Marker memorializes Matriarch of Pajarito
Josefa Baca had vital role in village history
Almost 300 years after her death, the Matriarch of Colonial Pajarito, as she is known, is finally getting the recognition her family says she deserves.
Josefa Baca, a prolific sheep rancher who played a critical role in the founding of Pajarito, a village south of Albuquerque, is now memorialized on a roadside marker erected Sunday with support from the New Mexico Historic Women Marker Committee, the Hubbell House Alliance and Bernalillo County.
“She started this whole area called Pajarito and had a huge influence,” said Beverly Duran, co-founder of the New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative.
According to the marker, Baca was a descendant of Spanish colonists who arrived in the 1600s. She acquired the Sitio de San Ysidro de Pajarito and founded a ranch with nearly 1,000 sheep, horses, cattle and goats before her death in 1746 around age 61.
“She was a very strong, strong woman, who had lots and lots of sheep,” said Flora Sanchez, a former chair of the Hubbell House Alliance, and one of Baca’s descendants. “She managed beautifully.”
Sanchez said that Baca never married, but she had six children.
Among her descendants is Juliana Gutierrez y Chaves Hubbell, who with her husband, James Lawrence Hubbell, established an extensive ranch that supported a mercantile and post office.
Duran and two other women launched the historic women marker initiative in 2005 after realizing that of the 500 roadside markers spread across the state, not one was dedicated solely to a woman. The group is working to erect 100 signs recognizing the contributions women have made to New Mexico’s history.
Baca is the latest woman to be honored. Gutierrez y Chavez Hubbell’s own marker is close by.
Both markers are located close to the Gutierrez-Hubbell House, home to a museum and functioning farm which hosts workshops and festivities. It is located on Isleta south of Rio Bravo on the historic Camino Real.
“The initiative ensures that women’s diverse histories will be remembered and told, and will inspire and provide a guide for future generations,” according to a news release announcing the new marker. “The stories of these women are carved onto official scenic historic markers that are placed along the state’s roadways and highways in the locations where these inspiring women lived.”