María Rosa Villalpando: A Captivating Cautiva Story
By Nicolasa Chávez
The story of María Rosa Villalpando is an eighteenth-century story of tragedy as well as the triumph of the human spirit. Her story represents the lives of many people who lived on New Mexico’s northernmost frontier and the trials and tribulations they experienced. Her life experiences reached far beyond the borders of Nueva España into the lands of a young new nation about the be born. She crossed cultural barriers between the aging Spanish and English colonies and the Native American tribes of the plains. She and her descendants represent a new world and a history that is at once 100% New Mexican and 100% American.
María Rosa Villalpando came into this world in 1742 in San Juan, Rio Arriba, New Mexico. As a young maiden she married Juan José Jaquez from Guadalupe del Paso. In 1758, she had her first son, José Julian Jaquez, in San Juan, Rio Arriba, New Mexico. The couple moved very soon after the birth of their son to Ranchos de Taos. They lived among other families of Spanish settlers. All seemed as bright and calm as the blue New Mexico sky until an unforeseen tragedy occurred. On August 14, 1760, Comanches en route to attack Taos Pueblo, came upon the Villalpando hacienda and Ranchos de Taos. All the male defenders of the hacienda, along with some women and children, were killed. Her husband and her mother, who was defending the front gate with a lance, both died in the massacre. María Rosa was one of 56 women and children who were taken captive. While some of the women and children were ransomed, redeemed, or recaptured by the Spanish, María Rosa remained among the Comanche. At the time, she was eighteen years old and her son two years old. They were separated during the raid.
María Rosa spent the next ten years as a cautiva (captive), living first with the Comanche and then later traded to the Pawnee. Sometime during her captivity, she had a second son, named Antoine Xavier, who was with her among the Pawnee when she first met the French trader Jean Sale dit Lajoie around 1767. Lajoie, a fur trader originally from France, was one of the original thirty settlers of St. Louis, Missouri. It is believed that instead of ransoming María Rosa’s freedom, he lived with her among the Pawnee for the next several years. Together they had a son named Lambert, her third child.
In 1770, Jean and María Rosa moved to St. Louis. They brought their young 20-month-old son with them and on July 3, 1770, they officially married. In the process, María Rosa’s Spanish name changed to the French pronunciation, Marie Rose. The couple had three more children, although two did not make it past childhood. Marie Rose helped in the affairs of Jean’s fur trading business. After 22 years, Jean and Lambert moved to France, leaving Marie Rose and her other children behind in St. Louis. Although Lambert returned some years later, her husband never did, and she became known around town as “The Widow Sale”.
In the meantime, in distant New Spain, a now adult José Julián Jaques heard about The Widow La Sale and her story. Putting the pieces together and hearing that the French Marie Rose was originally a María Rosa from New Mexico he decided to undertake the long journey across the plains to find out if this woman was his mother.
In 1802, nineteen years before the opening of the Santa Fe Trail, he undertook the dangerous 900-mile journey across the plains. Upon arriving in St. Louis, he met the widow La Sale who was indeed his mother. He not only got reacquainted with her but met his half-brothers and half-sister. While in St. Louis, José Julián made an amicable agreement with his mother to give up any claim to the family estate, which was to be left to his half-sister. In exchange for this agreement, he received a sum of two hundred pesos after which he returned to New Mexico.
Seventy years after being taken captive, María Rosa died on the 27th of July 1830 at the age of 88. If considered in absence of the accounts of being taken captive and held as such for 10 years, María Rosa would be considered a very modern woman by today’s standards. She had children from at least three different men (though in some cases most likely not of her own choosing) and of three different cultures, Spanish, French and Native American (the question remains as to whether her second child was Comanche or Pawnee). However, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, what one today might call “modern” was, in fact, the norm. She was a product of her time as it was common for widowers, male or female, to remarry. That she survived life as a cautiva, remarried, became a widow for the second time, all the while maintaining a prosperous business in St. Louis and continuing to raise her children on her own shows the strength and determination of a strong will, not only to survive, but to thrive.
The story of María Rosa’s son, José Julian, is as amazing as her own. He survived the 1760 massacre and survived the perilous journey across the plains from Ranchos de Taos to St Louis. There are no documents recording his personal sentiments or experience along the trail, nor can we know how he felt when he discovered that his mother was still alive. We can only imagine the intense emotion as the two met again after years apart. María Rosa most likely thought her son had perished in the massacre never to be seen again. Adding to the story is the interesting fact that, in 1824, twenty-two years after José Julián was reacquainted with his mother, María Rosa’s St. Louis grandson, Antoine Leroux, moved to Taos. He remained there, marrying into the Vigil family in 1833, bringing María Rosa’s legacy full circle.
Descendants of María Rosa Villalpando and her children live today around Taos, Talpa, and Cañón as well as in St. Louis. The surnames Jaques, Villalpando, and Leroux, continue the family line. The Jaques line of the family also married into the Serrano, Pacheco, and Torres families, having descendants in Ojo Caliente, Abiquiu, and San Juan. This story is but one example among many, known and unknown, that took place here in New Mexico. The heritage of cross-cultural mixing from raids, ransom, redemption and life on the trail and open plains are evident in ceremonies and traditions practiced by descendants today. In the New Mexican musical tradition songs called Inditas and Cautivas, tell the stories of the intercultural relations between Spanish, Pueblo, Plains and Athabaskan peoples.
Other descendants of mixed Spanish and Comanche heritage refer to themselves Genízaros. From the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century, many established their own communities. In Ranchos de Taos the descendants of María Rosa and other New Mexican Genízaro families practice the New Year’s Tradition of dancing Comanche dances on the Plaza of the Ranchos de Taos Church on New Year’s Day. That these traditions and communities exist today gives one much to think about concerning the many individuals in New Mexico’s past who experienced similar histories such as that of María Rosa Villalpando.
For further reading:
Adams, Eleanor B. and Fray Angélico Chávez. The Missions of New Mexico: A Description of Fray Anastasio Domínguez. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1956. Pg. 4.
Chávez, Thomas E. New Mexico Past and Future. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Pgs. 90-91.
Gragg, Josiah. Commerce on the Prairies. 1844. Reprint, edited by Max. L. Moorhead, Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974, pp 104 -105, 105n.
Tykal, Jack B. “Taos to St. Louis: The Journey of Maria Rosa Villalpando.” New Mexico Historical Review 65, 2 (1990), pp 161 – 174.