The Travail of War: Women and Children in the Years After the U.S.-Mexican War
The Travail of War: Women and Children in the Years After the U.S.-Mexican War
Deena J. González
September, 1998, printed at: www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/dialogues/usmexicanwar/borderlands/d8eeng.html
By any standard or measure, Maria Gertrudes Barcelo would have been considered a success. In 1844, she appeared before Judge Tomas Ortiz to record a property deed for a house of nine rooms, plus another, smaller house, composed of porches and an entryway. The home stood not far from the central plaza in Santa Fe. Recording at the court legal ownership was not an unusual custom, not even for poorer men or women; under Spanish laws dating back to the 14th century, women were allowed to own and retain property and dowries in their family name. The same practices also allowed women to retain their family names in marriage. Barcelo’s action seems unusual only in the context that in the mid-1840s, more documents such as hers were being filed than ever before. What had happened?