The Ortiz family has been prominent in New Mexican history and politics since before the Territorial Period. Nicolas Ortiz II, Niño Ladrón de Guevara (also written Guebara), was born in Mexico to Nicolas Ortiz I, who joined colonists in Zacatecas in 1693 and served as aid to Governor of New Mexico, Don Diego de Vargas. Nicolas Ortiz II received the Caja del Rio land grant in Santa Fe County by authority of the King, himself.
In addition to having two family members designated land grantees (Nicolás Ortiz II and Don Antonio Ortiz), Ramon Ortiz, son of Antonio Ortiz was the last Spanish priest at the Juarez Mission. Col. Miguel E. Pino served with the First Regiment, New Mexican Volunteers, Union Army in the 1860s. Don Nicolas Pino was Justice of the Peace, Precinct 6, in 1868. Don Jose Ortiz y Pino was a member of the State Legislature, House of Representatives, 1926-1942. Sra. Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven served as a member of the State Legislature, House of Representatives, 1936-1942. She was the first woman Majority Whip in the Legislature. Jose Ortiz y Pino III was elected State Senator, 1964-1966.
Pedro Bautista Pino, husband of Ana María Baca, and thus descendant of Nicolás Ortiz II by marriage, was elected to represent the Province of New Mexico to the Spanish Cortes (the Spanish Parliament) in Cádiz, Spain, from the inception of this institution in 1810 to its dissolution by Fernando VII in 1814. Pino was the first legislator of the territory. Prior to this appointment, Pedro Bautista Pino was a New Mexico rancher who held the position of Alcalde of Tomé. He was appointed Commissioner for the settlement of the Pecos valley by Governor Chacon as well as Regidor of Santa Fe. In 1810, he was elected New Mexico's first and only Delegate to the Cortes in Spain. His report to the Cortes, “La exposición sucinta y sencilla de la provincia del nuevo mundo,” was published in Cádiz, Spain. In his report on the conditions in the province of New Mexico, don Pedro petitioned the Court to establish a bishopric in Santa Fe, to establish of a seminary college and public schools, for uniformity in military service, and to establish a civil and criminal audiencia in Chihuahua.
Pedro Bautista Pino's grandson, José Ortiz y Pino, and his great-granddaughter, Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven, followed in his footsteps (in keeping with a promise made by the first legislator that each generation of his family would serve the government), becoming legislators themselves. In addition to her position as the first female majority whip in the House of Representatives, where she served from 1936-1942, Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven's work as a research assistant in the Washington Office of the Historical Records Survey, as a member of the advisory committee on women's participation in the 1939 World's Fair in New York, as a correspondent regarding the Coronado Cuarto Centennial celebration in 1940, as president of the Santa Fe Women's Aero Club and as a proponent for bilingual education in New Mexico are also reflected in this collection.
