By Catalina De Erauso, (trans) James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Foreword by K. L. Webber
Shortly before making her final vows in 1600, a young woman runs away from the nunnery in which she has been raised and disguises herself as a man in order to take up life in the New World, crossing over the frontiers of country and gender with her transitions. In so doing, she moves beyond notions of gender, both historical and contemporary, and into the privileges of masculine presentation, from wages, to independent social mobility, and to dress, in a way that few other women of the era were able to do successfully. Reading like the premise for a Hollywood film, Catalina de Erauso’s larger-than-life adventures are, for the most part, supported as factual by the historical record, including her troubling and often brutal role as a colonial soldier (and occasional murderer).
Born to a family of moderate standing whose wealth derived from both the military careers of male relatives, and concerns in overseas trading, Catalina de Erauso’s expected life path may have seemed clear. Whilst many of the menfolk fought for Spain, the responsibility of the de Erauso women was to be found either through taking their vows in service to the church, or in matrimony. Catalina de Erauso, born in 1592, joined her sisters in the Dominican convent of San Sebastián el Antiguo, of which her aunt was prioress. Seizing an opportune moment just prior to taking her own vows, Catalina fled, fashioning men’s attire from her own skirts and clothing, before travelling for three years throughout cities in Spain as Fransisco de Loyola, working for a succession of masters, and occasionally robbing them when she departed their service.
Eventually, having made one final visit to her home town, where it is possible that some of the nuns recognized her (she reports them calling out to her to approach after a service, which she declined to do), Catalina de Erauso then departed for Punta de Araya, on a galleon commanded by a maternal uncle, under whom she was employed. Not unexpectedly, Catalina de Erauso jumped ship in Nombre de Dios, with five hundred pesos of her uncle’s money. And this is where de Erauso’s adventures truly commenced.
A period working as a successful merchant’s assistant was cut short when, in the wake of an argument over theatre seating, de Erauso slashed another man across the face with a serrated knife. In order to bring an end to the feud, de Erauso’s employer pressed her to marry the victim’s cousin: a woman who also happened to be her employer’s mistress. Of this de Erauso explains that “his aim was to keep both of us—me for business and her for pleasure.” Refusing this offer, de Erauso was provided with a letter of reference and departed for Trujillo. After working there for some time, the feud that de Erauso had abandoned caught up with her, and she ended up committing her first murder in the swordfight that ensued. De Erauso fled to Lima, entering the employ of the wealthy merchant and future consul-mayor Diego de Solarte. Shortly thereafter, de Erauso recounts being fired for seducing de Solarte’s two unmarried sisters-in-law.
Penniless and friendless, de Erauso enlisted as a soldier, and was taken under the wing of her elder brother Captain Miguel de Erauso, who was unaware of her identity. Their soldierly friendship continued until he caught Catalina sneaking off to visit his mistress without him. After a severe beating, during which she defended herself and struck back at her superior officer, Catalina de Erauso was posted to Paicabí, a garrison often heavily under attack. The cycles of violence that de Erauso recounts during her autobiography are truly mindboggling to follow.
To summarise many of the chapters, one could say, “I went to Such-and-Such, where I worked for a time. One day, I was accused of gambling / seducing So-and-So’s wife, mistress or daughter / insulted in the street. He drew his sword, and I drew mine. My point went a hands’-breadth in, and he fell down dead. I fled the town / to the church for sanctuary.” It would often be almost entirely accurate. Reflecting on her varied misfortunes, de Erauso claims with a facetious lack of self-responsibility, “I was the sport of Fortune, which turned my joys into disasters.” Despite this cycle of violence (or because of it), de Erauso successfully made her living as a soldier for many years, and was lionized both in South America and at home in Europe for her deeds when her biological gender was eventually revealed and publicized.
Given the limitations placed on women of the time, how did Catalina de Erauso escape censure, and, indeed, meet with reward from the authorities when her gender became apparent, both in the New World, and upon her return to Spain? It is not so much that she was a woman intruding into a man’s world, as might be considered the crux of the matter today. The term ‘biology’ was only coined in 1736, by Carl Linnaeus, over a century after de Erauso’s exploits. In the 1600s, gender was less a matter of biological sex than it was a religio-social construct that defined men as the elevated and perfected iteration of a single-gendered human being (women, of course, were the defective, imperfect iterations of this human creature).[i] With strict attention paid to feminine chastity, that ultimate signifier of virtue, and to actions that did not challenge but instead supported the status quo, women were able to transcend femininity, and reap the benefits of a masculine existence.
