Maria Gertrudis Barceló, Santa Fe’s Gambling Queen

Doña Maria Gertrudis Barceló was a professional gambler and card dealer in New Mexico in the early 19th century. But the details of her life are all over the place, depending on the source. 

Research: 

  • New Mexico History Museum. “The Gambling Queen of Santa Fe.” Press Release. 8/20/2009. https://media.newmexicoculture.org/release/91/the-gambling-queen-o
  • Dominguez, Orae. “Maria Gertrudis Barceló, Doña Tules.” New Mexico History. State Records Center and Archives. https://newmexicohistory.org/2013/10/24/maria-gertrudis-barcelo-dona-tules/
  • New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative. “Maria Gertrudis Barcelo.” https://www.nmhistoricwomen.org/location/maria-gertrudis-barcelo/ 
  • National Park Service. “La Tules, María Gertrudis Barceló.” 3/11/2021. https://www.nps.gov/people/maria-gertrudis-barcelo.htm
  • Thwaites, Reuben Gold. “Early Western Travels 1748-1846, Volume XX – Part II of Gregg’s Commerce of the Prairies, 1831-1839.” Cleveland, Ohio. The Arthur H. Clark Company. 1905.
  • Magoffin, Susan Shelby, and Stella Madeleine Drumm. “Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico : the diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847.” New Haven : Yale University Press, 1962.
  • Lecompte, Janet. “La Tules and the Americans.” Arizona and the West , Autumn, 1978, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1978). https://www.jstor.org/stable/40168728
  • Kendall, George Wilkins. “Narrative of the Texan Sante Fé Expedition.” New York : Harper and Brothers. 1846.
  • Brewerton, G. Douglass. “Incidents of Travel in New Mexico.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. April 1854. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924080772092&view=1up&seq=599&skin=2021&q1=april
  • Nogar, Anna M. et al. “Nuevomexicano Cultural Memory and the Indo-Hispana Mujerota.” Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Winter 2016). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26310186
  • Chávez, Fray Angélico. “Doña Tules, Her Fame and Her Funeral.” From “Santa Fe Nativa: A Collection of Nuevomexicano Writing.” University of New Mexico Press. 2009.
  • Cook, Mary J. Straw. “Doña Tules: Santa Fe’s Courtesan and Gambler.” University of New Mexico Press. 2007.

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