María Concepción Loperena

His father, Pelayo Loperena De Ponce y Carrión, arrived in the New Kingdom of Granada with the order of Captain of the Militias and advisor to the Government of Santa Marta.

Governor De Paredo y Salcedo sent Pelayo Loperena to Valledupar in order to attend to the organization and collection of taxes and to serve at the same time as Prosecutor in the cases against some Spaniards for abuses against the indigenous Coyaimas people.

[1] In 1885, María Concepción Loperena married the Terrateniente Gobernador, José Manuel Fernández de Castro Pérez Ruíz Calderón, who was born in Santa Marta.

She sent her son, Pedro Norberto Fernández de Castro Loperena, with powers to deal with the then President of Cartagena, Manuel Rodríguez Torices, and receive instructions on the independence movement from Spain.

That same day, María Concepción Loperena granted freedom to hundreds of slaves that she kept on her estates in La Jagua de Ibirico and Becerril.

By executive decree of October 6, 1820, the acting President of Gran Colombia, Francisco de Paula Santander, issued an ordered from Villa del Rosario, under the Law of August 6, 1821.

By virtue of Law 95 of 1940, María Concepción Loperena were decreed to be a heroine, in a project presented by the senator of the republic, Pedro Castro Monsalvo.