Juana Azurduy was a heroine of the independence of the Alto Peru, current Bolivia. She led a group of anti-Royalist guerrillas in the east-central region of Upper Peru in the early nineteenth century.
Background
Juana Azurduy de Padilla was born in Chuquisaca in 1781. Her mother was of indigenous origin, and her father was Spanish, but she was orphaned at an early age. Azurduy spent her formative years accompanying her father on his rounds of their hacienda. Upon her father's death in 1797, she and her younger sister became the charges of relatives, who sent the unruly Juana to a convent. She was raised to be a nun. She was expelled at the age of 17 for her rebellious behaviour.
Education
Juana Azurduy de Padilla learnt how to ride, shoot, and speak various indigenous languages with skill.
Career
Azurduy organized attacks against the Spanish from the republiqueta of La Laguna. The two kept the road between Buenos Aires and Chuquisaca open for several years, providing a vital transportation corridor for independence forces. In her first major battle at Pintatora in 1815, she left the battlefield to give birth but quickly returned to capture the standard of the Spanish troops and rally the patriot forces. During a subsequent battle, she came to the aid of the general commander of the patriot forces, General Belgrano. He showed his gratitude by awarding Azurduy the full command of the legion "Macha." Azurduv's ability to "fight like a man" impressed the troops, and her valor, courage, and levelheadedness ensured their loyalty. She had organized the "Leales" battalion in 1813, commanded the "Husares" cavalry unit in 1815, and was often accompanied by a personal guard of twenty-five women, referred to as "Amazonas."
Juana Azurduy fought in more than sixteen major actions against the Spanish, including the Battles of "Pocoma," "Tarbita," "Aiquile," "Carreta," "Laguna," "Poopo," and "Presto." The fall of the republiquetas and the resurgence of Spanish forces in Upper Peru forced her to flee to the Republic of Argentina in 1818, where she continued to fight for independence in Salta under the orders of the caudillo leader Martin Guemes. With the independence of Upper Peru in 1825, she returned to Chuquisaca, newly named Sucre. Azurduy was granted a pension, but it was later revoked. At eighty-one years of age Juana Azurduy de Padilla died alone and penniless in Sucre. She was buried without military honors. While national recognition of her great contribution to Bolivia's independence came posthumously, the Indians of Tarabuco have remembered the Battle of Jumbati and their teniente coronela in a celebration called Pujjllay every 12 March since 1816.
Achievements
Personality
Juana Azurduy de Padilla was the amazon rider of the patriot guerrillas who rose in Upper Peru, after the defeat of the first Argentine expeditions. As a rider, causing the admiration of gauchos centaurs that came with these expeditions. Dressed in men’s uniform to enter battle; white mamluk style pants, a red jacket, her hair curled under a military cap with a white to blue rim, deftly handled the sword, saber and rifle and even the cannon, as they had seen her more than once.
Quotes from others about the person
"This country should not be named Bolivia in my honor, but Padilla or Azurduy, because it was them who made it free." - Antonio José de Sucre.
Connections
In 1805 Juana Azurduy married her childhood friend, Manuel Padilla. They formed a partnership that went beyond the domestic sphere, sharing experiences on and off the battlefield. While her life as a guerrilla leader was a series of successes, her personal life was a series of losses: her parents at a young age, her three sons and a daughter to malnutrition and disease in the guerrilla camps, and ultimately her husband, captured and beheaded in the Battle of "Villar" on 14 September 1816.