Manuela Sáenz: First and Last Meetings with Bolívar and the Life In Between

This paper will explore the circumstances that brought Simón Bolívar and Manuela Sáenz together and that contributed to one of the most remarkable relationships of the independence era and larger Age of Atlantic Revolution. While the couple’s romantic affair inspired much criticism in its day, especially among Bolívar’s political enemies, modern authors see it in a more positive light, interpreting it through the lens of nationalism (whether of the Left or Right) and, more recently, especially in Sáenz’s native Ecuador, of feminism. Few of them, however, have resisted the temptation to mythologize or to indulge in stereotypes; most have overlooked the historical details that lend insight into the complexity of the Sáenz-Bolívar relationship. The proposed chapter aims to remedy this by reexamining the major factors that shaped this relationship and, in turn, the unique personal alliance that arose from it. It will do so by focusing on some of the couple’s “milestone” encounters—including their momentous first meeting in Quito in 1823 and their final parting in Bogotá in 1830, the year of Bolívar’s early death.