The Women of Boggsville

The Women of Boggsville
Women at a
Cultural Crossroads

		The families of Boggs, Carson and Ritc were one Half Spanish as the wives of these men were Spanish women, the writer's wife being the only woman of Anglo- Saxon blood. The wife of Prowers being a full-blood Cheyenne Indian. Quite a mixture but we all got along very pleasantly..." (Hough, n. d)
The Arkansas River Valley was an exciting and dynamic place in the 1800's. For Many years, the Arkansas River served as the international boundary between the United States and Mexico. The Santa Fe Trail marked this travel and trade corridor for people passing between Santa Fe and Missouri. Teeming with buffalo, this valley was the Southern Cheyenne's favorite camping area. later after most of the Cheyenne were driven from the area, cattle and sheep grazed on those same pastures . In the Arkansas Valley, Anglo, Spanish, and American Indian cultures came to live side by side, and as happens when different ways of life merge, women were at the center. Mothers, wives, and daughters, the women of the Arkansas Valley were also the cultural mediators and innovators.Boggsville is the type of settlement one would expect in such a melting pot. John Hough, a resident of the town for a time wrote of Boggsville," The families of Boggs, Carson and Ritc were one half Spanish as the wives of these men were Spanish women, The writer's wife being the only woman of Anglo-Saxon blood. The wife of Prowers being a full-blood Cheyenne Indian. Quite a mixture but we all got along very pleasantly..."(Hough, n.d.)

The Jaramillos of Boggsville
Boggsville is named after Thomas Oliver Boggs and his wife, Rumalda Luna Boggs. Rumalda Luna was born into an Influential Taos Family , the Jaramillos. Now in the state of New Mexico, Taos was then a northern outpost of Mexico, at that time newly independent from Spain. Although Santa Fe was the political capital of the province. Taos has always been an important trade center, and Rumalda's family was well known to traders and businesspeople along the Santa Fe Trail. Rumalda's paternal grandfather , Raphel Luna, was the head of the customs house in Taos . Her Maternal grandmother Maria Apolonia Vigil, was a member of the landowner and merchant Vigil family, her maternal grandfather,Francisco Jaramillo, was a popular merchant on the Santa Fe Trail, and her great uncle, Cornelio Vigil, was the alcalde (or mayor) of Taos. Soon after Rumalda's birth, her father died, leaving Rumalda's young mother Ignacia Jaramillo a widow. While Rumalda was still a small child, Ignacia remarried. Her new husband was Charles Bent, a trader from Missouri and on e of the Partner of Bent, St. Varian and Company, builders of Bent's Fort.

Tragedy in Taos
On January 19, 1847 an angry mob of Taos Indians and Hispanics rose up in rebellion
Soon, Rumalda had three younger siblings: Alfred, Teresina, and Estafina Bent. In 1846, after the territory of New Mexico was acquired by the United States, Charles Bent was named its first governor. But tragedy cut his political career short: On January 19, 1847 an angry mob of Taos Indians and Hispanics rose up in rebellion. They stormed Bent's home and Charles Bent was shot and scalped. His family, including the now-married Rumalda Boggs and her close friend and aunt, Josefa Jarmillo Carson (wife of Kit Carson), was apprehended as they tried to escape through a hole dug in the adobe wall of the house. Rumalda, who called her stepfather "Papa, held him as he died. Three years later, Ignaica gave birth to her fourth daughter, also named Rumalda but usually spelled Romalda. In time, three sisters--Rumalda Luna Boggs, Teresina Bent Scheurich, and Romalda Jaramillo Ritc--would live together in Boggsville.

The Vigil-St. Vrain Land Grant
While still part of Mexico, large areas of what is now Colorado and New Mexico were given as land grants to influential Mexican citizens who promised to colonize these areas, which were mostly in the territories of various Native American tribes. The Vigil St. Vrain Land Grant which covered over 4 million acres, was awarded to Cornelio Vigil and Ceran St. Vrain, a French trapper and trader from Taos. St. Vrain, a longtime friend of the Jaramillo's, was Rumalda Luna Boggs' godfather. Like Charles Bent, Cornelio Vigil was killed in the Taos uprising, and his portion of the Vigil-St. Vrain Land Grant was parceled out to his heirs. The site of the town of Boggsville is on Rumalda Boggs' 2,040 acre share of that grant.

Rumalda Luna Boggs
Rumalda Boggs was a slight woman who dressed in a style typical of married New Mexican woman, Albert W. Thompson, as early settler of Clayton, New Mexico, where Tom and Rumalda Boggs lived after they left Boggsville, called her "a dark-eyed beauty with a daintiness of face and figure she kept into her old age" (Thompson, n.d.) Rumalda gave birth to five children, three of whom lived to adulthood. She was devoted to her children and grandchildren. She wanted her daughter Minnie raised to be "an aristocrat-Spanish style" (Thompson, n.d.) Although she was not successful in seeing that Minnie always have a chaperone like the young ladies of Taos, Rumalda did raise Minnie and her siblings to be devout Catholics. When she died at seventy-five, her obituary called Rumalda one of New Mexico's most respected women ( Clayton Citizen, June 16, 1906) For a year, in 1867-68, Rumalda was joined at Boggsville by her aunt, Josefa Jaramillo Carson. Josefa, who was married to famous frontiersman Christopher "Kit" Carson, was only three years older than Rumalda. The belles of Taos when they were young, Rumalda and Josefa were companions and"intimate associates...noted for their dancing, beauty, and vivaciousness" (Thompson, n. d.) Joespha also had a claim to the Vigil-St.Vrain Land Grant, and the Carsons had been running livestock on that land for several years. Kit Carson's health was failing, and he and and Josepha moved with their six children to Boggsville to be near family and friends. Sadly, Kit and Josefa Carson's time in Boggsville was to be short-lived: only months after their arrival, Joesfa died of complications related to childbirth. Carson died a month later. Two of the Carson's children were old enough to live on their own, but the rest, including the newborn Josefita, were raised to adulthood by Tom and Rumalda Boggs.

