Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda
Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda
Born	Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga March 23, 1814 Puerto Príncipe (modern day Camagüey), Cuba
Died	February 1, 1873(1873-02-01) (aged 58) Madrid, Spain
Pen name	La Peregrina
Occupation	writer, poet
Nationality	Cuban
Genre	Romanticism
Notable works	Sab (novel)
Spouse	Pedro Sabater Domingo Verdugo y Massieu
Partner	Ignacio de Cepeda

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga (March 23, 1814 – February 1, 1873) was a 19th-century Cuban-born Spanish writer. Born in Puerto Príncipe, she lived in Cuba until she was 22. Her family moved to Spain in 1836, and she lived there until 1856, when she moved back to Cuba with her new husband. He died in 1863, after which she moved back to Spain. She died in Madrid in 1873 from diabetes at the age of 59.

She was a prolific writer and wrote 20 plays and numerous poems. Her most famous work, however, is the antislavery novel Sab, published in Madrid in 1841. The eponymous protagonist is a slave who is deeply in love with his mistress Carlota, who is entirely oblivious to his feelings for her.

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga was born on March 23, 1814, in Santa María de Puerto Príncipe, which was often referred to simply as Puerto Príncipe and which is now known as Camagüey. Puerto Príncipe was a provincial capital in central Cuba in Avellaneda's day. Her father, Manuel Gómez de Avellaneda, had arrived in Cuba in 1809 and was a Spanish naval officer in charge of the port of Nuevitas. Her mother, Francisca de Arteaga y Betancourt, was a criolla from the wealthy Arteaga y Betancourt family, which was one of the most prominent and important families in Puerto Príncipe. Avellaneda was the first of five children from her parents' marriage, but only she and her younger brother Manuel survived childhood.

Her father died in 1823 when she was nine years old, and her mother remarried ten months later to Gaspar de Escalada, who was a Spanish lieutenant colonel posted in Puerto Príncipe. Avellaneda strongly disliked him and thought that he was too strict; she was glad whenever he was stationed away from home. From the time her mother remarried until the time she left Cuba for Spain, Avellaneda only saw her stepfather two or three months a year. She had two older half-siblings from her father's first marriage named Manuel and Gertrudis, a younger brother also named Manuel, and three younger half-siblings from her mother's marriage to Escalada: Felipe, Josefa, and Emilio. Little is known about Avellaneda's relationship with her older half-siblings, except that they lived somewhere else. Her younger brother Manuel was her favorite, and she was in charge of her three younger half-siblings.

When she was 13 years old she was betrothed to a distant relative who was one of the wealthiest men in Puerto Príncipe. Her maternal grandfather promised her a fifth of his estate if she went through with this marriage, which he had arranged himself. At the age of 15 she broke off that engagement against her family's wishes, and as a result she was left out of her grandfather's will. (Her grandfather died in 1832, when she was 17 or 18.) It is thought that this traumatic experience fueled her hatred of arranged marriages and patriarchal authority and her belief that married women were essentially slaves. Her aversion to marriage was also due to the unhappy marriage of her cousin Angelita, who was her only friend after she refused to marry the man her family had chosen for her.