"Examines how indigenous artists crafted and used mapas de mercedes de tierras, land grant maps, to negotiate land disputes with Spanish authorities in sixteenth-century New Spain"--

When the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed previous Spanish and Mexican land grants, as well as rights for Native Americans to their ancestral homelands. However, organized property theft began soon after. People were methodically dispossessed of their homes through manipulation, conspiracy and even organized crime rings, leading to widespread poverty and isolation. Then in 1967, the Tierra Amarilla Courthouse...