Beaubien was a Canadian fur-trapper who had migrated to New Mexico in 1823. Four years later, he married Taos native María Paula Lobato and opened a mercantile business. In an effort to evade taxes imposed by the Mexican national government in 1840, he allied with Guadalupe Miranda (secretary to the government in Santa Fe) to petition for a large land grant east of the Sangre de Cristo Range. Governor Armijo approved the grant the following year, and the large tract later passed to Beaubien’s son-in-law Lucien Maxwell. Subsequently known as the Maxwell Land Grant, the parcel became a point of controversy during the U.S. territorial period.
Charles Beaubien
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