The Ballad of Placida Romero

This book centers on the true story of Plâacida Romero, a nuevomexicana who was taken captive and whose husband, Domingo Gallegos, was murdered at their Cebolla Springs Ranch by an Apache war party led by Nana during their raid into south and central New Mexico Territory in 1881. This incursion, one of the last major Apache raids into the territory, took place near the end of the southwestern Indian wars. Her captors took Plâacida to Mexico, she subsequently escaped, was returned to her family, and then told her story to her relatives and community in Cubero. Plâacida's story was later written as a ballad in Spanish and set to music. Aulton E. Roland first heard about Plâacida Romero's plight when he met Arthur "Arty" Bibo in 1961. With his knowledge of the land and the Native American and Hispano people of the area, Roland helped Bibo research the events behind the story. Over time and after Bibo's death, Roland found the exact locations of the events of Nana's raid, some of them in very remote locations and in Mexico, and even chartered airplanes to aid in his search. He also corrected a number of historical misconceptions concerning the events of the bloody raid, discovering in the process that Plâacida Romero never recovered her abducted daughter, Trinidad Gallegos, although the child had grown up with the Navajo people near Prewitt only fifty miles from Cubero, where Plâacida lived, died, and is buried. The Ballad of Plâacida Romero: A Woman's Captivity & Redemption is a harrowing, deeply moving, and incisive piece of New Mexico history. It is a provocative yet uplifting account of survival and suspense on a fragile frontier in territorial New Mexico in the late nineteenth century.