India Juliana

Juliana
Modern depiction of the India Juliana, used in the logo of a Paraguayan indigenous women's organization.
Born	16th century Paraguay River basin
Died	c. 1542 Asunción, present-day Paraguay, colonial Spanish America
Cause of death	Execution by dismemberment
Nationality	Guaraní
Known for	Killing her Spaniard master or husband and urging other indigenous women to do the same.

Juliana (pronounced [xu 'lja na]), better known as the India Juliana (Spanish for "Indian Juliana" or "Juliana the Indian"), is the Christian name of a Guaraní woman who lived in the newly founded Asunción, in early-colonial Paraguay, known for killing a Spanish colonist between 1539 and 1542. She was one of the many indigenous women who were handed over to or stolen by the Spanish, forced to work for them and bear children. Since the area was not rich in minerals as they had anticipated, colonists generated wealth through the forced labor of indigenous people—especially the sexual exploitation of women of childbearing age.

The story of the India Juliana comes from the 1545 accounts of adelantado^{[note 1]} Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca—who briefly ruled the territory between 1542 and 1544—as well as those of his scribe Pero Hernández. According to these sources, the India Juliana poisoned a Spanish settler named Ñuño de Cabrera—either her husband or her master—with herbs and was released despite having confessed to the crime. Upon his arrival to Asunción, Cabeza de Vaca reportedly found out about her case, and that she even boasted of her actions to her peers. In response, he ordered her execution by dismemberment, as a punishment for the crime and a warning to other indigenous women not to do the same.

The India Juliana is regarded as one of the most prominent figures in the women's history of Paraguay, and her inciting other women to also kill their masters has been considered one of the earliest recorded indigenous uprisings of the era. Numerous versions of her story have emerged with various ideological connotations. Although the core of her story is usually the same, the accounts differ in details such as the date of the events, the way in which she killed Cabrera and the method with which she was executed. Although some have considered the India Juliana a collaborator of the Spanish and a builder of the Paraguayan nation, others claim her as a rebel and a symbol of indigenous resistance to colonization. Several modern interpretations describe her as an early feminist, with her figure being claimed by activists and academics. The story of the India Juliana has been the subject of numerous historical fiction works. A street in Asunción bears her name since 1992, one of the few named after an indigenous individual instead of a community as a whole.

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