ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Sangre de Cristo Land Grant

Okay, kiddo, have you ever heard of "sangre de cristo land grant"? It's a really long and fancy name for a piece of land that some people got a long time ago.

Many years ago, before you were born, some people used to live on this piece of land in New Mexico. They were called Pueblo people, and they had been living there for a very long time. But then some other people came and took over their land. Those people were called Spanish settlers.

Anyway, when the United States became a country, it said that it would respect the rights of people who had already been living on the land. So, the Pueblo people went to court to try to get their land back. They won, and the court said that the land belonged to them.

But then, the Spanish settlers said that they had bought the land from the Spanish government a long time ago, and that they had papers to prove it. They said that they owned the land, too.

So, there was a big argument between the Pueblo people and the Spanish settlers about who really owned the land. The argument went on for a very long time, and it even went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which is the highest court in the land.

In the end, the Supreme Court said that the Pueblo people had a stronger claim to the land, because they had been there first. So, the court gave the land back to the Pueblo people.

And that, my little friend, is what the "sangre de cristo land grant" is all about - it's a piece of land that was once owned by one group of people, but then was given back to another group of people because they had a better claim to it.