Canada Alamosa, New Mexico

Canada Alamosa (Cañada Alamosa translated as Canyon of the Cottonwoods), is a term historically applied to four geographical features, all in the same immediate area in southwest Socorro and northwest Sierra Counties, New Mexico. In historical texts the name, Canada Alamosa is applied inter-changeably to the four features, and it is often only the context that distinguishes one feature from the other.

Canada Alamosa can refer to 1) a box canyon midway along the course of Alamosa Creek, which box canyon is also known today as Monticello Canyon, or Monticello Box Canyon, or simply Monticello Box; 2) the course of Alamosa Creek, which has the box canyon midway along its length, also known as Alamosa Creek, Alamosa River, and Rio Alamosa; 3) the area around the box canyon which the Warm Springs band of Apaches regard as their home-base, and which contains the site of a warm springs Ojo Caliente, which flows into Alamosa Creek at the upper end of the box canyon; and 4) the historic name of a small Hispanic community which was settled in about 1857 a few miles south of the box canyon on Alamosa Creek, but which changed its name in 1881 to the present name of Monticello, New Mexico.

Canada Alamosa is the historic name of an area which Apache bands regarded as their ancestral home base in the mid 1800s. Prominent among these bands were the Warm Springs band (Chihenne, or Red Paint People). The area centered on the Canada Alamosa, a high walled box canyon of about 12 miles length, midway along the course of Alamosa Creek. Because of the canyon the stream was also referred to as the Canada Alamosa. The Warm Springs band considered the heart of their homeland to be a warm springs, Ojo Caliente, located just at the western entrance to the canyon. The federal government intermittently maintained a series of Apache Indian Agencies based on Ojo Caliente and the Canada Alamosa area from 1852 to 1877.

In 1857, a community of Hispanic settlers on Alamosa Creek also became known as Canada Alamosa about 16 miles south of Ojo Caliente, and about 4 miles south of the downstream end of the canyon. After the town was established leaders of the Chihenne, or Warm Springs band of Apaches made a treaty with the inhabitants of the town, which was allegedly never broken because it provided economic benefit to both the inhabitants of the town and the Chihenne Apaches. Under this treaty a dubious and shadowy trade was carried on, in which the Apaches brought stolen livestock (horses, mules and cattle) along with plundered goods back to Canada Alamosa, although Apache historians would dispute this. These were the spoils taken during wars with settlers and travelers in New Mexico, Arizona and Old Mexico, which were traded for whisky, ammunition and sundry necessities. In 1874 an agency was constructed at Ojo Caliente for the Warm Springs Apaches. In a sudden reversal of policy, this agency was then abolished after 1877 and the Warm Springs band was moved to the San Carlos Reservation. Some of the Warm Springs band refused to accept this transfer, and under war leaders Victorio and Nana entered into a period of continued guerrilla warfare with U.S. and Mexican forces, at the end of which they either became casualties in scattered conflicts, or were forced to surrender and went into captivity or onto reservations far from the Canada Alamosa area.

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