The McCoy Atencio family have been in the Cuba area since 1769 with the founding of the San  Joaquin del Naciemento del Rio Puerco.This settlement was abandoned in 1774 because of Navajo  Indian raids. though this were resilent people they continue to return and plant and tend their  lickstock only to be chased away by the Navajo who claimed the Cuba area as their own. Finally in  1864 the Navajo were defeated and forced to signed a peace treaty.People began to return in the  1860's and 1870's and in 1879 Antonio Atencio his sons and son in law Albino McCoy founded the  settlement of Naciemento. In 1887 the post office was established and the name was changed to  Cuba.The surname McCoy is of Irish,Scottish and Manx origin It comes from Old Gaelic "Mac Aodha"  meaning "Son of Fire".Originally the name of a Celtic pagan god.Beginning in 1766 Spanish settlers  arrived in the area of Cuba. Joaquin de Luna along with 35 families by petition asked Governor  Pedro Fermin Meninueta for a grant that covered the area upon the headwaters of the Rio Puerco and  known as the "San Joaquin del Naciemento del Rio Puerco Land Grant".The boundaries of the grant  were as follows: on the north by a small arroyo commonly called,"Arroyo de la Tortuga" on the east  by the Naciemento Mountains on the south by the point of a mesa through which an arroyo  called,"Arroyo Hondo" and on the west by an arroyo commonly called "Arroyo del en Media".The  granted was given to the settlers on July 20,1769.The grant was about three leagues wide and four  leagues long. "eighty Castilian varas" were set aside for a townsite,where the settlers were to  build houses,stables and barns.And finally each family would recieve 200 varas as individual farm  land which had to be fenced.the rest of the land was set aside as common land for use by all the  settlers.the settlers occupied and used the grant for about "a generation".However the settlement  was finally overpowered by the combined frontier Indian forces,and the grant was abandoned.