Silvia Marina Arrom - La Guera Rodriguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine

Mara Ignacia Rodrguez de Velasco y Osorio Barba (17781850). Known to history simply as La Gera Rodrguezin English, the Fair or perhaps Blonde Rodrguez. A household name in Mexico yet barely known in the rest of the world. The witty beauty who allegedly charmed Simn Bolvar, Alexander von Humboldt, and Agustn de Iturbide. Banished from Mexico City for her part in a political intrigue. Involved in messy lawsuits with her first husband and then married twice more. The topic of malicious gossip as well as admiration during her lifetime. Later remembered in historical chronicles and in the press, as well as in novels, plays, comic books, movies, an opera, and a telenovela. Her fame exploded in 2010 during the bicentennial of the Grito de Dolores that initiated Mexicos struggle for independence. That year saw revivals and reprints of earlier works as well as new representations in popular publications, radio and television programs, a corrido, blogs, and lectures and performances uploaded to YouTube. Since then she has continued to be a darling of popular culture. Yet, until now, she has not received the scholarly biography she so richly deserves.

La Gera Rodrguez has fascinated me ever since, fifty years ago, I read Life in Mexico (1843) by Fanny Caldern de la Barca, the Scottish wife of Through all these years my well-worn copies of Life in Mexico and La Gera Rodrguez had an honored place on my bookshelf. So, when I started this project, I felt that I was going back to an old friend, one of the few Mexican women who left enough of a documentary trace for a solid biography, one whose life offered a unique window into the neglected social history of her day and who broke so many rules that we have to question whether those rules existed outside of our deeply ingrained stereotypes.

Yet as I looked at what had been written about La Gera Rodrguez over the past few decades, I barely recognized her. She had gone from playing a minor role in the independence movement to becoming a major protagonist. In the twentieth century not a single statue, avenue, or school was named for herthe recognition given several other heroines. Neither was she part of the official history taught to Mexican schoolchildren and enshrined in the exhibits at the Museum of National History.

At this point I realized that her afterlife in the 170 years since her death was worth studying in its own right. As I followed her rise from relative obscurity to fame, I saw her change before my very eyes, from a Proper Aristocratic Lady, to a Naughty Patriot Finally Tamed by a Man, to a Wise Woman, to a Feminist, and, finally, to a Fully Liberated Heroine. In trying to find the real Gera Rodrguez, I discovered that much of what I thought I knew about her was mistaken. And I noticed that once a false detail appeared it was subsequently repeated as if true in later workssometimes even those written by scholars.