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La Vega de Las Nutrias
In 1680, Maestro de Campo Alonso García, commander of the Río Abajo, met Governor Antonio de Otermín and the refugees from Santa Fé at Las Nutrias (Hackett and Shelby 1942:I, 104,II, 168,172,174- 175). When Otermín led his party and many Indian refugees south from Isleta toward El Paso on the east side of the Río Grande early in 1682, he recorded his route past “La Vega de las Nutrias” among other places (Hackett and Shelby 1942:II, 362; Hackett 1915:391).
On May 30, 1726 Rivera traveled north then northeast from Sevilleta through flat land dotted with hills, glades and thickets. He passed some arroyos without water after the ruins of Sevilleta and stayed at a paraje on the bank of the Río Grande called Las Nutrias. He estimated that he went eight leagues from El Alamillo to Las Nutrias (Alessio Robles 1946:50-51).
When Lafora was there on 14 August 1766, he described it as a recently formed town of 30 families, four leagues from Sevilleta and eight from Alamillo. He passed the ruins of “las casas de Felipe Romero” about halfway from Sevilleta to Las Nutrias (Alessio Robles 1939:95-96). A petition for settling San Gabriel de las Nutrias grant was filed in early 1764. After several attempts to settle the area and gain official approval the grant was revoked in 1771, but the settlement survived (Ebright 1996:203-208; Bowden 1969:II, 207-208). It appears regularly on maps from the late eighteenth century (Wheat 1959:I, plates 176,185,195,272). On 15 November 1780 Anza left the area near Belen and traveled five leagues south to Las Nutrias (Thomas 1932:198).
The original site chosen for the town was too far from the river, so the village was moved, but Apache raids eventually forced the settlers to abandon Las Nutrias entirely. Efforts to settle succeeded 100 years later.
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