User:Asiaticus/sandbox/San Ygnacio de la Alamosa

San Ygnacio de la Alamosa, also known as Alamosa, is now a ghost town, in Sierra County, New Mexico. San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was founded in 1859 as a native New Mexican colonizing settlement from San Antonio, New Mexico. The site of the new colony was along the west bank of the Rio Grande, 35 miles south of Fort Craig, on the south bank of Alamosa Creek nearby its mouth and confluence with the Rio Grande, in what was then southern Socorro County.

Establishment
San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was the first native New Mexican colony established south of San Antonio along the west bank of the Rio Grande and north of Santa Barbara and Fort Thorn (established in 1853) since the Pueblo Revolt. The east bank had an attempt at colonization in 1819-1826 when there was an attempt to estabish a hacienda of the Armendáriz Grant, at Valverde that failed due to Apache raids. However by 1860, under the protection of Fort Conrad and then Fort Craig, Valverde had become a small settlement and Paraje had been established south of Valverde in 1857. Two years later the town of San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was settled.

The prime mover of establishing Alamosa was Estanislado Montoya a farmer and merchant, age 40, from San Antonio, recorded in the 1860 Census of San Ygnacio de la Alamosa with a personal estate of $10,000 and real estate of $2,000. He organized this colony but by December 1864 had returned to San Antonio to continue acquiring and selling real estate there and in Socorro and San Pedro in the following two decades.

The town would be protected by Fort Craig, 35 miles north of the new town along the Fort Craig - Fort Thorn Wagon Road. That road ran through the town, and down along the west bank of the Rio Grande to Fort Thorn and to roads south into Texas and west toward California. The road was following the wagon road route established by Cooke's Mormon Battalion in 1846. They had been following an old route occasionally followed by early Spanish and later Mexican travelers. It was soon after the end of the Mexican American War that the same wagon road was followed by many others intent on joining the California Gold Rush. By 1857 it was a well beaten route used by supply trains and troops for the forts.

The Settlement
The 1860 Census showed Alamosa with a population of 321 persons, 169 males and 152 females living as 71 families in 73 dwellings. All had Hispanic names, and all had been born in New Mexico. 43 of the family heads identified themselves as laborers, 17 identified themselves as farmers, one as a blacksmith, one as a carpenter and one as a musician, the remainder gave no occupation. The census taker reported June 25, 1860, that the settlement was so new that no crops had yet been harvested.

Irrigation and farms

Conflicts
San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was established on land occupied by the Warm Springs or Tchihende (Mimbreño) Apache. These Apache lands extended east and west of the Rio Grande, south of the Mesa del Contadero and north of Dona Ana. They included the Jornada del Muerto desert and the various mountain ranges within it, as well as west of the Rio Grande. It had been theirs before the arrival of the Spanish in the area and held by them for centuries with no attempt to settle them by the Spanish or later by the Mexicans.

It was after the American occupation and acquisition of Nuevo Mexico that relatively good relations were established with these people by the Indian Agent Dr. Michael Steck, and their hostilities continued to be directed against Mexico their old enemy. As a result the Americans were able to establish Fort Craig and Fort Thorn on the edges of their lands and connect them with a military road on the west bank of the Rio Grande. The first settlement in centuries was then established on that road at the mouth of Alamosa Creek. This colony was only a days ride up Alamosa Creek and Monticello Canyon, originally known in Spanish as the Cañada Alamosa (Glen of the Cottonwoods), to the warm springs at the center of the Tchihende territory. Despite this provocation and others the Apache stayed at peace with the Americans and the New Mexican colony until after the Bascom Affair triggered the Apache Wars.

Navajo attacks
Navajo raiders with herds of sheep stolen north of Ft. Craig on the east side of the Rio Grande, fleeing pursuit by U. S. Army detachments, attempted crossings of the Rio Grande at Canyon del Muerto near San Ygnacio de la Alamosa, in April 1860. The pursuit of the Army included the involvement of the towns local militia that was stationed on the west bank of the Rio Grande, blocking the ford at Canyon del Muerto.

Apache War
As early as June 8-9, 1860, settlers at San Ygnacio de la Alamosa wrote a certification of the theft of 12 Oxen, 2 mules, 4 burros by Apache.

Civil War, 1862
The Skirmish of Cañada Alamosa was fought in San Ygnacio de la Alamosa.

Decline, Abandonment and Legacy
With acequias and feilds damaged by flooding of the Rio Grande in July and August 1862, in 1863 some of the population of Alamosa moved miles up Alamosa Creek to a better farming region to establish farms that became the town of Cañada Alamosa now Monticello, New Mexico. After flooding destroyed Alamosa in 1867 many of its residents moved up the valley to farm near and live in the new town, called Canada Alamosa, that had been organized sometime between 1864 and 1866. Others moved across the river and downstream a couple of miles to start a new town of New Alamosa that became known as Alamocita, to farm on the opposite side of the river. Alamocita also was six miles north of Fort McRae established in April 1863 to protect these new settlements along the Rio Grande from the Apache, along with the traffic along the river road and the old road to the east in the Jornada del Muerto. That same year a number of the citizens of Canada Alamosa, moved down the Rio Grande to where Palomas Creek had its confluence with the river. There twenty miles south of Fort McRae, it was less exposed to the attacks of the Apache, and there they established the settlement first called Plaza del Rio Palomas, later more commonly called Las Palomas. Fort McRae and its garrison would provide its protection and economic benefits to citizens of the towns over the years of its operation until it was closed on October 30, 1876.

Present status
The site of San Ygnacio de la Alamosa today lies within the boundaries of Sierra County, New Mexico. It is now underneath decades of deposits of silt accumulated in Elephant Butte Reservoir that had submerged the site of the settlement by as much as 100 feet of water since the 1920's. The site is currently exposed by the low level of the reservoir.