Early life

Manuela was born in Quito, the illegitimate child of Maria Joaquina Aizpuru from Ecuador and the married Spanish nobleman Simón Sáenz de Vergara y Yedra (or Sáenz y Verega). Her mother was abandoned by her modest family as a result of the pregnancy and her father paid for young "Manuelita" to go to school at the Convent of Santa Catalina where she learned to read and write. While there, she encountered a microcosm of the Spanish colonial caste system, with white nuns ruling over a large group of mestiza and native servants and maids. She kept in contact with the upper class nuns of Santa Catalina for much of the rest of her life, and they provided counsel to her. She was forced to leave the convent at the age of seventeen, allegedly because she was discovered to have been seduced by army officer Fausto D'Elhuyar, the son of Fausto Elhuyar and nephew of Juan José Elhuyar, who were the co-discoverers of tungsten.^[1]

Early participation within the revolution

For several years, Manuela lived with her father, who in 1817 arranged for her marriage to a wealthy English doctor, James Thorne, who was twice her age. The couple moved to Lima, Peru, in 1819 where she lived as an aristocrat and held social gatherings in her home where guests included political leaders and military officers. These guests shared military secrets about the ongoing revolution with her, and, in 1819, when Simón Bolívar took part in the successful liberation of New Granada, Manuela Sáenz was radicalized and an active member in the conspiracy against the viceroy of Perú, José de la Serna e Hinojosa during 1820.^[2]

As part of this conspiracy, Manuela, her friend Rosa Campuzano, and other women who were pro-Independence attempted to recruit colonial troops from the royalist defense arsenal in Lima, guarded by the vital Numancia regiment. The conspiracy was a success, with much of the regiment, including Manuela's half brother, defecting to the anti-Spanish army of José de San Martín.^[3]

Saenz was described as a heroine and known for her patriotism. This patriotism was noticed in her sympathies for the creole uprising against the Spanish control in South America.^[4]

Jose De San Martin after proclaiming Peru’s independence in 1821 awarded Manuela Saenz with the highest distinction in Peru, which was the title of signet ring of the Order of the Sun of Peru.^[5] In her early periods she would hold secret gatherings, where she would pass information as a spy.^[6] Manuela Saenz participated in the negotiations with the Numancia battalion.^[6]

Relationship with Simón Bolívar (1822–1830)

In 1822, Sáenz left her husband and traveled to Quito, where at a ball she met Simón Bolívar, eventually becoming romantically involved. She exchanged love letters with him and visited him while he moved from one country to another. Bolívar referred to her as la amable loca, the dear madwoman.^[7]

Manuela supported the revolutionary cause by gathering information, distributing leaflets, and protesting for women's rights. As one of the most prominent female figures of the wars for independence, Manuela received the Order of the Sun ("Caballeresa del Sol" or 'Dame of the Sun'), honoring her services in the revolution. In public she often wore a colonel's uniform, accompanied by her two black servants Jonatás and Nathán, also attired in soldier uniforms.^[7] During the first months of 1825 and from February to September 1826, she lived with Bolívar near Lima, but as the war continued, Bolívar was forced to leave.

During the anti-Bolivarian conspiracy led by Colombian Colonel José Bustamente, Manuela was a key member of the Pro-Bolivarian forces. On January 25, 1827, significant portions of the Colombian Army's Third Division mutinied in Lima, arresting senior officers and seizing key locations in the city, demanding better food and pay as General Santa Cruz and the conspirators suspended the Bolivarian Constitution. Manuela had remained behind in Lima, trusted by Bolívar to look after his affairs, and moved to stop the mutiny. Presenting in full uniform, she addressed troops of the Third Division and begged them to remain loyal to Bolívar.^[3] Afterwards, she began bribing sergeants and corporals in the hopes of outbidding the conspirators, to some success. This continued until she was captured by the new Peruvian government on February 7, and imprisoned in a convent. She protested her treatment under both Bolivarian laws and new Peruvian laws, and this agitation would eventually see her released from prison in March, and forced into exile in April. As a result of this agitation, she was now beginning to be known as the Libertadora,^[3] a public legend to match Bolívar in the minds of some. Manuela now followed Bolívar to Bogotá.

On 25 September 1828, mutinous officers attempted to assassinate Bolívar. Woken by the sound of fighting, Bolívar intended to investigate, but Sáenz, who was sharing his bed, persuaded him to leave by a window while she confronted the intruders. She then convinced them that Bolívar was somewhere in the building and proceeded to lead them to various rooms, affecting to lose her way and even stopping to attend one of the wounded. Eventually the would-be assassins lost patience and beat her before departing.^[7] Her actions led Bolívar later to call her "Libertadora del Libertador".

