ustxtxb_obs_1969_03_28_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

ranchers from Texas and Colorado. The ranchers blamed Tijerina for the recurrence of night-riding activities and threatened him. Several attempts on his life may have taken place. At any rate, he moved to Albuquerque. Securing employment . around 1962 as a janitor in a local Presbyterian church, he began to organize the Alianza Federal de Mercedes, the Federal Alliance of Land Grantees. His first wife finally left him as he was seldom able to support his family. The Alianza at first attracted primarily the landless, impoverished, aging, rural Spanish-American immigrants living in the slums of Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Forced to migrate to the city because of land lost to Anglo-American ranchers and merchants and because of the decline of the village economic systems, they exist upon welfare and upon their dreams of recovering their lands. More profoundly isolated from Anglo-American urban society than ever the inhabitants of Negro urban ghettoes, large numbers of them are found in almost every city in New Mexico. Around 1965 the composition of Alianza membership changed rapidly. Thousands of bitter Spanish-American small ranchers and village farmers became members. Angered by what appeared to them to be harsh, unfair, and capricious decisions by the National Forest Service that were forcing many of them to migrate, or to seek employment outside of agriculture, they appealed for redress to state and federal agencies. Unable to secure a hearing, they turned to Tijerina and the Alianza. As members, they caused the Alianza to become more militant. Forest Service personnel living in the rural villages of northern New Mexico began to move to the larger cities, as resentment against them spread. Rangers were shot at on mountain trails. Many fires were deliberately set on the National Forests in New Mexico. The Forest Service may have had good reasons for their policy decisions, but these reasons were never communicated to the Spanish-Americans. Grazing permits for small herds of cattle and sheep upon which so many Spanish-Americans depend were sharply cut. The grazing season was reduced from nine to six months. Those holding grazing permits were required to fence their allotments and to move their herds and flocks from one allotment area to another. The fencing was usually beyond the ability of poor SpanishAmericans to purchase or to install. Although Anglo-American ranchers with their cowboys could move their animals without difficulty, it was very difficult for a Spanish-American farmer or small rancher, often with other employment, to do so. Permits for Spanish-Americans to graze milk cows and work horses were cancelled even though Anglo-American rancherg were permitted to graze their work horses. This decision intensified malnutrition and threatened to force hundreds of Spanish-American farmers out of agriculture. They cannot afford to buy tractors for their small acreage and have no range for their work stock. The Forest Service claims that erosion in the forests has forced them to make these decisions, however, they spend far more on recreational developments for the Anglo-American hunter, fisher, tourist, or camper than they do on the improvement of grazing or the control of erosion. Spanish-Americans dependent upon the National Forests that once were part of their land grants are today convinced that the National Forest Service would like to eliminate the Spanish-Americans and replace them with Anglo-American ranchers and tourists. THE ALIANZA message to the rural Spanish-American village people was very simple and convincing. Tijerina and Alianza organizers repeated it in dozens of villages throughout 1965 and 1966. By now very few Spanish-Americans have not heard it: “You have been robbed of your lands by Anglo-Americans with some SpanishAmerican accomplices. No one is willing to help you recover your lands, protect your water rights, or secure your grazing permits. The federal and state governments are not interested in you. Join the Alianza. Together we will get your lands back or adequate compensation for them, and protect your grazing and water rights. This will be done preferably through court action. If the courts do not respond, then we will have to resort to other methods.” These words endlessly repeated have deeply affected the thinking of Spanish-American people in northern New Mexico. Alianza tactics were also simple and rather naive. The Forest Service, owner of so much of northern New Mexico, was selected as the primary target. National Forest lands in northern New Mexico were carved out from Spanish-American land grants. Spanish-American land titles were not completely extinguished. Forest boundaries were carelessly surveyed and often included entire villages. As the Forest Service has now become the major focus of rural Spanish-American hostility, it was not difficult to mobilize Spanish-Americans for activities against the National Forest Service. Selecting a former community land grant, the San Joaquin del Rio Chama \(now part of the Kit Carson National the original village community, now uninhabited, had been reconstituted as the Pueblo Repulica de San Joaquin del Rio Chama and would assert its rights to the land grant. Community members were drawn from the inhabitants of the surrounding Spanish-American villages, some of whom were descendents of the original villagers. In an open meeting, village officials selected a complete set of village officials. To emphasize their claim, a series of camp-ins were held at the Echo Amphitheater, a public campsite on the grant within the Kit Carson National Forest. Finally on October 22, 1966, a brief altercation broke out between two nervous forest rangers, trying to sell camping per-_ mits to the hostile Spanish-Americans, and Alianza members. The following. Wednesday, Tijerina, his brother Cristobal, and two members were arrested on a federal warrant, charged with assault upon two forest rangers and appropriating government property to personal use. On a change of venue, the case was transferred from friendly Rio Arriba County, where conviction would have been impossible, to hostile Las Cruces. After several postponements the trial was finally held in November, 1967. A jury, all AngloAmerican except for two MexicanAmericans, found the defendants guilty. The federal judge sentenced Tijerina to two years in jail, his brother to two years with eighteen months suspended, and two other defendants to 60 days. All were allowed bail. The verdict was appealed. THE TEMPO of events accelerated during the spring of 1967. In one meeting after another, Tijerina and other Alianza leaders in ever stronger language demanded the return of the land grants and harshly criticized state and federal governments. Fires were set on the National Forests. Anglo-American ranchers hired more gunmen as their fences were cut and property destroyed. Finally a mass meeting for June 3, 1968, was called at Coyote, New Mexico, during which plans would be made to take over the land. The Anglo-American press began to demand that law enforcement agencies repress the Alianza and curb its activities. In 1969, David F. Cargo, a liberal maverick Republican, had, unsupported by the regular Republican leaders, won the governor’s office with considerable Spanish-American support. While in office, he married a Spanish-American girl who had been a member of the Alianza. He began to visit many Spanish-American villages listening to the bitterly expressed problems, resentments, and needs of the village people. He published a number of statements expressing his sympathy for the Spanish-Americans, calling them an exploited, neglected minority. The Albuquerque papers reacted coldly to his description of northern New Mexico. He also met several times with Alianza leaders and succeeded in moderating somewhat their ferocious attacks upon state and federal governments. The day before the Coyote meeting, Governor Cargo flew to Michigan to participate with Gov. George Romney in a fund-raising banquet. Cargo’s plane had scarcely left the ground when Dist. Atty. Alfonso Sanchez, the Democratic DA fdr Rio Arriba County, former Alianza attorney and personal enemy of Tijerina, and Capt. Joseph Black, commander of the state police force, announced that the Coyote meeting was illegal and therefore banned. Any person attempting to attend the meeting would be arrested. They also stated that Tijerina was March 28, 1969 3