#54 - Juana Azurduy de Padilla

Hello everyone,

Welcome back to the podcast! I hope you loved our first episode of the season all about Jane Austen. Here is a wildly different tale from around the exact same time—a juxtaposition I’m obsessed with. Enjoy!

🎙️ Transcript

Too often in history, women’s contributions go unnoticed and ignored—whether they were out fighting wars or at home cooking so their husbands could be artists. That is, unfortunately, the case with today’s unruly figure, a brave woman and brilliant military strategist whose efforts to free her homeland from Spanish colonial rule were swept aside almost as soon as the war was done, her heroism ignored for over a century.

Hello everyone, welcome to Unruly Figures, the podcast that celebrates history’s greatest rule-breakers. I’m your host, Valorie Castellanos Clark, and today I’m covering the tale of Juana Azurduy, a military leader from Bolivia, whose incredible contributions to the fights for both Bolivian and Argentine independence are a testament to what Indigenous women can accomplish when given the space and resources to succeed.

Before we jump into this tale of warfare and revolution, I first have to thank all of the paying subscribers on Substack whose patronage helps me make this podcast possible. If you like this show and want more of it, please become a paying subscriber over on Substack! When you upgrade, you’ll get access to exclusive content, merch, and behind-the-scenes updates. When you’re ready to do that, head over to unrulyfigures.substack.com

All right, let’s hop into it.

She was born Juana Azurduy on July 12, 1780 in what is today Sucre, Bolivia, but then was called Chuquisaca, in a territory known as Upper Peru, controlled by the Spanish Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Her father, Don Matías Azurduy, was a white Spaniard, some say of Basque origin, and her mother, Doña Eulalia Bermudez, was of mixed ancestry—she had one Indigenous parent and one mestizo parent, or a parent of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry. The marriage of Don Matías and Doña Eulalia was a rare one in the strict class system of colonial rule. The couple had two other children—a boy, who had died very young, and another girl. All of their children would have been considered mestizos under Spanish rule, which was a complex position in the social hierarchy.

We don’t know too much about her early childhood, unfortunately. In fact, there are very few resources about Juana in English at all, so you’re going to hear me say “we think” and “possibly” a lot in this episode. There are a lot of competing narratives as well, especially around the children Juana had later in life. So, in any case, we’ll skip ahead to the death of her mother in 1787, when Juana was just 7 years old. The loss brought her and her father closer together, and, with no sons to teach traditionally male skills to, Don Matías began to teach his daughter to ride horses and shoot guns. Despite the staunch gender roles she would have been exposed to, which demanded that women stay inside the home, Juana became extremely skilled in both, and she began to accompany her father as he supervised the Indigenous workers who labored on their land.¹ In time, she became fluent in Quechua and Aymara, in addition to Spanish, her native language.

Tragically, Don Matías died when both Juana and her sister were still young, though it’s unclear exactly when. The two girls became the wards of his sister, Petrona Azurduy, and her husband, Francisco Días Vayo, who were entrusted to administer Don Matías’ properties until the girls came of age, married, and could eventually administer them.

In a tale that sounds like a cold family that doesn’t know how to handle a mourning preteen or teen, Juana and her aunt Petrona began clashing heads. Apparently, the girl acted out and rebelled, though from what I’ve read, it sounds like—at least initially—she just wanted to keep doing the riding and shooting and labor she’d done alongside her father, but her aunt and uncle were determined to make a proper Spanish young lady out of her. She apparently rebelled against the control of her aunt so much that she was finally sent away to live in a well-to-do convent for the education of wealthy young ladies, the Convento de Santa Teresa de Chuquisaca.

Versions of the story differ on why she was sent there. She might have just been sent there to get an education, both in terms of tutoring and manners and comportment. Some versions of the story say that she was meant to be a nun, that this was an example of forced monachization, which was still an issue at this point in the 18th century, though definitely waning as a practice. It was a way to deal with unwanted or rebellious daughters, so it’s certainly possible that her aunt sent Juana there to be forced into the religious life.

Apparently, other girls there later remembered Juana as being obsessed with Joan of Arc and hoping to someday fight on a battlefield.² I like to imagine that’s true, though I can also see the sisters not really wanting to expose her to Joan of Arc if she was already acting a little too “masculine” for everyone’s tastes.

Regardless of why she was there or what they tried to teach her, Juana was actually expelled from the convent when she was 17 years old, so in 1797 or ‘98. She returned to her father’s land at that point, rekindling her friendships with the Indigenous people who worked the land. It sounds like she may have even lived in a village with them, rather than returning the her aunt Petrona and company.

