Rosa de Montúfar y Larrea-Zurbano (1783 - 12 November 1860) was a noblewoman and aristocrat from

Quito Quito (; ), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, P ...

, the daughter of Juan Pío Montúfar and a prominent hero of the

Ecuadorian War of Independence The Ecuadorian War of Independence, part of the Spanish American wars of independence of the early 19th century, was fought from 1809 to 1822 between Spain and several South American armies over control of the ''Real Audiencia of Quito'', a Sp ...

Biography

Montúfar was born in Quito at the end of 1783, although the exact date is unknown. Her parents were

Juan Pío Montúfar Juan Pío de Montúfar y Larrea (Quito,29 May 1758 - Alcalá de Guadaira, Spain, 3 October 1818), II Marquis de Selva Alegre, was a statesman and political figure during the struggle for independence from Spain in Latin America. Biography He wa ...

, second Marquis of Selva Alegre, and aristocrat Josefa Teresa de Larrea y Villavicencio, who baptized her on 17 December of the same year. Rosa was the fifth of six siblings, two of whom did not reach adulthood: Francisco Javier (1775–1853), Juan José (1777–1779), Carlos (1780–1816), Joaquín (1782–1850) and Juan (1787–1788). In 1790, her maternal uncle, priest Domingo Larrea y Villavicencio, inherited a lot of jewels for a value of 600 pesos, which he had bought from the girl's mother before her early death, which occurred that same year when Montúfar had just seven years old. In 1798, her father requested for her the benefits of a clause in Captain Manrique de Lara's will, which would favor a noble and poor girl with a large sum of money. Although the girl belonged to one of the most important noble families of the then

Real Audiencia de Quito The of Quito (sometimes referred to as or ) was an administrative unit in the Spanish Empire which had political, military, and religious jurisdiction over territories that today include Ecuador, parts of northern Peru, parts of southern Colo ...

, she was definitely not poor, however President Luis Muñoz y Guzmán assigned a part of her benefits to her. Montúfar was described as a distinguished lady, with a haughty bearing and luminous blue eyes, physical qualities to which added a determined character. Her careful education, the fruit of her father's enlightened thought, was reflected when she had to successfully take over family estates between 1809 and 1812.

Marriage and offspring

On 24 January 1815, Montúfar married the pro-independence general Vicente Aguirre y Mendoza, with whom she had two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montufar, Rosa de 1783 births 1860 deaths People from Quito Ecuadorian revolutionaries People of the Spanish American wars of independence 19th-century Spanish nobility Viceroyalty of New Granada people