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María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco y Osorio Barba
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco y Osorio Barba, known as la Güera Rodríguez ("Rodríguez the Blonde") (20 November 1778 in Mexico City – 1 November 1850 in Mexico City) was a wealthy American-born Spanish woman and a proponent of Mexican independence, today considered a heroine of independence.[2] She was a longtime friend of Agustín de Iturbide, a royal army officer who later led the movement in New Spain for independence. In the 1840s she became friends with Fanny Calderón de la Barca, whose published observations of Mexico helped fuel interest in Rodríguez's story.[3]
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Rodríguez married three times, with only the children of her first marriage surviving to adulthood and all marrying well. At the time her death in 1850, she was not considered a major figure of Mexican independence. She is a controversial figure in Mexican history, with her life story manipulated by her contemporaries and historians. The 1949 publication of the historical novel by Artemio de Valle Arizpe, La Güera Rodríguez, loosely based on historical facts, popularized a fictional version of her life, which the public took as fact. Many aspects of this story are exaggerated or completely made up. Her legend has crystallized in the late twentieth century as an important figure of independence, who took lovers, and lived an unconventional life.[4]