Manuel Antonio Villavicencio Freyre (13 June 1834 – 20 December 1925) was a prominent Peruvian Navy officer, who participated in the War of the Pacific.

When the War of the Pacific broke out between Peru and Chile, he resumed command of the Chalaco, with the mission of transporting troops and supplies to the battle fronts in the south, and of transferring from Panama the weapons acquired with great sacrifices, performing with value and efficiency in all the commissions entrusted to him.

After the naval campaign in October 1879, President Prado gave him command of the corvette Unión, aboard which he would carry out his most resounding feat: the double rupture of the blockade from Arica.

At dawn on March 17, 1880 on the shores of the port of Arica, the Unión managed to evade the vigilance of three enemy ships: the armored Cochrane, the monitor Huáscar' ' and the Amazonas artillery transport.

With the lights off, sailing recklessly close to the coast, the corvette Unión slipped into the interior of the roadstead and docked in the bay next to the monitor Manco Cápac.

Unfortunately, the discharge of the supposed aid to the forces of the south that were fighting in Arica, was not what was expected, generating confusion in the troops and officers, once again politics was more important than the homeland.

Amid the cheers of the population and circumventing for the second time the blockade of the enemy ships, who thought that it was heading north, the corvette entered the sea.

He supported General Andrés Avelino Cáceres in his fight against Miguel Iglesias, a ruler execrated by the population for having signed the peace of Ancón with Chile, with territorial transfer.