María of Agreda: Mystical Lady in Blue (review)

2OIo Book Reviews533 New Mexico during the seventeenth century, and uncovers sparse but convincing evidence of Apachean involvement during Pueblo insurrections, including the Jemez Revolt (1614), the Tacos-Picuris-Jemez Revolt (1639-40), and the Pueblo revolts (1680, 1696). Cooperation continued between Athapaskans and Puebloans after the uprising of 1680, but the broad coalition that had united them dissolved as a result of droughts, which triggered increased competition for resources, and in the momentary absence of a Spanish adversary. Carter's narrative ends rather abrupdy with the end of the seventeenth century and the Spanish recapture of New Mexico. A mere three pages bring the investigation into the first decade of the eighteenth century, and the period up to 1 750 is discussed only in an epilogue which describes all too briefly the transitions during the first half of die eighteenth century that "forever altered" the patterns of alliance, notably die growing French presence and the rise of the Comanches and horse culture. University ofTorontoJean-François Lozier Maria ofAgreda: MysticalLady in Blue. By Marilyn H. Fedewa (Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, 200g. Pp. 356. Illustrations, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780826346438, $39.95 cloth.) On occasion a scholar is asked to review a tome that not only is of high quality in terms of historical research and writing, but is also one that is a real pleasure to read. Such is the experience of this historian in critiquing Dr. Marilyn H. Fedewa's Maria ofAgreda: Mystical Lady in Blue. This book focuses on the story ofa seventeenth-century Spanish Catholic religious sister whose appearances in Texas and New Mexico seem to have come from the supernatural realm of bilocations. Maria's bilocations are of significance to the narrative of the growth of Catholicism in Texas, as her appearances resulted in the Spanish nun teaching Catholic beliefs to of thejumano people in western Texas. Some people might be skeptical about the historical plausability of Sister Maria's reported apparitions to the Jumanos, considering that she lived in a convent situated halfway between Burgos and Zaragoza in northern Spain and the Jumanos occupied land thousands of miles away across the Atlantic Ocean and the North American continent. Dr. Fedewa thoroughly researches and analyzes that probability with depth and perception, making for one of the book's main strengths. The author consulted not only several works by Maria of Agreda herself , including her classic Mystical City of God, but also studied available not only written by noted European Catholic personages, such as Saint Teresa ofÁvila and Alonso de Benavides, but other works on the Lady in Blue written by well known historians of the American Southwest such as Herbert E. Bolton, Carlos Eduardo Castañeda, Donald C. Cutter,John L. Kessell, and George Kubier. Dr. Fedewa carefully divides her study into six different parts made up of thirty chapters following the first chapter which discussed "Who is Maria of Agreda?" The six parts of the tome are entitled "A little Girl With Big Eyes," "America's Mystical Lady in Blue: 1620," "Biographer of the Heavenly Queen: 1635," "Adviser to 534Southwestern Hhtorical QuarterlyApril the Spanish King: 1643," "The Spanish Inquisition Interrogates the Lady in Blue: 1650," and "Fruits of a Mystic's Labor: 1650." At the end of the book are seven appendices treating various historical aspects of the study of Maria ofAgreda and her apparitions in Texas and New Mexico and their legacy. Beyond any doubt, this book by Dr. Fedewa is an outstanding contribution to the researching of the Catholic heritage of the American Southwest, especially that ofTexas and New Mexico. This work is one that should bring the author many accolades. Catholic Southwest: AJournal ofHistory and CulturePatrick Foley, Editor Emeritus The Wrecking of La Salle's Ship Aimable and the Trial of Claude Aigron. By Robert S. Weddle, translations by François Lagarde. (Austin: Univeristy of Texas Press, 2009. Pp. 148. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780292719408, $50.00 cloth.) With this short book, Robert Weddle demonstrates why historians must do their own primary source research. Ever since Francis Parkman's publication ?? La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West in 1 879, most historians of...