María Remedios del Valle

María Remedios del Valle was born in Buenos Aires around 1766 to 1768, and sources differ on the exact year. A woman of African descent, she was listed in military records as parda, a term applied to the descendants of enslaved Africans. Accounts say she was born free.

She entered history in 1807 during the second British invasion of the Río de la Plata, helping as a nurse to a militia unit defending Buenos Aires. After the Revolution of May 1810 she joined the Army of the North's first expedition to Upper Peru with her husband and two sons, and she was the only one of her family to survive the war.

General Manuel Belgrano, who commanded the army, refused to allow women to follow his troops, but she went to the front anyway and tended the wounded during the battle of Tucumán. The soldiers began calling her the Madre de la Patria, the Mother of the Homeland. After the victory Belgrano relented and gave her the rank of captain.

She fought and served in several battles, including Huaqui in 1811, and at Ayohuma in November 1813 she was wounded and taken prisoner by the Spanish. She was flogged for nine consecutive days for helping patriot prisoners escape, and after her own escape she joined the guerrillas, and her body bore the scars of her service for the rest of her life.

When independence was won, she was forgotten. In 1827 General Juan José Viamonte saw her begging in a Buenos Aires plaza, recognised the captain who had accompanied the army to Upper Peru, and petitioned the legislature on her behalf. In 1828 it granted her a pension at the rank of captain of infantry, which she received until her death on 8 November 1847. Since 2013 8 November has been Argentina's National Day of Afro-Argentines and African Culture, and her portrait appears on the 10,000-peso banknote.