Lieutenant Nun

“I settled on a price with the man and left the next day, with no better idea of where to go, or what to do, than let myself be carried off like a feather in the wind.”

Erauso’s lack of definitive purpose during her travels is a continuing feature in the book. She rarely gave insights into her motivations throughout the period described, but from quotes such as this and her general description of the time, it can be understood that she had no “end goal” in mind. Rather, she appears to have been trying to avoid new restrictions on her freedom or to make money. This adds an important element to her characterization and her desire for Freedom and Adventure in the Colonial World.

“Finally one night, she locked me in and declared that come hell or high water I was going to sleep with her—pushing and pleading so much that I had to smack her one and slip out of there.”

Erauso’s avoidance of Doña Beatriz de Cárdenas’s sexual advances invokes common comic conventions in the literature of the time around cross-dressing characters, especially the need to avoid exposure through sexual entanglement. The incident also reveals her occasionally dismissive attitudes toward other women. She characterizes Doña Beatriz as a heavy spender and secretly lecherous. Throughout the autobiography, Erauso continues to use characteristics with negative connotations to define woman—a hint at her adoption of the masculine values of the day.

“And one day, when she and I were in the front parlor, and I had my head in the folds of her skirts and she was combing my hair while I ran my hand up and down between her legs, Diego de Solarte happened to pass by the window, and spied us through the grate, just as she was telling me I should go to Potosí and seek my fortune, so that the two of us could be married. Solarte went to his office, called me a little while later, fired me, and I left.”

Erauso notes that while she was in Lima, she struck up flirtations with two sisters and was caught in romantic planning and seemingly in an intimate act. This is one of the occasions in the book that scholars have used to theorize that Erauso was a lesbian. It is noteworthy that the counterargument—that she feigned attraction to women to fit in with men—seems to be weak here, as Erauso was seeking privacy and was fired upon discovery.

“I had taken a bad blow to the leg, but I killed the chief who was carrying the flag, pulled it from his body and spurred my horse on, trampling and killing and slaughtering more men than there are numbers—but badly wounded, with three arrows in me and a gash from the lance in my left should which had me in great pain—until at last I reached our own lines and fell from my horse.”

Erauso’s military prowess, especially her ability to recover her company flag, became an essential part of her legend going forward. It shows the ultimate reversal of early modern gender norms, as combat and war were often highlighted as key aspects of masculinity and antithetical to femininity. Female soldiers thus gained considerable fame whenever the legend of one spread, as shown through earlier figures like Joan of Arc. Royal courts often celebrated women who took up arms for them, as through leaving their “usual” stations to fight for the crown, they showed universal support for the crown’s aims. As Erauso mentions later, it was her services to the state that gained her acceptance in the royal court and a pension, and this event was likely a key part of it. This explains her focus on it in the book.

“Captain Miguel de Erauso was dead, they buried him in the Franciscan monastery, and I watched from the choir—God knows in what misery!”

Erauso’s accidental murder of her brother and her grief over this act reveal the complications of her hidden identity. Due to her need for secrecy, she and her brother never had the full bond that they could have had, and, similarly, her mourning for him was not explicable to others. This episode, among the darkest in her story, gives a hint at the issues that faced her while acting as a man in South America, a topic that was rarely touched upon.

“I caught sight of two men approaching on horseback. And I didn’t know whether to rejoice or tremble—were they cannibals or Christians.”

Erauso’s question of “cannibals or Christians” is notable for the information it gives on Spanish views on their empire. It shows that a binary divide was sometimes created between the Indigenous populations and the Spanish settlers, one that was in large part founded on their faiths. People were automatically equated with less “civilized” customs such as cannibalism if they were not Christian. This attitude explains aspects of Spanish colonialism, such as the emphasis on conversion of Indigenous populations.

“This is how things stood when I saddled up and vanished. And I have never heard exactly what became of the black girl or the little vicaress.”

Erauso escaped her two suitors in Tucumán by stealing a mule and absconding with the gifts they gave her. This incident demonstrates how, following the death of her brother, she embraced the role of an outlaw. Before this, she was a respected member of the military, gaining acclaim for bravery and prowess. By Tucumán, she had descended to theft and fleeing, a pattern that she frequently engaged in following this incident.

“The governor got it in his head that we should plant crops here, in order to make up for what we had lost, but the infantry wouldn’t go along with it, saying we didn’t come here to be farmers but to conquer and take gold.”

The refusal of Spanish soldiers to plant crops since they wanted to loot Indigenous tribes gives insight into the motives of the Spanish in South America. At the time, people believed in the existence of Freedom and Opportunity in the Colonial World, especially the wealth that could be made at the expense of the Indigenous peoples. It was these opportunities that drew many to the colonies and, consequently, to the army.

“[T]hey had some words about who should have first pew in the church. In the end, doña Francisca let doña Catalina have it with one of her clogs, at which point there was a great uproar and people began crowding around.”

This argument and fight over which lady was able to sit in the first pew of the church on Holy Thursday indicates The Role of Religion in Early Modern Life. One’s standing within the church was reflective of their broader social standing. Due to this, arguments could be sparked here just as they could in the gambling houses that Erauso frequented.

“He slammed down a doubloon and said, ‘I raise you a cuckold’s horn!’

‘Fine,’ I said, ‘I’ll see you that horn and raise you the one that’s still on your head!’

He swept the cards from the table and drew his dagger. I drew my own.”

The insult of cuckold (meaning a man whose partner has affairs) is used many times in Lieutenant Nun, always preempting a fight. The reference to a horn is because ram’s horns were associated with being a cuckold. It was a cutting insult among men at the time because a large element of masculinity was the power one was able to exert over their household. The seriousness with which this insult was regarded reflects issues of Personal Identity Versus Societal Roles for men at the time.

