Historic Places|access-date=2009-10-29}}</ref>

===Courthouse raid===
The [[Alianza Federal de Mercedes]], led by [[Reies Tijerina]], raided the Rio Arriba County Courthouse in 1967. Attempting to make a [[citizen's arrest]] of the district attorney "to bring attention to the unscrupulous means by which government and Anglo settlers had usurped Hispanic land grant properties," an armed struggle in the courthouse ensued resulting in Tijerina and his group fleeing to the south with two prisoners as hostages. Eulogio Salazar, a prison guard, was shot and Daniel Rivera, a sheriff's deputy, was badly injured. The [[National Guard of the United States|National Guard]], FBI and [[New Mexico State Police]] successfully pursued Tijerina, who was sentenced to less than three years.<ref name="roadside" />