Manuelita Saenz: more than the liberator of the liberator

Abstract

Manuela Sáenz y Aizpuru or Sáenz de Thorne -better known as Manuelita Sáenz- was born in Quito at the end of 1797 and died in Paita, Peru, at the end of 1856. Although for some time past society may have wanted to pigeonhole her as Bolivar's reckless and capricious lover, current history gives her the place she deserves as a woman ahead of her time, a lover of Latin American freedom and of the feminine right not only to be, but to do and (dis)do. For this monograph we have chosen 4 of her epistles, written for different events: In the first one she tells her husband James Thorne that she will not abandon Bolivar, among her justification she states that she does not care about the social norms of the time: "I laugh at myself, at you and at all the English seriousness". In the second, she reproaches the liberator himself for his insecurity regarding her ability as a woman to perform on the battlefield. In the third, he writes to Colonel Juana Azurduy. She affirms the role of women in the military world. The last one is the text in which she details to General O'Leary why Bolivar himself considered her his liberator.