Matilde Lindo Crisanto was born on 7 June 1954 in Puerto Cabezas, North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, Nicaragua, the second of three children (two daughters and a son). Her parents were Harold Lindo, a Creole, and Imogene Crisanto, a Miskito, making her a Garifuna. Though Creole English was her native tongue, she could speak Spanish and some Miskito. After finishing high school, she entered the normal school in Wapsum to become a teacher. Upon graduation, she began work in rural Miskit and Sumo people. She would attend University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast for a degree in Law but would not complete this degree.[1] In 1976, she traveled to Cuba for a two-year sociology course.[2]
In 1979, Lindo moved to Bilwi to work as a teacher for the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources and became a community leader through the Moravian Church. A decade later in 1889, she began to become involved in Feminism and participated a meeting about gender and attended the first cycle of feminist training. She shortly became one of the outstanding members of the Women's movement on the Caribbean coast.[1] In September 1995, she participated in the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.[3] Lindo was part of the Women's Network Against Violence and in 2003 moved to Managua to join its Coordinating Commission.[4]
On 13 January 2013, at the age of 59, Matilde died of a heart attack in Managua.[4][5]