After the assassination attempt, Manuela proved to be a key part of identifying the loyalties and reliabilities of army officers, attempting to help Bolívar maintain control of the disintegrating Gran Colombia.^[3]

Bolívar left Bogotá in 1830 and died in Santa Marta from tuberculosis while he was in transit, leaving the country to exile. He had made no provision for Manuela. On his deathbed, Bolívar had asked his aide-de-camp, General Daniel F. O'Leary to burn the remaining, extensive archive of his writings, letters, and speeches. O'Leary disobeyed the order and his writings survived, providing historians with a vast wealth of information about Bolívar's liberal philosophy and thought, as well as details of his personal life, such as his longstanding love affair with Manuela Sáenz. Shortly before her death in 1856, Sáenz augmented this collection by giving O'Leary her own letters from Bolívar.^[3] Francisco de Paula Santander, who returned to power after Bolívar's death then exiled Manuela. She went to Jamaica for the early years of her exile.^[2] She remained politically active until the mid-1840s before becoming disillusioned.^[7]

Years in exile and death (1835–1856)

When she attempted to return to Ecuador in 1835, the Ecuadorian president, Vicente Rocafuerte, revoked her passport. Rocafuerte justified his order to exile Sáenz by stating “It is the women who most promote the spirit of anarchy in these countries".^[8] She then took refuge in northern Peru, living in the small coastal town of Paita. She descended into poverty and for the next twenty-five years, a destitute outcast, Manuela sold tobacco and translated letters for North American whale hunters who wrote to their lovers in Latin America. While there, she met the American author Herman Melville, and the revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi.

Saenz would establish The Society of Patriotic Ladies and decorating the members with the slogan “To the patriotism of the most sensitive" Manuela Sáenz and other women partook in conspiracies against Spanish rule in her years of exile.^[9]

In 1847, her husband was murdered in Pativilca and she was denied her 8,000 pesos inheritance. Disabled after the stairs in her home collapsed, Manuela died in Paita, on 23 November 1856, during a diphtheria epidemic. Her body was buried in a communal, mass grave and her belongings were burned. The items that did survive, personal letters and artifacts, contributed later to the legacy of both her and Simon Bolívar.

Feminist contribution

Painting of Manuela Saenz at the time

During Saenz's time, women's realm consisted of private and domestic spaces while politics and warfare spaces were for men. She found various ways physically and symbolically to take part in masculine spheres of activity yet also take part in the feminine arenas of her period. She used feminine behaviours to have some influence in these masculine spaces, usually using her intimate relationships as tools.^[10]

She did not feel constrained by gendered conventions of what was considered proper feminine behaviour. She smoked, she dressed up in masculine clothes, was trained for military action.^[11] Saenz was an erotic symbol with her passion for Bolivar.^[11]

Saenz was often described as an eccentric woman, a lesbian, who "would dress up during the day as an official and during the night she went through a metamorphosis with the help of some wine."^[12]

Saenz is usually identified as an emancipated woman with a conviction for liberty and independence as well as a woman who breaks the status quo.^[12]

She developed a discourse of friendship while in exile to give women some empowerment. This discourse of friendship was used to justify the influence of women in politics. Her work opposed the exclusion of women from politics by connecting friendship with female companionship.^[13] Seeing elite women as friends, instead of wives and mothers, goes against the issues surrounding the notion of “republican motherhood” which Saenz was familiar with at her time.^[8] This notion of motherhood focused on the idea that women were better as wives and mothers than as companions and collaborators. The praise of republican motherhood showed that there was fear and distress with the idea that women could influence and undermine the state if they are left on their own.^[13] Through the friendship discourse women would be seen as friends and peers to men, as companions and collaborators.

Manuela Sáenz did not protest women’s exclusion from politics, but used that exclusion as a reasoning and personal interest into an affirmation of reliability and trustworthiness of women.^[14]

Friendship, therefore, became a tool for independent women, which gave them a degree of influence greater than they were previously seen before this friendship discourse.^[15] Saenz believed that friendship would create stability and consistency. Sáenz switched the gendered icons within ideology at the time by encouraging friendship and the association of it with women.^[16]

Lastly, by putting aside the view of motherhood or “woman problem,” Saenz work and image encouraged women to demand respect from politicians and intellectuals as individuals and not just as icons of their sex.^[17]

Museo Manuela Sáenz

The Museo Manuela Sáenz is a museum in Old Town, Quito, that contains personal effects from both Sáenz and Bolívar to "[safeguard] the memories of Manuela Saenz, Quito's illustrious daughter".^[18] Located at Junin 709 y Montufar, Centro Histórico, Quito. Entrance to the museum is free with the purchase of one of the books about Manuela's life. Personal effects within the museum include letters, stamps, and paintings.