1803-1844
Reformer And Feminist

Difficult Beginnings. Flora Tristan (the pen name of Flore- Celestine-Therese-Henriette Tristan- Moscoso) was born in France to a French mother and a Spanish Peruvian father. As a child she knew the young Simon Bolivar, who became a leader of the Peruvian independence movement. When Tristan's father died in 1807, France was at war with Spain. He left no will; the marriage documents had been left in Spain and were never found; and his family refused to recognize the marriage and inheritance rights of Tristan and her mother. Now impoverished, Madame Tristan, Flora, and Flora's brother lived a life far removed from the one Flora had known. Her attempt to escape poverty by marriage failed, and she set out to try to recover her inheritance by traveling to Peru to meet her father's family. She failed to win her inheritance, but she recorded her...