The first Cuban war of independence from Spain began in 1868. Women, known as Mambisas, played a significant role in the war, as political agitators, nurses, and fighters. Ana Betancourt, was from a wealthy landholding family and was one of the first to argue for women in Cuban. She was married to the patriot Ignacio Mora de la Pera. In 1869, she addressed the Constitutional Assembly of Cuban patriots at Guáimaro in which she linked female emancipation to the abolition of slavery and the struggle against colonialism. Although unused to hardship she lived in the forest with the revolutionaries.