Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi

Luisa Cáceres Díaz de Arismendi (Caracas, Venezuela, September 25, 1799 - Caracas, Venezuela, June 2, 1866) was a heroine of the Independence of Venezuela and wife of General Juan Bautista Arismendi.

Biography

She was the eldest daughter of the marriage formed by the Latin and grammar teacher José Domingo Cáceres, and his wife Doña Carmen Díaz. Her father took care of teaching her to read and write, as well as instructed her in the principles and moral norms of the time. She had two younger brothers, Félix and Manuel Cáceres.

As was the tradition at the time, her education is oriented to perform the duties of a wife and mother. She received no school instruction.

In 1814, before turning fifteen years old, she was asked to marry her parents by Colonel Juan Bautista Arismendi, 24 years her senior and widower of Doña María del Rosario Irala a few years before.

Family tragedy

On March 6, the troops of the royalist Francisco Rodete assaulted the Ocumare garrison and killed Luisa's father who was there at the invitation of his friend General Juan José Toro.

The Military Command, in Caracas, headed by Colonel Juan Bautista Mendigar, organized an expedition of young students and went on the 14th to help the patriots located in Ocumare; Among the soldiers of the expedition was Félix Cáceres, Luisa's brother. Mendigar's troops are defeated and Felix is taken prisoner and executed on March 16.

On the other hand, the successive defeats and the offensive of José Tomás Boves and his “Infernal Legion” forced the patriotic forces to abandon the plaza of Caracas; On July 7, 1814, the retreat to the East was undertaken, commanded by Simón Bolívar and José Félix Ribas (a fact known in Venezuelan history as Emigration to the East); Among the emigrants the Cáceres family marches, during the journey 4 of Luisa's relatives die and only she, her mother and her younger brother remain. The emigrants pass through Barcelona and go to Cumaná, where they arrive at the end of August, but the calm will be for a short time since Boves takes the city.

Many of them manage to pass to Margarita where Arismendi can offer them some security. Colonel Arismendi looks for the Cáceres family, whom he had known and frequented for some time in Caracas on Christmas 1813, providing them with clothing, lodging and other necessary resources. On December 4, 1814, Luisa Cáceres married Colonel Juan Bautista Arismendi.

Prison on Margarita Island

The Santa Rosa Castle of Eminence, La Asunción.

On April 9, 1815, Arismendi was provisional Governor, at which time General Pablo Morillo arrived on the island of Margarita at the head of a royalist squad the likes of which had never been seen on the coasts of Venezuela. Arismendi surrendered without engaging in combat before the superiority of the enemy and Morillo decreed a general amnesty. The Spanish harassment began throughout the territory of the Republic, for a few months the Arismendi lived on the outskirts of La Asunción under the espionage and pressure that the Spanish authorities maintain on the sympathizers of the patriot cause on the island.

In September 1815, the arrest of Arismendi was ordered. He escapes and hides with one of his sons in the mountains of Copey; On September 24, Luisa, who was pregnant, is taken hostage to subdue her husband and locked up under surveillance in the Anés family home. A few days later, she is transferred to a dungeon at Castillo Santa Rosa in La Asunción. A place devoid of windows and light. There she received torture and humiliation to which she never gave in. A sentinel watched over her until her slightest movements and she is forced to eat the ranch that they give her as the only food.

Arismendi's military actions allow him to take several Spanish chiefs prisoner, among them Commander Cobián, from the Santa Rosa fortress, for which reason the royalist chief Joaquín Urreiztieta proposes to Arismendi to exchange those prisoners for his wife. Such an offer is not accepted and the emissary receives in response: "Tell the Spanish chief that without a country I do not want a wife." From that moment on, the conditions of the captivity worsened and the possibility of freedom vanished when the patriots failed in an attempted assault on the fortress carried out a month after their capture. A large alarm at night warns of a possible assault on the barracks. At dawn, when everything is calm, he only hears the cries of the dying and those wounded in the fray. Hours later, the soldiers take her out of her prison to walk her on the esplanade of the barracks, where the prisoners have been shot. The objective of her executioners was for her to walk among the corpses of the patriots shot. The spilled blood flows into the prison cistern and Cáceres de Arismendi is forced to drink from that water. On January 26, 1816, Luisa gave birth to a girl who died at birth due to the conditions of the delivery and the dungeon in which she was a prisoner.

Transfer to the Guaira prison

Brigadiers Juan Bautista Pardo and Salvador Moxó order the detainee to be transferred to the Castillo San Carlos de Borromeo de Pampatar where she remains for a few days, then she is transferred to the La Guaira prison and later to the convent of the Immaculate Conception in Caracas, where she entered as a prisoner on March 22, 1816. During all this time she was kept incommunicado and without news from her relatives. The triumphs of the Republican forces commanded by Arismendi in Margarita and by General José Antonio Páez in Apure determined that Brigadier Moxó ordered the transfer of Luisa to Cádiz, for this reason she was taken back to the La Guaira prison on November 24. of 1816 and embarked on December 3. On the high seas they are attacked by a corsair ship that seizes all the cargo and the passengers are abandoned on the island of Santa María de las Azores.

Stay in Cádiz

Unable to return to Venezuela, Luisa arrived in Cádiz on January 18, 1817. She was presented before the captain general of Andalusia, who protested the arbitrary decision of the Spanish authorities in America and gave her the category of confined, he assigns a pension of 10 reales in fleece per day and entrusts his protection to the doctor José María Morón and his wife Concepción Pepet, after they pay a bond and agree to present it monthly before the appellate judge. During her stay in Cádiz, she refused to sign a document expressing her loyalty to the King of Spain and denying her husband's patriot affiliation, to which she replied that her husband's duty was to serve the country and fight to liberate it.. Her exile takes place without news of her mother and her husband. In March 1818, Lieutenant Francisco Carabaño and the English Mr. Tottem offered to help her move to America; All pertinent preparations are made for her escape and the young woman promises that her husband will pay all her expenses upon arrival in Margarita. She says goodbye to the Morón family and embarks on a trip aboard an American-flagged frigate.

Arrival in Philadelphia

On May 3, 1818, he arrived in Philadelphia where he met the relatives of the patriotic Admiral Lino de Clemente, who emigrated to the United States, who offered him friendship and support. Colonel Luis Rieux, commissioned by Arismendi, visits Luisa and arranges for her transfer to Margarita, where she arrives on July 26, 1818. Later, on September 19, 1819, the Council of the Indies issues a resolution by which He granted him absolute freedom and power to fix his residence where he wanted.

He lived in Caracas until the day he died on June 2, 1866, after having seen the new flag of Venezuela waving.

Honors

Statue of Luisa in La Asunción

• His remains were transferred to the National Pantheon on August 24, 1877 and became the first woman whose remains lie there.
• In the city of the Asunción capital of the Nueva Esparta State there is Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi.
• Note: Before the Organic Law of Municipal Regime, 1989, the current Arismendi municipality of the New Sparta State corresponding to the city of La Asunción was called the Municipality Luisa Cáceres of Arismendi and this along with the Municipality Antolín del Campo formed the old Arismendi District. In order for the name of the patriot Juan Bautista Arismendi not to disappear from the territorial political division of the New Sparta State with the approval of the new law, the name of Arismendi was taken as the new name of the municipality that would have as capital the city of La Asunción.
• In the state of Nueva Esparta, the path that goes from the Sambil Margarita (Maneiro Museum) to the traffic light located in the sector Cocheima (Municipio Arismendi) is named Avenida Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi. At the beginning (Sambil-Margarita) of this avenue there is a bust of heroin which has been shot down on several occasions (for traffic accidents and undesirable).
• There is the Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi Pediatric Hospital in the José Ignacio Baldo Hospital Complex in Caracas.
• In the city of Maracay, it exists as main Avenue in the Sector of 23 January (it is located south-west of the city)
• The portrait of Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi's work by Emilio Mauri was the inspiring of the main motive of the reverse of the 20-strong Bolivar ticket originally issued on March 20, 2007, printed by De La Rue Currency. And with remissions dated 3 September 2009 and 3 February 2011 and a variant date of 19 December 2008. Currently it also appears in the 5000 Bolivar ticket that entered into circulation on January 16, 2017, its date of issue is August 18, 2016.
• The thermoelectric plant of the island of Margarita, located in the sector El Silguero of the municipality of García, is named Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi, as well as a private urbanisation that is owned by the National Armed Forces.