Over the next several years, she witnessed the brutality of working in the silver mines and became involved in the growing Indigenous revolutionary movement against the Spanish colonizers. Her skills in horseback riding and marksmanship must have been very valuable. In the first few years of the 19th century, a childhood friend, Manuel Ascensio de Padilla, returned to the region after apparently dropping out of the University of Saint Francis Xavier, where he was studying law.³ It’s unclear to me how well they had known each other before this moment, or even what year he returned to Chuquisaca, but we do know that in 1805 the two married.

Their marriage was very progressive by the standards of the day—Juana continued to be involved in the revolutionary movement, her husband standing by her side. The couple had five children together: two boys and three girls. But a calm family life was not meant to be.

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On May 25, 1809, a popular uprising began, led by Indigenous people and supported by the local appellate court and the faculty of the University of Saint Francis Xavier. In a day, they ousted the Spanish governor of Chuquisaca, Ramón García de León y Pizarro, and formed a junta. This one-day revolution is today called the Chuquisaca Revolution and known in Bolivia as the “First Cry of Freedom,” because it was the first major action in the Spanish American Wars of Independence.⁴

Other similar rebellions took place across the Viceroyalty, as the Spanish called their colony. It’s unclear if Juana or Manuel traveled around to aid in these rebellions or if they stayed in Chuquisaca. In some sources, he is listed as a civil and military commander from the rebellion in 1809 until 1811, when the rebel government was driven out of Chuquisaca.

In 1811, when royalist troops fought the rebel government in Chuquisaca, Juana was actually captured and held captive in her own home by Spanish soldiers. Her husband made a daring rescue though, killing her captors and freeing her so they could flee the area together. They escaped to La Laguna, another independent rebel territory. There, they joined the Army of the North under José Castelli and Antonio Balcarce, Argentine military commanders sent from newly independent Buenos Aires to lead the rebel military in Upper Peru.

It’s hard to say when Juana and Manuel caught the attention of rebellion leaders. It may have been back in 1809, or it may have been in the years leading up to the May rebellion; Manuel may have met some of them as early as his university days. By 1812, both were highly respected by the revolution’s leaders; General Manuel Belgrano—rebel leader and designer of Argentina’s flag—later gave them both awards.

Portrait of Juana Azurduy; date unknown. Source: Wikimedia.

They served under Belgrano after Castelli’s and Balcarce’s defeat on June 20, 1811 at the Battle of Huaqui. Some sources claim that Juana was captured again after this battle, this time with her sons, but Manuel once again killed their captors, and they all escaped. Once they began serving under Belgrano, Juana helped recruit thousands of people into the army, inspiring many Indigenous people and women to take up arms. The female battalions became known as the Amazons, and when Belgrano had to retreat to independent Argentina to regroup, Juana’s troops were his rear guard.

At this point, Juana Azurduy took charge of Indigenous troops that came to be known as the Loyal Battalions for their loyalty to her. Men and women fought alongside each other, armed equally and expected to fight as equals. Though we shouldn’t make too much of their arms—apparently, at the Battle of Ayohuma in November 1813, Azurduy’s troops were armed with only slingshots and wooden spears.⁵ Nevertheless, they managed to repel the Royalist troops, although the Royalist forces ultimately won the battle. Nevertheless, Belgrano was so impressed with Azurduy’s leadership that he gifted her his own sword, which was the symbol of his military power.⁶

Around this time, probably in early 1814, royalist forces captured the four children of Juana and Manuel. (Their fifth child had not been born yet.) Their two sons were killed immediately, and the two girls were used as bait to try to capture the parents. They were—naturally—enraged and, along with some help, attacked the soldiers who had kidnapped their children. They managed to rescue their daughters, but the girls died a few days later of injuries sustained during the kidnapping.⁷ After this, Manuel became increasingly violent as he fought the war against the Spanish.

Juana actively fought and led troops in over 20 battles between 1811 and 1817. She was described as “jumping from her spirited battle horse to her pack mule, sleeping with her arms at her side and wearing her boots, appearing here and disappearing there to harrass the enemy constantly.”⁸ One battle in particular has become almost synonymous with her name and efforts—the 1815 Battle at Pintatora. Juana went into labor with either her fourth or fifth child while the battle raged, so she left the field to give birth… and then returned to keep fighting. She rallied her troops and personally captured the standard of the defeated Spanish forces.⁹ This moment has become so legendary that when I searched for more information about Pintatora, this iconic moment of Juana giving birth and rallying was all I could find.

