Josefa Comejo

Manuela Sáenz

Manuela Sáenz de Vergara y Aizpuru, was born in Quito on December 27, 1797, although some sources say another date, almost a year after the death of her mother, she had a natural daughter of the Spanish nobleman.

She was handed over to the Convent of the Conceptas Nuns, where she spent her first years under the tutelage of her superior, Sister Buenaventura.

His father was an official of the Royal Court of Quito, married to Juana del Campo Larraondo y Valencia, an illustrious lady born in 1760 in Popayán, with whom he had several children, half-brothers therefore of Manuela. His father took him to visit the Hacienda Cataguango that he shared with his wife, who always treated the girl with affection and gave her the affectionate care of a mother. His special gifts and talents are known to have fostered his interest in reading and taught him good manners. In the early years of her life, when she left boarding school to spend a few days in Cataguango, her father gave her two black slaves Natán and Jonatás, two girls like her to play and take care of her, thus a friendship began in childhood that she always united them, and they were her inseparable friends and companions. After having completed her training with the Concepción nuns, she went to the monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena (Quito), of the Order of Santo Domingo, to conclude with the education. In that place she leant, to make sweets, to communicate in English and French, skills and tasks that would support her in her years of exile in Paita (Peru). In 1817 she joined in a marriage arranged by her father with the wealthy English physician James Thorne, much older than her

In 1821, Manuela decided to return to Ecuador, to claim her part of the inheritance from her maternal grandfather, and travelled with her half brother, already integrated into the liberating army with under the name of Voltígeros de la Guardia and under the orders of General Antonio José de Sucre, who had received the order to move to Quito. There she met Simón Bolívar. She leaves her husband, and Manuela and Bolívar become lovers and companions in struggle for eight years, until his death in 1830.

The turbulent years

In 1823 Manuela accompanied Bolívar to Peru and was by his side during a good part of the campaigns, actively participating in them. sHe greatly admired Simón Bolívar and they shared the same ideal.

Coronel of the Colombian Army

Manuela Sáenz fought under the orders of Marshal Antonio José de Sucre in the battles of Pichincha, Junín and Ayacucho. Simón Bolívar's letters addressed to Sucre bear witness to Manuelita's express request for special care on the battlefield. However, Manuela actively participated in both the Húsares and Vencedores divisions. These events led to her promotion to Coronel of the Colombian Army.

Death

Manuela Sáenz died on November 23, 1856, near her 59th birthday, during a diphtheria epidemic that struck the region. His body was buried in a common grave in the local cemetery and all his possessions, to avoid contagion, were cremated, including an important part of Bolívar's love letters and documents from Gran Colombia that he still kept in his custody. Manuela gave the historian O'Leary a large part of the documents to prepare the voluminous biography of the Liberator.

Historical valuation

Manuela Sáenz is undoubtedly one of the most interesting characters in the wars of independence in South America. According to her detractors, her relationship with Simón Bolívar overshadows her own personal merits, as one of the great defenders of the independence of the South American countries and as one of the most prominent and advanced defenders of women's rights.

In his time, she was severely criticized by some of her contemporaries. Even many decades after his death, influential intellectuals and historians omitted his life in their works on the history of the liberation campaign, just as others limited it to a romantic and even denigrating decorative condition, weaving a sexual legend around his figure.

Only in the middle of the 20th century, thanks to historical revisionism, biographies and essays appeared in which he began to vindicate his role as a leader in the liberating feat of what today are Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In recent years, Sáenz has been turned into an icon of Latin American feminism and, However, it was in the 1980s, when the historian Carlos Álvarez Saá, made known the discovery of Manuela's personal diaries, as well as the personal correspondence between her and Simón Bolivar, documents that complete the heroine's biography.

Tribute in Argentina

In May 2010, during an official visit, Ecuatorian President Rafael Correa revealed in Buenos Aires a bronze bust donated by his government, which was placed in the square located at the intersection of Manuela Sáenz and Juana Manso streets, in the extreme north of the Mujeres Argentinas park in the Puerto Madero sector