Bruno Racua Chimay
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| Bruno Racua Chimay | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 October 1879 Ixiamas, La Paz Department, Bolivia |
| 💀Died | 17 March 1932 (aged 52) Ixiamas, La Paz Department, Bolivia17 March 1932 (aged 52) |
| 💼 Occupation | Rubber worker, guide, carpenter |
| Known for | Tacana hero of the Acre War; Battle of Bahía (1902) |
Bruno Racua Chimay (6 October 1879 – 17 March 1932) was a Bolivian Tacana guide and fighter, a national hero of Bolivia for his decisive role at the Battle of Bahía during the Acre War of 1899–1903.[1]
Life
Racua was born in Ixiamas, in the province of Iturralde in the department of La Paz, the son of Clemente Racua and Clotilde Chimay, and grew up within a large family of Tacana origin.[notes 1][1]
At the outbreak of the Acre War, with the armed conflict between Brazil and Bolivia under way since 1899 and Brazilian rubber tappers occupying twenty Bolivian rubber barracas in 1902, the rubber entrepreneur Nicolás Suárez Callaú called his workers to a meeting at his main barraca at Porvenir to organise their defence. There the "Columna Porvenir" was formed, and Suárez gave his most outstanding worker — the 23-year-old Racua, the most expert handler of bow and arrow — the task of preparing a select group of archers to surprise the enemy and recover the barraca Bahía. Racua chose ten men familiar with the bow and trained them for four days.[2][1]
Battle of Bahía
The deed for which Racua became a national hero took place around midday on Saturday 11 October 1902, when the Bolivian forces on the bank of the Acre River sighted, on the far side, the stores where the Brazilian filibusters kept their gunpowder, weapons and munitions. It was decided to set the stores ablaze first, but the fort lay on the far side of the river, heavily guarded; Racua set fire to the point of his own arrow and shot it with his bow across the river directly into the munitions store, which caught fire and exploded. The Columna Porvenir — made up mostly of Tacana natives — then attacked under a rain of arrows, sowing casualties and panic until the Brazilians fled in disarray, recovering the barraca Bahía, the site of present-day Cobija.[3]
Later life and death
According to the biography of Racua by the historian Irguen Rosas Escobar, after the war he returned to his homeland: he married the Tacana Antonia Buchapi, settled on the banks of the Duniro stream near the community of Macahua, and, after being widowed, married Claudina Mamio on 13 June 1931, as recorded in the parish archives of Ixiamas; he had no children.[4][notes 2] He worked a smallholding with plantain, yuca, maize and coffee, and a few head of cattle bought with his rubber earnings, and kept a house in Ixiamas where he worked as a carpenter, owning the tools of the time, including a large two-man handsaw.[4]
The Rosas Escobar biography records that Racua died on 17 March 1932, aged 52, and that his goods passed to a Julián Uzquiano as custodian, on condition of supporting the widow.[4][5][notes 3] That year the people of Ixiamas paid him the honours due a hero: his coffin was draped with the Bolivian flag and escorted by armed townsfolk to a humble niche in the Las Malvinas cemetery of Ixiamas, where his remains rest.[4][5][1]
Honours
On 20 November 2003 — seventy-one years after his death and 101 years after Bahía — during the government of president Carlos Mesa, Law No. 2557 declared Bruno Racua a National Hero, citing the bravery he showed in the Battle of Bahía, which helped consolidate Bolivian sovereignty in the north-west of the country; monuments to him stand at Cobija and at the entrance to the municipality of Porvenir.[3][1][6] The law further ordered that the Bahía anniversary be commemorated every 11 October in all of Bolivia's schools, that a new school in each department bear Racua's name, and that the army unit at Porvenir be named after him; in 2014 El Sol de Pando reported that, outside Pando, these school provisions were not being observed, and that the army had instead named a regiment at Puerto Rico after him in 2010.[6]
On 11 September 2008, his great-grandnephew Bernardino Racua[notes 4] was killed in the Porvenir massacre.[7]
See also
Notes
- ↑ The lands of his birth were then part of the "Territorio de Colonias" ("Territory of the Colonies") — later the provinces of Reyes and Caupolicán, today the Abel Iturralde Province. García Mérida, Wilson (7 November 2014). "Según Salmón Ballivián, un flechero tacana en la Batalla de Bahía era Juan de Dios Aguada" (in español). Fundación ICEES. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ La Patria, drawing on the same biography, instead names his wife as Bernardina Humaday. "Bruno Racua: Héroe indígena que luchó con un arco y flecha". La Patria (in español). 6 August 2014. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ La Patria's feature instead gives the year of his death as about 1930. "Bruno Racua: Héroe indígena que luchó con un arco y flecha". La Patria (in español). 6 August 2014. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ Accounts of the massacre describe Bernardino Racua as Bruno Racua's great-grandson;"Pando: masacre de Porvenir, víctimas" (in español). CIPCA. 2008. Retrieved 20 July 2026. the Rosas Escobar biography records that Racua had no children. García Mérida, Wilson (7 November 2014). "Según Salmón Ballivián, un flechero tacana en la Batalla de Bahía era Juan de Dios Aguada" (in español). Fundación ICEES. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Bruno Racua: Héroe indígena que luchó con un arco y flecha". La Patria (in español). 6 August 2014. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ "Del asalto a Bahía a las bodas de oro de la columna". Opinión (Cochabamba) (in español). 6 August 2014. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Quispe, Jorge (6 August 2022). "Siete momentos heroicos en los que el valor boliviano devino en victoria". Página Siete (in español). Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "Biografía de Bruno Racua". Residentes Ixiamas (in español). December 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 García Mérida, Wilson (7 November 2014). "Según Salmón Ballivián, un flechero tacana en la Batalla de Bahía era Juan de Dios Aguada" (in español). Fundación ICEES. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Incumplen ley que obliga a escuelas dedicar una hora cívica a Bruno Racua en todo el país". El Sol de Pando (in español). 9 October 2014. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
- ↑ "Pando: masacre de Porvenir, víctimas" (in español). CIPCA. 2008. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
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