← All New Mexico markers

Captive Women and Children of Taos County and María Rosa Villapando (ca. 1725–1830)

Captive Women and Children of Taos County and María Rosa Villapando (ca. 1725–1830) is a New Mexico historical marker in Taos County.

NM Highway 68 -- mile marker 33.6

Get directions ↗Start a road trip Historical trails

(SIDE 1) In August 1760, around sixty women and children were taken captive in a Comanche raid on Ranchos de Taos. That raid is an example of the danger of living on New Mexico’s frontier during the 17th and 18th centuries, for Hispanic and Indigenous communities alike, raided each other and suffered enormous consequences. Thousands of women and children were taken captive. Most were never returned. (SIDE 2) One known captive of this raid, María Rosa Villapando was traded to the Pawnees and, after ten years, was ransomed by her future husband, a French trader from St. Louis. She was reunited with her New Mexican son, Joseph Julian Jaques in 1802. Her grandson, Antoine Leroux, returned to Taos and married into the Vigil family, making her the ancestral matriarch of several prominent Taos families.

The Historic Preservation Division notes that its marker spreadsheet may be out of date and in places inaccurate, and that it does not know where every marker now stands. These pages carry the spreadsheet’s record; a marker listed here may have moved or may no longer stand. the program’s page ↗

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection

Historical maps covering this location

1882 · 69. Parts Of Southern Colorado And Northern New Mexico. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1889 · New Mexico. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1925 · Arizona, New Mexico (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1927 · State of New Mexico. General Land Office. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1964 · Taos SW, New Mexico (USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection)

New Mexico, 1889, covering the location of Captive Women and Children of Taos County and María Rosa Villapando (ca. 1725–1830), with a pin at the marker's coordinates — New Mexico, 1889, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

Example

For example, one family's tree showed the Articles of Confederation marker in Pennsylvania standing under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s.

What that marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years there.

From one family's 77-marker roster

Upload your family tree and TreeAlive finds the markers near where your own ancestors lived.

See your family's markers

Start with a tree file, a FamilySearch sign in, or a WikiTree ID.

Report a problem with this page

The marker isn't at this spotOur pin may be off. If you know where it stands, tell us.I couldn't find the markerWe record what the source recorded. We have not been to look.The sign reads differentlyThat would be an error, and we can pass it to the program.The historical map looks wrongThe period map behind the pin, not the marker itself.Something else

We may pass what you report to the state's marker program. Please don't include personal details.

Marker data: Official Scenic Historic Markers program, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, Department of Cultural AffairsMarker texts come from the Division’s published marker spreadsheet, reproduced with the Division’s written permission. Where that spreadsheet records a coordinate, the pin is the Division’s own; where it records only a highway and mile marker, an address, a junction or a named place, or where its coordinate contradicts its own highway, mile and county, the pin is ours, resolved on public road and place data and marked approximate.

Captive Women and Children of Taos County and María Rosa Villapando (ca. 1725–1830)

Historical maps covering this location

More markers nearby