People

Possibly the first woman of European descent to cross the Santa Fe Trail, Carmel Benavidas “was as brave as beautiful”. With her elite New Mexican heritage, Carmel’s marriage to French-Canadian fur trapper Antoine Robideaux helped establish a familial and business network that extended across states, nations, and even continents.

Cathay Williams became the first African American woman to enlist in the U.S. Army; she posed as a man, enlisting under the pseudonym William Cathay.

Charles Bent, alongside his partner, Ceran St. Vrain, and younger brother, William Bent, established the Bent, St. Vrain, and Company along the Santa Fe Trail in 1833. This adobe-constructed trading post beside the Arkansas River in southeastern Colorado was the first outpost between St. Louis, MO and Santa Fe, NM in its day. Charles and William's close association with Cheyenne and Arapaho nations enabled the company to prosper as a result of the buffalo robe trade.

El milloinario (the Millionaire), Felipe Chávez was an incredibly successful businessman and entrepreneur who successfully invested in the Santa Fe Trail trade. Through diversification, international network building, and shrewd investing of his large inheritance, Chávez became one of the wealthiest people in New Mexico.

Born into world where her own father was her enslaver, Emily Fisher went on to manage a hotel at the confluence of the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails and create a highly desired health product as a free woman.

Flora Langerman Spiegelberg was a Jewish writer, activist, and educator who travelled the Santa Fe Trail to move to Santa Fe, NM in 1875. Part of a prominent Santa Fe Trail trading family, Flora was an active socialite during her time in Santa Fe.

Francisca López was the daughter of a Mexican woman and a prominent Spanish trader. She traveled east with her father from New Mexico on the Santa Fe Trail to Missouri in 1850. Educated at the Academy of the Visitation, she married into St. Louis society in 1860. She never returned to New Mexico.

Enslaved at birth, Hiram Young gained his independence and went on to be an incredibly successful wagon supplier for the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails.

Julia Archibald Holmes was raised in Kansas as a slavery abolitionist and women’s suffragist. Julia travelled the Santa Fe Trail to Colorado where she became the first recorded white woman to climb Pikes Peak. Living in Santa Fe for a short time, Julia assisted her family with disseminating anti-slavery and women’s rights messages through their family-owned newspaper.

Described as “the supreme queen of refinement and fashion,” María Gertrudis Barceló was a prominent saloon owner and professional gambler in Santa Fe in the 1830s and 1840s. Known as Madame La Tules or Doña Tules, meaning The Reeds in Spanish, Barceló was recognized for her charm and sharp business skills, which helped establish her as an influential member of high society during the heyday of the Santa Fe Trail.