Antonio Ruiz, known as Falucho, was an Afro-Argentine soldier who rose from slavery to become a national hero in Argentina’s fight for independence. Serving under General José de San Martín, he is remembered for choosing death over betrayal of the revolutionary cause in 1824.
Antonio Ruiz’s exact origins remain uncertain. Some accounts suggest he was born in Buenos Aires, while others indicate he may have been born in Africa and trafficked across the Atlantic as a child.
Buenos Aires was a major port in the transatlantic slave trade during the 18th century. Enslaved Africans were brought from West and Central Africa and sold to Spanish colonists, where they were put to work in domestic service, crafts, agriculture, and public labour.
It is likely that Ruiz grew up in these conditions, owned by a colonial family, possibly performing domestic or skilled labour before being conscripted into the army during Argentina’s battle for independence from Spain.
Though they often joined the military under duress, in exchange for manumission or out of necessity, many, like Ruiz, embraced the cause of freedom with real conviction.
Ruiz eventually joined San Martín’s Army of the Andes, one of the most important liberation forces in South America’s war of independence. Africans were heavily recruited into the military during this period, often filling the ranks of the infantry and cavalry. Some estimates suggest that up to 40% of the soldiers in key independence battles were of African descent.
By 1824, Ruiz was stationed at El Callao fortress in Peru, guarding Spanish prisoners. A mutiny erupted among the troops, who were exhausted, unpaid, and angered by orders to march north to fight under Simón Bolívar. The mutineers, swayed by a captured Royalist officer, agreed to replace the revolutionary flag with the Spanish royal standard.
According to Bartolomé Mitre, the Argentine politician and historian who first published the story in Los Debates in 1857, Ruiz was serving as a sentry in the King Philip tower. When ordered to salute the Spanish flag being raised in place of the revolutionary one, Ruiz refused. Deeply anguished at the betrayal of the cause he had fought for, he is said to have smashed his rifle and declared, “I cannot honor the flag I have fought against.” For this disobedience, he was executed by the mutineers, allegedly crying out with his last breath, “¡Viva Buenos Aires!”, a final affirmation of his loyalty to the Argentine Republic. It was this account that turned Falucho into a national martyr.
In 1897, a statue in his honor was installed in Plaza San Martín in Buenos Aires, created by sculptors Francisco Cafferata and Lucio Correa Morales. It stands as one of the few monuments dedicated to a Black figure in Argentina’s public spaces.
Today, Antonio Ruiz is officially remembered as a national hero in Argentina for his unwavering devotion to the revolutionary cause at El Callao.
Enslaved Africans in Argentina
Antonio Ruiz’s story also brings attention to the broader experience of enslaved Africans in Argentina. Brought across the Atlantic beginning in the 16th century, Africans were sold into slavery in Buenos Aires and other colonial centers. They worked in households, on plantations, in artisan trades, and even as soldiers.
Eventually, the 1813 “freedom of wombs” law freed the children of enslaved women, but slavery itself persisted well into the 1850s. Enslaved Africans continued to serve disproportionately in military campaigns, especially during the Paraguayan War, further depleting their communities.
After the abolition of slavery, Argentina moved swiftly toward a national identity centered on whiteness. Encouraged by large waves of European immigration and a state-led policy of “blanqueamiento” (whitening), the country worked to reshape itself in the image of Europe, Afro-Argentines were pushed aside and left out of the new national identity. Their communities were decimated by poverty, lack of opportunity, and high mortality rates from war and diseases.
The yellow fever epidemic of 1871 was especially catastrophic, killing thousands in Buenos Aires and hitting the Black population hardest. So many died that many were buried in mass graves. Historians consider the epidemic one of the key reasons for the sharp decline of the Black population in the city.
By the late 19th century, Afro-Argentines were so marginalized that many were either absorbed into other racial categories or rendered invisible in public discourse.
The tale of Antonio Ruiz, highlights the important role Afro-Argentines played in building the Argentine nation. Often erased from mainstream narratives, Black soldiers fought, bled, and died for a country that later marginalized them, both socially and in its historical memory.
Source:
https://dbpedia.org/page/Antonio_Ruiz_(soldier)
