Teresa Urrea
Teresa Urrea, also known as La Santa de Cabora, was a significant figure in late 19th-century Mexico, recognized for her healing abilities and social activism. Born in 1873 as the illegitimate child of a wealthy landowner and a Tehueco Indian woman, Urrea faced early hardships, including neglect and abuse. After a traumatic experience at age sixteen, she fell into a coma and later emerged with miraculous prophetic and healing powers, which she attributed to divine intervention. Urrea became a curandera, or folk healer, and garnered a following, particularly among impoverished indigenous communities, as she preached about equality and social justice.
Her sermons inspired resistance against the oppressive government of Porfirio Díaz, earning her a reputation as a revolutionary icon. Although she advocated for nonviolence, her influence contributed to uprisings against the government, leading to her arrest and subsequent deportation to the United States. There, she continued her healing work and became a local and international celebrity until her death from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three. Urrea's legacy endures as a symbol of resistance and healing within Mexican and border culture, celebrated as a folk saint by various communities and remembered in artistic expressions and social movements.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Teresa Urrea
Mexican-born activist and social reformer
- Born: October 15, 1873
- Birthplace: Rancho de Santana, Sinaloa, Mexico
- Died: January 11, 1906
- Place of death: Clifton, Arizona
In the 1890’s, Urrea generated both a spiritual revival and political unrest among the indigenous and mestizo populations of northern Mexico by means of her charismatic personality, her healing powers, and her inspirational sermons. She has since become a celebrated folk heroine in northern Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Early Life
Teresa Urrea (tuh-RAY-suh oo-RAY-ah), born Niña García Noña María Rebecca Chávez, was the illegitimate child of Don Tomás Urrea, a wealthy landowner; her mother was Cayetana Chávez, a Tehueco Indian who worked on his ranch. Teresa Urrea was neglected and abused by the aunt who took charge of her after her mother abandoned her, but when Don Tomás relocated to the town of Cabora in 1880, the existence of Urrea was brought to his attention. He brought her into his hacienda, where she was established as a member of the Urrea family, and educated by Lauro Aguirre, a crusading journalist who shared Don Tomas’s liberal politics. An equally formative influence in Urrea’s young life was an old Indian woman, Maria Sonora, known as “La Huila,” a curandera, or healer, who combined herbs and prayer to successfully treat a variety of illnesses.
Another major turning point in Urrea’s life occurred at the age of sixteen, when she was sexually assaulted by a ranch hand. Lapsing into a coma, Urrea appeared to have died, but she revived while in her coffin and lived in a semitrance for some time afterward. After fully recovering, she demonstrated miraculous prophetic and healing powers, which she said had been given to her by God while she was in her coma, and for which she was told to refuse to accept payment. Her powers were such that she attracted poverty-stricken Indians and Mexicans from the entire area and some Americans.
Life’s Work
Working as a curandera, Urrea also demonstrated increasing sympathy for the plight of the area’s downtrodden indigenous tribes and began to preach sermons on the importance of equality, social justice, and human rights. Her fiery sermons defending the rights of local tribes against an increasingly genocidal government impressed and inspired the Yaquis, the Mayos, and especially the local Indian farmers from the village of Tomóchic, who made her their patron saint. Throughout the region Urrea came to be known as La Santa de Cabora, or the Saint of Cabora.
Throughout the first half of the 1890’s, Urrea’s sermons were thought to have inspired significant insurgency against the government of Porfirio Díaz. Although Urrea advocated nonviolence, in 1892 a group of Yaqui, Tarahumara, and Mayo Indians in Tomóchic engaged the government army with the battle cry “Viva la Santa de Cabora.” After she was repudiated as a heretic by the Catholic Church, President Diaz denounced her as “the most dangerous girl in Mexico” and arrested her as the source of the uprisings. Instead of executing her, however, in 1895 Diaz deported Urrea and her father to Nogales, Arizona. All along the train route, Indian warriors raised their weapons to honor the charismatic Urrea as she rode with her father to sanctuary in the United States.
While distancing herself from involvement in Aguirre’s plans for a revolution, Urrea did write for the newspaper he published in Texas, allowed her photograph to be sold to support the insurgency, and signed a revolutionary constitution drafted by Aguirre. Rebellion in her name continued in Mexico, and a number of her followers were massacred; many in the armed resistance wore a picture of Urrea over their hearts. Although Urrea advocated nonviolence, various tribes, calling themselves Teresitas, persisted in taking up arms against the government.
While she continued to support the insurgency, Urrea carried on her healing practice in the United States, treating the poor and the desperate, political insurrectionists from Mexico, and patients from as far away as Europe. Because the Mexican government attempted to assassinate her more than once, Urrea and her father relocated to Clifton, Arizona, where she opened a small clinic and became both a local favorite and increasingly an international celebrity. For a time, she toured the country as a near-miraculous healer and along the way bore two children. As she had predicted, Urrea died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three.
Significance
Sometimes known as the Mexican Joan of Arc, Urrea played an important part in the development of the unrest that led to the Mexican Revolution of 1910; her identity as La Santa de Cabora refers to her social activism as well as to her healing powers. In Mexico and the border states, her political and spiritual impact is such that graffiti that reads “Viva Teresita” or “Teresitia Vive” still appears. She remains an influence in communities that practice alternative medicine and is considered a folk saint among curanderas, Chicanos, Native Americans, and New Age thinkers in the U.S.-Mexico borderland culture. She continues to be commemorated in ceremonies, songs, books, and films.
Bibliography
Dyck, Reginald and Cheli Reutter, eds. Crisscrossing Borders in Literature of the American West. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Investigation of the literature of the borderlands includes discussion of two novels about Urrea, which demonstrate sacred, human, and transnational aspects of her identity.
Romo, David Dorado. Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923. El Paso, Tex.: Cinco Puntos Press, 2005. Lively study of a variety of “fronterizos” in the borderlands between Mexico and the United States during the Mexican Revolution. Includes chapter on Urrea as “the woman who stirred things up” and a chapter on Aguirre.
Ruiz, Vicki L., and Virginia Sánchez Korrol. Latina Legacies: Identity, Biography, and Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Study
of fifteen important Latinas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes chapter on Urrea as curandera and folk saint, with special attention to her social justice activism.
Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Hummingbird’s Daughter. New York: Back Bay Books, 2006. Noted Mexican American author’s brilliant, prize-winning novel about his great aunt Teresa Urrea; distinguished by its extensive research and masterful storytelling.
Vanderwood, Paul J. The Power of God Against the Guns of Government: Religious Upheaval in Mexico at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998. Includes analysis of Urrea in the context of the Tomóchic rebellion’s nexus of religious fervor and social protest.