Her parents, Franciszek Ksawery Plater and Anna von der Mohl (Anna z Mohlów), divorced in 1815 when she was nine years old. A single child, she was brought up by distant relatives, and Izabela Helena Syberg zu Wischling, in their family's manor Līksna near Daugavpils (Dźwina), then Inflanty (now Latvia). It was an aristocratic family that owned several manors along the Daugava River with about 15,000 serfs. Plater-Zyberk served as vice-governor of the Vilna Governorate under governor Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki. Plater's tutors included Wilhelm von Dalwig, captain and military engineer working on the Daugavpils Fortress. Well-educated, Plater was brought up to appreciate the efforts of Tadeusz Kościuszko and the Prince Józef Poniatowski. She was fascinated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, who she could read in the original German language. She was raised in an environment that valued the history of Poland, and her literary heroes included Princess Wanda and Adam Mickiewicz's "Grażyna". She also admired Bouboulina, a woman who became one of the icons of the Greek uprising against the Ottomans, a Polish fighter Anna Dorota Chrzanowska, as well as Joan of Arc. These pursuits were accompanied by an early interest in equestrianism and marksmanship, quite uncommon for early 19th-century girls from aristocratic families. She was also deeply interested in Ruthenian and Belarusian folk culture and had contacts and friends in the Filaret Association.