La Isla

When Mexico became independent in 1821 a chain of six towns in the El Paso area situated from three to five miles apart stretched along the southern bank of the Rio Grande. In the early 1830s the capricious river formed a new channel south of the old one, thus placing three of them-Ysleta, Socorro, and San Elizario-on an island some twenty miles in length and two to four miles in width. For the remainder of the Mexican period this area was called La Isla, "the Island." The Rio Grande continued to flow primarily through its new channel, and by 1848, when the river became the boundary between the United States and Mexico, water had ceased to flow in the Río Viejo, or old riverbed.

A flourishing agriculture existed on the Island that featured a fertile soil mixed with a sandy loam and irrigated by a network of acequias, or irrigation canals. The principal products were corn, wheat, fruits, and vegetables. The quality and flavor of the grapes, wine, and brandy produced by the vineyards ranked with the best to be found in the viceroyalty of Spain, according to almost every official who visited the area. Most of the land-haciendas, ranches, and farms-with the exception of the ejidos, the communal holdings of the mission Indians, was owned by the wealthy Paseños of El Paso del Norte (Ciudad Juárez) across the river, the largest town and political capital of the area. Supplementing the Island's agricultural base was the Chihuahua trade along the historic Old San Antonio Road, a natural extension of the Santa Fe trade with Missouri that began a decade earlier.