Her mother was abandoned by her modest family as a result of the pregnancy and her father paid for young "Manuelita" to go to school at the Convent of Santa Catalina where she learned to read and write.

While there, she encountered a microcosm of the Spanish colonial caste system, with white nuns ruling over a large group of mestiza and native servants and maids.

[2] For several years, Manuela lived with her father, who in 1817 arranged for her marriage to a wealthy English doctor, James Thorne, who was twice her age.

[3] The couple moved to Lima, Peru, in 1819 where she lived as an aristocrat and held social gatherings in her home where guests included political leaders and military officers.

These guests shared military secrets about the ongoing revolution with her, and, in 1819, when Simón Bolívar took part in the successful liberation of New Granada, Manuela Sáenz was radicalized and an active member in the conspiracy against the viceroy of Perú, José de la Serna e Hinojosa during 1820.

[4] As part of this conspiracy, Manuela, her friend Rosa Campuzano, and other women who were pro-Independence attempted to recruit colonial troops from the royalist defense arsenal in Lima, guarded by the vital Numancia regiment.

The conspiracy was a success, with much of the regiment, including Manuela's half brother, defecting to the anti-Spanish army of José de San Martín.

In 1822, Sáenz left her husband and traveled to Quito, where at a ball she met Simón Bolívar, eventually becoming romantically involved.

During the anti-Bolivarian conspiracy led by Colombian Colonel José Bustamente, Manuela was a key member of the Pro-Bolivarian forces.

On January 25, 1827, significant portions of the Colombian Army's Third Division mutinied in Lima, arresting senior officers and seizing key locations in the city, demanding better food and pay as General Santa Cruz and the conspirators suspended the Bolivarian Constitution.

Woken by the sound of fighting, Bolívar intended to investigate, but Sáenz, who was sharing his bed, persuaded him to leave by a window while she confronted the intruders.

She then convinced them that Bolívar was somewhere in the building and proceeded to lead them to various rooms, affecting to lose her way and even stopping to attend one of the wounded.

[6] On his deathbed, Bolívar had asked his aide-de-camp, General Daniel F. O'Leary to burn the remaining, extensive archive of his writings, letters, and speeches.

O'Leary disobeyed the order and his writings survived, providing historians with a vast wealth of information about Bolívar's liberal philosophy and thought, as well as details of his personal life, such as his longstanding love affair with Manuela Sáenz.

[11] Rocafuerte justified his order to exile Sáenz by stating “It is the women who most promote the spirit of anarchy in these countries".

[13] She descended into poverty and for the next twenty-five years, a destitute outcast, Manuela sold tobacco and translated letters for North American whale hunters who wrote to their lovers in Hispanic America.

[16] Saenz was often described as an eccentric woman, a lesbian, who "would dress up during the day as an official and during the night she went through a metamorphosis with the help of some wine.

[18] Seeing elite women as friends, instead of wives and mothers, goes against the issues surrounding the notion of “republican motherhood” which Saenz was familiar with at her time.

The praise of republican motherhood showed that there was fear and distress with the idea that women could influence and undermine the state if they are left on their own.

[21] Lastly, by putting aside the view of motherhood or “woman problem,” Saenz work and image encouraged women to demand respect from politicians and intellectuals as individuals and not just as icons of their sex.

[23][24] After her death, Sáenz became a symbol not only of feminism, but also of the struggle of sexual minorities (including homosexual and transgender people) for their rights.

[6] Ideas about her being sexually deviant, hyper feminine and incapable were replaced by more favorable portrayals as the 20th century progressed.

Portrayals within the fictional The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez and the nonfictional Alfonso Rumazo's Manuela Saenz La Libertadora del Libertador contributed to her effective humanization within popular culture and helped politicize her image.

Manuela became increasingly popular with radical Latin American feminist groups subsequently, her image was commonly used as a rallying point for Indo-Latina causes of the 1980s.

[5] There was a gathering of feminists in Paita on September 24, 1989, organized by Nella Martinez which encouraged the recognition of Manuela Saenz and paid homage to her.