In another battle in March 1816, Juana personally led a cavalry charge that helped her forces capture both the enemy’s standard (again!) as well as the Cerro Rico of Potosí, the main source of Spanish silver. It seems like they weren’t able to hold onto it for long, but this must have been a huge moral victory.

When General Juan Martín de Pueyrredón of the Argentine army heard of these victories, he promoted Azurduy to Lieutenant Colonel on August 16, 1816.

However, tragedy struck just a month later. Juana, possibly pregnant and possibly not, was injured in a battle in the September battle over La Laguna. Manuel attempted to come to her defense, but was shot and captured by Spanish forces. Some versions of the story leave Juana out of this entirely and place Manuel at Chuquisaca instead of La Laguna. But either way, the result was the same: He was beheaded on September 14, 1816, just 41 years old.

Now a widow and either pregnant or caring for a one-year-old, Juana quickly led a counterattack to recover Manuel’s body and give him an appropriate funeral. She then fled to Northern Argentina.

There, in 1818, she was made—and this is a very long title—Commander of the Northern Army of the Revolutionary Government of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata (the region known today as Buenos Aires). She commanded 6,000 soldiers and established an independent zone along the border of Upper Peru and Argentina.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to say what happened to her after this point. Perhaps she held onto power and stayed with her soldiers along the border, defending it from royalist incursions. The repeated defeats of the rebel forces had led to guerrilla fighting that was not always centrally coordinated. They were enough of a drain on Spanish resources that Spanish forces couldn’t recapture the territories that had been freed, but nor could the rebels fully push the Spanish off the continent.

If you listened to my episode on Manuela Sáenz (or read the chapter about her in my book!), you might remember that Simón Bolívar was coming to power in South America around this same time. He believed it was his destiny to push the Spanish out of South America entirely, and so he met with leaders in Argentina and Upper Peru to unite forces and finish the revolution. In 1825, independence was declared for Upper Peru, and the region was renamed Bolivia in honor of Bolívar. The man himself, however, said to Marshal Antonio José de Sucre: “This country should not be named Bolivia in my honor, but Padilla or Azurduy, because it was them who made it free.”¹⁰

In 1825, now 45 years old, Juana Azurduy petitioned the newly independent government for help returning to Chuquisaca, now rechristened Sucre after the aforementioned Marshal and the capital city of Bolivia. She also requested that her father’s lands be returned to her—they had been confiscated by the Spanish as punishment for her rebellion—but in the many bureaucratic shuffles over the next several years, the request was ignored or denied. Moreover, some claim that she received her veteran pension until 1857, when it was revoked, while other records claim she was never able to receive it to begin with. It doesn’t seem like there was a pension for her as the widow of a military leader, either.

Juana Azurduy died on May 25, 1862, the anniversary of the 1810 rebellion that set off the war of independence. She was, by then, almost completely forgotten and impoverished, her efforts buried under the many tales of male heroism. She was 81 years old.

What became of her fifth child, the only one to survive the war, seems to be unknown. At least, I couldn’t find any English-language records of it, and Spanish-language records were too locked down for me to access. We also don’t know what became of Juana’s sister, nor her aunt and uncle, though I assume they passed some time before she did. She, like them, was largely forgotten for about a century.

Juana Azurduy Monument in San Nicolás, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sculpted by Andres Zerneri. Source.

But in the twentieth century, her reputation was rekindled and honors have finally been heaped upon her. In the 1960s, her remains were apparently moved to a mausoleum in her honor, but I couldn’t find where that would be. In 2009, President of Argentina Néstor Kirchner posthumously raised Juana to the rank of general of the Argentine Army. In 2015, an enormous statue depicting Juana charging into battle replaced a statue of Christopher Columbus in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her life was also the subject of a 2016 film by Jorge Sanjinés.

Interestingly, in 2009 Juana Azurduy’s name was linked with a voucher program in Bolivia. The government provided conditional cash transfers to pregnant women to encourage them to seek medical care for themselves and their children.¹¹ I think this is really fascinating because it accepts her role as a mother alongside her role as a military hero, which is rare for women who fight. Even when her reputation was first being reclaimed, her role as a mother was rarely acknowledged except to add to her mythos, like giving birth on the battlefield and doing a berserker moment to save her daughters. I mean, we don’t even seem to know the names of her children! So that she’s been so publicly linked with motherhood and childcare 200 years later is fascinating to me.

