Commandante Manuel Ascencio Padilla was a guerilla chief in the South American Wars of Independence. A criollo (born in South America, but of Spanish descent), Padilla was studying to be a lawyer when he left school to marry Juana Azurduy in 1805, just five years before the May Revolution. Lauded by historian Dr. Valentin Abecia as “a hero with the soul of a child and the heart of a lion,” Padilla would become one of the greatest heroes of the fight for independence, a man whose “military genius and devoted patriotism were unsurpassed.” Padilla often fought alongside his wife and it’s said that when she was wounded at the battle of Las Lagunas, he was killed trying to save her. The town of Padilla, Bolivia, is named in his honor. Read Less