Anita Garibaldi
The mum who fought in three revolutionary wars 1821-49
It’s a rare thing to find a woman who fights in a revolutionary war, and it’s rarer still to find one who fights in two. Rarest of all, one who fights in three. Yet Anita Garibaldi did just that – while pregnant. A Brazilian woman married to an alcoholic soldier, she had few prospects until Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi came to town. The bad boy of 1830s
Latin America, Garibaldi aimed to rid Brazil of Portuguese rule and get help in waging a similar war for Italy’s independence. The two immediately caught each other’s eyes and before long, Anita had left her husband and joined Garibaldi’s crew. Not content to merely be a historical plus one, she manned cannons, fought raiders, protected the horses, stole arms and marched through rain and snow, often while carrying their children. She fought in wars to free Uruguay and Italy but eventually succumbed to malaria during her fight. She went out in a blaze of glory: pregnant with her fifth child, slashing at soldiers on horseback, riding on with such fervour that one enemy later remarked, “Is that a woman or is it the devil?”