Catalina de Erauso was born in the Basque town of San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain, in 1585. Rebellious, violent and brave, Catalina de Erauso went down in history as the Nun Alférez. Her parents wanted the quiet life of a convent for her but she chose an adventurous existence in the New World. Her masculine appearance allowed Catalina to lead the life of a soldier and fighter, forged an unthinkable life for a woman of her time, and broke with the female stereotype of the seventeenth century.
At an early age, along with her sisters, Catalina entered the convent of San Sebastián el Antiguo of the Dominican mothers, whose prioress is an aunt of hers. Years later, she was transferred to another, more strict convent in the same city. In the eleven years that she remained with the nuns in total, she received some training and learned Latin. When Catalina was a teenager, she participated in a discussion inside the convent with another novice. In addition to receiving several blows, she was confined in a punishment cell. The young woman knew then that she would not spend the rest of her life within those walls and she escaped.
The following years Catalina wandered through different Spanish cities with a false identity. Dressed as a peasant, she called herself by different male names. His non-feminine physical appearance as well as his manly bearing helped the deception. From this moment, with few exceptions, she will no longer appear as a woman. He lived most of his life under the name of Antonio Erauso, soldier, adventurer, conqueror and raider. Thus begins his new life as a fugitive, the feeling of danger and the fear of being discovered accompany Antonio throughout his pilgrimage to the New World.
Brawls, canteen fights, sword sets and other skirmishes are part of their day to day. In the middle of a brawl in the city of Concepción, he kills the auditor general, and ends up taking refuge in a church, where he remains fenced for six months before going free later. One dark night, in one more duel, hardly seeing the opposite because of the absolute darkness, he pierces Miguel, his own brother, with his sword. She got into many conflicts and spent her life in and out of jail, she says in her autobiography :
“It just goes to show that persistence and hard work can perform miracles, and it happens regularly—especially in the Indies!”
The Lieutenant Nun: Transgenderism, Lesbian Desire, and Catalina de Erauso, Book by Sherry Marie Velasco.
She says this because of the many times she got herself out of death sentences but she was finally arrested in Peru in 1623 after one of many disputes. Declared guilty and sentenced to die, Catalina then decided to disengage herself from Bishop Agustín de Carvajal, whom she asked for clemency. It was then that, after almost 20 years of clandestine life, it was revealed that this quarrelsome Spanish ensign was a woman who had been a nun. Some midwives also certified that she was a virgin. Catalina’s play went well. After staying for a time in various Peruvian convents, she was sent back to Spain.
Catalina’s fame traveled faster than she herself to Spanish lands. Thus, King Felipe IV himself wanted to know her and hear her story first-hand. The Spanish monarch not only maintained his graduation but allowed him to continue wearing masculine attire. It was Felipe IV who baptized her with the name with which she went down in history: The Ensign Nun.
With her adventurous spirit, it was not strange that Catalina embarked on a new journey, this time through the old continent. She even went as far as Rome where Pope Urban VIII received her and ratified the permission of the Spanish king to dress like a man. Catalina ended her days in the New World, in Mexico, where she traveled in 1630. There she lived the last 20 years of her life.
Catalina is a very curious historical character as she defied everything she knew about life at an early age and did what she wanted in life even though it meant covering up as a man for most of her life. I loved learning about Catalina de Erauso because she understood how different life was for her following the strict mold that society had put on her because of her gender and she made the hard choice to leave her house and fend for herself in order to be free.
