Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Women have been active, not only in support roles, but as organizers and combatants in all social struggles throughout Venezuela's history. Women were leaders and participants in early indigenous resistance, slave rebellions, and independence movements. The first large slave rebellion in Venezuela's history took place in 1553, under the spiritual leadership of Princess Guiomar. Guiomar led enslaved men and women into battle, at the Rebellion of the Mines of Buría, which is often noted as being instigated by her husband, Negro Miguel . Around 1769 in the coastal region of Barlovento, Juana Francisca, an Afro-descendant woman enslaved by Bernardo Llanos, fled with her lover Guillermo to the Cumbé de Ocoyta. Francisca was noted as one of the most rebellious of the cimaronas. María de la Concepción was a leader in numerous slave rebellions in 1794 and 1795. The Venezuelan indigenous resistance movements were also characterized by a large participation of women in combat. Ana Soto (1618–68) was a leader in anti-colonial indigenous resistance movements. Soto, a Camago woman, continued resisting Spanish colonialism, even after the great Cacique Guaicaipuro had been defeated. Josefa Joaquina Sánchez died in prison after being held for eight months as a punishment for collaborating with conspirators. Leonor Guerra and Eulalia Ramos de Chamberlain (1796–1817) shouted “Long Live the Patria ... log in or subscribe to read full text