por Who was Marietta de Veintemilla?
Marietta of twenty-mile (1858-1907) was an Ecuadorian-born writer, politician, and feminist. Thanks to her, there were many changes in terms of the role of women in the Ecuadorian society of the 19th century.
Between 1876 and 1883, she served as first lady during the government of her uncle, General Ignacio de Veintemilla, since he was single. She was concerned with both the social aspects of government and the political ones.
She was nicknamed «the Generalita» because when her uncle was away, she took the reins of the Ecuadorian government and army, with the help of officials loyal to Veintemilla.
His participation was especially relevant in 1882, during the civil war against the Veintemilla dictatorship.
Regarding feminist activism, Marietta de Veintemilla implemented with her own example radical changes in the way Ecuadorian women behave. She introduced bright colors to the clothing, leaving behind the typical traditional black attire for the ladies.
Veintemilla was also the first to walk the streets of Quito without a male company as protection. Thanks to this, the rest of the Quito women were able to start walking in the company of women or alone through the streets of the city.
Marietta de Veintemilla dedicated herself to writing. One of her most famous works was Ecuador Pages, written from exile when the rebels overthrew his uncle and forced them to leave the country. Although the author herself denies it, the work tried to vindicate the figure of Ignacio de Veintemilla.
When he returned to Ecuador in 1898 he tried to recover allies for General Veintemilla, but failed in this project. However, she was one of Ecuador’s leading feminist figures. Veintemilla encouraged women to write and participate in all spheres of society.
Biography of Marietta de Veintemilla
early years
Marietta de Veintemilla was born on September 8, 1858 in Ecuador, aboard a ship that was approaching the port, bound for Guayaquil. She was the daughter of General José de Veintemilla Villacís and Marietta Marconi, an Italian opera singer who came to America with the Ferreti Company.
Her parents met and married in Lima, Peru, but decided to return to Ecuador on the eve of Marietta’s birth.
Her mother died when little Veintemilla was approximately 5 years old, which is why her father entrusted her education to the Sacred Hearts School, in Quito. In 1869 José de Veintemilla died after rebelling against President Gabriel García Moreno.
Marietta was left in the care of her father’s younger brother, Ignacio de Veintemilla, who felt great affection for his niece and raised her as his own daughter.
But the family had to separate when General Veintemilla was banished from Ecuador by the government that considered his entire family a risk to national stability. Meanwhile, Marietta stayed at the boarding school.
At that time, she liked to compose music and sing. She was considered a beautiful girl from a very young age, due to her blue eyes and golden hair, rare in Ecuador at the time.
Youth
In 1879 her uncle, General Ignacio de Veintemilla, became supreme head of the Republic of Ecuador and she moved with him to the Government Palace. Since then, Marietta began to exercise the functions of first lady, since her uncle was single.
He maintained his interest in cultural activities, and turned the Government Palace into the cultural center of the country. Its parties and meetings summoned the intelligentsia, not only from Ecuador, but from Latin America.
In 1881 she married Antonio Lapierre, but after 10 months of marriage, Marietta was widowed.
Thanks to her, different works were carried out in Quito, such as the recovery of Alameda Park, the remodeling of the San Juan de Dios Hospital or the construction of the Sucre Theater.
Government
In 1882, conservatives and liberals united against the dictatorship of General Veintemilla. At this time Marietta was in charge of the government in Quito, while her uncle was in Guayaquil.
The girl went alone against Colonel Vernaza, the Minister of War, of whom she guessed a betrayal before it materialized: he would try to raise the troops in the capital of a government that he believed to be headless.
However, Marietta spoke to the soldiers, awakening in them loyalty to her uncle’s government. This is how she earned the nickname “la Generalita”.
In January 1883, Veintemilla resisted the rebel attack in Quito, evaded the betrayal of his own as much as he could and took command of the army with revolver in hand. Even so, the Government Palace fell, and with it Marietta de Veintemilla, who was imprisoned in the Municipal House for eight months.
Upon leaving prison, the support and sympathy shown by the capital to Veintemilla was such that the government decided to send her into exile in Lima, Peru, for 15 years. It was there that she wrote Ecuador Pagesa mix between the factual facts of national history, with his own experiences and point of view.
Return to Quito
Returning from Peru in 1898, Marietta tried to recover the properties that belonged to her family. Meanwhile, she continued her work as a writer and fighting for the defense of women’s rights.
For a time, between 1900 and 1904, he tried to rally support for the cause of his uncle, Ignacio de Veintemilla, but was unsuccessful and gave up his intentions, devoting himself to writing and private life.
Death
On May 11, 1907, he died in Quito as a result of malaria. She was the first woman to receive funeral honors from a general.
She left behind her the memory of a brave woman, who earned intellectual respect in the same way that she got the soldiers to follow her with the cry «Long live the Generalita».
Plays
It must be taken into account that Marietta de Veintemilla developed in an environment that, until then, had been controlled by men. She was well aware of that and motivated her to cultivate in her performance.
Veintemilla tried to be at the forefront of political, social and scientific advances. He kept his readings up to date with what was happening in the European intelligentsia of the time, without neglecting the classics.
In addition, when she published any of her own texts, she made sure that a photograph was included in it, to avoid being mistaken for a man when someone read her writings.
Marietta de Veintemilla conquered a hostile world in which she would simply have been admired for her beauty or talents considered feminine, such as singing or musical interpretation.
Ecuador Pages
Ecuador Pages It is the most recognized work of Marietta de Veintemilla. In it, she settles her political ideas. It is inevitable that it has a great subjective load, being a mixture between essay, history, novel and autobiography.
With the union of these styles, Veintemilla managed to translate his opinion as a protagonist into the facts. However, he reveals great knowledge of the motives and circumstances surrounding the revolution and the government of his uncle, General Ignacio de Veintemilla.
In addition, it was the only work of its nature written from the perspective of a Latin American woman to date.
Marietta de Veintemilla’s work aroused controversy in its time. Naturally, she received responses from the other sides who may have been offended or who wanted to clarify some of the points from her own perspective. The most famous response was that of Antonio Flores Jijón.
Other publications
Marietta de Veintemilla also wrote essays that covered different topics and demonstrated her position as a free thinker, the first would be «Diesi rae patriotico», published in The sanction of Quito, in 1900.
In 1904, the text «Madame Rolland» appeared in the Magazine of the Legal-Literary Society, it was Marietta’s excuse to promote the participation of women in the political cause. At the same time, she advocated for equal rights between women and men.
To achieve this goal, Veintemilla puts herself as an example of capacity in situations considered masculine, but she also uses Madame Rolland and other women to demonstrate her argument.
In 1904, Marietta also published another essay, called «Goethe and his poem Splendor«, in The American Muse. That same year, a work called To the memory of Doctor Agustín Leónidas Yerobi.
Then, the Quito media The word published on August 10, 1906 an essay of his entitled «To the heroes of my homeland.» The following year, in 1907, the text appeared Conference on modern psychologyprinted by the Central University of Ecuador.
Marietta de Veintemilla demonstrated through all means at her disposal that women were perfectly capable of assuming roles reserved for men.
References
Marieta de Veintemilla. Taken from wikipedia.org.
Smith, V. Concise Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Veintemilla, M. Pages of Ecuador. Guayaquil, Ecuador: Department of Publications of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Guayaquil.