Manuela Medina (1780-1822) was a woman who fought on the forefront of combat during the Mexican War of Independence. She was a Native American from Texcoco.
She fought with José María Morelos and was not only a soldier in the army but an officer. She was the first captain of the rebel forces to lead her troops into royalist fire and succeeded against the royalist soldiers.[1] The last of her seven battles was in early 1821 where she was wounded twice. She eventually died of these wounds in 1822.[2] She is mentioned in Mexican elementary school textbooks issued by the Secretariat of Education (SEP) as a heroine of the independence movement.[3]