Infidelity and the Presidio Captain: Adultery and Honor in the Lives of María Rosa Tato y Anza and José Antonio Vildósola, Sonora, New Spain, 1769-1783
In 1767 king carlos III of spain called for vecinos (citizens) of the colonial province of Sonora (now in northwestern Mexico) to wage war against a loose confederation of Seri warrior clans that inhabited the coastal fringes of the province.1 José Antonio Vildósola was among those who answered the king's summons, and the company of mounted troops he led into battle took the fight into the enemy's homeland. When the odds favored the invaders, the Seris retreated to hideaways, thus forcing the Spaniards to hunt them down in mountain ravines and rugged terrain that neutralized the Spaniards' effective use of cavalry.2 By the end of 1769 the war seemed [End Page 204] to be nowhere near completion, and both the Seris and Spaniards had tired of the conflict. For Vildósola, a much-needed respite from his life in the field came in December 1769, when he received an official pass to travel to his home at Banámichi and reached the settlement on Christmas Eve.3 Expecting to find a welcoming wife whom he had not seen in two years, Vildósola received instead word that his spouse was ill. She refused to see him. José accepted the somber message stoically and did not barge in on his bedridden mate. As he waited for news of his wife's condition and as the days of his hard-earned leave passed before his eyes, Vildósola could not know that the war he had left behind in the sun-baked mountains of western Sonora would soon be replaced by a terrible domestic conflict, one that would alter the course of his personal and professional life forever.
At Banámichi, María Rosa Tato y Anza, Vildósola's wife and niece of the well-known military captain Juan Bautista de Anza, paced the floor of her bedroom for six days.4 Maria's proclaimed illness was feigned, meant to conceal a secret she wished to keep from her husband. On 31 December José left his home to tend to family businesses he had established at Banámichi.5 [End Page 205] During his absence María gathered their two children and fled her home to seek refuge in the sacristy of the local mission. Upon his return José discovered his wife's absence and moved to investigate the suspicious circumstances. He learned that María had appealed to Father Antonio Jácome for help, but when Vildósola confronted the friar at his mission, the latter denied having offered sanctuary to María; it was a lie. Father Jácome ultimately confessed to harboring María but offered ambiguous and obscure reasons why she had fled her home. The padre informed Vildósola that María's situation was delicate and extremely serious but claimed he would not release her unless José swore not to cause her any physical harm. Having taken an oath to that effect, Vildósola agreed to meet with his wife's father, Manuel Esteban Tato, as well as her godfather, José Morales.6 These gentlemen explained María's condition to José and paved the way for her return to Vildósola's home. There, María confessed that she was about seven months pregnant and had decided to leave José so as to keep the news of her infidelity a secret and prevent public scandal.
Vildósola resigned himself to the facts of his wife's condition and proposed a plan by which María would return to bed and continue the pretense of her illness. José made it clear that his wife must not venture...
