“I want to tell you about the friendship between two women, nearly two centuries ago, that’s had a very long tail in Mexican history. On February first, 1840, shortly after arriving in Mexico City, Fanny Calderón de la Barca – the Scottish wife of the new Spanish ambassador – met doña María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco…”
So begins today’s story from Dr. Silvia Marina Arrom.
For further reading:
La Guera Rodriguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine by Silvia Marina Arrom (University of California Press, 2021)
90 Second Narratives
Season 9: “Friendship”
Episode 4: “The Friendship that Introduced a Heroine of Mexican Independence to the World”
Sky Michael Johnston:
Welcome to 90 Second Narratives, the podcast that brings you “little stories with BIG historical significance.” I am your host, Sky Michael Johnston. Today, it is my pleasure to introduce our storyteller, Dr. Silvia Marina Arrom, the Jane’s Professor of Latin American Studies Emerita in the History Department at Brandies University. Dr. Arrom continues our season of stories on friendship. Listen now to her story, “The Friendship that Introduced a Heroine of Mexican Independence to the World.”
Silvia Marina Arrom:
I want to tell you about the friendship between two women, nearly two centuries ago, that’s had a very long tail in Mexican history. On February first, 1840, shortly after arriving in Mexico City, Fanny Calderón de la Barca – the Scottish wife of the new Spanish ambassador – met doña María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco, an aging socialite who was known by her nickname, La Güera, because she was very fair. So impressed was Fanny, that that very night, she wrote to a relative about her new acquaintance; and that letter was later published as part of Fanny’s marvelous travel account, Life in Mexico. The two women became fast friends, sharing lively visits, traveling with their husbands to nearby towns to celebrate religious fiestas, and passing the time with La Güera’s spicy gossip and entertaining stories. Because she was apparently quite a character. Fanny left after two years, and La Güera died a few years later.
But Fanny’s descriptions of her dear friend gave her a second life, because Life in Mexico was instrumental in La Güera’s journey from history to myth. In particular that letter of their first meeting where La Güera recounted that, when Alexander von Humboldt visited Mexico nearly forty years earlier, he had pronounced her the most beautiful woman he had met in all his travels. And she claimed to have taken him to see cochineal production on a nopal plantation, and that afterwards they were constantly together, with the great scientist captivated more by her wit than her beauty. But then Fanny added a twist that came from her own imagination: that “the grave traveler was considerably under the influence of her fascinations” and indulged in a “slight stratum of flirtation.” “So I have caught him,” she wrote, and “it is a comfort to think that ‘sometimes even the great Humboldt nods.’” Of course, La Güera had only portrayed their friendship as one of companionship and shared intellectual curiosity.
But it was Fanny’s titillating addition that captured the attention of generations of readers and served as the starting point for the myth of the irresistibly seductive Güera. Fanny’s letter has been reproduced and cited endlessly by authors who spun increasingly fantastic tales about the charming lady who supposedly had affairs not only with Humboldt, but with Simón Bolívar and the Mexican liberator Agustín de Iturbide. And as her alleged political influence grew along with her glamour, it came to be said that she was the Mother of Mexico, who gave Iturbide the compromise plan that led to independence in 1821.
In this year, when Mexico commemorates its bicentennial, La Güera is celebrated as one of a handful of independence heroines, as well as a feminist before her time who was (supposedly) as sexually liberated as she was wise. All myths that began with those few sentences written by her dear friend, Fanny Calderón de la Barca, a friendship that lives on in popular memory.
Sky Michael Johnston:
Just two weeks ago, September 27, 2021, marked the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s independence. Dr. Arrom’s research on María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco recounts both the events surrounding the monumental year, 1821, and the ways it has been remembered since. Dr. Arrom’s book, La Guera Rodriguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine, was just published last month by the University of California Press and is available in affordable Hardcover and eBook editions. The book offers a great deal to audiences of all levels of familiarity with the Mexican independence movement. You can find a link to its publisher’s page in the episode description.
Thank you for listening today. If you are enjoying 90 Second Narratives, please tell a friend about the show or write a review wherever you are joining us from. We’ll be back next Monday with a new story about friendship.