María Antonia Santos Plata

Neogranadine peasant, rebel leader and heroine

Pedro Santos Meneses
María Petronila Plata Rodríguez

María Antonia Santos Plata (10 April 1782–28 June 1819) was a Neogranadine peasant, rebel leader, and heroine.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Santos Plata was born in 1782 in the town of Pinchote, in what is now modern-day Colombia.^[1]^[4] In the late 1810s, she helped galvanize, organize, finance, and lead pro-Bolívar rebel guerrillas from the Province of El Socorro against invading royalist Spanish troops during the Reconquista of the New Granada.^[1]^[5]^[6] Her brother, Fernando Santos Plata, was the commander of the rebels.^[7]^[8] At her hacienda, rebels and formed two companies of fighters. These rebels pushed back against Spanish invasion and siege, and fought in important battles such as Pantano de Vargas and the monumental Battle of Boyacá.^[1] Additionally, Santos Plata and her compatriots allegedly carried out espionage, and smaller-scale guerilla actions.^[9]^[10]

In 1819, she was captured and arrested at her home, the hacienda El Hatillo, alongside her younger brother and her niece.^[8] She was subjected to a show trial, and found guilty of lese-majesty and high treason.^[2] She was sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad in Socorro's plaza.^[1] Ten days after her death, the rebels declared victory and independence.^[2]

She is regarded to be the foremost example of the women participating in this conflict. A brigade in the Colombian army was named after her.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2023-12-29). Women Warriors in History: 1,622 Biographies Worldwide from the Bronze Age to the Present. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-9305-7.
^ ^a ^b ^c Hagemann, Karen; Dudink, Stefan; Rose, Sonya O. (2020-10-30). The Oxford Handbook of Gender, War, and the Western World since 1600. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-751312-5.
^ Racine, Karen (March 2020). "Simón Bolívar and friends: Recent biographies of independence figures in Colombia and Venezuela". History Compass. 18 (3). doi:10.1111/hic3.12608. ISSN 1478-0542.
^ Blanco, Jacqueline Blanco; Poveda, Margarita Cárdenas (2009-06-18). "Las mujeres en la historia de Colombia, sus derechos, sus deberes". Prolegómenos (in Spanish). 12 (23): 143–158. doi:10.18359/prole.2501. hdl:10818/59196. ISSN 1909-7727.
^ Uribe-Uran, Victor (2015-12-16). Fatal Love: Spousal Killers, Law, and Punishment in the Late Colonial Spanish Atlantic. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-9631-6.
^ Ewell, Judith; Beezley, William H. (1989). The Human Tradition in Latin America: The Nineteenth Century. SR Books. ISBN 978-0-8420-2331-3.
^ Rodríguez, Ramiro Gómez (1982). Antonia Santos: genealogía y biografía (in Spanish). Impresores Colombianos S.A.
^ ^a ^b Rosas, Luisa Ballesteros (2024-03-04). Las escritoras y la historia de América Latina (in Spanish). Universidad del Valle. ISBN 978-958-507-021-9.
^ Brewster, Claire (March 2005). "Women and the Spanish-American Wars of Independence: An Overview". Feminist Review. 79 (1): 20–35. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400200. ISSN 0141-7789.
^ McFarlane, Anthony; Carbó, Eduardo Posada (1999). Independence and Revolution in Spanish America: Perspectives and Problems. Institute of Latin American Studies. ISBN 978-1-900039-27-7.

Pablo Rodríguez, Historia que no cesa : la independencia de Colombia, 1780–1830, Universidad del Rosario, 2010, 313 p. (ISBN 9789587381016)

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