Our very pleasant and comfortable rented house in Querétaro this year is on a one-block long street named Leona Vicario. The street is named for a heroine of the independence struggle (the rebels against the Spanish crown were called “insurgentes”). One day recently we bumped into our friends Charlie and Julie walking near Jardin Guerrero. Charlie pointed out that a newsstand in the park had copies of the magazine “Relatos e Historia en México” (http://relatosehistorias.com.mx/) including an edition from April 2011 (http://relatosehistorias.com.mx/indice_32.html -- just teasers, no content online) that features Leona Vicario, including a cover photo. We were intrigued, bought the magazine, and read the article about Leona.





Turns out she is a fascinating figure. The article, by Celia del Palacio Montiel, reveals that late in her life (she died in 1842), Leona was unjustly attacked by right-wing politicians, especially Lucas Alamán, the founder of the Mexican Conservative Party and generally believed to have been an instigator of the assassination of the hero Vicente Guerrero. They invoked Madame de Staël, the French romantic novelist and celebrity, famous for the phrase “There is nothing real in the world but love,” to claim that Leona was not really a patriot but only followed her husband Andrés Quintana Roo out of love for him, not for the country. The magazine also prints the letter that Leona wrote, published by Quintana Roo in his newspaper, defending her patriotic motives against the attack. In this letter, the first published by a Mexican woman, she defends her self and all women for acting on their own initiative, not just because of influence by significant others. A radical Mexican feminist, she lived from 1789 to 1842. A block away from our street, across Avenida Hidalgo, is the matching one-block street named after Leona's husband, Quintana Roo.