Lieutenant Nun

Lieutenant Nun is the autobiography of Catalina de Erauso, a cross-dressing Spanish woman of the 16th-17th centuries who gained fame for living as a man in South America for over 20 years. The autobiography was written between 1626 and 1630, during Erauso’s stay in Europe after she revealed her identity in 1623. It then remained in manuscript form until it was first published in Paris in 1829. After 1894, it was translated into English. In her autobiography, Erauso recounts her remarkable life, showing how she escaped from a convent in Spain, dressed as a man, and traveled to the Americas, where she lived as a soldier under various aliases. Her adventures included brawls, romance, and close calls with death, offering a rare glimpse into the colonial societies of the “New World” through the eyes of a gender-nonconforming individual. It explores themes such as Personal Identity Versus Societal Roles, Freedom and Adventure in the Colonial World, and The Role of Religion in Early Modern Life.

This guide refers to the 1996 Beacon Press paperback edition, translated by Michele and Gabriel Stepto in 1996.

Content Warning: The source text discusses violence and murder and reflects racist views about Indigenous people, all of which this guide discusses. There is some scholarly debate about the correct pronouns to use when referring to Erauso (See: Background); while some theorize that she was transgender, this guide follows the Stepto translation by using feminine pronouns.

Summary

Lieutenant Nun’s narrative begins in 1585, with the birth of Catalina de Erauso into an established family in San Sebastian, a town on the Bay of Biscay in northwest Spain. When Erauso was four, she was sent to a nun’s convent, where she stayed until she was 15. In 1600, while she was still a nun in training, she decided to leave the nunnery after an older nun abused her. She stole keys to the nunnery and supplies to sew new clothes. In a nearby chestnut grove, she hid for three days while modifying her clothes into those of a man. In this guise, she went back out into Spain, adventuring as a young, educated Spanish gentleman.

For a time, she worked for her uncle, who was a doctor. He did not recognize her, but he later hit her for refusing his request to become an apprentice. Following this, she again fled and became a page for the king’s secretary in the city of Valladolid. One day, she saw that her father had come looking for her, though he did not recognize her through her disguise. She again fled, eventually coming back to San Sebastian and seeing her mother. After her mother also failed to recognize her, she went to the city of Sanlúcar and got work on a Spanish ship headed toward the Americas. The ship was captained by another unsuspecting uncle.

Once in South America, she stole money from her uncle and fled from the fleet. She soon began working for a merchant named Juan de Urquiza, quickly becoming trusted with running one of his shops in Saña. Here, a local named Reyes got into an argument with her, leading to a sword fight in which she injured him and a friend. To decrease tensions after this, Urquiza tried to scheme to get Erauso engaged to a local woman of rank (and a relative of Reyes), Doña Beatriz de Cárdenas. This plan fell apart after Beatriz demanded to be seduced by Erauso, who slapped her and fled. Erauso then moved to another town named Trujilo, where she again began working for Urquiza in a shop. Reyes and some friends soon found her there, and another fight broke out, in which she killed one of Reyes’s friends. She had to flee to a church to avoid arrest, from which she fled to the city of Lima.

In Lima, she began working for a friend of Urquiza until she struck up a romance with one of his sisters-in-law, which got her fired. Now unemployed and seeking adventure, she decided to join the Spanish army that was preparing to fight the Indigenous population in Chile.

The army first arrived in the city of Concepción, where Erauso met Miguel de Erauso, her brother who had left Spain when she was a child. She told him that she had come from San Sebastian (though not the rest of her identity), which caused them to bond. He had her reassigned from the army intended to fight in Paicabí to his command, garrisoning Concepción. She remained there for three years until she and her brother got into a fight over a mistress whom both had been visiting. This resulted in her exile to Paicabí, where she fought for three years until she was injured while committing an act of bravery on the battlefield.

She and her brother bonded once again, and she became a lieutenant for five more years in the army, only being removed from command once she executed an Indigenous person that the local governor wanted alive. When back in Concepción, she ran afoul of the law following a fight at a gambling house, in which she killed another lieutenant. To avoid punishment, she hid in a church for six months until a friend of hers asked her to act as his second in a duel. During this duel, she and the other second (whom she could not see since it was dark) began fighting, and she fatally wounded him. Only at this point did she realize that it was her brother. She again fled to the church, where she watched her brother’s funeral before fleeing from Concepción. From this point on, Erauso’s life became largely that of an outlaw.

Erauso traveled until she met a mixed-race widower on a farm. She integrated herself into this family, running the farm for a time. The widower hoped that she would marry her daughter, which Erauso did not want to do. At the same time, a bishop’s secretary in the nearby town of Tucumán was hoping for her marriage to his niece. She stole gifts that both suitors had given her and fled, eventually arriving in Potosí, where she again joined an armed force headed for Indigenous lands. Her force attacked an Indigenous village and fended off an attempt to retake it, but she soon deserted in the hopes of gaining more loot from other areas.

Her adventures continued throughout the towns of South America. In La Plata, she was falsely blamed for the assault of a noblewoman that had been caused by a dispute over seats in church pews. In Charcas, she murdered someone over a gambling dispute, and in Piscobamba, she had to rescue a woman from her husband who was trying to kill her for infidelity. She continued to bounce between towns for reasons similar to these, always trying to avoid legal punishment for her various offences by hiding in churches and gaining various jobs wherever she went.

These travels reached a notable turning point in Cuzco, where she got into another fight over a gambling offence with a man who went by the name “The Cid.” She killed him but was herself grievously wounded in the process. Fearing that she would die, she confessed her identity to a local priest before she fled. Afterward, local constables in town consistently tried to arrest her for the murder of The Cid and then the further murders she committed in escaping these arrest attempts. The chase finally ended in Guamanga, where she agreed to go into the custody of a bishop, to whom she also confessed her true identity. Her identity then became common knowledge, turning Erauso into something of a celebrity.

Erauso was ordered to return to her life as a nun. She stayed in this role for more than two years until confirmation came from Spain that she had never been confirmed as a nun. This meant that she was free to leave again, and she decided to head back to Europe. In Spain, she tried to avoid the crowds that wanted to see her dressed in male clothes and met with the king, who awarded her a state pension for her services in the army. She then went to Italy, where she met the Pope. The Pope gave her permission to continue wearing masculine clothes and urged her to live a moral life. The autobiography ends after describing how she left Rome and went to Naples, where two women propositioned her and she threatened them in return.