The Fighting Nun
By Mildred Boyd
August 2005 Guadalajara-Lakeside Volume 21, Number 12

     The bishop of Guamanga must have been more than a little startled when the severely wounded soldier to whom he was offering final consolation confessed to being, not only a woman, but a runaway nun!
     Doña Catalina de Erauso was born in 1585 to a noble Basque family in San Sebastian de Guipuzcoa and, like many women of her class, had been immured in a Dominican convent at the age of four. By fifteen she had somehow acquired enough knowledge of the world to know, not only that she did not want to be a nun, but how to escape the fate for which her gender had destined her. She decided to become a man.
     Knowing that clothes really do make the man, she sewed herself a pair of breeches from an old blue Tollan bodice, and doublet and hose from a green petticoat. On the eve of taking her final vows, she cut her hair, donned her new outfit, threw away her nun’s habit, walked out of the convent and disappeared. It was that easy. Once she had established her masculine identity under an assumed name, she even went back, unrecognized, to attend mass at her former convent.
     Her education and obvious good breeding assured her of employment as a page or secretary, but Catalina was not about to settle for so tame a life, She worked her way to San Lucar and bound herself as a cabin hoy aboard a galleon commanded, as luck would have it, by her uncle, but by now her transformation was complete. He did not recognize her.
     Catalina got her first real taste of war when the fleet attacked and destroyed a small Dutch squadron on the way to Panama. Once there, however, she undertook peaceful employment as an assistant shopkeeper until a personal vendetta with a bully named Reyes led to a series of violent encounters, culminating in her killing her first man...and her first arrest.
     On her way to prison, she was allowed to escape by a sympathetic fellow Basque and made her way to Lima and, as Ahmso Diaz Ramirez de Guzman, enlisted as a soldier in an expeditionary force bound for Chili. The commander’s secretary was Captain Miguel de Erauso, Catalina’s brother, though he, too, failed to recognize her.
     Her military career was off to a good start when she and two other soldiers rushed in among the lndians in battle frenzy and, though her two companions died and Catalina received three arrow and one lance wound she killed the cacique along with many others and was rewarded with the rank of ensign, roughly equivalent to our lieutenancy. Later, when her captain was killed, Catalina took command and led her men to victory. Perhaps her most famous exploit was in fighting the famous cacique, Quispehuancha, whom she unhorsed in single combat and left hanging from a tree.
     Unfortunately, Catalina’s penchant for violence was not confined to the battlefield. Gambling and brawling and defending her (always touchy) honor kept her in hot water. Although she was unaware of his identity until too late, one of the victims of her duelling skills was her own brother.
     It was in just such a gambling dispute that Catalina, though she killed her adversary, was severely wounded. Believing herself to be dying, she confessed all and submitted to examination to prove her claim that she was not only a woman, but still a virgin! The Colonial authorities, completely out of their depth, contented themselves with confining her in a convent for several years until her wounds healed and she could be sent back to Spain for judgment.
     By the time she arrived in Cadiz on December 1, 1624, her fame had preceded her so that she was met by throngs of people crying, “Long life to valor,” and “Viva the lieutenant nun!” When she presented herself and her record of service before the crown, Philip IV not only granted a full pardon for her crimes but awarded her a pension of 800 crowns per year. Catalina then made her way to Rome and, alter telling her tale to Pope Urban VIII, was, not unexpectedly, granted full absolution for all past sins. What is startling is that, at a time when cross-dressing was a sin demanding excommunication, Catalina was given permission to wear masculine attire for the rest of her life!
     Legally and morally vindicated, Catalina remained in Europe until 1630 when, possibly bored with civilian life, she signed on as ensign in an expedition bound for Mexico. She fought with her usual dash and bravery through many battles but after several years, retired with due honor. She did not, however, hang up her weapons and indulge in ladylike pursuits. Instead, she bought herself a string of pack mules and set up as a muleteer conveying goods and people between Mexico City and Vera Cruz where her fighting skills were necessary to defend her cargos from bandits.
     One of her charges was the beautiful niece of a rich merchant with whom Catalina became so enamored that she offered the girl a large sum of money and half her pension to enter a convent instead of marrying the young nobleman who was courting her. Alas! The lady chose marriage, but Catalina was welcomed to visit her home as a friend until she became too persistent. When the young husband forbade Catalina the house, she lost her head completely and challenged him to a duel! It undoubtedly infuriated her that he refused to cross swords with a woman but she was not vindictive. In fact, a short while later, when she found the gentleman hard-pressed against three attackers, Catalina leaped to his defense, vanquished all three and saved her rival’s life.
     On a final trading run Catalina fell ill and died at Cuitaxtla. She was buried in Orizaba and the Archbishop of Mexico wrote an eulogistic epitaph for her tomb. But she lives on in song and story and the world will not soon forget the legend of the fighting nun.