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

Taos County · NM Highway 68 -- mile marker 33.6

(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.

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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)

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