The Historic Maxwell Land Grant
The Maxwell Land Grant was perhaps the greatest land empire in the American West.
If you are reading History of the West with Sam Payne: Trail to Cheyenne, odds are the herd has struck the Maxwell Range. Although many people have not heard of the Maxwell Land Grant, the truth is that it was one of the greatest land empires in US history. Understanding a little of its history can help you better understand events in the story as well as American history.
The Maxwell Land Grant originally began as the Beaubien Grant in the 1840s. In order to encourage settlement on the frontier, the Mexican government had granted land grants to its citizens. The land grant program had some requirements, and its nature was similar to the Homestead Act in America. In the 1840s, two men, Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda, filed for a grant in what would today be northern New Mexico. Although grants were limited to 92,000 acres, the Beaubien claim was based on some vague geographical features and greatly exceeded that limit. In fact, when the land was officially surveyed in the last 1860s, it was estimated to be 1.7 million acres.
Although the massive land grant was originally called the Beaubien Grant, by the time Sam makes his way through in 1868, it would have been called the Maxwell Land Grant, or Maxwell Range. To understand why, you need to know about a man named Lucien Maxwell.
Lucien Maxwell was born in Illinois but became a fur trapper in his youth. As many of you know, a good portion of the fur trade operated out of Taos, New Mexico. Maxwell was familiar with Taos, and he moved there after the decline of the fur trade. He quickly married a young girl named Luz Beaubien. Luz was the daughter of Carlos Beaubien who controlled half of the land grant. It is said that Mr. Beaubien gave Lucien and Luz a gift of 15,000 acres for a wedding gift.
As time went on, the Beaubien Land Grant was improved upon and developed. However, by 1864 Carlos Beaubien had died, his oldest son had died, and his partner Gaudalupe Miranda was gone. As a result, Lucien Maxwell came to have complete control over the 1.7 million acre property.
By this time, the Maxwell Ranch was already extremely developed. While statistics vary, some sources estimate the ranch included 20,000 sheep, 1,500 cattle, and over 400 horses and mules. The massive spread was also estimated to employ around 600 men. It is worth noting that Maxwell operated the ranch under the peonage system. Essentially, peonage was a system in which peons were employed by a wealthy landowner to pay off a debt. Peons were paid a wage, but that wage was manipulated in a way that the peon could never escape the original debt he owed. Although Maxwell operated under this traditional system, he was rumored to have been a “good master” and took care of his Mexican and Native American employees.
While the Maxwell Land Grant was impressive in terms of its sheer size and agricultural pursuits, perhaps its most interesting aspect of the property was the towns and homes. Within his borders, Maxwell established the towns of Rayado and Cimarron. Both towns were fairly well developed, and Cimarron even had a flour mill. Maxwell also spared no expense on his home. The Maxwell House, as it was called, was said to have spanned a city block. It contained a hotel, saloon, gambling room, and billiard tables. It was truly one-of-a-kind on the American frontier.
Although Maxwell controlled a land empire that few would ever rival, by the late 1860s, he was experiencing trouble. Prospectors had discovered gold in the mountains on his range and he found it difficult to police his borders. He also came to realize that the original land grant granted to Beaubien and Miranda was perhaps not legally founded on solid ground. As a result, when a group of English investors offered to buy the property in 1870, Maxwell sold out and moved his family from the massive ranch. They didn’t go far and decided to relocate to the abandoned army post at Fort Sumner, Nex Mexico. Fortunately for Maxwell, he was able to sell the Maxwell Land Grant before many of the legal claims of its boundaries came into question. In fact, the exact legal terms of the Maxwell Land Grant were so uncertain, that some sources claim even today there are lingering disputes over the land.
If you are enjoying Trail to Cheyenne, this article will hopefully add more depth to the story. By the time Sam and the cattle reached the Santa Fe Trail, they were more or less in “explored territory.” In fact, whether they knew it or not, they were only a short ride from a flour mill, carpeted floor, and a billiard table. Although we tend to think about the West as a wide-open frontier where a person could go days without seeing any sign of civilization, even by the last 1860s that was becoming a thing of the past.
