/ARTS WEEKLY/ HISTORY-VENEZUELA: A Realist in Bolivar’s Shadow

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Oct 7 2003 (IPS) - María Antonia Bolívar, the “odd” sister of South American Liberator Simón Bolívar has been rescued from the archives of history by Venezuelan researcher Inés Quintero, whose new book reveals how the “realist” opposed her brother’s heroic exploits and passionately defended the Spanish Crown.

In the 160-page book titled “La criolla principal”, Quintero illuminates “an unknown, an anonymous entity in history,” who was relegated to oblivion because the personality of Simón Bolívar “is so significant that it overshadows everything around it.”

“For example, we know only part of the life of Manuela Sáenz (Simón Bolívar’s lover), the part that took place at his side. Before and after that period, we know nothing about her. The same happens with other independence heroes who were close to him, like marshal Antonio José de Sucre,” the author told IPS.

“Very little is known about María Antonia Bolívar (1777-1842). Her name is only mentioned in reference to the advice she gave her brother – never to give up his title as Liberator – or that she took in the young Simón when he decided to escape the tutelage of his uncle,” said Quintero.

In her book, the historian maintains that María Antonia “is not a woman who passively accepts her historic circumstances. Most of the ‘mantuanas’ (Creole women of noble lineage) of the era heeded the political decisions of their families – but not her.”

“It is striking that the older sister of the Liberator was a furious and militant realist. She hid Spaniards and Canary Islanders at the time of the “War Until Death” (1813-1820), she wrote to the King of Spain to distance herself from her brother. These were things she did herself, not her husband Pablo Clemente,” she said.

The authorities of the era seized María Antonia Bolívar’s possessions, but the King of Spain granted her a pension so that she could live decently while she was in exile, forced by her own brother Simón. He sent her to the Dutch island of Curaçao in 1814 when the royal caudillo José Tomás Boves threatened to march on Caracas.

About that episode – which reveals how the siblings were united in spite of their ideological differences – Venezuelan historian Vinicio Romero said in a conversation with IPS that María Antonia was “perhaps the only person who abandoned the capital under force. Before leaving on the trek to eastern Venezuela (1814), Bolívar made sure his sister was on her way to Curaçao.”

Romero served as a consultant to Colombian Nobel Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez when he wrote “The General in His Labyrinth”, about Simón Bolívar. The historian noted, “It is curious that María Antonia defended Bolívar against the cunning attacks made against him in Caracas and challenged him not to let himself be crowned king of Greater Colombia.”

“María Antonia wasn’t the only exception in her confessed realism. What happens is that she is emblematic because she was none other than the Liberator’s older sister,” says Romero, adding that the history of the Bolívar family is not complete.

“La criolla principal” is Quintero’s first book to have specific plans for its distribution. “It isn’t for experts, but for readers. It does not have academic aims. In the book I have gathered my experience as an historian for the use of the general public.”

But she did not want to write an historic novel, “because the life of María Antonia Bolívar is better than a novel. Wealthy, and an orphan at 14, her custodians led her to the altar before her 15th birthday. Exiled, mother of four and widow before reaching 35, it has been said that even as a sixty-something she took a lover.”

Quintero has also published the books “Antonio Guzmán Blanco and His Era”, about an important Venezuelan liberal caudillo of the 19th century, “Look Through the Window” and “Decline of a Lineage”.

For this latest effort, she gathered information from the principal archives about Bolívar, one of South America’s most eminent Liberators.

“The advantage of working on the Bolívar family is that everything has been meticulously preserved. What happens is that when historians consult the archives, they only look for Simón. But everything is there: María Antonia’s letters, her lawsuits, her opinions about her brother, her ideas about order, and each one of her motivations in first-person singular.”

Although the role of women in Venezuela’s war of independence has been highlighted by historians through the heroines Ana María Campos, Juana la Avanzadora, Luisa Cáceres, Joaquina Sánchez, Eulalia Buroz, Carmen Ramírez, Concepción Mariño and Josefa Camejo, this is the first time that a figure from the “realist side” receives special attention.

Still to be written are histories of the anonymous women, like the ‘troperas’, who accompanied their husbands, sons or brothers to war.

Historian Romero notes, “In the Battle of Carabobo (which sealed independence in 1821), some 200 women died.”