Catalina de Erauso was not the only such woman to transcend the barriers of their gender – Elena/Eleno de Céspedes, Juana Garcia de Arintero, the Lady of Arrientos, and Juliana de los Cobos[ii] also remain to us in the historic record, although sometimes transcendence was transformed by transgression, with its accompanying punishment, as when the hermaphroditic Eleno/Elena de Céspedes was convicted by the Inquisition for the crime of bigamy (de Céspedes had married another woman, identifying themselves as male at the time). Eleno/Elena de Céspedes was sentenced to two hundred lashes and ten years indentured servitude in a public hospital; though, as a practicing surgeon and therefore skilled labor, this may not have been the death sentence otherwise implied by the punishment.[iii]
Despite de Erauso’s many and close flirtations with women, she was apparently never caught consummating the sexual act, nor carrying out the blasphemous act of actually marrying another woman. Upon examination, de Erauso’s virginity was declared as untouched as if she had remained in the convent. So near to danger, but never nearer than a “tickled ankle,” de Erauso was comfortable in many an exploitative engagement, where she would swindle gifts from her eager fiancés, before fleeing to another city when the altar loomed large. The reader could enjoy the licentious and provocative thrill provided by this tongue-in-cheek parody of hyper masculinity, while being reassured that nothing truly sinful was taking place, in much the same way that an Elizabethan audience could enjoy the transvestism and gender switching of characters in Twelfth Night: romance as comedic, dramatic, and naughty, but never serious. Never a threat to the heterosexual order.
The truth of many of de Erauso’s exploits is uncertain. We can observe that events such as her meeting with the Pope in Rome, and being provided with a dispensation to wear men’s clothing (the crime for which Joan of Arc was burned at the stake) are without existing evidence. Similarly, she may have fought, flirted and killed far less than her biography boasts. Certainly, de Erauso’s recorded date of birth is that of someone three years younger than her memoirs state, but the potential for errors in 1600s records keeping was high, and this may have been simple mistake.
In writing or dictating her memoir, the tangible record of de Erauso’s exploits and service to Spain served the duel role of confessional, the necessary precursor to atonement and forgiveness, and proof, which de Erauso effectively used in audience with the King of Spain to petition him in granting her a pension. With the favorable reception and validation that de Erauso obtained from the Crown, and the recitation of her journey back to the bosom of Mother Church, de Erauso would have been able to rest more easily of nights, safe from fears of the Inquisition.
Abandoning her celebrity status in Spain and Rome, de Erauso eventually returned to the New World, where she remained, working obscurely as a mule driver, until her death in 1650. Despite the swashbuckling awe that Catalina de Erauso’s life inspires, she was an active participant in the colonial invasion of South America, which was ultimately responsible for the destruction of uncounted lives and indigenous societies, and which continues to affect many nations today. de Erauso tersely described one of her battles as “pursuit and butchery,” where so many people were slaughtered that “a stream of blood poured down the place like a river.” When her captain was killed by a native child using a bow and arrow as their forces invaded his village, she was amongst the soldiers who hacked the boy to death, recounting that they sliced the child into ten thousand pieces. Later, when an enemy prisoner was captured whom her own side wanted kept alive, she had him summarily hanged, so that he might not be allowed to live, an action that effectively ended de Erauso’s military career. While we value de Erauso’s unique memoirs, we must also keep in mind the butchery and invasion she perpetuated.
There remain women in the historical record who were on the other side of this unequal war, defending their people from invading colonial armies. Janequeo[iv] was a tribal chieftain of the Mapuche-Pehuenche people in Chile (the Mapuche-Pehuenche were only conquered in the 1800s, and continue to rally for their independence today). She fought alongside her husband in the 1500s, until he was captured and tortured to death by the Spanish. Janequeo then led the Mapuche-Pehuenche into multiple victories against the invaders. Érendira,[v] an apocryphal princess of the Purépecha peoples in what is modern-day Mexico, is reported to have taught herself to ride a horse left alive after a Spanish battle, and led her people in a prolonged (though ultimately unsuccessful) guerrilla uprising. Unfortunately, their accounts are unavailable to us, being either unwritten, lost, or actively destroyed as records of a defeated peoples.
In her personal narrative, Catalina de Erauso was a heroic soldier and victim of circumstance. In the context of women’s history she was a resourceful, dynamic and successful actor (albeit one who perpetuated the sexism of the era) who bluffed about her gender for as long as she could, and then folded to confess all and frame her life in such a way as to bring about a rebirth of fortunes. In the broader historical context of the world, de Erauso was an at-times genocidal murderer, a swindler, and an owner of enslaved human beings. It is still, however, fortunate that her memoir remains to us.
K.L. Webber
“We began to play; the game was in full swing when a dispute arose, and, in the presence of many onlookers, he said that I lied like a wittol. I drew my rapier and ran it into his chest. So many people pounced on me, and so many came in at the noise, that I could not move.”
Catalina de Erauso
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[i] Aresti, Nerea. "The Gendered Identities of the ‘Lieutenant Nun’: Rethinking the Story of a Female Warrior in Early Modern Spain." Gender & History, Vol.19 No.3 November 2007, pp. 401–418.
[ii] Aresti, Nerea. "The Gendered Identities of the ‘Lieutenant Nun’: Rethinking the Story of a Female Warrior in Early Modern Spain." Gender & History, Vol.19 No.3 November 2007, pp. 401–418.
[iii] Blackmore, Josiah and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Duke University Press, 1999.
[iv] Eduardo Agustin Cruz, The Grand Araucanian Wars (1541-1883) in the Kingdom of Chile, 2010.
[v] Elizabeth Salas, Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: myth and history, 1987