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Las Cuatro Estaciones de Manuela
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First published January 1, 1952
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About the author
Victor Wolfgang von Hagen
144 books14 followersVictor Wolfgang von Hagen (February 29, 1908 - March 8, 1985) was a US-American explorer, archaeological historian, anthropologist, and travel writer who traveled the South Americas with his wife, Christine. Mainly between 1940 and 1965, he published a large number of widely acclaimed books about the ancient people of the Inca, Maya, and Aztecs.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 2, 2019
Few of us will ever accomplish anything that justifies a capitalized title, but the story of "La Sáenz" seems to justify it. And as the title of this biography implies, hers is intertwined with that of "The Liberator" Simón Bolívar.
Bolívar's drive and vision are often credited as the leading lights which inspired several nations to overcome the hardships of throwing off the yoke of Spanish rule, but he ran into problems when the liberated people started to ask, "now what?" How, when revolutions are sometimes born and completed in a matter of days, did he manage to hold everything together for so long in a country that took months to send a message across? And how did he manage to die of natural causes while acting like a naive king from Game of Thrones?
Well, it sounds like he surrounded himself with close allies who he trusted implicitly to observe and act on his behalf when he was not present or not interested. People like the long-time bodyguard and majordomo José Palacios, the general Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá who Bolívar often thought of as his successor, and the English-speaking colonel and de-facto spymaster Manuela Sáenz.
These bonds often bordered on familial; Palacios was like a brother to Bolívar, Sucre was practically an adopted son, and after a while Manuela and Bolívar came to be married in all but law. Bolívar had sworn never to marry again after his first wife died of disease and Manuela had already married an English merchant by the time she met Bolívar, and while Manuela was a bit more attached to Bolívar than Bolívar was to Manuela, I do sort of wonder whether their dedication to each other might have stemmed from the dedication which they had each pledged to the people of their nations.
Like family, though, they often disagreed about the right course of action, and maybe one thing that kept Bolívar alive through the endless tumult of dissolving and creating governments was his willingness to accept and support their contrary opinions. Manuela's expertise complimented Bolívar's disinterest in politics, so she often found herself navigating tricky situations on his behalf. And having spent her youth growing up as a bastard in the snakes' den of jealous aristocratic politics around Quito, her intuitive grasp of politics and intrigue seemed to exist alongside a significant disdain for the whole song and dance.
So unsurprisingly, when she became a regular face around Bolívar's councils, she often took it upon herself to act without consulting him when they were apart. And since she listened to public opinion and took threats to Bolívar's image (and her own) much more seriously than he did, sometimes those actions went farther than he might have liked. But her actions reflected an unwavering belief in Bolívar's policies which sounds infectious. At one point she heard about plans to burn effigies of her and the Liberator during a parade and in response, she took a group of lancers to where it was being assembled, shouted at the soldiers guarding it, detonated the platform by shooting the fireworks underneath, and rode away.
She managed to avoid jail time for that sort of stunt for the most part, although she occasionally faced exile from places like Quito or Lima, and she once almost shot a bailiff while trying to negotiate her release. She also faced a good deal of public criticism, especially from the same aristocrats who had turned their noses up at her birth, but it sounds like it was mostly printed in the 1800s equivalent of tabloids. This biography called them papeluchas, which I would guess is a portmanteau of 'papel' and 'luchar', 'paper' and 'fight'.
But Manuela always held a firm resolve that time would justify both her actions and those of Bolívar, to whom she felt inextricably linked. She was often portrayed as unpredictable and even insane by her critics, but it seems like she rarely acted rashly. She once uncovered a plot to assassinate Bolívar on the night of a big party, but The Liberator was notoriously blasé about his personal safety and insisted on going. Manuela responded by making a scene at the door to make everyone leave out of embarrassment, which the papers must have had a field day with. But they wouldn't have had much time to laugh, because it wasn't long before she was pushing him out of a window to foil a more serious attempt on his life that became known as the Conspiración Septembrina.
I don't know, it's hard to summarize a biography like this one. The life of Manuela Sáenz is inspirational and often surprising. Politically shunned from birth and raised in a convent, she became a pivotal figure in the history of Gran Colombia based off of nothing more than her audacity, wit, and willpower. She was and is often portrayed as a volatile influence who Bolívar unwisely tolerated, but history is written by the victors and it seems like Bolívar's inner circle was often smeared and blamed during the time when he was trying to create functioning governments for Gran Colombia after helping to liberate them from Spain.
And the tragic irony is that Manuela was a witty personality who had a lot to say about this period of history, but we will probably never hear most of it. She was not quiet about her lifelong quest to collate a library of documents and correspondence about Bolívar's exploits, and she kept it with her through retirement. But it was all burned indiscriminately when a deadly plague struck the town which she had retired to; the legend goes that a close friend raced to the village after the funeral, only to find a single charred letter among a pile of ashes outside her house. She moved mountains to collect and preserve their story as she thought it should be told, but thanks to one of those little accidents of history, we have been left to sift through Bolívar's remaining legacy for glimpses of it.
