The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988 Page: 401

Book Reviews

Posthumously published, Katherine H. White's book on the Pueblo
de Socorro Grant serves as a beginning point for the history of the El
Paso-Juarez border area. Tracing the history of that land grant, the
author weaves a story that begins in the sixteenth century when Spanish
explorers and settlers crossed the Rio Grande on their way to northern
New Mexico. The real story of the Pueblo de Socorro Grant began
when the Pueblo Revolt of 168o forced Spanish colonials from New
Mexico to establish a base at El Paso.
The Pueblo de Socorro Grant may have been established as early as
1690. Nonetheless, White, citing the lack of documents to support an
early priority date for the grant, explains that the legality of the grant
has been acknowledged because of ancient possession and occupation.
As local and regional archives have yet to yield documents to support
the 1690 date, the author, using the Isleta del Sur Grant as an analo-
gous prototype for the area, suggests 1751 as a possible date for the
Pueblo de Socorro Grant.
To support her case, White painstakingly analyzes a myriad of facts
and dates from various surveys, references to the meanderings of the
Rio Grande, and legal petitions made by claimants of the Pueblo de
Socorro Grant. Between 1836 and 1883, the heirs of the original grant-
ees held possession of their lands despite many other owners, Mexican
and Anglo, who had moved onto several parcels of the grant.
The work is by no means definitive. Katherine White has pointed the
way to a richer area of research and study. Aside from the Bexar archi-
val material, which contains copies of original manuscripts, the present
work is based on court transcripts, abstracts of title, and secondary re-
ports and works. Perhaps the Spanish and Mexican archives, which
were not consulted by the author, will yield answers to many questions
unresolved in the work. In all, the book does offer an excellent summary
of the historical denouement of issues and chronology that emerge in
Katherine White's analysis of the Pueblo de Socorro Grant.
Spanish Colonial Research Center, JOSEPH P. SANCHEZ
National Park Service
University of New Mexico
Care and Identification of Nineteenth-Century Photographic Prints. By James
M. Reilly. (Rochester, N.Y.: Photographic Products Group, East-
man Kodak Company, 1986. Pp. xii+ 1 16. Acknowledgments, in-
troduction, photographs, illustrations, references, bibliography,
index. $24.95, paper.)

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