The Life of Catalina de Erauso Essay Example

Mapuche Indians. In the army service, she gained a reputation as a gambler, a fighter, and a courageous soldier. This eventful military career resulted in her promotion to the level of lieutenant, which combined with her early years in the nunnery, culminated to her becoming “The Lieutenant Nun”. Perhaps above all Catalina de Erauso was a habitual duelist, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, some of them officers of the Spanish crown, soldiers, or bureaucrats. These included her own brother, whom she inadvertently murdered in a night altercation. She claims that she only recognized him when she heard his cries of death in the dark.

She also participated in trade, always for Basque businessmen. To escape, she often took refuge in churches, taking sanctuary, which was sacred. As a law, soldiers couldn't enter into sanctuary following anyone. Additionally, her Basque heritage kept her in a job, even with such criminal record. She was sentenced to death many times, escaping from Chile-Bolivia, Peru, and modern Argentina. She also broke marriage promises to many women. After one fight in Cuzco in which Catalina de Erauso killed a man and was in the process wounded fatally, she revealed her sex in a deathbed confession. However, she survived after months of convalescence and left for Guamanga.

To escape another trouble, she confessed her gender to the bishop. Induced by the bishop, Catalina de Erauso entered a convent, and her news was spread all over the world. Once the Spanish made peace with the Araucanians, she had no power and saw herself prone to demotion and outpost responsibility at Fort Arauco. She preferred to leave her post. Together with two

others, she traveled north and crossed the Andes Mountains into Argentina. Her companions apparently died from the frigid temperatures, hunger, and thirst but Erauso reached Tucumán. She went to Rome and apparently toured Italy, where she eventually gained such a level of fame that Pope Urban VIII granted her a special dispensation to wear men's clothing.

Catalina de Erauso again left Spain in 1645, this time for New Spain in the ship of Pedro de Ursua, where she eventually became a mule driver from Veracruz. In New Spain, she faked her name to Antonio de Erauso. In 1635, befitting a legend, Catalina de Erauso disappeared into the murk of a stormy night. She lived another 15 years in a Mexican village of Cotaxtla, where she eventually died in 1650 at the age of 58 years.