So far as I know, the first mention of the legend of the “Blue Lady” is
in the Memorial of Fray Alonso de Benavides, 1630. Benavides was
(1621–1629) Father Custodian of the province of New Mexico, and his
Memorial was written to present Philip IV of Spain an account of the
“treasures spiritual and temporal” which that remote province
contained. In the course of this highly entertaining document Benavides
recounts at length, and with pious zeal, the miraculous conversion of
the Jumano tribe of Indians. Benavides was at that time (probably 1629)
somewhere in the upper Rio Grande valley. In this region, he states,
the Jumano Indians had been demanding missionaries for “years back.”
Finally he granted the missionaries.
“And before they went,” to quote the document literally, “[we]
asked the Indians to tell us the reason why they were with so much
concern petitioning us for baptism, and for Religious to go and
indoctrinate them. They replied that a woman like that one whom we
had there painted—which was a picture of the Mother Luisa de
Carrion—used to preach to each one of them in their own tongue,
telling them that they should come and summon the Fathers to
instruct and baptize them, and that they should not be slothful
about it. And that the woman who preached was dressed precisely
like her who was painted there; but that the face was not like that
one, but that she [their visitant] was young and beautiful. And
always whenever Indians came newly from those nations, looking upon
the picture and comparing it among themselves, they said that the
clothing was the same but the face was not, because the face of the
woman who preached to them was that of a young and beautiful girl.”
[96]
Another early reference to this mysterious lady appears in a letter of
Fray Damian Manzanet to Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Gongora, 1690. In it
the writer goes on to say as follows:
“At that time I was living in the Mission Caldera, in the province
of Coahuila, whither I had gone with the intention of seeing
whether I could make investigations and obtain information about
the country to the north and northeast, on account of facts
gathered from a letter now in my possession, which had been given
in Madrid to the Father Antonio Linaz. This letter treats of what
the blessed Mother Maria de Jesus de Agreda made known to the
Father Custodian of New Mexico, Fray Alonso de Benavides. And the
blessed Mother tells of having been frequently to New Mexico and to
the Gran Quivira, adding that eastward from the Gran Quivira are
the kingdoms of the Ticlas, Theas, and Caburcol. She also says that
these are not exactly the names belonging to these kingdoms, but
come close to the real names. Because of this information brought
by me from Spain, together with the fact of my call to the ministry
for the conversion of the heathen, I had come over and dwelt in the
missions of Coahuila.” [97]
And in the same letter a little further on Manzanet recounts this
incident:
“For lack of more time I shall only add what is the most noteworthy
of all, namely this: While we were at the Tejas Hasinai village,
after we had distributed clothing to the Indians and to the
governor of the Tejas, that governor asked me for a piece of blue
baize in which to bury his mother when she died; I told him that
cloth would be more suitable, and he answered that he did not want
any other color than blue. I then asked him what mysterious reason
he had for preferring the blue color, and in reply he said they
were very fond of that color, particularly for burial clothes,
because in times past they had been visited frequently by a
beautiful woman, who used to come down from the hills, dressed in
blue garments, and that they wished to do as that woman had done.
On my asking whether that had been long since, the governor said
that it had been before his time, but his mother, who was aged, had
seen that woman, as had also other old people. From this it is
easily to be seen that they referred to the Madre Maria de Jesus de
Agreda, who was frequently in those regions, as she herself
acknowledged to the Father Custodian of New Mexico, her last visit
being in 1631, the last fact being evident from her own statement,
made to the Father Custodian of New Mexico.” [98]
It appears, therefore, that after the publication of his Memorial in
1630, Benavides visited Maria de Jesus de Agreda. She was already
famous because of the publication of her La Mistica de Dios Historia
Divina de la Virgin, Madre de Dios in 1627, [99] in which she recounts,
among other preposterous things, what happened to the Virgin while she
was in the womb. The mind of this woman, therefore, filled with the
most extravagant fancies, was fertile for the story of Benavides. She
immediately assumed the identity of the unknown female missionary; and,
in the course of the visit, which lasted probably two weeks, elaborated
fully the exact method of the holy visitations. Benavides with his
charming medieval mind readily accepted her story. Because of the
prominence of the two, and because of the universal interest in the New
World, it obtained rapid and wide circulation and credence.
The story must have reached America quickly. Manzanet, in the above
quotations, speaks of it as being in general circulation thirty years
later. That it spread is also indicated by the fact that De Leon in a
letter, May, 1689, accounts for the religious knowledge of the Texas
(or Tejas) Indians through the ministration of a woman. The following
extract from his letter reveals the fact that he was not so well
acquainted with the Benavides account as Manzanet had been:
“They [the Texas] are very familiar with the fact that there is
only one true God, that he is in Heaven, and that he was born of
the Holy Virgin. They perform many Christian rites, and the Indian
Governor asked me for missionaries to instruct them, saying that
many years ago a woman went inland to instruct them, but that she
has not been there for a long time; and certainly it is a pity that
people so rational, who plant crops and know there is a God, should
have no one to teach them the Gospel, especially when the province
of Texas is so large and so fertile and has so fine a climate.”
[100]
And Shea asserts that “the Franciscan writers all from this time [when
Benavides published his account] speak of this marvelous conversion of
the Xumanos by her instrumentality as a settled fact.” [101] The legend
must have had wide acceptance in the Southwest in the last half of the
seventeenth century. Among the important historians who take account of
it are Bolton, Chapman, and Hodge. Bolton calls the story a “classic in
the lore of the Southwest”; [102] Chapman refers to Maria Agreda as
“the celebrated ‘Blue Lady’ of the American Southwest”; [103] and Hodge
as editor of the translation of the Benavides Memorial gives a full
account of the story in his excellent notes. [104]
So far as I know, the identity of the Blue Lady has been accounted for
by no one except Benavides. What is the real basis of the story? Could
there actually have been a female missionary who labored in the wilds
of New Mexico and Texas before the coming of the Fathers? Or was there
some young priest whom zeal led into that romantic region ahead of the
most daring, and whom the natives mistook for a beautiful woman because
of his youthful face and priestly robes? I wish I could answer.