Relevant women of the 19th century from Andalusia

Since the world has become a world, patriarchal societies have wanted to relegate and leave women in the background, considered incapable, inferior, underestimated to the maximum. However, the reality is that many have struggled to be respected in a world that seemed to be dominated by men.

And, although we only collect some of their names, you can know through a brief profile the relevant female figures of the 19th century in Andalusia, as well as their historical context.

Historical context: These women have their relevance in the historical context in which they lived. Some belong to the period of the restoration of absolutism (1814 – 1833). They used their condition of weak and without criteria, according to the absolutists, to go unnoticed in their support for the bourgeois revolution in the attempt to reestablish the Constitution of 1812. Others belong to the liberal State (between 1833 -1868) highlighting some for his involvement in the preservation of Andalusian art, others in politics, etc. Finally, some of them also stood out at the end of the 19th century, where political instability was evident and as a consequence, Spain lost sovereignty over Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam.

Mariana Pineda: married to Manuel de Peralta, she became a widow and mother of two small children soon after. She welcomed into her home members of the party persecuted by the king. In 1827 a commander, a cousin of her husband, was sentenced to death, making Mariana the decision to hide a friar’s habit and give it to him during a visit to the prison. Thanks to that action he was able to escape in disguise.

Mayor Pedrosa was in love with her, but it was not reciprocated. It was he who accused her before the authorities when he saw her weave in her house the symbol of the bourgeois revolution.

She was a heroine of the cause of Spanish freedom, accused and sentenced to death in 1831, in Granada, for being immersed in a liberal conspiracy and for not betraying her collaborators.

The extraordinary poet and martyr, Federico García Lorca wrote a theater play in her honor.

Luisa, wife of General Torrijos: Spanish writer, born during the first third of the 18th century and died at an unknown date and place. She fervently supported the cause of her husband, General Torrijos y Uriarte, in his attempt to reestablish the Constitution of 1812 and end the absolute monarchy.

As is the case with many outstanding women of her time, the only data we have of hers is related to this male figure. She was the author of the biography of her husband, which she published in 1860. Thanks to the fact that she was encouraged to write what happened with her husband, already in the Liberal State, we have first-hand evidence of how the pronouncement was conceived and what was the outcome. On the death of Fernando VII she received the titles of Countess of Torrijos and Viscountess of Fuengirola.

Amalia Heredia: patroness, collector, researcher, philanthropist and, mainly, an extraordinary promoter of culture and the arts in Spain. She was the daughter of the industrialist Manuel Agustín Heredia, she sowed the seeds of the fabulous garden of La Concepción, she lit up the Loringiano Museum and she will be remembered as one of the most fascinating women in nineteenth-century from Malaga.

It’s told that both she and her husband Jorge Loring, each time it reached their ears that during a new excavation ancient remains had been found, they went to the place to acquire the piece and take it to the Loringiano Museum located within the Parque de la Concepción. In this way, they got the Lex Flavia Malacitana, tables of Roman law from the 1st century a.C.

It’s also remembered how, being aware of a fire that occurred in the Alhambra, she quickly went there to help in its extinction and thus avoid the tragedy of the monument being reduced to ashes.

Trinidad von Scholtz-Hermensdorff or Duchess of Parcent: Born in Malaga in the mid-19th century, she was a Spanish collector and aristocrat. She spent long periods in Ronda, the place where her grandmother was originally from. Her residence was the Casa del Rey Moro.

In 1925, she presented a successful exhibition of Andalusian regional costumes in Madrid, which would be worn by the kings Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia.

She was one of the first women to occupy a seat in the Spanish Congress, during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship in 1927.

Anita Delgado, princess of Kapurthala: born in Malaga at the end of the 19th century, her life would bring her an idyll with an Indian maharaja, worthy of an epic love story. There were years in which misery punished many Spanish families.

However, the maharaja, in love with her, had a sumptuous palace built in the Versailles style. There she settled and she began her true life as a Maharani princess of Kapurthala. Her love would last for several years until her illness would take her away from the Court, at which point the Maharaja took the opportunity to have other lovers. The princess not accepting it, she finally decided to get separated from him and return to Europe.

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