What’s the word?

One reason to enjoy Latin American history is that our historical figures and revolutionary hero(ines) are soooo much more interesting than those in the history of the United States. Betsy Ross? Uh, let’s see… she was a respectable seamstress, I guess. Abigal Adams? I donno… she wrote some letters. And you can’t imagine George Washington stepping out on Martha, nor Martha doing much besides knitting and maybe whipping the slaves now and again.

Ah… but here. Rosa Capuzano… Manuela Sáenz… Maria Rodriguez de Velasco (aka la Güera Rodríguez) — what do we call them? Founding mothers? None were particularly motherly, and hardly “respectable” women, but the trio played key roles in their nations’ foundation.

Campuzano (1796 – 1851) was the illegitimate duaghter of a Ecuadorian cocao magnate (not coco, from which cocaine is grown… the little more “respectable” source of another addictive substane: chocolate). If illegitimacy wasn’t enough of a stain on her criollo heritage, taking up the notorious trade of a stage actress clinched her reputation as a femme fatale.

Of course, a “mere” actress, might not be invited into the salons of respectable mixed company… but “gentlemen’s clubs”… military gatherings… the coffeehouses and taverns where radical idea were discussed, plots were hatched, and loose lips could sink ships (or lose battles)? And all she had to do was keep her ears open? Naturally, she wasn’t on the side of the status quo, and committed to the revolution to come. Which, when it did, forced her … like her more conventionally acceptable, but even more notorious friend, Maneula Sáenz, to flee to Peru.

In Lima, Capuzano, although still not “respectable” was able to make a more than comfortable living (how exactly, no one seems sure, or wanted to know) and regularly held “salons” open to all… especially to those with unconventional ideas like independence. When José de San Martín, working his way up from Buenos Aires to liberate the Americas, come what may, made it to Lima, she quickly became indespensible, bringing the varied Peruvian patriots and San Martín together to drive out the Spanish and to try (as they still seem to be doing 200 years later) to work out some sort of functioning government for the country.

San Martín may have been a family man, but his family was very far away. While we are not completely sure of his personal relationship with Capuzano, she was one of his inner circle of advisors, and lived on and off with him, until his withdrawal from what he saw as a hopeless cause (that, and his worsening health). Although decorated by the new Peruvian nation for her services, and widely known as “la protectora” (San Martín being “el protector”) she would live the rest of her life in relative obscurity, had two sons by different husbands (one of whom she actually married) and dying in relative poverty in Lima in 1851.

Maneula Sáenz (1797 – 1856), the rebellious daughter of a respectable Quito family was just one of those kids. Managing to get herself tossed out of the best schools, and too unruly for her parents to do the respectable thing and pop her in a convent (none … or the nuns rather… wouldn’t have her for love or money), she was married off to an aging English doctor, who… having business interests up and down the Pacific coast… was seldom home. Leaving Maneula to do what she pretty much what she always did… raised hell and had a good time… and read, spoke to the best minds of her generation, and was basically a beatnik before her time. Another natural revolutionary.

Although… when you think about it… beakniks seldom actually join a revolution. Maneula had followed the exploits of Simón Bolivar in what media (i,e. newspapers and gossip) there was, and was more than anxious to do her part. That Bolivar (a widower at 20) was not exactly known for fidelity, made introductions all that less awkward. When the two caught up with each other in La Paz, two strong egos found their perfect match. Much to the consernation of his subordinates and advisors, Manuela (self-promoted to colonel) would remain Bolivar’s closest advisor, political consultant and bed partner even as he was being hunted by the very subordinates who were anxious to seize power after driving Spain from the continent.

Following the Liberator’s early death, and driven out by the new leaders, she found refuge in the Peruvian port of Pieta. Having had that English husband way back when came in handy, having picked up enough English to make her candy and grocery store known to British and American whalers… both to stock up for the long sea voyages, and an informal post office where homeward bound ships would pick up the mail from those heading out: well enough known to earn her a cameo appearance in Moby Dick.

La güera Rodriguez (1778-1850) would not, like Rosa or Maneula fade into obscurity. Several years older than the other two, she’d earned her reputation as an independent woman of exceptional intelligence well before independence was on the horizon. By 1800, she had already left her husband… rather dramatically when, having refused to return her dowry, she shot him (not fatally) which not quite convincing him to return her sizable fortune, she added the threat of denouncing him to the Inquisition as a “sodomite” to give into her demands for an independent life. Which she took full advantage of.

Her own home was across the street from that Prussian polymath then a temporary resident, Alexander von Humbolt (who… who, being a presumed “sodomite”, but immune from the Inquisition … which was toothless by now anyway) made a perfect “walker” for her excusions throughout Mexico City… for a time in the company of the adolscent Simon Bolivar as he waited to journey onward for military training in Spain. One is tempted to speculate on whether or not this was a factor in Bolivar’s own great respect not just for women as sex objects, but for their intelligence as well.. preferably in the same person, as with Manuela.

Mexico City’s elites, while less priggish than those in Lima about such matters, welcomed la güera into their salons… in part because she was not, as were Rosa — born on the wrong side of the blanket — or Manuela — openly contempuous of social convention, where the talk, like elsewhere in the colonies, was of the French and American (and Haitian) revolts. Besides, how disreputable could she be, her marble image as the Virgin Mary prominently displayed in the Church of Corpus Christi?

As a “society lady” in (relatively) good standing, she was well placed to know who among the prominent and wealthy families were willing to work for the Revolution and who against. She knew who to recruit to flirt with Spanish officers, who might be willing to donate to the cause, who had access to printing equipment , or weapons. As it was, who would expect that the “ladies who lunch” were gun running or passing along troop movements to those ruffians in the countryside?

Having been long separated from her husband it was understood that la güera would have discreet… and sometimes not so discreet… affairs. Including one not so discreet with Royalist General Agustin Iturbide. Her “feminine wiles” — or more likely the deterioring political situation in Spain, combined with the royalists getting their butts kicked, and the Mexican economy in collapse — is credited with convincing Iturbide to switch sides, and with la güera working out the formula (the “Three Guarantees”… giving the people universal male suffrage; the Catholic Church status as the state religion; and leaving the crillos in control of the economy) that clinched independence. Unwisely, perhaps, rather than follow the suggestion of either becoming a full republic, or a constitutional monarchy under a foreign prince, she also convinced (or so it is said) that Iturbide, like Napoleon Bonaparte (his role model) make himself Emperor…

Despite the messy indpendence and turbulance of the early independence ere, la güera was well regarded and continued to fascinate those (like Fanny Erkine Calderon de la Barca) who would go out their way to meet her up to her death in 1856.

So… the question. These three women are remembered mostly in terms of their relationship to a powerful man… and, in the histories, are usually called their “Mistress”: retro if not sexist, given they had their own political agendas, and — while subordinate to the caudillo — held their own as political figures. “Partner” isn’t right either… missing the romantic (and sexual) nature of their relationships. Some Spanish language texts use “Concubina”, which while it may be the legal term for their relatiionship sounds like something sordid translated into English.

HELP!