Early life 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. 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.
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. She married Dr. Thorne out of obedience, not out of love. In her early periods she would hold secret gatherings, where she would pass information as a spy. Manuela Saenz participated in the negotiations with the
Numancia battalion. 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. 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. She remained politically active and frequently wrote letters to other revolutionaries. She descended into poverty and for the next 25 years, a destitute outcast, Manuela sold tobacco and translated letters for North American
whale hunters who wrote to their lovers in Hispanic 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. 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 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. She did not feel constrained by gendered conventions of what was considered proper feminine behaviour. She smoked, she dressed up in masculine clothes, and was trained for military action. Saenz was an erotic symbol with her passion for Bolivar. Saenz is usually identified as an emancipated woman with a conviction for liberty and independence as well as a woman who broke the status quo. 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. 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. Saenz believed that friendship would create stability and consistency, and switched the gendered icons within ideology at the time by encouraging friendship and the association of it with women. Lastly, by putting aside the view of motherhood or the “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.
Sexual orientation and LGBT rights activism Manuela Sáenz was a bisexual woman.
J. B. Boussingault wrote in his memoirs about her "inexplicably close relationships" with her friends Polycarpa and Baltasara. == Recognition and 2010 reburial ==