More "Cowboy" History, This Time With A Religious Twist.

I do not think it is totally Sister Blandina Segale's fault that she ended up as a goofy historical footnote who will now have her own television series and who seems on her way to sainthood. Read about it at the site below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blandina_Segale

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe has opened a process to canonize Segale.

Letters that she would write to her sister back east were found and published in to a book titled "At The End Of The Santa Fe Trail"  in 1948 by the Bruce Publishing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

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In these letters Sister Blandina was bragging a bit, to say the least. But she was bragging to her sister. She never intended for her letters to be published almost a century later. But the American public, hungry for heroes and heroines and a good story ate this up. Now there are plans to make a television series about her exploits and she is well on her way to sainthood in part because of her bragging to her sister.

In the book it states up front on pages 11 and 12 "Nor did she quail when she asked Billy the Kid and his gang not to scalp Trinidad's four physicians, although Billy had come to Trinidad for the express purpose of killing these four men."

Note that there is no credible proof, nor other writings, indicating that Billy The Kid was ever in Trinidad nor any place north of Las Vegas, New Mexico nor any of his "gang" raiding on the Santa Fe Trail as this book indicates.

There are several references to Billy the Kid in her book. But we must remember that these references were in letters sent to her sister and really never meant to be published.

From the publication The American Catholic come this bit of information:

"One of the many outlaws who terrorized the area was Arthur Pond aka William LeRoy, sometimes known as Billy the Kid, and who was celebrated as the King of American Highwaymen by the “penny dreadful” novelist  Richard K. Fox who released a heavily fictionalized biography of him immediately after his death, conflating his exploits with those of the more famous Billy the Kid.  (Sister Blandina in later life confused LeRoy with William H. Bonney, the more famous Billy the Kid, who operated in New Mexico a few years later.  Sister Blandina had known the outlaw only by his nickname and didn’t realize that there were two Billy the Kids, who died within months of each other in 1881.)"

Note: There is so much of this fantasy that passes for history in the United States it is hard for the average person not to swallow this stuff..... hook, line, and sinker.

Ridiculous "Cowboy History"!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Ranch

The following paragraph, quote, comes from the Wikipedia link listed above.

"Chase Ranch Cimarron, New Mexico was founded in 1867 by Manly and Theresa Chase. As pioneers, from Wisconsin by way of Colorado, they crossed the Raton Pass in a covered wagon and establish a new home in New Mexico. Manly Chase purchased the land from Lucien Maxwell, part of the Maxwell Land Grant. The ranch is near the Ponil Creek, a mile north of the Cimarron River, not far from the Santa Fe Trail. The Ranch included the old Kit Carson homestead. Before pioneers the land near by was populated by Apaches and Ute people. Manly helped make the local Native Americans good neighbors, he provided them with beef."

Mountain Lion

This next quote comes from  pages 152, 153 and 154 of the book titled "The Chases of Cimarron" written by Ruth W. Armstrong and published by New Mexico Stockman, P.O. Box 7127 in Albuquerque, New Mexico and printed by Adobe Press in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1981. The emphasis in parentheses are mine.

"Suddenly as she (Theresa Chase) walked under a cottonwood tree a brindle-furred animal leaped on her. ( Mountain Lions are not brindle furred) With reflexes born of a lifetime of self preservation in the wilderness, (she was from Wisconsin) she turned to meet her assailant, raising her arms to defend herself. It was a wildcat, (Mountain Lion or a Bobcat) long and lean. Her hands closed around its throat. choking with a strength no one would have thought possible in this small, middle aged woman. The beast clawed and scratched viciously, ripping time and again through the flesh of her arms and face. She never relaxed her grip on his neck until he went limp, a heavy weight in her out stretched arms.  She dropped to the ground, still clutching the cats neck. Holding it to the ground with one hand, she picked up a stone with the other, and beat its head until there was no doubt it was dead. She rolled away from the cat, groaned and lost consciousness."

Bob Cat

"When she roused,  saw the bloody animal and her own bloody, torn clothing, a shudder rippled through her, but she got to her hands and knees, took hold of the wildcat by the tail. (Bobcats do not have tails) and began stumbling towards home. It wasn't far, but the last hundred yards seemed like an eternity. She was dizzy and weak, and was beginning to hurt, but she went on. There were a dozen men working in the fields and orchard, around the barn and corrals, but no one saw her, and she could not call out, Finally she got almost to the back door and fainted."

End of quotes

Needless to say the heroine survived and prospered. That my friends is the stuff of a great story, but hardly credible "history".  But this is what some would have us believe as they build written monuments to their loved ones and themselves. This is what passes as history for some around here. From one generation of "heroic pioneers" to their offspring. And we are expected to believe it!

Very Interesting Story Of Some Indians (Genizaros) In Some Spanish Households In Colonial New Mexico

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On the 27th of June of 1752 two (2) individuals, both identified as Indians married in Santa Fe, one identified as Diego de Sena and the woman as (Maria) Efigenia. These are most likely the same people identified without surnames when their daughter Maria de la Encarnacion was baptized. (See below)

Maria de la Encarnacion Sena, an Indian woman was baptized in Santa Fe on the 6th of June in 1751. She was the daughter of an Indian couple identified on her birth record simply by the name of Diego and his wife Maria (Efigenia?, see above). Their daughter is identified with the last name of  "Sena" because of her padrino Bernardo de Sena who baptized her along with Maria Guadalupe Lucero.

Bernardo de Sena was married to Polonia Casados, so we do not know, other than her name, the woman who was the madrina at the baptismal, Maria Guadalupe Lucero.  She could have been a relative or a neighbor or an acquaintance of some kind.

On December 10, 1804 when Maria de la Encarnacion was fifty three (53) she married a man known as Felis (Felis) Esquibel. Maria de la Encarnacion is noted on the marriage record as being from the "family of Lieutenant don Ygnacio Sotelo*". So by now she had left the household of her birth , Bernarddo de Sena's, household and was living in the household of the Lieutenant don Ygnacio Sotelo.

Felis and Encarnacion had two (2) sons that we know of. They were:

1) Juan Esquibel - birthdate unknown, but we know he was at least one half (1/2) Indian, Juan was a soldier stationed in Santa Fe:

2) Jose Manuel Esquibel who was born in Santa Fe the 5th of June in 1806 when Maria de la Encarnacion was fifty five (55) years old.

Anyway next we find Juan Esquibel marrying a Maria Conception Ortega on the 30th of April of 1829 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the marriage record Maria Conception is identified as the daughter of Antonio Lorenzo Ortega and Maria de la Luz Tafoya.

Maria Conception had been previously married to Miguel Martin, whom she had married at San Miguel del Bado, New Mexico on the 20th of January of 1816 where Miguel was identified as originally of "Las Gentiles Comanches" and recently baptized. So Miguel was known to be a Comanche but he had come over to the Spanish way of life and agreed to be baptized.

*Spanish lieutenant Ignacio Sotelo rescued  American Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike and his forlorn men, and sent them on to Santa Fe under fellow Lieutentant Barthome Fernandez. In 1803 Sotelo was a second lieutenant at Santa Fe. After his Pike encounter, he led a campaign in October 1807 against Apaches who'd recently attacked Zuni. The following year he reconnoitered the frontier looking for Americans. In November 1809 he led the annual caravan from Santa Fe to Chihuahua for supplies. In short, Sotelo was a competent and trustworthy Spanish soldier.

The Church In Las Tablas, NM