Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi
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Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi (Caracas, 1779 – 1866) was a heroine of the Venezuelan War of Independence. Her father, Domingo Cáceres, and her brother Félix were assassinated by the royalists in the town of Ocumare in 1814, and thus she had to emigrate with the rest of her family to Isla Margarita, where she married the general Juan Bautista Arismendi. On 1815, she was detained by the Spanish authorities with the purpose of pressing her husband Arismendi, who was by then battling a fierce campaign against the Royal Spanish forces. However, the island's governor, Joaquín Urreiztieta, did not obtain anything from her and her husband which means that Luisa stayed imprisoned in Santa Rosa fortress -where she delivered a baby girl who died at childbirth- until she was transferred to the Pampatar fortress, afterwards to La Guaira y finally she was sent to Spain (1816), where she was also victim of tortures to make her relinquish her republican ideals.
Nevertheless, she never abandoned her independentist ideals. Once in freedom, she returned to Venezuela in 1818, and continued to support the ideas of freedom and sovereignty of the people of the Americas. She lived in Caracas until her death in 1866. In recognition of her fight for Venezuelan independence, her remains were entombed in the Panteón Nacional in 1876.
