A Nuisance is Born

Today in 1819 Juana Manso was baptized in Buenos Aires.

The holy waters were to set her on the path to meekness, but Juana Manso was never meek.

Bucking wide and tide she founded secular schools in Argentina and Uruguay where girls and boys studied together, religion was not a required course and corporal punishment was banned.

She wrote the first textbook on Argentine history plus several other works, among them a novel that derided the hypocrisy of married life.

She founded the first public library in the country’s interior.

She got divorced when divorce did not exist.

The Buenos Aires papers took great pleasure in mocking her.

When she died, the church refused her a tomb.

~Eduardo Galeano, Children of the Days