On 16 August 1936, María and her fellow militia members of the women's battalion embarked for Mallorca from the port of Barcelona in the Republican army expedition commanded by Captain Alberto Bayo. After twenty days of fighting, she and four of her companions were captured, tortured and executed in Manacor on 5 September 1936. The Nationalist troops were led by the Italian fascist Arconovaldo Bonaccorsi. They have gone down in history under the name of Las Cinco de Mallorca (The Mallorca Five). Mallorca was one of the first places where the anti-fascist women fighters went into combat in the Civil War.
