Anita Garibaldi

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Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro da Silva di Garibaldi (1821-1849) was the Brazilian-born wife and comrade-in-arms of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. Their partnership epitomized the spirit of the 19th century's age of romanticism and revolutionary liberalism.

[edit] South American Adventures

Anita Ribeiro was born into a poor family of herdsmen and fishermen in Laguna in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina a year prior to that country's independence from Portugal. She was raised by her mother Aninha do Bentião, who apparently had been abandoned by her husband, Bento "Bentão" Ribeiro da Silva. Anita married Manuel Duarte Aguiar in 1835.

Meanwhile, Giuseppe Garibaldi, a Ligurian sailor turned Italian nationalist revolutionary, had fled Europe in 1836 and was fighting on behalf of a separatist republic in southern Brazil (see War of Tatters). Anita left her husband to join Garibaldi on his ship, the Rio Pardo, in October 1839. A month later, Anita experienced her baptism of fire at the battles of Imbituba and Laguna, fighting at the side of her lover.

A skilled horsewoman, Anita is said to have taught Giuseppe about the gaucho culture of southern Brazil and Uruguay. One of Garibaldi's comrades described Anita as "an amalgam of two elemental forces…the strength and courage of a man and the charm and tenderness of a woman, manifested by the daring and vigor with which she had brandished her sword and the beautiful oval of her face that trimmed the softness of her extraordinary eyes."

In 1841, the couple moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, where Garibaldi worked as a trader and schoolmaster before taking command of the Uruguayan fleet in 1842 and raising an "Italian Legion" for that country's war with the Argentine dictator, Juan Manuel de Rosas. Anita participated in Garibaldi's 1847 defense of Montevideo against Argentina and his uruguayan allied former dictator Manuel Oribe.

Anita and Giuseppe married in 1842 in Montevideo. They had four children, Minotti (born 1840), Rosita (born 1843), Teresita (born 1845), and Ricciotti (born 1847). Anita was carrying their fifth child when she died.

[edit] Death on Campaign in Italy

Anita accompanied Garibaldi and his red-shirted legionnaires back to Italy to join in the revolutions of 1848, where he fought against the forces of the Austrian Empire. In February 1849, Garibaldi joined in the defense of the newly-proclaimed Roman Republic against Neopolitan and French intervention aimed at restoration of the Papal State. Anita joined her husband in the defense of Rome, which fell to a French siege on June 30. She then fled from French and Austrian troops with the Garibaldian Legion. Pregnant and sick, she died on August 8, 1849 in the arms of her husband at Guiccioli di Mandriole, near Ravenna, during the tragic retreat.

Anita remained a presence in Garibaldi's heart for the rest of his life. It was perhaps with her memory in mind that, while traveling in Peru in the early 1850's, he sought out the exiled and destitute Manuela Sáenz, the fabled companion of Simón Bolívar. Years later, in 1860, when Garibaldi rode out to Teano to hail Victor Emanuel II as king of a united Italy, he wore Anita's striped scarf over his gray South American poncho.

[edit] References

Lacking a formal education, Anita Ribeiro Garibaldi left only some dictated notes about her experiences. Decades later, Giuseppe described her in his own autobiography. The English translation of Valerio's romantic biography is the current standard source.

• "Anita Garibaldi" website hosted by Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina - UDESC, Florianópolis, Brazil (http://www.udesc.br/variedades/artes/anita).
• Anita Garibaldi: Guerrillera en América del Sur, Heroína de la Unidad Italiana, by Julio A. Sierra (2003).
• Anita Garibaldi: A Biography, by Anthony Valerio (2000).
• Anita Garibaldi: Uma Heroína Brasileira, by Paulo Markun (1999).
• Anita, Anita: Garibaldi of the New World, a novel by Dorothy Bryant (1993).
• Garibaldi e Anita: Corsari, by Lucio Lami (1991).
• L'Amazzone Rossa, by Giuseppe Marasco (1982).
• Aninha do Bentão, by Walter Zumblick (1980).
• I am my beloved: The Life of Anita Garibaldi, by Lisa Sergio (1969).
• Anita Garibaldi, by Giuseppe Bandi (1889).
• Autobiography, by Giuseppe Garibaldi, trans. A Werner (1971, 1889).
• The Memoirs of Garibaldi, by Giuseppe Garibaldi and Alexandre Dumas (1931, 1861)