María Rosa Villalpando (also María Rosa Villapando, Marie Rose Vildepane, and Marie Rose Sale dit Lajoie), born c. 1738, Taos, New Mexico; died July 27, 1830, St. Louis, Missouri, was a New Mexican woman captured by the Comanche in 1760.
She was sold or traded to the Pawnee where she met and married a French trader named Jean Sale.
Villalpando's life has been cited by several authors as an example of cultural fusion among the several races and ethnic groups living on the frontier of the southwestern United States in the 18th and 19th centuries.
It is uncertain whether she was living in the Villalpando household as a daughter, a relative, or a servant who had adopted her employer's (or owner's) last name.
The estancia resembled a fortress with observation towers, a chapel with a warning bell, a supply of muskets and ammunition, and probably a corral to herd livestock inside the walls to protect them from theft.
The Comanches killed fourteen male defenders and several women and children including Maria Rosa's husband and mother.
On August 3, 1803, he signed an agreement with his mother relinquishing any claims to her estate in exchange for a payment of 200 pesos, a substantial sum of money.
Gregg's account, with many inaccuracies, said that she was the ancestor of many respectable families in St. Louis and was remembered for telling "her tale of woe.
[11] Museum director Frances Levine saw Villalpando's life as a journey from "captive to creole," which ended with her as a matron and property owner in St.