Juana Ramírez (1790–1856), better known as Juana "La Avanzadora", was a

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

and heroine of the

Venezuelan War of Independence The Venezuelan War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de Venezuela, links=no, 1810–1823) was one of the Spanish American wars of independence of the early nineteenth century, when independence movements in Latin America fought agai ...

Biography

An Afro-Venezuelan, Ramirez was born into slavery. In 1813, Ramírez commanded an all-female, 100-strong artillery unit, which was instrumental in resisting

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

soldiers' attempts to reconquer the then newly independent

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

and make it a

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

again. Her sobriquet, "La Avanzadora", came from her being the first one to advance.

Legacy

A monument, constructed and declared the District Patriotic Sanctuary in 1975, and then the Regional Patriotic Sanctuary in 1994, designates the final resting place of her remains. The monument, Juana La Avanzadora, was erected in her honor on Bolívar avenue in

Maturín Maturín () is a city in Venezuela, the capital of the Venezuelan state of Monagas and a centre for instrumental exploration and development of the petroleum industry in Venezuela. The metropolitan area of Maturín has a population of 401,384 inha ...

. On October 23, 2001 the symbolic remains of Juana Ramírez were inducted into the

National Pantheon of Venezuela The National Pantheon of Venezuela (''Panteón Nacional de Venezuela'') is a final resting place for national heroes. The Pantheon (Latin ''Pantheon'', from Greek ''Pantheon,'' meaning " Temple of all the Gods") was created in the 1870s on th ...

, the last resting place of heroes of the War for Independence and important figures in Venezuelan society. In 2015 she became the first black woman to be posthumously laid to rest in

's National Mausoleum of Heroes.

References

* https://www.ivenezuela.travel/juana-ramirez-la-avanzadora-biografia/ Women in the Venezuelan War of Independence Venezuelan female military personnel 1790 births Women slaves 1856 deaths Women in 19th-century warfare 18th-century slaves 19th-century slaves {{Venezuela-bio-stub