Born: 30 August 1821, Brazil
Died: 4 August 1849
Country most active: Brazil
Also known as: Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro
The following is excerpted from “Female Warriors: Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era,” by Ellen C. Clayton (Mrs. Needham), published in 1879 and shared online by Project Gutenberg.
It was whilst fighting in Brazil as a rebel against the Imperial Government that Garibaldi first met his beloved wife, Anita. She was a Brazilian by birth, and possessed all the beauty of her countrywomen. Her complexion was a clear olive, set off by piercing black eyes, her figure tall and commanding. She was a fit companion for the brave Garibaldi; being to the full as courageous as he. The general himself said that his wife took part in battle as “an amusement” and “a simple variation to the monotony of camp-life.”
Anita accompanied her husband in all his expeditions both on shore and at sea. Ably did she second him in the struggle for Brazilian freedom. Shortly after marriage they were one day at sea, when the Imperial fleet hove in sight, and bore down upon them. Garibaldi entreated his bride to land, and remain on shore whilst the engagement lasted; but she firmly refused, and not only remained during the action, but took a very leading share in it. One of the sailors fell dead at her feet; she snatched up his carbine, and kept up a constant fire on the Brazilians for several hours.
When the battle was at its height, Anita was standing on deck, waving a sword over her head, encouraging the men to resist bravely. Suddenly she was struck down by the wind of a cannon-ball, which killed two men close by. Garibaldi rushed forward, expecting to find that life was extinct; but to his astonishment and delight she rose up unhurt. Again he entreated her to go below, and remain there till the fighting was over.
Yes, said Anita. “I will go below; but only to drive out the cowards who are skulking there.”
And running down the hatchway, she speedily reappeared, driving before her three men who had gone below to escape the storm.
Anita was also present, on horseback, in a battle fought at a place called Coritibani, where the Garibaldians, numbering scarcely eighty men, half of whom were infantry, were attacked by a large body of Brazilian cavalry. She was not satisfied with being a mere spectator; knowing that the rebels, as they kept up a constant fire, would soon exhaust their ammunition, she went to the baggage-waggons to see that the men were properly supplied with cartridges. She had not been there very long before the baggage-train was attacked by twenty or thirty Brazilian horsemen. Anita was a good rider, and could have saved herself; but she preferred to remain on the spot, encouraging the Garibaldians.
The Brazilians were victorious in this battle; Anita surrounded on every side, received orders to yield. Clapping spurs to her horse, she dashed through the midst of her foes. Several shots were fired after her; one, a pistol shot, went through her hat, cutting off a lock of hair, while another pierced her horse’s head. The animal fell heavily to the ground, flinging her with violence from the saddle. Before she could recover her feet, the Brazilian troopers had made her prisoner.
Anita believed that her husband had been killed; so the Brazilian colonel gave her permission to search the battle-field for his body. She looked through the corpses again and again for several hours, and at last came to the conclusion that Garibaldi still lived, and she determined to rejoin him. That night, when the Brazilians had retired to rest, and when even the sentry began to nod, she succeeded in escaping to a farmhouse a quarter of a mile distant; where she seized a horse, and plunged into the forest, in the direction which she believed the Garibaldians to have taken.
For more than a week, Anita Garibaldi wandered alone amidst the almost impenetrable wilds of the dense Brazilian forests, without food, and exposed to the hourly chances of capture. More than once she was pursued by the enemy placed in ambush at various points. One stormy night, four horsemen, who were stationed at a ford of the river Canoas, believing her to be a phantom, fled in terror. Anita plunged boldly into the stream; and, although it was five hundred yards broad, and swollen by the mountain rivulets till it had assumed the aspect of a roaring cataract, she succeeded, holding on by her horse’s mane, in reaching the opposite shore, amidst a shower of bullets from the Brazilians, who had found out their mistake.
After enduring for eight days every kind of danger and privation, she overtook the Garibaldians, and rejoined her husband.
Yes, yes, gentlemen, added Garibaldi, when he related this anecdote, “my wife is valiant.”
There are many more of these anecdotes related concerning the extraordinary bravery of Anita. She afterwards accompanied her husband on his return to Italy, in 1848, and was with him during the insurrection of Lombardy against Austria. In the following year she attended him throughout the siege of Rome. After the fall of the Eternal City in 1849, when Garibaldi was escaping to Venice, Anita, worn out by long suffering, died at Mandriole, a small village in the marshes of Ravenna.
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Anita Garibaldi (Anna Maria de Jesus Riberas), born in Merinos, District of Laguna, Brazil. Her father destined her to peaceful marriage. She was eighteen years old when she first saw Garibaldi, loved him and became his wife. Strong in the affection of her Hero, Anita abandoned her father and her old fiance, to share with Garibaldi the dangers and the good fortune. She learned to handle the gun, to mount on horseback, to set the sails, and at the battle of Coritibani she proved herself a warrior of indomitable courage. At the battle of Santa Caterina she herself put the light to the cannon. In 1848, Garibaldi brought her with their children to Italy, but to save her the labours of the field, left her at Nice, surrounded by the cares of her mother-in-law. On July 26, 1849, she escaped the enemy spies, entered Rome and having reached her husband at Villa Spada, she fought valiantly at his side in defense of the Roman Republic. From that day she did not leave her husband again, and, although with child six months along, she suffered all without a lament, so that he might not have reason to send her back. But the privations, the anguish, the pains she had to endure during Garibaldi’s retreat, from Rome to S. Marino, had made of her an agonizing body. Having sailed from Cesenatico, the fugitives succeeded to repair at the Comacchio valleys, at the dairy of Guiccioli alle Mandriole, where the poor Anita, burning with fever, deprived of food for several days, was soon placed on a comfortable bed, but died soon after in August, 1849. Anita Garibaldi is the most dramatic and poetic feminine figure of the Italian Risorgimento. In occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the Hero of the Two Worlds, the Italy of Vittorio Veneto and of the Fascism, who, through the epochal achievements of Garibaldi, gained innumerable examples of sacrifice and valor, duly celebrated in the honor of her Great Son and his beautiful creole who was his loyal companion in his battles of heroism. And to this end, on June 2, 1932, on the Gianicolo hill that saw the Heroine of the Red Shirts fight so bravely, Italy erected an enormous and beautiful monument, as a tribute of love and reverence to Anita Garibaldi, on which were sprinkled her ashes, with solemn and sacred ceremony.