Amache Ochinee Prowers
Amache Ochinee Prowers was born about 1846 near Bent's Fort. She was the daughter of Ochinee, or Lone Bear, a Cheyenne subchief. While in her teens, she met John Prowers, a young trader employed by Bent, St. Vrain and Company. They Married in 1861, and that same year Amache gave birth to Susan, who was to be the first of the Prowers' nine children. In 1864, an encampment of Cheyenne was massacred at Sand Creek by col. John Chivington and his soldiers. Although Amache's mother escaped, Ochinee and many other of Amache's relatives were killed. By way of atonement, the United States Government gave each survivor of those killed at the Sand Creek Massacre a 640 acre parcel of land. Amache, her mother, and the Prower's two oldest daughters were all given tracts along the Arkansas river. It was primarily on there and other Cheyenne lands that John Prowers ran his cattle.
The Victorian World into which Amache Ochinee Prowers married required many skills different form the Cheyenne world into which she was born. In the photograph here, she appears to be very much a good Victorian woman, except it seems she didn't wear a corset. The recollection of her daughter and granddaughters also paint a vivid picture of Amache: Although they discuss various ways she adapted to Anglo culture-she loved to skate and ride a bicycle-their favorite memories of Amache have to do with her Cheyenne ways; she made prickly pear pickles and gathered wild herbs and greens from the prairie, and every Christmas she made buffalo candy out of dried buffalo meat and sugar. Amache and her bust friend, Mary Bent Moore, (the daughter of William Bent and his Cheyenne wife, Owl Woman) went buffalo hunting together, and in the summer the traveling Cheyenne allowed the women to lasso colts from their band of horses and keep them until fall. Amache used culture creatively. For example, she spoke Cheyenne and Spanish fluently, and understood English, but apparently only spoke it where she choose to. When she was only in her mid-thirties, John Prowers died, and Amache remarried a local rancher named Dan Keesee. Amache died in 1905, at the age of 58, but her granddaughter, Mrs. Frank Nelson, observed, " she lived a lot of years in the years she lived" ( Nelson, 1954).

Making their mark on history
The women of Boggsville shaped the settlement in numerous ways. Most critically, it was their claims to the land that made the settlement possible. the Jaramillos, with their portions of the Vigil-St. Vrain land grant, and Amache, with her Sand Creek claims, provided the range-land that their husbands, Boggs,Ritc, Carson and Prowers, needed to run their livestock. The only woman of Boggsville who had no land in the area was Mary Prowers Hough, but her family was there because she was John Prower's sister. Boggsville is a tapestry woven but he women who lived there with the treads of family and land.
A more subtle way that Boggsville reflects its female inhabitants is through the things they left behind-the architecture and the artifacts. Both the Prowers and the Boggs houses were constructed of adobe and built on a U shape around a central courtyard. These are both features of Hacienda style, New Mexican architecture, and are still evident in the Boggs house. Additionally, the open courtyard of the Prowers house faced east. In this way it mirrored the layout of a Cheyenne encampment, greeting the rising sun each morning. Although from the front the houses of Boggsville would seem to fit in Missouri, they are in fact as much a hybrid as the settlement itself.
Their is much to learn about the day-to day lives of the women of Boggsville and ongoing archaeological investigations are giving us a peek into their world. At the Prowers house, stone tools are concrete evidence that Amache's way of life remained rooted in traditional Cheyenne culture. The site has yielded a number of manos and metates, stones used for grinding corn, an activity critical to Hispanic food preparation. As further archaeological work is conducted, we hope to understand more about the ways that the women of Boggsville shaped their world.

References: Hough, John S. n.d. Early Day Colorado Election. MSS232, FF16, Manuscript Collection, Colorado Historical Society, Denver Nelson, Mrs. Frank 1954 Interview with Mrs. Frank Nelson by Agnes W. Spring. Located in Boggs Scrapbook, Colorado Historical Society, Denver Thompson, Albert n.d. History of Minnie Boone Boggs, Manuscript in Phillip L. Petersen files, La Junta Colorado Text by Bonnie J. Clark Based on brochure by OWICZ Design Funding for the brochure was provided in part through a grant from the STATE HISTORICAL FUND, Colorado Historical Society, Denver


For more details and additional information about Boggsville and Historic Bent County, contact: Boggsville Historic Site P. O. Box 357 La Junta, CO 81050 (719) 384-8113 or Las Animas/Bent County Chamber of Commerce (719) 456-0453