While slightly outside the time frame of this course, I want to introduce you to the story of Camila O'Gorman. Camila was a younger daughter born into an upper-class family in Buenos Aires in 1828, during the period of civil war which followed Argentine independence. As a young woman, her best friend was the daughter of the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas. As an elite woman of good lineage, she was always chaperoned and her life centered around church, social events, and visits with her friends in each others' homes. With her family's wealth and connections, she was highly marriageable and considered to be a prize catch. |
| 1. Tucuman province. 2. Corrientes province. 3. Buenos Aires |
Although she had many eligible bachelors in pursuit, Camila had a romantic streak and wanted to marry for love. And she found her man. Ladislao Gutierrez was the younger son of an elite provincial family and his uncle had been the governor of Tucuman. The pair fell madly in love. The only problem was the fact that Ladislao was a priest and the confessor of her family. Therefore, this was an illicit love affair which broke many social taboos.
In late 1847, Camila and Ladislao ran away to the province of Corrientes and lived under assumed names as husband and wife. They even founded a school in the remote village where they were in hiding.
Camila's father, in an attempt to save the family's (and daughter's) honor portrayed her as the victim, accusing "a priest" of seduction, rape and kidnapping. He appealed to Rosas (patron-client relationship) to track them down and return "his daughter." The bishop also wrote to Rosas about the matter; he wanted his errant priest found. He believed both culpable but he also did not name the "young woman." Both the father and the bishop attempted to "conceal" Camila's identity, as it was still possible to find a way to eventually "restore" her honor. It was Rosas, for his own political reasons, who decided to make the manhunt for the couple a public affair.
As the scandal broke in Buenos Aires, it took on a political aspect. The dictator, Rosas, had long predicated his rule on his restoration of law and morality after the long wars for independence and civil war. The fact that the daughter of a client who had spent many hours in his own household (with her best friend Manuelita Rosas) had run away with a priest was a heaven-sent opportunity for Rosas' rivals (many of whom were living in exile across the river in Uruguay). They accused Rosas of corrupting the morality of Argentine womanhood by allowing priests to prey upon young women. It was also an attack on Rosas' ability to control his own patron-client network and to maintain the patriarchal order.
It took several months to find the couple in Corrientes. Rosas had them arrested and brought back to Buenos Aires. Camila asserted that it was she who had seduced Ladislao and they had gone off together willingly. In doing so, she was challenging the patriarchal order and, implicitly, the entire conception of honor.
And here the story takes an interesting twist. Camila's father now turns against her in a bid to save the reputation of the rest of the family. The O'Gormans already had a stain on the family honor because of Camila's paternal grandmother, who as a married woman (and mother) had an open affair with Santiago de Liniers, the viceroy of Rio de La Plata, during the period of the wars of independence. She wielded real political power as the de facto vicereina, until a scandalized Buenos Aires forced the viceroy to deport her to a convent in Brazil. Now the unrepentant granddaughter was dragging the family name through the mud again. Think about the Ann Twinam piece, at this point could the father still find a way to "negotiate" the honor of both his daughter and his family?
The lovers, in running off together, had not only flaunted social convention but had challenged the patriarchal authority of family, church, and state. Once their affair became political fodder, Rosas decided upon a course of action that would restore the moral order and his authority - he ordered the couple's execution without a trial. Ladislao was condemned for breaking canon law. But what about Camila? Camila asked for a pardon on the basis that she was 8 months pregnant and it was against Argentine law to execute a pregnant woman. Instead, Rosas ordered that the unborn baby be baptized (a priest gave Camila a glass of holy water to drink) and both she and Ladislao were executed by firing squad. The officer in charge of the execution insisted that the pair be buried together in the same coffin. Camila was only 20.
But this is not the end of the story. The executions, particularly that of Camila (no one had much sympathy for a priest who had dishonored a young women, since he could not marry her to "repair" the damage) had far reaching political ramifications. The very same opposition who used the scandal to harangue Rosas now used the execution of the pregnant Camila as proof of Rosas' brutality and unfitness to govern. After the dictator's overthrow a few years later, the death of Camila became a symbol of the errors of the Rosas' era. Today, Camila is seen as a tragic heroine and her story is well-known in Argentina.
Thinking historically: How do the threads of patriarchy, patron-client networks, relations between church and state, and the concept of honor come together in these tragic events? How do these events deviate from the normal negotiations of honor that you have read about in the course materials? Do you think Camila's death can be classified as an "honor killing?"
Below is a compilation of scenes from Maria Luisa Bemberg's 1984 movie Camila. Bemberg also directed the movie about Sor Juana that you will be watching. The clip is in Spanish, I was unable to find a clip on the Internet with English captions, but I think that those of you without Spanish will be able to follow along since you now know the basics of the story. For a point of reference, the older woman at the beginning of the clip is the disgraced grandmother arriving home from exile in the convent and greeting a young Camila.
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