200 years of the Brazilian Joana d’Arc
She failed to create a nation, was married to an Italian nacionalist hero, and has written alongside him a movie worthy life in the lines of south-American History
A bustling time to be alive
In the times of the Second Reign (1840–1889), Brazil was a cauldron about to overflow. Although Frenchman Charles Ribeyrolles, passing through the tropical lands, documented that “for years there were no more political processes, no more prisoners of state, no press processes…”, it is not fair to say that it was a propitious period for freedom.
The Paraguayan War in 1864 divided the pages of Brazilian military history, the Christie Question lifted the country’s spirits by defeating powerful England in the International Court, and Emperor Dom Pedro II was gaining recognition from his subordinates nationwide— but not only the external issues made the brand-new Empire in South America tremble.
Along the borders, there were a few people who weren’t quite sure if the palace was doing a good job leading the nation. They weren’t even quite sure if they wanted to remain Brazilians in their documents. Actually, they were certain they did not!
Political freedom wasn’t enough, but freedom to be able to redraw the map of the country (and, if possible, create their own). The most engaged separatist movements of the period were the Praieira Insurrection of Pernambuco and the Farroupilha Revolution in the extreme south.
From this seething amalgam comes one of the greatest characters in Brazilian history. In a world dominated by male protagonism, Anita Garibaldi, with black hair and deep eyes, would write alongside the contradictory and interesting, Giuseppe Garibaldi, their names in the pages of Brazil, fighting until the last days for what she believed and the liberation of peoples.
A live like a movie
Anita Garibaldi’s life would make a great action movie —although her life is more permeated by uncertainties than facts. She was very likely born in the village of Laguna (though some say it was elsewhere) on the 30th August 1821; at age of 14 she was married to a shoemaker, who maybe rapped her, but whose veracity is also unknown; if she could read or write, we have no proof, but probably not; even her death hover over a mistery.
Much is speculated about Anita’s life, with a biography full of legends and distortions, but little is actually known. Born Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro, the young woman adopted habits that would provoke gossips between the women of social circles. She knew how to ride a horse, married at 14 to a shoemaker, but chose not to have children, and had an extensive interest in national politics — a golden time to be interested in such a subject!
The Second Reign to this day leaves historians sleepless trying to describe its complexity. In remote June 1839, Anita’s life would blend forever with history.
“We entered, and the first person who approached was the one whose appearance had made me disembark. It was Anita! The mother of my children! The company of my life, in good and bad fortune,”
documented the revolutionary, Giuseppe Garibaldi, on that day. Such a love at first sight story! He was in the port city to found with David Canabarro an independent and liberal republic in the tropics: the Free and Independent Catharinense Republic, better known as the Juliana Republic, the June Republic in Portuguese, an unprecedented experiment in Portuguese America.
The couple’s relationship would heat up, until the fateful day of October 20 of the same year, when Ana would give her life to the cause. Overnight she would trade lady’s household chores for the revolution. In Giuseppe’s rump, she abandoned her quiet village and husband to join the farrapos, how the revolutionary were called. She felt for the first time the bittersweet taste of Freedom.
The couple would spend the rest of their days participating in guerrilla for the independence of countries in South America and Europe as in a Hollywood production. She with her hair in the wind like an amazon, he with a hirsute beard and revolutionary red shirt. Their love would grow with the battles and dangers that they survived.
They then married in Montevideo, while cannoballs flew against the Argentinian squadra the couple was fighting against. Such a romantically honeymoon! The couple fleed to Europe to support a big deal: fight for the Rissorgimento of Italy — by that time, Anita became known as “the heroine of the two worlds”. The interpretation is ambigouos, not being certain if it is for both Brazil and Italy or for the male and female world.
They would defend with bullets many modern (and dangerous) ideas for the period. Equality of men and women, between people of different skins, independence, and political freedoms. It would be wrong to say that the two are examples of liberals for the modern European standard. Long after Anita’s death, Garibaldi would at his last days turn his revolution to the pacifist left, eventually declaring himself a socialist (but been soon disclaimed by Marx). Pushing them into a modern conceptualization, the couple would be considered of the liberal-nationalist ideology.
Anita Garibaldi was due to early death, aged 29, from complications of pregnancy off the coast of Italy. Unlike the revolutionary, Anita would retain a young image in the portraits. The story, however, would not paint it so well at first. In Italy, where the body rests to this day, its image was wiped away by the fascists (until it became a symbol) and would be condemned by the church (which if it could, would condemn it to the bonfire as did to Joana d’Arc).
“It is evident that the figure of Anita was completely absent in Catholic publications, where it was impossible to weaken the ideological leadership of Garibaldi’swife,”
explains Silvia Cavicchioli in Storia and mito di Anita Garibaldi (p. 175) “and any approach to the Brazilian woman was inappropriate then”.
Despite all the gaps in her biography and lack of knowledge about her political thinking, Anita is a unique figure in history who deserves wide debate and studies. Posthumous he would become a lot of symbols we don't know she would like to be—such as the heroine of the two worlds; the feminist before feminism; an example of the garibaldino fascism and the Brazilian Joana d’Arc.
In his last letter before he died, it is certain that his cinematic life has passed before her eyes. To her sister, probably dictating the words of the epistolary confession, she would have said she was not sorry for the life she had had.
“Now I’m here, at the end of the road! What can I tell you? That you’d do it all over again? I really think so!“
and left her legacy to history.
To learn more about the life of the guerrilla, it is recommended to visit the virtual exhibition 200 Years of Anita Garibaldi
References:
History of Brazilian Liberalism — Antônio Paim
History and myth of Anita Garibaldi — Silvia Cavicchioli
Anita Garibaldi as Heloisa Prieto
A heroine in history: representations about Anita Garibaldi — Antonio Manoel Elíbio Júnior Available in: https://repositorio.ufsc.br/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/79307/153071.pdf;jsessionid=378B3ECF551DFB0AA9B4376B5C0A4228?sequence=1 Accessed: 26/08/2021
