Teresita Sandoval - Pueblo, CO - Colorado Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

The plaque reads:

Teresita Sandoval was one of the daring souls that arrived at the Pueblo settlement in 1841. Like other women of that time, she would witness and be partner to changes in her country. She departed from her traditional life as the wife of Manuel Suazo and followed her heart and Mathew Kinkead to the Arkansas River, where her extended family endeavored to establish life at El Pueblo Trading Post (1842). Described as “pretty as a peach,” Teresita captivated another Englishman, Alexander Barclay, who wrote of “TS” in his journals. From his diary a glimpse of their grand undertakings emerges as does her role and contributions. Her life affirms that women moved between cultures, strengthened family and trade alliances, exercised rights under Mexican Law and ventured north for the freedom the frontier promised.

"Teresita Sandoval (1811-1894)

Teresita Sandoval was born in Taos, New Mexico in 1811. At the age of seventeen she married Manuel Suaso. The couple had four children and, in the early 1830s, the family moved to Mora, New Mexico, to settle a land grant they received. Here, in 1835, Sandoval met Mathew Kinkead, a naturalized Mexican citizen and a Kentucky native. She left her husband to live with Kinkead. The new couple moved to the Arkansas River where they formed a trading partnership with a culturally mixed community. Together this group founded El Pueblo, present day Pueblo, Colorado.

At El Pueblo, Sandoval met British trader Alexander Barclay, who eventually drew the only known portrait of Teresita. In 1844 Sandoval moved with Barclay to the Mexican side of the United States-Mexican border. After ten years with Barclay, at age forty-two, Sandoval left to live with a daughter and son-in-law. They supported her until her death in 1894, at age eighty-three.

Teresita Sandoval lived during a time of great change in the Southwest. After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, the United States took possession of the land south of the Arkansas River to the Rio Grande. Sandoval's homeland was now part of the United States, which ended Mexican laws and customs. Prior to 1848, under Mexican law, women could inherit and purchase land and livestock, share that ownership with their husbands, and establish their own businesses. Under Mexican law, women were even permitted to begin divorce proceedings. When these lands became American territory, after 1848, the new U.S. laws rescinded many of these rights, transforming the lives of the women of the borderlands." (from (visit link) )

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Group or Groups Responsible for Placement: Unknown County or City: Pueblo Date Dedicated: Unknown Check here for Web link(s) for additional information: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   06/04/2022 wanderfish visited it