Manuela Sáenz de Vergara y Aizpuru (27 December 1797 – 23 November 1856) was an Ecuadorian revolutionary heroine of South America who supported the revolutionary cause by gathering information, distributing leaflets and protesting for women's rights. Manuela received the Order of the Sun ("Caballeresa del Sol" or 'Dame of the Sun'), honoring her services in the revolution.
A young woman enters revolutionary politics
Manuela was born in Quito, Viceroyalty of New Granada, 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.
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. She married Dr. Thorne out of obedience, not out of love. 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, Sáenz was radicalized and became an active member in the conspiracy against the viceroy of Peru, José de la Serna e Hinojosa during 1820.
Work and danger beside Bolívar
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.
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 Andrés de 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 herself in full uniform, she addressed troops of the Third Division and begged them to remain loyal to Bolívar. 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.
Exile and later remembrance
When she attempted to return to Ecuador in 1835, the Ecuadorian president, Vicente Rocafuerte, revoked her passport. She was charged with conspiracy against the Spanish crown, and was thus exiled, despite the fact that she did not get a trial. Rocafuerte justified his order to exile Sáenz by stating "It is the women who most promote the spirit of anarchy in these countries". She then took refuge in northern Peru, living in the small coastal town of Paita. On 5 July 2010, Manuela Sáenz was given a full state burial in Venezuela.
Because she had been buried in a mass grave, no official remains of her existed for the state burial; instead, "symbolic remains", composed of some soil from the mass grave into which she was buried during the epidemic, were transported through Peru, Ecuador and Colombia to Venezuela. Those remains were laid in the National Pantheon of Venezuela where those of Bolívar are also memorialized. After the revolution, Manuela effectively faded from literature.
Between 1860 and 1940 only three Ecuadorian writers wrote about her and her participation in the revolution, and these writings largely portrayed her as either exclusively the lover of Simón Bolívar or as incapable and wrongfully participating within the political sphere. These portrayals also assured her femininity as a mainstay of her characterization. However, the 1940s created a significant shift in how she was viewed and characterized.