Maria Josefa Jaramillo Carson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 19, 1828 |
| Died | April 27, 1868 (aged 40) |
| Spouse | Christopher "Kit" Carson |
Maria Josefa Jaramillo Carson (March 19, 1828 - April 27, 1868) was the third wife of frontiersman Kit Carson. [1]
Maria Josefa Jaramillo Carson | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | March 19, 1828 |
| Died | April 27, 1868 (aged 40) |
| Spouse | Christopher "Kit" Carson |
Maria Josefa Jaramillo Carson (March 19, 1828 - April 27, 1868) was the third wife of frontiersman Kit Carson. [1]
Maria Josefa Jaramillo was born on March 19, 1828, at Santa Cruz de la Cañada, in the Rio Grande Valley near Taos. [2] Her father was Francisco Jaramillo, a respected merchant, and her mother was Maria Apolonia Vigil. Both the Jaramillo and Vigil families were prominent in the Taos area. They owned land in the Rio Grande Valley, [1] and moved to Taos when she was an infant. Her ancestors had migrated from Mexico City and Zacatecas to New Mexico during the Spanish reconquest in the 1690s. [2]
Jaramillo met Carson in 1842 when she was 14 years old. They were introduced by Governor Charles Bent, who married Jaramillo's sister, Maria Ignacia. [1] Jaramillo's father had reservations about Carson, who was illiterate and not a Catholic. Carson converted to Catholicism and was baptized on January 28, 1843. [3]
Jaramillo married Kit Carson on February 6, 1843, in Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Governor Bent and Maria Ignacia hosted their wedding celebrations. [1] Jaramillo was known for her hospitality and care of neighbors. [4]
Carson called Jaramillo "Chipeta/Little Singing Bird" as a nickname. Carson left shortly after their wedding to continue US territorial expansion. Jaramillo spent 13 months alone without her husband. [1] She maintained their cabin on the Little Cimmaron River alone. [3] They only spent a brief period together, from 1854 to 1861, when Carson worked as an Indian agent in Taos. [4]
In 1847, while Carson was away, the Taos people revolted against the military and civil government. Rebels broke into the home where the family was staying and assassinated Bent and Jaramillo's brother. [5] Ignacia, Jaramillo, and the family escaped and stayed hidden until the rebellion was quelled. The adults were later eyewitnesses in the trials that followed. Carson and Jaramillo became the guardians of her brother's children. [4] The family left Taos and moved to Rayado. [5]
The couple had six biological children together: [1] Charles Bent Carson (1849-1851), William Carson (b.1852), Teresina (b. 1854) Cristoval Charles (b. 1858), Rebecca (b. 1864), and Estefana Stella (b. 1868). Additionally, they "adopted" three Native American orphans. [3]
When the Civil War broke out, Carson joined the Union army. When he learned that Confederate soldiers were advancing on Taos, he notified Jaramillo, who fled with the family. She hid any money and valuables they had on one of the adopted Native American children. They met a group of Ute peoples who had a Diné boy in tow. The travelers said the boy was troublesome and they would kill him. Jaramillo traded one of their horses for the child, and they adopted him. [3] According to scholar Johnson, "Tales like these were consistent with the apologetics of captivity in New Mexico, where claims of rescue and kinship obscured the coercion of slavery". [2]
In 1865, Carson became Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Colorado Territory, and the family moved to Boggsville, Colorado. [1]
Maria Josefa Jaramillo Carson died on April 27, 1868, at age 40, [4] due to complications from childbirth. Carson died shortly after, and the couple were buried together. They now rest in the Kit Carson Park cemetery in Taos. [1]
Her descendants still speak of her with reverence for her perseverance despite her husband's absences and her strong familial connections and support. [2]
One of her descendants is historian librarian Charlene Garcia Simms.
Christopher Houston Carson was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and news articles; exaggerated versions of his exploits were the subject of dime novels. His understated nature belied confirmed reports of his fearlessness, combat skills, tenacity, as well as profound effect on the westward expansion of the United States. Although he was famous for much of his life, historians in later years have written that Kit Carson did not like, want, or even fully understand the fame that he experienced during his life.
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Charles Bent was an American businessman and politician who served as the first civilian United States governor of the New Mexico Territory, newly invaded and occupied by the United States during the Mexican-American War by the Military Governor, Stephen Watts Kearny, in September 1846.
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Antonio José Martínez was a New Mexican priest, educator, publisher, rancher, farmer, community leader, and politician. He lived through and influenced three distinct periods of New Mexico's history: the Spanish period, the Mexican period, and the American occupation and subsequent territorial period. Martínez appears as a character in Willa Cather's novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop.
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The Kit Carson House is a historic house museum at 113 Kit Carson Road in central Taos, New Mexico. Built in 1825, it was from 1843 until his death the home of frontiersman Kit Carson (1809-1868). A good example of Spanish Colonial architecture, it is now owned by the local Masonic fraternity, and serves as a museum dedicated to Carson's life. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963.
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