Loyal to Spain

María Antonia Bolívar was born on November 1, 1777, to Juan Vicente Bolívar and María de la Concepción Palacios de Blanco.  Members of the Caracas elite, the Bolívars owned extensive slave-tended plantations in the Aragua Valley as well as the Aroa copper mines. Although María Antonia received an education as her letters demonstrate, her main purpose in life was to make a suitable marriage to a man of her social class. In 1792, at age fifteen, she married Pablo Clemente Palacios y Francia. The couple had four children: Anacleto, Valentina, Josefa, and Pablo Secundino.7 Marriage and motherhood were the goals of women of the upper and middle classes; the only other acceptable option for single women was the convent.

The war for independence was a turning point for María Antonia Bolívar and her family, resulting in both a personal crisis and a historical crisis. Before war broke out in 1811, she lived a quiet domestic life within the confines of her family, social group, and the Catholic Church. War threatened her social position, her standard of living, and her substantial financial and economic interests that included five houses in Caracas, eleven houses in the port of La Guaira, two sugar mills, a cacao hacienda in Tacarigua Valley and slaves.8 The independence movement ran counter to her monarchical convictions that were informed by her social position, education, training, and family background.

When hostilities began, María Antonia was living in Caracas. Although estranged politically from Simón Bolívar because of her support for royalist rule, she remained in contact with him throughout the war and until his death. She looked after his properties that were part of the family patrimony, as she was interested in maintaining the family's holdings, despite their differences, and she visited him when he was in the capital. She did not let her political views change their close filial relationship and their mutual interest in preserving their inherited wealth. In fact, she acquiesced to his request to turn over 300 slaves from his San Mateo plantation to the republican army. She wrote: "The country needs soldiers for its defense. Proceed to form your new battalion".9 Maria Antonia did not let her personal political views hinder the needs of her brother's army and the resultant losses their property would suffer if devastated by the Spanish Army. When Simón Bolívar issued the proclamation of the War to the Death in 1813, she moved to her estate in Macarao for safety reasons and to avoid any connection with political plots in the capital. There, during February 1813, she hid Spaniards and Canary Islanders who were loyal to the crown in her house, a deed that was punishable by death.10 Presumably, she would not have taken these steps if she did not support the crown.