María de la Encarnación Ezcurra was an Argentine political activist, wife of Juan Manuel de Rosas.
Encarnación Ezcurra portrayed by García del Molino and Morel c. 1835. She wears a red ribbon on her hair, a symbol of the Federalist Party, as well as the fashionable peinetón.
Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rosas, nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Although born into a wealthy family, Rosas independently amassed a personal fortune, acquiring large tracts of land in the process. Rosas enlisted his workers in a private militia, as was common for rural proprietors, and took part in the disputes that led to numerous civil wars in his country. Victorious in warfare, personally influential, and with vast landholdings and a loyal private army, Rosas became a caudillo, as provincial warlords in the region were known. He eventually reached the rank of brigadier general, the highest in the Argentine Army, and became the undisputed leader of the Federalist Party.
Posthumous portrait of Juan Manuel de Rosas wearing the full dress of a brigadier general
Gauchos resting in the pampas. Oil painting by Johann Moritz Rugendas
Gauchos hunting feral horses. They served in Rosas’ private army.
Rosas at age 36, 1829
