Concepción Argüello

Grave of Concepción Argüello

María Concepción Argüello (February 19, 1791 – December 23, 1857) was the daughter of José Darío Argüello, the Spanish governor of Alta California and Presidio Commandante.

She was born at the Presidio of San Francisco and at 15 she fell in love with Nikolai Rezanov, head of Russian expedition to Alaska. His expedition had hard times in California and his involvement with Argüello was first motivated by practical considerations since the Spanish Crown did not permit any help to Russians. But later on all practical considerations went away and Nikolai went to Russia to ask permission of the tsar for him to be able to marry Concepcion. But during his trip he fell from horseback, became sick and died. He is buried in Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.^{[citation needed]}

Argüello never learned his fate and continued to wait for him till the end of her life, rejecting all other men. Later she became a nun in Monterey, California and remained in the sisterhood until her death, afterwards moving to Benicia, California.

By other source of information, Argüello was waiting for permission of Pope to get married. She found out about the death of Nikolai Rezanov. In 1808, a year after Resanov's death of cold in Krasnoyarsk, head of Russian American Company Alexander Baranov wrote to brother of Argüello about that and freed her from the engagement,^[1] but she chose to stay celibate and became a nun.^[2]

Argüello died in 1857 and is now buried in Saint Dominic's Cemetery, Benicia, where her remains were moved from St Catherine Covent cemetery in 1894. A monument marks her grave.

In culture

• Francis Bret Harte wrote a ballad descripting her fate, where Rezanov was referred to as Count von Resanoff, the Russian, envoy of the mighty Czar.
• Novel "Concha: My Dancing Saint" by Rebecca Lawrence Lee
• Soviet rock-opera and movie "Juno and Avos" composed by Alexey Rybnikov, libretto by Andrei Voznesensky

External links

• Concepción Argüello on The California Museum's California Legacy Trails
• Mast, Sister M. Jane, S.H.F. "Concepcion Arguello in the California story : fact versus fiction." M.A. thesis, University of San Francisco, 1962.
• .p.68 portrait of Concepción Argüello
• original burial site
• 2nd burial site

References

1. ^ Istomin, Gibson & Tishkov 2005, p. 183
2. ^ "Кончита и Николай". Северная Америка. Век девятнадцатый.. Archived from the original on 2009-04-23. http://web.archive.org/web/20090423/http://america-xix.org.ru/russkie/rezanov.php. 

Bibliography

• Istomin, Alexei; Gibson, James R.; Tishkov, Valery (2005). Россия в Калифорнии: русские документы о колонии Росс и российско-калифорнийских связях 1803-1850 : в двух томах. 1. Nauka. pp. 752. ISBN 9785020089013. http://books.google.com/books?id=Vcl5AAAAMAAJ. 
• Gibson, James R. (2010). Russian America: Company Sources on a Company Colony. International Conference on Russian America. http://www.2010rac.com/papers/GibsonRAC.pdf. 
• "Records Of The Russian-American Company, 1802-1867". Atlanta: National Archives. Microfilm Number M-11. http://www.archives.gov/southeast/finding-aids/microfilm/other.html. 

Persondata
Name	Arguello, Concepcion
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	February 19, 1791
Place of birth
Date of death	December 23, 1857
Place of death