Bolívar's drive and vision are often credited as the leading lights which inspired several nations to overcome the hardships of throwing off the yoke of Spanish rule, but he ran into problems when the liberated people started to ask, "now what?" How, when revolutions are sometimes born and completed in a matter of days, did he manage to hold everything together for so long in a country that took months to send a message across? And how did he manage to die of natural causes while acting like a naive king from Game of Thrones?
Well, it sounds like he surrounded himself with close allies who he trusted implicitly to observe and act on his behalf when he was not present or not interested. People like the long-time bodyguard and majordomo José Palacios, the general Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá who Bolívar often thought of as his successor, and the English-speaking colonel and de-facto spymaster Manuela Sáenz.
These bonds often bordered on familial; Palacios was like a brother to Bolívar, Sucre was practically an adopted son, and after a while Manuela and Bolívar came to be married in all but law. Bolívar had sworn never to marry again after his first wife died of disease and Manuela had already married an English merchant by the time she met Bolívar, and while Manuela was a bit more attached to Bolívar than Bolívar was to Manuela, I do sort of wonder whether their dedication to each other might have stemmed from the dedication which they had each pledged to the people of their nations.
Like family, though, they often disagreed about the right course of action, and maybe one thing that kept Bolívar alive through the endless tumult of dissolving and creating governments was his willingness to accept and support their contrary opinions. Manuela's expertise complimented Bolívar's disinterest in politics, so she often found herself navigating tricky situations on his behalf. And having spent her youth growing up as a bastard in the snakes' den of jealous aristocratic politics around Quito, her intuitive grasp of politics and intrigue seemed to exist alongside a significant disdain for the whole song and dance.
So unsurprisingly, when she became a regular face around Bolívar's councils, she often took it upon herself to act without consulting him when they were apart. And since she listened to public opinion and took threats to Bolívar's image (and her own) much more seriously than he did, sometimes those actions went farther than he might have liked. But her actions reflected an unwavering belief in Bolívar's policies which sounds infectious. At one point she heard about plans to burn effigies of her and the Liberator during a parade and in response, she took a group of lancers to where it was being assembled, shouted at the soldiers guarding it, detonated the platform by shooting the fireworks underneath, and rode away.
She managed to avoid jail time for that sort of stunt for the most part, although she occasionally faced exile from places like Quito or Lima, and she once almost shot a bailiff while trying to negotiate her release. She also faced a good deal of public criticism, especially from the same aristocrats who had turned their noses up at her birth, but it sounds like it was mostly printed in the 1800s equivalent of tabloids. This biography called them papeluchas, which I would guess is a portmanteau of 'papel' and 'luchar', 'paper' and 'fight'.
But Manuela always held a firm resolve that time would justify both her actions and those of Bolívar, to whom she felt inextricably linked. She was often portrayed as unpredictable and even insane by her critics, but it seems like she rarely acted rashly. She once uncovered a plot to assassinate Bolívar on the night of a big party, but The Liberator was notoriously blasé about his personal safety and insisted on going. Manuela responded by making a scene at the door to make everyone leave out of embarrassment, which the papers must have had a field day with. But they wouldn't have had much time to laugh, because it wasn't long before she was pushing him out of a window to foil a more serious attempt on his life that became known as the Conspiración Septembrina.
I don't know, it's hard to summarize a biography like this one. The life of Manuela Sáenz is inspirational and often surprising. Politically shunned from birth and raised in a convent, she became a pivotal figure in the history of Gran Colombia based off of nothing more than her audacity, wit, and willpower. She was and is often portrayed as a volatile influence who Bolívar unwisely tolerated, but history is written by the victors and it seems like Bolívar's inner circle was often smeared and blamed during the time when he was trying to create functioning governments for Gran Colombia after helping to liberate them from Spain.
And the tragic irony is that Manuela was a witty personality who had a lot to say about this period of history, but we will probably never hear most of it. She was not quiet about her lifelong quest to collate a library of documents and correspondence about Bolívar's exploits, and she kept it with her through retirement. But it was all burned indiscriminately when a deadly plague struck the town which she had retired to; the legend goes that a close friend raced to the village after the funeral, only to find a single charred letter among a pile of ashes outside her house. She moved mountains to collect and preserve their story as she thought it should be told, but thanks to one of those little accidents of history, we have been left to sift through Bolívar's remaining legacy for glimpses of it.
January 7, 2020
El libro en el que descubrí la maravillosa Manuela Saenz... La narrativa más la mezcla con sus cartas, hacen sentir cercanía con una mujer que cambió el rumbo de América a través de su tumultuosa relación con Simón Bolivar, El Libertador
July 6, 2018
Great book! An awesome combination of history and (true) love story. It’s best to understand a bit about Bolivar and the history of South America before reading this book.
