María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco y Osorio Barba

María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco y Osorio Barba, known as la Güera Rodríguez ("Rodríguez the Blonde") (20 November 1778 in Mexico City – 1 November 1850 in Mexico City) was a wealthy American-born Spanish woman and a proponent of Mexican independence, today considered a heroine of independence.[1] She was a longtime friend of Agustín de Iturbide, a royal army officer who later led the movement in New Spain for independence. In the 1840s she became friends with Fanny Calderón de la Barca, whose published observations of Mexico helped fuel interest in Rodríguez's story.[2] Rodríguez married three times, with only the children of her first marriage surviving to adulthood and all marrying well. At the time her death in 1850, she was not considered a major figure of Mexican independence. She is a controversial figure in Mexican history, with her life story manipulated by her contemporaries and historians. The 1949 publication of the historical novel by Artemio de Valle Arizpe, La Güera Rodríguez, loosely based on historical facts, popularized his fictional life of her, which the public took as fact. Many aspects of his story are exaggerated or completely made up. Her legend has crystallized in the late twentieth century as an important figure of independence, who took lovers, and lived an unconventional life.[3]

For other people named Barba, see Barba (disambiguation).
Image once considered to depict Doña María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco.

Biography

The woman who came to be known as La Güera Rodríguez was born in Mexico City on 20 November, 1778 to wealthy parents, Antonio Rodríguez de Velasco (1747-1810) and María Ignacia Osorio Barba y Bello Pereyra (1751-1818). María Ignacia was the oldest of three sisters, María Josefa Rodríguez de Velasco (1779-1839) and María Vicenta (1783-1845). Through the arbitration by viceroy Juan Vicente de Güemes and the bishop, she married José Jerónimo López de Peralta de Villar Villamil at age 16 on 7 September 1794, with the martiage lasting until his death 26 January 1805. The marriage was unhappy, but the union bore the couple four children who survived to adulthood.[4] The children were María Josefa Villar Villamil Rodríguez (1795-1828), María Antonia (1797-1864); Gerónimo Mariano Villamil (1798-1861), who inherited entailed properties; Agustín Gerónimo (1800-1800), who died in infancy; María Guadalupe (1801 -1816), who was very ill for most of her short life; and María de Paz (1805-1828). After being widowed in 1805, she married Juan Ignacio Briones Fernández de Ricaño (1753-1807) on 10 February 1807; Biones died six months later on 16 August. Their daughter Victoria Briones Rodríguez was born after her father's death on 22 April 1808. She died in 1809, surviving long enough that her widowed mother inherited Briones's considerable estate. She married for a third time many years later, after raising the children from her first marriage alone. Her marriage on 5 September 1825 to Juan Manuel de Elizalde y Martinicorena was childless, but long lasting until her death 25 years later in 1850. She spent her last years dedicated to religious devotion in the Third Order of Saint Francis. On 1 November 1850 she died in Mexico City. Her widower entered the priesthood following her death.[5]

Her first husband, José Gerónimo, beat her and attempted unsuccessfully to shoot her, for which she accused him of attempted murder on 4 July 1802.[6] After the fact, José Gerónimo accused her of committing adultery with her godfather, the cleric and doctor José Mariano Beristáin y Souza, and petitioned for the intervention of the tribunal courts of New Spain and the annulment of the marriage.[6][7] The litigation between the spouses generated considerable archival documentation, which survives and was used in . The petition for divorce, that is legal separation without the breaking of the marital bond, was dropped, and the couple went on to have a daughter, whom they named María de Paz (María of Peace).

María Ignacia was known in colonial Mexican society for her beauty and quick wit. Foreign travelers referred to her as, "a sort of western Madame de Staël".[8] Guillermo Prieto, chronicler of the era, said of her, "The Güera was not only noticeable for her beauty, but also for her wit and her place in high society".[8][9] In the early 1840s, one traveler claimed that La Güera had not lost her beauty nor charm: She was "very agreeable, and a perfect living chronicle...in spite of years and of the furrows which it pleases Time to plough in the loveliest faces, La Güera retains a profusion of fair curls without one gray hair, a set of beautiful white teeth, very fine eyes, and great vivacity."[8]

Among those she counted as a friend was Prussian naturalist and explorer Baron Alexander von Humboldt.[10][11] Their friendship began when she invited him to view a nopal cactus plantation that she owned, after which they were "inseparable".[8] During those years also, it is recorded that while she participated at the unveiling of the equestrian statue of Charles IV, El Cababillito. she was accompanied by Humboldt.[12] According to Artemio de Valle Arizpe, María was dressed in courtly apparel and walked on the arm of the gentleman.

