Her name resonates in the memory of generations because of her great influence on modern thought. As a woman, she courageously and talentedly confronted the prejudices of her time as a writer and social activist. She went down in history not only for her visionary works but also for becoming the grandmother of a huge figure in the plastic arts:the French expressionist painter Paul Gauguin , son of her third daughter, Aline. Half French, half Peruvian, this outstanding woman developed an intense teaching work, which is why she became a legend among educators around the world. Today, her name serves as an identification both for educational institutions and higher education, as well as for social organizations, defenders of human rights and women in particular. Let's learn more about the life of Flora Tristán .
Flora Célestine Thérèse Henriette Tristán and Moscoso Laisnay (Paris-France, April 7, 1803 – Bordeaux-France, November 14, 1844) was a French writer and thinker of Peruvian descent. She is one of the boldest and most remarkable founders of modern feminism.
His father, Mariano Tristán y Moscoso, was a Peruvian aristocrat and colonel from Arequipa (then part of the Viceroyalty of Peru) and a member of the Spanish Navy, and his mother , Anne-Pierre Laisnay, French. Her parents met in Bilbao (Spain), during her father's stay there. He did not legally recognize Flora.
She had a luxurious early childhood, and her house was visited by characters who would later become milestones in history, such as Simón Bolívar, who shared Creole and Basque origins with the Flora's father. In addition, it is said that Bolívar could have been her biological father, since she fell in love with her mother. This situation of economic and social goodness was cut short with the death of her father in 1807, when Flora was barely 4 years old, which left the family in poverty. The lack of legal recognition by her father prevented her from inheriting the assets that he left.
For this reason, Flora, still a child, lived painfully in the countryside until she was 15 years old, and then moved with her mother to one of the poorest neighborhoods from Paris. She began to work as a worker in a lithography workshop, and at just 17 years old she married its owner, André Chazal, and she has three children, one of whom died apparently very young; the other is called Ernest, and the third, born in 1825, is Aline, who will be the future mother of the famous impressionist painter Paul Gauguin .
This marriage of convenience was dissolved due to the jealousy and mistreatment of her husband. Flora ran away from home taking her children with her. Her dual status as natural daughter and estranged wife reduced her to the marginal status of "outcast," as she liked to call herself. Chazal pursued her tirelessly. Finally, he reached a legal agreement with Flora, by which he kept her son, while she kept the girl.
However, Flora mistrusted her husband and left Paris. She started her wandering life together with her daughter Aline. Thanks to the intervention of Captain Chabrié, in 1829 she was able to send a letter from her to her uncle Juan Pío Tristán y Moscoso, who lived in Peru, who for 5 years sent her money to help her in her poverty. . Thanks to Pedro Mariano de Goyeneche, a relative of the Tristáns, Flora traveled to Peru in 1832, willing to collect her inheritance and regain a worthy position in society.
On April 7, 1833, just the day she turned 30, Flora embarked on Le Mexican. The ship belonged to the same captain Chabrié, who had facilitated her first contact with her Peruvian relatives. The journey to Peru lasted 5 months, and after disembarking on Islay, she Flora went to Arequipa, where she remained until April 1834. She claimed her paternal inheritance from Don Pío, but he refused to give it to her. Pío treated her as a “dear niece”, but since there was no document proving that she was the legitimate daughter of her brother, Mariano de Ella, she could not proceed otherwise. She only agreed to give him a monthly pension.
Flora herself moved to Lima, where she remained until July 16, 1834, the date on which she embarked from Callao bound for Liverpool. During her stay in Peru she witnessed the political crisis of 1833-34, the civil war between supporters of Agustín Gamarra and those of Luis de Orbegoso.
Flora wrote a travel diary about the experiences of her in Peru. The diary was published in 1838, as Pérégrinations d'une paria – Pilgrimages of a Pariah.
she Back in France she undertook an intense campaign for the emancipation of women, the rights of workers and against the death penalty. She had already obtained legal separation from her husband and custody of her children; however, André Chazal, enraged and powerless at her, in September 1838 tried to assassinate her, shooting her in the street and leaving her badly injured. Flora gained notoriety in the press, and Chazal was subjected to a process that was complicated by the accusation of trying to rape her own daughter Aline; he was eventually sentenced to 20 years of hard labor.
Already separated from Chazal, Flora published, in 1840, a coherent socialist program in L'Union Ouvrière (The Workers' Union), in which she cries out for the need for workers to organize and advocates its "universal unity"; she being the creator of the universal slogan Proletarians of the world, unite! She thus becomes the first woman to speak of socialism and the struggle of the proletarians against the bourgeoisie. And Karl Marx himself recognized her as a "precursor of high and noble ideals."
she died at the age of 41, a victim of typhus, while she was on a tour of the interior of France promoting her revolutionary ideas.