Leonardo Bravo (general officer)

Leonardo Bravo was born in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, the eldest son of a wealthy Spanish family devoted to agriculture and mining as the owner of the Hacienda of Chichihualco.

[1] When the Mexican War of Independence started in 1810, he, his son Nicolás Bravo, and his four brothers Miguel, Víctor, Máximo and Casimiro refused to work with the Spanish royalists.

As they started to comply, royalist troops advanced on the Bravo hacienda, precipitating the so-called batalla de los encuerados (battle of the naked) as son Nicolás had joined the fight while bathing in a river on May 3, 1811.

[1] Following Bravo's capture at the Hacienda of San Gabriel Las Palmas, the government demanded his five sons surrender, promising to spare the life of their father, Leonardo, in return.

Morelos did not wish to impose his authority on the feelings of Nicolás Bravo, so he wrote to the Viceroy offering 800 Spanish prisoners as exchange for the life of Leonardo.

Leonardo Bravo and his associates, Mariano Piedras and Manuel Pérez, were condemned to death by vile garrotte, considered one of the most infamous and degrading ways to die.