Juana Azurduy de Padilla

Juana Azurduy de Padilla (July 12, 1780 – May 25, 1862) was a guerrilla military leader from Chuquisaca, Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (now Sucre, Bolivia). She fought for Bolivian and Argentine independence alongside her husband, Manuel Ascencio Padilla, earning the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. She was noted for her strong support for and military leadership of the indigenous people of Upper Peru. Today, she is regarded as an independence hero in both Bolivia and Argentina.

In 2015, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a statue of Azurduy replaced the one of Christopher Columbus in front of the Centro Cultural Kirchner, in order to recognize her work and efforts during the War of Independence.

Biography

Early life Juana Azurduy was born on July 12, 1780, in Chuquisaca, Upper Peru, a territory of the Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. Her mother, Doña Eulalia Bermudez, was a chola (a woman with a mestizo and an indigenous parent) from a poor family in Chuquisaca. As well as her native Spanish, she became fluent in Quechua and Aymara, the languages of the local indigenous people, The revolutionary government was forced out of Chuquisaca in 1811 by royalist troops, but across the Viceroyalty, rebels maintained control of a patchwork of republiquetas, or independent territories. In the fighting, Azurduy was captured and held prisoner in her home by Spanish soldiers, but Padilla killed her guards in a successful rescue. They attempted to block invasion of Upper Peru by the Spanish army of the Viceroyalty of Peru, but were outnumbered and eventually defeated, in the June 20 Battle of Huaqui. The hacienda properties of the Padillas were confiscated and Juana Azurduy and her sons were captured, though Padilla managed to rescue them, taking refuge in the heights of Tarabuco. On March 8, 1816, Azurduy's cavalry forces temporarily captured the Cerro Rico of Potosí, the main source of Spanish silver, also leading a charge which captured the enemy standard. When word of these victories reached General Juan Martín de Pueyrredón of the Argentine army, he formally granted her the title of Lieutenant Colonel in an August 16, 1816, ceremony.

In 1818 the Spanish temporarily took control of Chuquisaca, and she was forced to flee again with her soldiers to Northern Argentina, where she continued to fight under the command of the Argentinean General Martín Miguel de Güemes.

In her old age, Azurduy adopted an indigenous boy named Indalecio Sandi, who cared for her. The air terminal at Sucre is named Juana Azurduy de Padilla International Airport. The Azurduy Province in Bolivia is also named for her.

In 2009, President Néstor Kirchner raised her posthumously to the rank of general of the Argentine Army. The National Programme for Women's Rights and Participation of Argentina named after her. Azurduy was also the subject of a children's cartoon designed to promote knowledge of Argentine history. In spring 2014, a bas relief sculpture of Azurduy was on display as part of an outdoor exhibition of famous Latin Americans in the Pan American Union Building in Washington, D.C.

Controversy of Azurduy statue in Buenos Aires In July 2015, a 25-ton, 52-foot-high statue of Azurduy commissioned by Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with the aid of a US$1 million donation by Bolivian president Evo Morales. Azurduy was an exemplar of the forgotten or suppressed history of the nation's indigenous populations. The Argentine sculptor and activist for indigenous rights chosen for the commission, Andrés Zerneri, said the Azurduy monument provided Argentines with "a way of seeing our identity", articulating "not just a representation of our shared past, but also a call for future action." The huge statue was inaugurated in the space where a statue of Cristopher Columbus stood, donated by the Argentine Italian community for the 1910 centennial of Argentine independence. As of December 2015, months after its inauguration, it showed weather damage. With Fernández de Kirchner succeeded by conservative Mauricio Macri in the presidency and a vote by the municipal government of Buenos Aires, and due to the construction of the Paseo del Bajo highway, the Azurduy statue was moved to the Plaza del Correo, in front of the "Palacio de Correos y Telecomunicaciones", which hosts the Kirchner Cultural Centre, and Zerneri was able to repair the statue, which had been inaugurated in a rush before Kirchner left office.