Born: 1800, Mexico
Died: January 17, 1852
Country most active: United States
Also known as: La Tules
Doña Maria Gertrudis “Tules” Barceló was a saloon owner and master gambler in Santa Fe in the Territory of New Mexico in the 1830s-1850s. She relocated sometime after Mexican authorities fined her for operating a gambling salon for miners in the Ortiz Mountains. Barceló amassed a small fortune by capitalizing on the flow of American and Mexican traders involved with the commercial highway of the Santa Fe Trail. She became infamous in the U.S. as the Mexican “Queen of Sin” through a series of American travel writings and newspaper serials before, during, and after the Mexican-American War. These depictions, often intended to explain or justify the U.S. invasion of Mexico, presented La Tules as a madame and prostitute who symbolized the supposedly immoral nature of the local Mexican population. In addition to false assertions that she was a prostitute, many also claimed that she was having an illicit affair with New Mexico Governor Manuel Armijo. The sensational accounts were typically embellished, if not completely fabricated. Most of the American descriptions of Tules Barceló contradicted each other wildly in terms of her appearance and background. The only common agreement among them was that Barceló excelled at the card game monte, often winning vast piles of gold from the male customers in her saloon. Barceló died on January 17, 1852 in Santa Fe with a remarkable fortune of $10,000 and several houses.