Support for independence

During her widowhood when she had autonomous control of her life, La Gũera supported the insurgent cause with her money and relationships. However, there is not strong support for her being called "Mother of the Patria", with a key role in independence.[13] She was a wealthy, widowed woman in difficult times, but was never brought before a tribunal as an insurgent for independence, so there is no judicial record of the role she may have played. It is known that she was connected to high-ranking ciollos in Mexico City, including her father, her brother-in-law the Marquis of Uluapa, and members of the Mexico City council. Following the new s that Napoleon's army had invaded Spain in 1808 and arrested the Spanish king, replacing him with his brother Joseph Napoleon, members of the city council, including her father, proposed a provisional royal government with pro-criollo viceroy José de Iturrigaray at its head, to rule in the name of the legitimate king of Spain, Ferdinand VII. Peninsular-born Spaniards in Mexico say this as a dangerous step toward home rule of New Spain and staged a coup, ousting Iturrigaray led by Gabriel de Yermo, arresting many criollos in the process. Two of La Güera's old friends were arrested in the wake of the coup. In 1809, she denounced a plot to poison viceroy Lizana, accusing a judge of the high court, don Guillermo Aguirre y Viana. The documentation is confusing, but accusation was credible enough that Aguirre was ordered to leave Mexico City briefly. The incident triggered an investigation of La Güera in March 1810 by inquisidor decano Bernardo de Prado y Obejero. Prado concluded that despite La Güerra's protestations that her denunciation was truthful that it was in retaliation for the ousting of viceroy Iturrigaray. In consequence, she was ordered to leave Mexico City for Querétaro, where she owned two houses. She was never charged or tried. Her actions showed that she was pro-criollo and paid a price for it. However, she successfully petitioned the viceroy directly in her own handwriting to return to the capital from Querétaro, due to her ill-health. During this time, she was nursing her chronically ill daughter Guadalupe.[14] While in Querétaro in March and April 1810, she was part of the pro-criollo elite resident there. She might have known Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, since her son's entailed estates included property near Father Hidalgo's parish of Dolores. When in September 1810 Hidalgo issued his Grito de Dolores that sparked the first major uprising, she might have balanced her pro-criollo outlook with that of a wealthy property owner, whose estates were endangered by insurgents. "There is no proof that La Güera played a decisive role in the first phse of the independence struggle in 1810 and 11."[15] However, there is evidence that she gave money to insurgents, perhaps as protection against damage to her estates by insurgents. It is known that her estates were occupied by insurgents and that she received visits from officers of the insurgency.[16]

She had a long standing friendship with royal army officer Agustín de Iturbide, the future emperor of Mexico after reversing his loyalties and forging an alliance with insurgents. After Iturbide's triumph in bringing about independence at the head of the Army of Three Guarantees, Iturbide, Spanish Field Marshall Francisco Novella and the incoming viceroy Juan O'Donojú met at her landed estate, Hacienda de la Patera, to negotiate the final terms of independence. Iturbide's cousin Domingo Malo was managing La Güera's property there.[17] There were rumors that La Güera and Iturbide had an illicit relationship, and they did live across the street from each other in Mexico City. But a written account by Vicente Rocafuerte, one of Iturbide's detractors, claimed in print he was having an affair with a beautiful aristocratic blond woman "full of charm and talent, bewitching, and endowed with a great genius for intrigue and mischief."[18] Rocafuerte alleges that the origin of his Plan of Iguala, uniting disgruntled royalists and rebels in the fight for independence, strongly influenced by La Güera.

Evolving legend

A key element in creating and disseminating the legend of La Güera as an important figure of Mexican independence, one of the few women to have done so, was the publication in 1949 of the novel La Güera Rodríguez. It subsequently underwent revisions and further editions. According to La Güera's biographer, historian Silvia Marina Arrom, most readers considered the text as being "true tales about an interesting historical figure."[19] His novel is loosely based on the relatively scant facts of her biography found in the archives and published sources. But in shaping her narrative for his purpose of presenting an entertaining and accessible view of the independence period for Mexicans, Valle Arizpe added elements that are pure fiction. Arrom's scholarly biography of La Güera has sought to untangle fact from fiction and place her legend and biography within the larger context of Mexican history.[20]

References
  1. Silvia Marina Arrom, La Güera Rodríguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine. Austin: University of Texas Press 2021
  2. Arrom, La Güerra Rodríguez, pp. 117, 183
  3. Arrom,La Güerra Rodríguez, pp. 134-152
  4. "María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco más conocida como la Güera Rodríguez". Magazine Historia (in European Spanish). 2017-01-18. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
  5. Arrom, La Güera Rodríguez, Appendix B. Genealogy, 195-200
  6. Arizpe, Artemio de Valle (2011-02-15). La Güera Rodríguez (in Spanish). LD Books. p. 49. ISBN 978-9707321366.
  7. Galí i Boadella, p 42.
  8. Calderón de la Barca, Frances (1843). Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in that Country. London: Chapman and Hall. pp. 71–72. la guera rodriguez.
  9. Galí i Boadella, Montserrat (2002-01-01). Historias del bello sexo : la introducción del romanticismo en México. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. p. 39. ISBN 9683696449. OCLC 56141879.
  10. Galí i Boadella p 43
  11. Thompson, Waddy (1846). Recollections of Mexico. Wiley and Putnam. p. 156. ISBN 0543851087.
  12. de Valle Arizpe, p 97
  13. Arrom, La Güera Rodríguez, p. 62
  14. Arrom, La Güerra Rodríguez 35-44
  15. Arrom, La Güerra Rodríguez, 64.
  16. Arrom, La Güerra Rodríguez, 64-66
  17. Arrom, La Güerra Rodríguez, 68-69
  18. Rocafuerte quoted in Arrom, La Güera Rodríguez, p.72
  19. Arrom, La Güera Rodríguez, p.134
  20. Arrom, La Güera Rodríguez

Further reading
  • Arrom, Silvia Marina. La Güera Rodríguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine. Oakland CA: University of California Press 2021. ISBN 9780520383425
  • Guedea, Virginia. "Rodríguez de Velasco y Osorio Barba, María Ignacia (La Güera Rodríguez), 1778-1850". Encyclopedia of Mexico, vol. 1, p. 1286. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997.
  • "Rodríguez de Velasco y Osorio Barba, María Ignacia", Enciclopedia de México, v. 12. Mexico City, 1987.
  • Romero de Terreros, Manuel, Bocetos de la vida social en Nueva España. 1944.


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