November 20, 2013
He quedado gratamente sorprendida al descubrir en este libro la importantísima actuación de esta heroína desconocida, en la historia de nuestra independencia. A Manuelita Saez NUNCA se la menciona en nuestros libros o clases de de historia, y fuera de ese ambiente académico lo único que ocasionalmente se dice de ella es que fue "la amante del Libertador Simón Bolivar", como una debilidad pasajera, solo pasional y hasta sombría en la vida del héroe. ¡Cuanta ignorancia prevalece en esta pobre visión! que solo por prejuicio ha hecho a un lado el papel de esta singular mujer en hechos tan determinantes que marcaron nuestra historia. Ella a su manera, también influyó y es parte de ella.
Afortunadamente, trabajos como las de este autor, Victor Wolgnag von Hagen, serio escritor, que luego de años de investigación ha construido las líneas de su vida en base a reales documentos y fuentes históricas, nos permiten ahora, aunque tarde en el tiempo, rescatar y valorar la importante vida de esta gran mujer, única como pocas, que como el mismo Bolivar la calificó, bien merecería llevar el título de "la libertadora".
A Manuelita: que gusto haber conocido aunque sea tan solo un eco de ti, de tu luchas por la libertad, de tus ideales y sueños de justicia. También de tus arrebatos, de tus momentos de debilidad, porque al fin y al cabo, no eras más que una mujer, que bajo las limitaciones sociales de la época que te tocó vivir no optaste por la cómoda sumisión como las demás, sino que ante todo fuiste fiel a tus sueños, a tus ideales, representados en ese hombre, que hoy hemos idealizado como El Libertador.
Nunca he comprendido bien a Bolívar, digan lo que digan, siempre he tenido mis dudas sobre esa imagen tan idealizada que se ha construido sobre el, pero ahora, aunque aún no del todo, he visto a través de ti algo de la realidad de ese ser: la de un hombre con una ambición y sueños de grandeza, pero al final un hombre normal y corriente como cualquiera, con sentimientos, debilidades, dudas y que al igual que muchos, cometió un grave error: el dejar sola y abandonada a su suerte, a la gran mujer que realmente lo amó.
Quiero conocer más sobre ella, pero sobretodo, ahora sé y así lo haré saber también en mi país, Venezuela, que detrás de ese gran hombre que tanto se idolatra, existió una gran mujer, nuestra libertadora sentimental: MANUELITA SAEZ.
Manuelita: que el tiempo, la historia, aunque tarde te reconozca y recompense tu memoria!!!
Afortunadamente, trabajos como las de este autor, Victor Wolgnag von Hagen, serio escritor, que luego de años de investigación ha construido las líneas de su vida en base a reales documentos y fuentes históricas, nos permiten ahora, aunque tarde en el tiempo, rescatar y valorar la importante vida de esta gran mujer, única como pocas, que como el mismo Bolivar la calificó, bien merecería llevar el título de "la libertadora".
A Manuelita: que gusto haber conocido aunque sea tan solo un eco de ti, de tu luchas por la libertad, de tus ideales y sueños de justicia. También de tus arrebatos, de tus momentos de debilidad, porque al fin y al cabo, no eras más que una mujer, que bajo las limitaciones sociales de la época que te tocó vivir no optaste por la cómoda sumisión como las demás, sino que ante todo fuiste fiel a tus sueños, a tus ideales, representados en ese hombre, que hoy hemos idealizado como El Libertador.
Nunca he comprendido bien a Bolívar, digan lo que digan, siempre he tenido mis dudas sobre esa imagen tan idealizada que se ha construido sobre el, pero ahora, aunque aún no del todo, he visto a través de ti algo de la realidad de ese ser: la de un hombre con una ambición y sueños de grandeza, pero al final un hombre normal y corriente como cualquiera, con sentimientos, debilidades, dudas y que al igual que muchos, cometió un grave error: el dejar sola y abandonada a su suerte, a la gran mujer que realmente lo amó.
Quiero conocer más sobre ella, pero sobretodo, ahora sé y así lo haré saber también en mi país, Venezuela, que detrás de ese gran hombre que tanto se idolatra, existió una gran mujer, nuestra libertadora sentimental: MANUELITA SAEZ.
Manuelita: que el tiempo, la historia, aunque tarde te reconozca y recompense tu memoria!!!
August 19, 2012
This is a very interesting biography of Manuela Saenz and Simon Bolivar.
Simon Bolivar liberated South America from Spanish rule against great odds but his life ended tragically due to political factors and people within his own camp he failed to control
I have been told from someone who grew up in South America that this book is often required reading in South America as a basic text for it's history.
Simon Bolivar liberated South America from Spanish rule against great odds but his life ended tragically due to political factors and people within his own camp he failed to control
I have been told from someone who grew up in South America that this book is often required reading in South America as a basic text for it's history.
October 1, 2013
Disfruté la línea histórica del proceso independentista desde la perspectiva de Manuela, aunque el ojo masculino aún prevalece.
August 8, 2020
Que bueno que se reconozca el papel de Manuela Saenz en nuestra historia!
Bien documentada. Me ilustró mucho sobre esta época tan importante para mi país
Bien documentada. Me ilustró mucho sobre esta época tan importante para mi país
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews