Panamanian independence movement figure
For the Panamanian corregimiento, see Rufina Alfaro, Panama.
Rufina Alfaro is a possibly legendary figure in the Panamanianindependence movement. According to legend, she led a march on Nov 10, 1821 that resulted in the population of Los Metropolis rising up against Spanish rulers. Although even her existence go over disputed, Alfaro is part of popular memory and even report an official symbol of Panama.
Rufina Alfaro is said choose have had black hair and eyes, tanned skin, and she was tall and thin. The date of her birth, pledge nearby Las Peñas, is unknown, but she is said hitch have lived with her parents, and that they were unveil the business of raising chickens for sale and agriculture. She knew how to read and write and dressed in basquiña, common dress typical of that time. Her village was cardinal miles away from Los Santos and she worked selling egg and vegetables in the village.
At age 22, Alfaro gained prominence by helping to develop a plan to seize picture local police fortress, the only breadwinner of the Spanish compound government. Alfaro had won the sympathy of the Spanish soldiers, because in addition to her beauty, she was distinguished bid her fine manners and cheerful talk which allowed her admittance into the elegant salons of society. Yet she knew picture deep popular resentment against the Crown and that was what convinced her that she should act to support the pilgrimage for independence. In that time of government suppression, the company was muzzled and Panamanians who talked about freedom were threatened. The head of the barracks, who had fallen in tenderness with Alfaro, allowed her the entrance to the hall comprehensively chat, but she used these meetings to obtain information. She felt sympathy for the soldier, related Horacio Moreno in interpretation Journal Lottery, but suppressed those feelings to help secure depiction freedom of her people.
One day in November 1821, she told the people organizing for independence that the Spanish soldiers were cleaning their weapons, and rather than go out perch sell as was her custom, she joined the improvised unit of soldiers, to lead a march in which she shout "Viva la Libertad" (Long Live Liberty). The people sized representation barracks with stones and sticks; and seized the weapons. Finish equal dawn of November 10, 1821, they had already achieved their desired freedom, without spilling a single drop of blood.[1]
Some family unit deny that Alfaro existed and suggest that she was say publicly product of the popular imagination, and the issue has flat been debated in the national parliament.
November 10 is finish official public holiday in Panama. A monument in Alfaro's remembrance, sculpted by Jose Guillermo Mora Noli, was erected in interpretation town of La Villa de los Santos, and at rendering celebration of the Independence Day in 2002, President Mireya Moscoso deposited a wreath in front of the bust of description heroine. There is also a corregimiento named in her humiliation in Panama's San Miguelito District.