Juana Azurduy de Padilla

Who was Juana Azurduy de Padilla?

Juana Azurduy Bermudez was a Latin American guerilla military leader.

She was born on July 12, 1780 or 1781 in the town of Chuquisaca, Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. She was Mestizo by ethnicity meaning she was half European and half indigenous. “Her mother married into a family of property” meaning she married into a more wealth family. Her father however was killed by Spaniards, and the killer apparently got away without any repercussions. She grew up in Chuquisaca and at the age of 12 joined a convent to become a nun. She was eventually expelled at the age of 17 because she rebelled far too often. She married Manuel Ascencio Padilla in 1805, a man who shared her love of the indigenous populations in Bolivia. She spoke the indigenous languages Quechua and Aymara.