CHAPTER ONE
Valle del RĂo Bavie, Sonora
Fruit and young girls ripen early in the sultry Bavispe Valley of east-central Sonora. The narrow but fertile valley parallels the western flank of the Sierra Madre Occidental, separating the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. Gertrudis BarcelĂł, New Mexicoâs celebrated gambler and courtesan of the 1830s and 1840s, was born around 1800 in this remote area. She achieved fame by the name of âTules,â said to be the diminutive of Gertrudis, a name that means fiel a su hogar, âfaithful to her home.â1 She was also known by many other namesââTula,â âTulas,â âTĂa Barcelona,â âLona Barcelona,â âLa Barcelona,â âMadam Barcelo,â âSeñora Toulouse,â âDoña Lona,â âDoña Julia,â âMadam T,â and to many, âLa Tules.â2
The origin of the name Tules, suggesting the curvaceousness of her figure, is from the word tules meaning âreeds.â Tules with a âlaâ placed before it designates perhaps the one and only, with inference of a slanderous overtone. The nickname may have originated before her arrival in New Mexico in 1815. Coincidentally, tules, or carrizo agugueado, grows in the marshes near the villages of HuĂĄsabas and Granados in the lower RĂo Bavispe of Sonora, where the BarcelĂłs live today. It is, therefore, possible that the young and intelligent Gertrudis BarcelĂł first acquired her titillating nickname from the bulrushes surrounding her birthplace.
Whatever the case, Gertrudis BarcelĂł surely discovered early in life her extraordinary perception of and power over the male psyche. Manipulation of men became but one of her many achievements, and to the end of her life she was a genius at the art.3 Such a talent appears to be the result of astute, native intelligence. It played a significant role in her capacity to read the body language and gambling habits of her often fidgety and sweaty opponents.
FIGURE 1.
âLady Tules,â
Harperâs Monthly Magazine, April 1854. Museum of New Mexico neg. no. 50815.
FIGURE 2.
Bavispe River near HuĂĄsabas, Sonora, Mexico, 1986. Photo by author.
Because of apparent chronological discrepancies in Sonoran church records for the late 1700s and early 1800s, Catholic church baptismal records for Gertrudis BarcelĂł or that of her family have not been found.4 On the 1870 U.S. Census for Valencia County, New Mexico, MarĂa de la Luz, younger sister of Gertrudis, gave Sonora as her place of birth. To further help corroborate Sonora as the birthplace of Gertrudis BarcelĂł, her older brother JosĂ© Trinidad returned to the village of HuĂĄsabas following her death in early 1852. In a letter dated 1853 addressed to a Victor Baca in New Mexico, Trinidad BarcelĂł left a significant clue with his return address as Huasavas [sic].5 BarcelĂłs of today remain in the villages of Moctezuma (Oposura), HuĂĄsabas, and Granados.6 They trace their heritage to Antonio BarcelĂł (1717â97), a Spanish marine who participated in the siege of Gibraltar in 1779.7
On the northern frontier of New Spain, HuĂĄsabas and neighboring Granados lacked the protection of presidio soldiers from Janos or Fronteras. The villages endured incessant raids by nomadic Indian tribesâthe Apache, Jano, Jocome, and Suma from the north, and the Seri and occasionally the Pima Alto from the west. These warriors of the desierto plundered Sonoran mines, ranches, missions, crops, women, and children. Apache Indians from the upper Gila River basin of southern New Mexico, called Gileños, entered Sonora and escaped with impunity through the PĂșlpito and Carretas passes to the north. Two centuries of unbridled terror under unstable Spanish rule began in the seventeenth century. The capture of GerĂłnimo and his tribe in southern New Mexico in 1886 ultimately subdued the wily Apaches.8
Between 1790 and 1831 a fragile truce brought peace between the Spanish and the Apaches living in Sonora. The reorganization of defense began in 1765, initiated by the visitor general to New Spain, José de Gålvez, and in 1786 by the Instrucción of viceroy Bernardo de Gålvez. Retaliatory expeditions by soldiers against the Indians resulted in a temporary reprieve. Trade alliances with the nomadic tribes plus enticements of food, horses, and liquor encouraged their settlement near the presidios. When the Mexican government stopped the subsistence for lack of funds, Indian dependency ceased and warfare resumed for the remainder of the nineteenth century.9
Rugged mountains cut off the narrow north-to-south river valleys such as the Bavispe from all but the Pacific coast. These fertile valleys were the main suppliers of food for colonial Sonora. Todayâs inhabitants of the lower RĂo Bavispe, once termed the breadbasket of Sonora, continue to live for the most part in that colonial past, traditionally cultivating two crops annually. Late summer monsoons or tropical storms occasionally cause valley flooding. During the winter months, lighter equipatas, or frontal storms, arrive from the Pacific Ocean to the west. Western Sonorans call these subhurricane storms arriving near the feast of St. Francis on October 4, El Cordonazo de San Francisco, the lash of St. Francis.10
Indian warfare coupled with the washboard terrain and the geoeconomic isolation of eastern Sonora inevitably shaped the character of its people. Women of La Serrana, the Highland, possessed a fundamental trait from a very early ageâsurvival. Later events in the life of a mature Tules BarcelĂł reveal an intelligent and courageous woman endeavoring to survive in a Spanish, Mexican, and American manâs world in any manner possible, including prostitution. To a young and precocious Tules BarcelĂł in remote Sonora, choices in her early life were fewâfamily, home, and anonymity as opposed to wealth and fame. Instinctively and against great odds, she pursued the path that ultimately imprinted her name in the pages of Southwest history.
