Rio Grande County and the entire San Luis Valley were once part of New Spain.  Far removed from Mexico City and with few resources to protect the king's domain and citizens, the Spanish governors in Nueva Mexico declared the land north of Taos as "la tierra de los indios."  Although this decree intended to limit travel into the area, many colonial New Mexicans ventured north along the Rio Grande to prospect, trap beaver, hunt buffalo or trade with Indians.  All such activities, therefore, were unlawful and usually proceeded without being recorded.

    With the Mexican Revolution in 1821 the governing attitude toward the San Luis Valley changed.  The people of northern New Mexico soon became familiar with the diversity of trade goods and people from the United States via the Santa Fe Trail.   Some of the men traveling into Taos and Santa Fe took Mexican citizenship in order to qualify for free land and other rights enjoyed by native citizens.

    Spain had established a tradition of giving parcels of land to encourage settlement.  To assure a strong frontier as more and more migrants from the states entered the "Mexican Mountains" to trap beaver or to prospect for legendary treasure caches or mines, the Mexican government authorized land grants in what had once been forbidden territory--the San Luis Valley.

    The first Mexican land grand, named the Guadalupe Grant (aka the Conejos Grant for the Conejos River), was given in 1833 to 50 families who went to the confluence of the San Antonio and Conejos rivers to establish the plaza of San Francisco.  Their tenure ended abruptly when the village was attacked by Indians.

    Lacking a permanent settlement as required to secure their land rights, the original grantees and  descendants petitioned for an extension.   The governor in Santa Fe gave them another 12 years to establish a permanent village.  In 1842, the grantees tried again.  They placed the village of San Margarita on the hillside rather than in an open meadow.  The summer had suggested the colonists might be successful, but a band of roaming Kiowas attacked the village.  Although the villagers defended themselves in a bitter battle, the survivors decided to return to New Mexico.

    For the next several years, grantees traveled to the San Luis Valley to build  temporary structures for "summer" settlements.  In the fall the setters would harvest peas and corn, then  cache enough seed for the next spring's planting.  After a communal round up of  livestock that had grazed freely all summer on native grass, the colonists would return to homes in northern New Mexico for the winter.

    In 1851 José Jacques entered the Guadalupe grant to trade with Indians in the northern regions of the grant lands.  His mules balked at the Conejos River. Jacques promised he would return to build a settlement with a chapel if Providence(providéncia divina) intervened to get his mules across the river. Guadalupe plaza was the result of Jacques' pledge.  Jacques' colonists included several who would eventually become the founding families of La Loma de San José.  Jacques brought a second group of settlers to the  Guadalupe grant in 1854.  Among them was Lafayette Head, later to become Colorado's first lieutenant governor.  Head built a fortified plaza on the south bank of the Conejos River.  Eventually this plaza became known as Conejos, Colorado.

    By the late 1850s several small family plazas emergedthroughout the meadows of the Conejos Valley.  Seeking new homes during a time of drought and depression, some land grantees decided to venture farther north into the remote unpopulated regions of the grant.  Marked by individualistic rugged volcanic hills, this new land held both obstacles and  promises.  The Story of La Loma de San José, as recorded in the diary of Juan Bautista Silva, reveals the hopes and hardships experienced by Rio Grande County's hispanic pioneers.