Women and Independence in Latin America

Mercedes Tomasina de San Martín de Balcarce

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Mercedes San Martín

Traje de verano

San Martín's flag

Gender:Female

Ethnic origen: White

Events:

1816	-	Mendoza	-	Not applicable	-	She was born in Mendoza on 23 August 1816.
1817-1823	-	Buenos Aires	-	Unknown	-	She lived here from around 1817-1823
1823	-	Brussels	-	Unknown	-	She moved from Buenos Aires to join her father in Brussels around this time.
1825	-	Brussels	-	Unknown	-	Her father, José de San Martín, wrote a moral guide for her.
1832	-	Paris	-	Unknown	-	She married Mariano Balcarce on 13 December 1832 in Paris.
1833-1835	-	Buenos Aires	-	Unknown	-	She was living in Buenos Aires from 1833-1835.
1834-1875	-	Paris	-	Unknown	-	She went here around 1824 and was based here until her death in 1875.
1835	-	France	-	Unknown	-	She returned to France.
1850	-	Boulogne-Sur-Mer	-	Unknown	-	Her father died.
1856	-	Paris	-	Unknown	-	She joined the Sociedad de Beneficence as a correspondent member from Paris.
1875	-	Paris	-	Unknown	-	She died in Paris on 28 February 1875.

Connections:

Escalada family
Female relatives of past and future leading political/military/ cultural figures
San Martín, women connected to
Sociedad de Beneficencia, Argentina

Biography:
Born in Mendoza in 1816, the daughter of José de San Martín, she was known for her "kind and charitable nature". After her mother's death, she lived in Buenos Aires with her grandparents before emigrating to Paris with her father. In 1856 the President of the Sociedad de Beneficencia wrote to her asking her to join the society as a correspondent member from Paris, Mercedes agreed. (Knaster, 516.)

She married Mariano Balcarce. Her second daughter, Josefa D. Balcarce y San Martín de Gutiérrez Estrada, was born in France in 1836. (Sosa de Newton, 54)

She was born in Mendoza on 23 August 1816 while her father was in Cuyo. She was baptised on 31 August and her madrina was Josefa Alvárez de Delgado, a friend of her father. San Martín sent her and her mother to Buenos Aires when he marched across the Andes into Chile. After her mother died she lived with her grandparents until she was 7 when she joined her father in Europe, living in a pension in Brussels with strict moral rules. They later lived in France where she met Mariano Balcarce, a diplomat in London. They married on 13 December 1832 in Paris. They returned to Buenos Aires with Balcarce's work from 1833-1835, where their elder daughter María Mercedes was born. They returned to France in 1835 and lived with San Martín at his Gran Bourg estate where her daughter Josefa was born. She looked after her father until his death in 1850. She died in Paris on 28 February 1875, her remains (and those of her husband and daughter María Mercedes) were sent back to Mendoza. (Sosa de Newton, 580-581)

References:

Knaster, Meri (1977) Women in Spanish America: An Annotated Bibliography from Pre-Conquest to Contemporary Times
Sosa de Newton, Lily (1986) Diccionario biográfico de mujeres argentinas