Blanche Chloe Grant

One of the oldest Native American settlements in the United States is the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. After the Mexican War ended in 1848 there was increased interest in the Taos Indians who were now part of the new Territory under American rule. Anthropologists and historians came to the area to study and when possible to record what they heard and saw. The Taos Indians were, however, often reluctant to share information with strangers. They wanted to be able to maintain their traditional way of life. Some people that they knew and trusted were welcome to hear the stories of their history and culture. Blanche Grant, who made her home in Taos, was one of those friends they knew that would tell the true stories. She also reminded them that the written word would be a source of information for their descendants. While the language and expressions that were used by Grant might not fall well upon the ears of the present reader, her account is an important historical document and an accurate telling things as they were when she wrote this book in 1925.

This story of Taos, New Mexico covers some four centuries of history. It is the story of a village that never gave up despite periods of drought, violence from unfriendly Indians and other hazards of frontier life. At one time, Taos was even the site of a short-lived but bloody rebellion against the United States government. Grant tells this and other fascinating true stories of a settlement that was home to trappers and explorers and later to artists and writers. Among its famous and best-known citizens was the mountain man, Kit Carson.

It was a time of turbulence, turmoil and trouble that culminated in the Mexican War and the American Army occupation of what had been part of Mexico since their independence from Spain in 1821. Do a Lona is a woman of wealth and importance in New Mexico and, as the owner of a gambling hall, she becomes involved in the politics of the time. She is a loyal supporter of the Americans and helps them in the days after the conquest when there were still pockets of rebellion. She is in the right place to act as a spy for the new government. "Do a Lona" is a story based on actual history and the life of the famous gambling queen, Mar a Gertrudis Barcel , better known as Do a Tules. The characters are all part of the real life drama of the settling of the American Southwest. Do a Tules is also the subject of another book, "The Wind Leaves No Shadow" by Ruth Laughlin, also published by Sunstone Press in its Southwest Heritage Series. Blanche Chloe Grant was born in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1874 and died in Taos, New Mexico in 1948. A graduate of Vassar College, she also had studied art at the Art League in New York City and attended other art schools. She continued her successful art career in painting throughout her life but began a second career as a writer after moving to Taos in 1920. She began to research the history of Taos and the Southwest and the people who were part of that history. Grant wanted to make that history readily accessible to her contemporaries, so she wrote her books all based on the facts she had uncovered in her research into the past.