After over a century of neglect, she’s now rightfully seen as one of the heroes of the war for independence. Her birthday, July 12th, is remembered as the Day of Argentine-Bolivian Fellowship. Significantly, I think, in a country named after Simón Bolívar with a capital named after Marshal Antonio José de Sucre, there is now a province named after her—Azurduy Province. Today, her story is recognized as an important part of the Indigenous history of South America.

That is the story of Juana de Azurduy! If you liked this story, you will love my book, Unruly Figures: Twenty Tales of Rebels, Rulebreakers, and Revolutionaries You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of. You can let me know your thoughts about this or any other episode on Substack, TikTok and Instagram, where my username is unrulyfigures. If you’d like to get in touch, send me an email at hello@unrulyfigurespodcast.com. If you have a moment, please give this show a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts–it does help other folks discover the show.

This podcast is researched, written, and produced by me, Valorie Castellanos Clark. Our music is by Danny Wolf of Wolf & Love. If you are into supporting independent research, please share this with at least one person you know. Heck, start a group chat! Tell them they can subscribe wherever they get their podcasts, but for behind-the-scenes content, come over to unrulyfigures.substack.com.

Until next time, stay unruly.

If you liked this episode, you might like one of these episodes:

📚 Bibliography

“1809 Small Rebellions in the Andes - War and Nation: Identity and the Process of State-Building in South America (1800-1840) - Research at Kent.” War and Nation: Identity and the Process of State-Building in South America (1800-1840), n.d. Accessed October 20, 2025. https://research.kent.ac.uk/warandnation/1809-small-rebellions-in-the-andes/.

“Azurduy de Padilla, Juana (1781–1862) | Encyclopedia.Com.” Accessed October 20, 2025. https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/azurduy-de-padilla-juana-1781-1862.

Jaquette, Jane S. “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America.” Journal of Marriage and Family 35, no. 2 (1973): 344–54. https://doi.org/10.2307/350664.

“Juana Azurduy Monument in San Nicolás, Buenos Aires, Argentina - Encircle Photos.” Accessed October 20, 2025. https://www.encirclephotos.com/image/juana-azurduy-monument-in-san-nicolas-buenos-aires-argentina/.

Kirkpatrick, Frederick Alexander. A History of the Argentine Republic. Cambridge University Press, 1931. https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/FglEBgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=padilla.

Magazine, Diplomat. “Juana Azurduy, Guerrilla of the Great Homeland.” Diplomat Magazine, March 15, 2024. https://diplomatmagazine.eu/2024/03/15/juana-azurduy-guerrilla-of-the-great-homeland/.

Miseres, Vanesa. “A Double-Edged Sword: War and Motherhood in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.” Nursing Clio, September 21, 2022. https://nursingclio.org/2022/09/21/a-double-edged-sword-war-and-motherhood-in-nineteenth-century-latin-america/.

Rae, Callum. “Juana Azurduy.” The Female Soldier, September 22, 2015. https://thefemalesoldier.com/blog/tag/Bolivia.

Tyra, Allison. “Juana Azurduy de Padilla.” Infinite Women, n.d. Accessed October 20, 2025. https://www.infinite-women.com/women/juana-azurduy-de-padilla/.

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2. Wikipedia, “Juana Azurduy de Padilla”

3. Wikipedia, “Manuel Ascencio Padilla,” June 17, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manuel_Ascencio_Padilla&oldid=1229617349.

4. Wikipedia, “Chuquisaca Revolution,” January 22, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chuquisaca_Revolution&oldid=1271078842.

5. Wikipedia, “Juana Azurduy de Padilla”

6. Wikipedia, “Juana Azurduy de Padilla”

7. Wikipedia, “Manuel Ascencio Padilla”

8. Jane S. Jaquette, “Women in Revolutionary Movements in Latin America,” Journal of Marriage and Family 35, no. 2 (1973): 344–54, https://doi.org/10.2307/350664.

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10. Wikipedia, “Juana Azurduy de Padilla”

11. Vanesa Miseres, “A Double-Edged Sword: War and Motherhood in Nineteenth-Century Latin America,” Nursing Clio, September 21, 2022, https://nursingclio.org/2022/09/21/a-double-edged-sword-war-and-motherhood-in-nineteenth-century-latin-america/.