Born: 27 July 1792, Brazil
Died: 21 August 1853
Country most active: Brazil
Also known as: Maria Quitéria, Maria de Jesus
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.
Since the first French Revolution, monarchs have not always sat easily upon their thrones. They fancied they had cut down the Tree of Liberty after the downfall of Napoleon, and that it would never grow up again; but in a very short time it brought forth new branches, and has since borne fruit in a way which the most sanguine Republican of olden times would scarcely have ventured to predict. Since the battle of Waterloo, Europe and America—even parts of Asia and Africa—have been convulsed by rebellions, civil wars, and revolutions, which have often shaken the world to its centre. The peoples learnt to hate their rulers; and one nation after another, catching the revolutionary fire from the smouldering brand half stamped out in France, rose in rebellion against the monarch who refused them immediate enfranchisement. Again and again have the nations been compelled by force of arms to submit; but they rise again whenever they fancy they see a favourable opportunity. Thus it happened that almost every war, fought in Europe or America since Waterloo up to some ten years since, had its origin in the same cause—the struggles of nations to cast off their rulers.
Amongst those states which took the initiative in raising the standard of revolt, the South American colonies of Spain and Portugal were foremost. Brazil declared its independence in 1821, and elected Don Pedro, the Crown Prince of Portugal, to be Emperor. The latter had a hard struggle to maintain his throne against not only the Portuguese troops, but against the Republicans, who composed a large party in Brazil. His emissaries were despatched all over the country, to the most distant plantations, to raise recruits for the Imperial Army. One of these messengers arrived one day at the farmhouse of Gonzalez de Almeida, a Portuguese settler in the parish of San José, on the Rio de Pax. The patriot was invited to dinner; and, mindful of his object, he endeavoured to enlist the sympathies of his host for Don Pedro. Almeida listened very attentively; but it awakened no feelings of patriotism in his breast. He was old, and could not join the army himself, nor had he a son to give.
As to giving a slave, added he, “what interest would a slave have in fighting for the independence of Brazil?”
But though Almeida had no sons, he had two daughters. One of them, Doña Maria de Jesus, was desirous, for many reasons, to leave home and seek employment elsewhere. Her father had married again, and the step-mother and her young children made home exceedingly uncomfortable for Maria. She was much excited by the patriot’s words; “So that at last,” she said, “I felt my heart burning in my breast!”
She stole from the house, and went to that of her married sister. After recapitulating the stranger’s discourse, she expressed a wish that she were a man and could join the Imperial standard.
Nay, said her sister. “If I had not a husband and child, for one half of what you say, I would join the ranks of the emperor.”
This decided the wavering resolution of Doña Maria. Her sister supplied her with a suit of clothes belonging to the husband, so Maria took the opportunity, as her father was going to Cachoeira, about forty leagues distant, to dispose of some cotton, to ride after him; not close enough to be seen, but sufficiently near for protection. When in sight of Cachoeira, she halted; and going a little way from the road, dressed herself in male attire.
She entered the town on a Friday, and by the following Sunday she had enlisted in an artillery regiment, and had already mounted guard. She was, however, too slight for the heavy duties of an artilleryman; so she exchanged into an infantry corps, in which she remained till the close of the war.
Her real sex was not even suspected till Almeida applied to the commanding officer of her regiment. In the summer of 1823 she was sent with despatches to Rio Janeiro, and there presented to Don Pedro, who gave her an ensign’s commission and the Order of the Cross—the latter of which he himself placed upon her jacket.
Maria Graham in her “Journal of a Voyage to Brazil,” gives, as one of the illustrations, Maria de Jesus in her uniform. “Her dress,” says this traveller, “is that of a soldier of one of the emperor’s battalions, with the addition of a tartan kilt, which she told me she had adopted from a picture representing a Highlander, as the most feminine military dress. What would the Gordons and Macdonalds say to this? The ‘garb of old Gaul’ chosen as a womanish attire!” This lady further says that Maria, though clever, was almost totally uneducated; “she might have been a remarkable person. She is not particularly masculine in her appearance, and her manners are gentle and cheerful.”