Jose Celedonio Mondragón (25 February 1863 — 8 June 1923) was a jeweler, pacifist, and founding member of the Sociedad Protección Mutua de Trabajadores Unidos (SPMDTU). He was a community leader in the San Luis Valley, where he founded the SPMDTU as a mutual aid society to help preserve Hispano culture, combat wage discrimination, and provide aid for Hispano families in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.

Early Life

José Celedonio Mondragón was born on 25 February, 1863 in Conejos County, Colorado, in the San Luis Valley. He was the son of José Antonio Mondragón and María Leonora Luján. His family were Hispanos, the descendants of Mexican and Spanish settlers who had arrived in the San Luis Valley before that territory was ceded to the United States following the Mexican-American War.

As an adult, Mondragón worked as a jeweler. He lived for a while in Santa Fe, New Mexico during the late 1880s and early 1890s, before returning to Antonito to work in the San Luis Valley. For a while he was the postmaster of Cenicero, Colorado, a small community two miles north of Antonito which is now unincorporated and known as Lobatos.

Founding the SPMDTU

Settling in the Antonito area by the mid 1890s, Mondragón saw the need for unity among Hispanos living under the legal system of the United States. Following the end of the Mexican-American war in 1848, vast amounts of territory, including southern Colorado, were ceded by Mexico to the United States. While the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed full rights and citizenship for Mexican nationals living in that territory, in practice their property rights were often violated in favor of white, English-speaking settlers.

In Santa Fe, Mondragón had been a member of an earlier mutual aid society known as La Orden de Caballeros de Protección Mutua por Ley y Orden. This group was committed to nonviolent resistance against the discrimination against Hispano citizens in New Mexico, which was widespread at the time. 

After returning to the San Luis Valley, he began working with other Hispano men who shared his concerns to organize a larger group to serve the community through cooperation and mutual aid. To accomplish this, he founded the Sociedad Protección Mutua de Trabajadores Unidos, or SPMDTU, a mutual benefits fraternity dedicated to the economic and cultural support of Hispano citizens of the United States. The organization was officially established in Mondragón’s house on November 26, 1900. He also served as its first president.

Mondragón was very active in expanding the society during its early history. Under his leadership, Antonito was the first community to establish a local council, and it was soon followed by other councils in San Luis, Capulín, and Mogote. Communities across the San Luis Valley established councils of the SPMDTU in their own towns, with the Concilio Superior (high council) maintaining headquarters in Antonito. Presidents who followed Mondragón established additional councils in New Mexico and Utah, while governing the work of the society at large from the headquarters in Antonito.

Mondragón sacrificed a great deal of his time and energy to help the organization grow, which impacted his family life and was remembered by his descendants. His grandson James Perea, in an interview for La Sociedad by Dr. Jose Rivera, said, “I recall my mother talking about all the meetings he attended and the trips he made to recruit new members at a time when traveling was very difficult and expensive.”

Legacy

Mondragón passed away on 8 June, 1923 at the age of 60. He was buried in Antonito at the parish cemetery.

His legacy is influential in the San Luis Valley, where he remains well-regarded and is memorialized as “Don Celedonio Mondragón, Gran Fundador,” the great founder of the SPMDTU. The organization continued to grow in membership and influence after his death. By 1940, almost two decades after his passing, the SPMDTU had more than sixty concilios across three states and more than 3,000 members. Today, Mondragón still inspires members of the organization. In the year 2000 he was commemorated with a life-size bronze statue adjacent to the Concilio Superior building in his hometown of Antonito, Colorado.