Newspaper magnate, publicist, anti-Somoza leader, and titular head of the United National Opposition, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (born 1930) was also the first woman president of Nicaragua (1990).

Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, known to friends and supporters as "Doña Violeta," was born in the rural southern Nicaraguan town of Rivas in 1930. One of seven children of a wealthy ranching family distinguished for its contributions to Nicaraguan politics, Violeta Barrios as a young girl lived an idyllic, protected life in the countryside where she early became an accomplished equestrian. In her childhood years Nicaragua was wracked by civil war, beset by United States military intervention, shocked by the murder of nationalist hero César Augusto Sandino, and crushed by the ascension of Anastacio Somoza to dictatorial power in 1936.

As a teenager, she was sent to the United States to broaden her education and learn English. She attended a...