“Now, the story behind this is a strange one, and it demonstrates the mercy of Almighty God.”

Erauso references a belief in an active God, intervening to help her, on several occasions. It demonstrates her consistent maintenance of Christian beliefs throughout her travels, despite her refusal to live as a nun as well as The Role of Religion in Early Modern Life.

“Take me with you, Señor Capitán—my husband is trying to kill me!”

Erauso’s reluctant rescue of Doña María Dávalos led to a series of events in the story where she was harried by Dávalos’s husband until she could eventually escape from the feud when both spouses were sent to monasteries. As described here, she played the role of the rescuer of a damsel in distress, where a woman cries for help from a passing warrior on a mount, who then must bring her to safety. However, she added a comedic twist to the usual expectations because she was a mule-riding cross-dresser who was largely reluctant instead of the traditional knight. This twist on expectations of chivalry is notably similar to the nearly contemporary work of Don Quixote, which also questioned traditional chivalric notions.

“On the third, mass was held in the jail, and when the priest had taken communion he gave it to me and turned back to the altar, and I instantly spat the wafer out into my right hand, shouting madly, ‘I CALL ON THE CHURCH! I CALL ON THE CHURCH!’

Complete bedlam ensued.”

The chaos that followed Erauso’s interruption of a church ceremony gives insight into the beliefs of the Spanish at the time and The Role of Religion in Early Modern Life. They evidently heavily valued the motions of the religious ceremony, attaching much importance to these traditions. The Church’s importance is also apparent in its status as an automatic sanctuary for criminals, despite the crime one committed.

“The Dutch were laying siege to Lima with eight warships that had been stationed off the coast, and the city was armed to the teeth.”

Erauso stumbled upon a Dutch blockade of a Spanish city in South America and took part in the attempt to break it before getting captured. It is a relatively minor sequence of events within the narrative, but it gives a hint of the larger geo-political context of the time. Maritime empires, especially the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese, were building large imperial states, connected through access to the sea. They would vie with each other over control of the profitable colonies, which could funnel supplies back to the imperial core.

“[A] dark, hairy, giant of a man sat down next to me, a menacing fellow everyone called The Cid.”

The Cid’s introduction immediately establishes him as a larger threat than many that Erauso had faced before. His physical stature and adoption of the name of a famous Spanish warrior hint that the fight between him and Erauso would be especially taxing, which was.

“Brother Luis Ferrer de Valencia, who is a great man, arrived and took my confession—and seeing as how I was about to die, I told him the truth about myself. He was astonished, and he absolved me of my sins, and encouraged me to take heart and tried to comfort me.”

Erauso’s first in-text confession of her identity is an important moment in the book. Before this, her status as a man had been absolute and unquestioned since she first put on male clothes. This private confession hints to the reader that this status might have been about to change. It thus foreshadows the later reveal in Guamanga.

“The situation is becoming more and more desperate with every second, and I turn to discover the Basque friend at my side and some other Basqueros along with him.”

The rallying of local Basqueros around Erauso shows the importance of this aspect of her identity in South America. This distinct group from the Spanish-French border evidently valued each other and their shared links highly. It is likely that this identity became even more important in South America, a “frontier” where it was essential to define what one was in comparison to the others that lived there.

“And seeing that he was such a saintly man, and feeling as if I might already be in the presence of God, I revealed myself to the bishop and told him.”

Erauso describes Agustín de Carvajal, the bishop to whom she confessed her identity, in nothing but glowing terms and notes a feeling of closeness to God around him. By doing this, she implies that a divine intervention prompted her to confess, thereby hinting that she herself has divine favor.

“[T]wo old women came in and looked me over and satisfied themselves, declaring afterward before the bishop that they had examined me and found me to be a woman…and that what’s more they had found me to be an intact virgin, as on the day I came into the world.”

The importance of Erauso’s status as a virgin is connected to the expectations of women in that time, speaking to Personal Identity Versus Societal Roles. While in the guise of a man, it was acceptable for Erauso to have flirtations and romances, while with the reveal of her identity as a woman, her status as “pure” in her virginity again became critical. Her maintenance of this “purity” would have made her more remarkable and acceptable to her contemporaries, who would consider anything else sinful.

“I remained there in all for two years and five months, until word arrived from Spain that I wasn’t, nor had I ever been, a professed nun, and with that I was assured I might leave.”

Erauso’s stint as a nun again and then the confirmation that she could leave show two large changes in her life that she covers in a characteristically unemotional and nondescriptive way. While she covers these two years in just a sentence, the second rejection of her life as a nun that followed shows her definitive preference for the life of a man.

“But then one day a quarrel arose over a game of cards, and I was forced to cut another man’s face with a little knife I had on me.”

Shortly after the end of her time as a nun, Erauso returned to almost exactly the activities she did before. As per usual, it was gambling and the insults that followed that caused a fight to break out. This demonstrates her full internalization of the masculine code of conduct, as despite her identity being revealed and well-known, she continued to act as she had always done.

“I left Cádiz for Seville, where I spent fifteen days, lying low as much as possible and fleeing from the swarms of people that turned up everywhere, trying to catch a glimpse of me in men’s clothing.”

Erauso repeatedly notes her lack of comfort with her celebrity after her identity was revealed. It appears that she was resentful of being an object of interest and irritated that her fame limited the freedom to move about anonymously that she previously had valued so highly.

“His Holiness seemed amazed to hear such things, and graciously gave me leave to pursue my life in men’s clothing.”

The Pope’s confirmation that she could continue to wear masculine clothing was a large victory for Erauso, confirming her status in a “hybrid” social role. While her birth as a woman was now well-known, this allowed Erauso to continue behaving as she always had done, making her someone who, unlike most, was allowed to have a separate identity and societal position.