María Sáez de Vernet


María Sáez Pérez de Vernet is known for the personal diary she wrote during her residence in Port Louis, Falkland Islands, as the wife of the founder of a settlement there, Luis Vernet. Her diary was preserved when her husbands papers were donated to the Argentine National Archive.

Biography

Sáez was born in Montevideo, which at the time was part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. She was the daughter of Francisco Sáez, a wealthy businessman, and Josefa Pérez. On 17 August 1819, she married Luis Vernet, whom she had met when he set up a commercial enterprise with Conrado Rücker. They had seven children.
While living in Port Louis on the Falkland Islands Sáez kept a personal diary, which was preserved amongst the archive of her husband's papers donated to the Argentine National Archive. She was accomplished at playing the piano; travelers and personalities who passed through the colony, referred to the "refinement" and cultural level of the Vernets. On several evenings she played the piano and sang. Robert Greenhow wrote that Sáez "played Rossini's music with great gusto."
Sáez died in Buenos Aires in 1858. The vault of the Vernet family is at La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires.

Modern response

The diary was referenced by the Argentine revisionist author Antonio Montarcé Lastra as part of his argument for Argentina's claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Sáez was also used as the basis of the principal character in two historical romance novels. Ernesto Cilley Hernández, Sáez's great-grandson, published the diary in bilingual Spanish-English form in 1989.
In 2012, the National Library of the Argentine Republic held a research scholarship contest named for Sáez in relation to Argentina's claim over the Falkland Islands. As part of International Women's Day 2015, the Museo Malvinas e Islas del Atlántico Sur of Buenos Aires presented the exhibition Malvinas, mi casa, which included a series of watercolors reflecting life in the Falklands in 1829, based on Sáez's diary and lectures by her descendants on Argentina's claim to the Falklands.