The role of Manuela Sáenz, mistress to "The Liberator" of South America, Simón Bolívar, is a pivotal one in Latin American history, but her reputation has been marred by her flagrant violation of social norms in early 19th century colonial society. Primary historical documents from pre-Independence and Independence-era Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia include writings about her actions that reflect bias against Sáenz; these same documents show that the bias may not be without merit. So what was Manuela Sáenz's role in helping to promote South American independence from Spain?
The Liberator and His Mistress In the Age of Revolution
Born the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy peninsular (Spanish-born immigrant to the colonies) and criolla (Colonial-born child of Spaniards), and raised by nuns after her mother died when she was four years old, Sáenz was married off in her late teens to a well-off English doctor and merchant, James Thorne.
The marriage was an unhappy arrangement for Sáenz, who felt shackled by proper colonial society. Outspoken and unashamed to express her opinion on political affairs, Sáenz's behavior was not acceptable for her time. Upper-class colonial women lived in a very proscribed world, expected to focus on Catholic faith and home, producing children and focusing on meeting social expectations for entertaining, expressing piety and religious devotion through Church activities, and fading into the background on political and economic issues.
Sáenz respected none of these norms. According to Pamela Murray, in her book, For Glory and Bolívar: The Remarkable Life of Manuela Sáenz, Sáenz met the widowed Bolívar at a party. He was intrigued by her loud discussion on colonial politics. She was intrigued by his rising star and the power he amassed as a rebel against the crown.
Colonel Manuela Sáenz and South American Independence
The affair progressed quickly and lasted eight years. Sáenz left her husband after seven years; the letter she wrote to James Thorne to inform him that the marriage was ending reveals much of her character. When Thorne appealed to Sáenz to think of her feminine reputation, she replied that she did not care "about those social preoccupations that people have invented for torturing each other."
Her greatest blow comes later in the letter, a one-two punch that would be considered blunt in 21st-century society, but that was a perversion of feminine expectations in early 19th-century Gran Colombia: "Do you believe that after being this gentleman's for seven years that I would prefer to be the wife of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost?" Honor meant nothing to her as a social construct, but she did have her own individual sense of natural rights, loyalty and devotion, all caught in the cult of Simón Bolívar.
Bolívar appears, from the historical records that remain, to have been more willing to spend time away from Sáenz fulfilling his goal of South American independence than was the reverse. Sáenz devoted herself to finding ways to be useful in battle and in political developments; her willingness to fight in the cavalry at the Battle of Junín in 1824 led to calls from Colonel Antonio Sucre y Alcalá, one of Bolívar's closest friends and strongest military commanders, to make Sáenz a colonel.
After her commission, Sáenz took to wearing her full-dress uniform in public and assumed command when military rule applied, shocking men of lower rank, many of whom refused to recognize her commission. Too busy with strategy to focus on Sáenz, Bolívar was removed from much of the fallout she experienced socially. Angered by social constructs she viewed as constraining, Sáenz pushed norms further, hosting parties that involved parodies of major political figures, dressing as a man or in a man's officer dress, and provoking whisper campaigns about her mental state.
While her role in the Battle of Junín was significant, it was her sharp attention to detail during an assassination attempt on Bolívar in 1828 that gained her a place in history books. Hearing the attempt, Sáenz sent Bolívar scrambling out a window and inserted herself between the killers and Bolívar, giving The Liberator just enough time to escape and hide under a bridge as the coordinated effort to murder him continued, with assassins searching for him into the morning.
After Bolívar - Sáenz's Role Among Latin American Women In History
Always a sickly child, Bolívar's questionable health caught up to him in 1830, when he died of tuberculosis. Conflict within the South American independence movement led to Sáenz being sent to live in exile in Peru, no longer welcome in the political and military circles she had helped to reinforce. She died in 1856 in a remote fishing village in Paita, Peru.
In most history books, Sáenz is described as the eccentric mistress to Bolívar. She is noted as his rescuer in the assassination attempt, and her officer's commission is attributed to the bond of passion between her and Bolívar; her work in the 1822 battle at Quito and at the more famous Battle of Junín is left out. Her role as The Liberator's personal archivist rarely receives attention, though it is through her efforts that historians have been able to document Bolívar's activities for more than 150 years, all while downplaying hers.
A controversial figure in Latin American History, Sáenz violated norms in 19th-century colonial society, and some of her actions would violate social expectations even in 21st-century modern Latin America. Quito, Ecuador is home to the Museo Manuela Sáenz, a tiny archive devoted to her records.
Resources:
Adams, Jerome R. Notable Latin American Women: Twenty-Nine Leaders, Rebels, Poets, Battlers and Spies, 1500-1900. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1995.
Murray, Pamela S. For Glory and Bolívar: The Remarkable Life of Manuela Sáenz. University of Texas Press, 2008.
"Manuela Sáenz" (2000), DVD, released by Venevision Studios.
Melanie Zoltan - Melanie Zoltan is a former college professor and administrator who has written for About.com, PCWorld, Brain Child, Thomson Gale, and ...
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