The Scottish-born, American wife of Spainâs first envoy to an independent Mexico in 1839, Fanny CalderĂłn de la Barca, observed how Mexican women occupied their time: â[T]hey do not read, they do not write, they do not go into society. For the most part they do not play, they do not draw . . . nor do they ride on horseback. What they do not do is clear, but what do they do?â11 What Gertrudis must have concluded was that the pobres gambled to amuse themselves. It was a national obsession beginning in childhood.
Interrelated prominent families exercised regional control throughout the state of Sonora, resulting in a distinguished colonial society. Founders of these families, immigrants from northern and eastern Spain, came to Sonora at the end of the colonial period. These immigrants called themselves ânotables,â dominating the small villages in which they lived. Many made fortunes on the Mexican frontier and owned large estates, but apparently not the BarcelĂłs, or they would have continued living in Sonora.12
The date and reason why the Juan Ignacio BarcelĂł family first settled in the Bavispe Valley remains unknown. The CatalĂĄn father of Gertrudis, Juan Ignacio, perhaps arrived in Sonora with the CompañĂa Franca de Voluntarios de Cataluña in 1767. Organized from ranks of the Segundo Regimiento de InfanterĂa Ligera de Cataluña stationed in Barcelona, Spain, the one hundred men and four officers originally destined for Havana, Cuba, were instead sent to New Spain. The Volunteers joined the Sonoran Expedition commanded by Domingo Elizondo. Their mission included not only warfare against the Indians and the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 but also the colonization of Sonora. Yet the name of Juan Ignacio BarcelĂł fails to appear on the list of men in the Elizondo Expedition.13
Another conjecture to be considered is that perhaps members of the BarcelĂł family migrated earlier from the east, over the Sierra Madre from Chihuahua. The BarcelĂł name survives today in the remote mining areas of Moris and ChĂnipas, west of Chihuahua City. During the early decades of the seventeenth century, Chihuahuan miners crossed over the Sierras into eastern Sonora seeking silver and gold deposits. Many remained to farm and raise families. Hindered by heavy seasonal rains and the flooding of mine shafts, miners soon found mining anything but a year-round activity. They then focused their daily efforts on farming and stockraising. On his arrival in New Mexico, the older brother of Tules BarcelĂł, Trinidad, possessed prior knowledge of these professions plus the advantage of an education.14
In 1645 Franciscan father Marcos del RĂo founded the village of HuĂĄsabas. He named the new mission La MisiĂłn de San Francisco Javier de GuĂĄsabas.15 To the OpatĂĄ Indians already living in the Bavispe Valley, the name of GuĂĄsabas in their native tongue meant âwhere there are many frogs.â16 On his arrival Fray Marcos found not only indigenous Indians, but also members of the Mexican-Italian Moreno family. Other names in the early history of HuĂĄsabas include Juan de Mella y HernĂĄndez, born in Galicia, Spain; Don Luis Gonzaga Leyba, a Yaqui Indian; Dons Guillermo Fimbres and Francisco Xavier Fimbres, Basques from Spain; and the Durazo family of Italian origin. Once again, the BarcelĂł name escapes mention before the 1800s in the Bavispe Valley. The Moreno family history briefly records the marriage of Venancio Durazo Moreno to a Teresa BarcelĂł Durazo, but with no reference to her parents.17
During the 1760s the BarcelĂł name appeared in Arizpe, a presidio to the northwest of HuĂĄsabas. In 1776 Arizpe was the capital of New Mexico, on the far northern rim of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Don Juan Bautista de Anza (1735â88) of Arizpe, Sonora, was New Mexicoâs governor. A MarĂa ConcepciĂłn BarcelĂł was the mother of MarĂa del Pilar LeĂłn who married Josef JoaquĂn Moraga, alferez, or second lieutenant, of Anzaâs expedition to the coast of California in 1776. It was on this expedition that Anza founded San Francisco Presidio, MisiĂłn Dolores, MisiĂłn Santa Clara, and the pueblo of San JosĂ© de Guadalupe. MarĂa del Pilar LeĂłn and Josef JoaquĂn Moraga are buried at MisiĂłn Dolores in San Francisco.18
While the year of arrival of the BarcelĂłs in the Bavispe Valley presently eludes discovery, mission settlements of early Sonora represented one of greatest successes for the Jesuit order in the New World. The Jesuits, until their expulsion in 1767, remained the religious guardians of Sonorans. The village of HuĂĄsabas became the mission of one of the better-known Jesuits, Father Juan Nentvig, author of the Rudo Ensayo, an essay describing Sonora and Arizona in 1764. Regarding the name of Sonora, Nentvig wrote:
Although I know nothing of the etymology or origin of the name Sonora, I do not believe I am deceiving myself in being inclined to think it may have been suggested by her great wealth, the news of which swept sonorously across New Spain and into Europe. Perhaps the name might have been given accidentally as has ...