Summary of a Basque Nun’s Memoir of her Life as a Conquistador

The Spanish world that Catalina de Erauso was born into was an extremely violent one in which lethal duels were a matter of a day’s work in the life of a conquistador. One’s life often depended on how well he could handle a sword, and his honor depended on how quick he was to use it. As a woman, Erauso had to quickly adapt to this world when she assumed a man’s life rather than be a nun.

In Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World, Erauso gives a firsthand account of her life in the 17th-century Spanish colonial empire. 

Although Erauso strongly identifies with her Basque home region and is shown friendship and favoritism by Basqueros she meets in the New World, she, nevertheless, comes to feel she is part of a greater Spanish nationalism and embraces the Spanish identity in which non-Spaniards see her.

Law and order are rare commodities in colonial South America and, when acquired, are poorly maintained by the Spanish government. 

Erauso’s fierce temper, however, is in perfect harmony with the macho culture of the day, which allows her to survive in the 17th century—a world in which an insult to one’s honor is usually met with death. 

The first example of this occurs when she confronts and attacks Reyes, severely wounding him. She even kills his friend when he jumps to Reyes’s defense. This outburst comes simply because Reyes had blocked her view at a theater and threatened to “cut [her] face wide open.” (p. 45)

Such a turn of events becomes common for Erauso, as she finds herself time and again forced to kill or be killed. It is as if the Spaniards, being so accustomed to bloodshed, are unable to make the connection between death—and its accompanying sorrow—and the sport of dueling. In fact, it is under these circumstances that Erauso kills her brother—not recognizing who he is until it is too late (p. 55). 

Throughout the course of her adventures, she continues to kill many and comes dangerously close to being killed herself, both from dueling and fighting foreign adversaries. She also nearly gets hanged by the law in Piscobamba, Peru (p. 75).

Her violent adventures include not only dueling with other Spaniards but also assisting the empire in the Indian wars in Chile and putting down the Alonso Ibanez uprising in Bolivia (p. 54, 64). The retribution that the Spaniards carry out on rebellious native tribes is both swift and fierce. An example Erauso gives is when her troop’s fieldmaster Bartolome de Alba is ambushed by a “devil of a boy about twelve years old” (p. 66). 

“The arrow lodged in the fieldmaster’s eye,” she relates. “We carved the boy into ten thousand pieces” (p. 66).

Although Lieutenant Nun presents an aura of lawlessness about colonial South America there is never anarchy. The local Spanish authorities are able to exert considerable control over the armed forces, such as when the governor denies Erauso and her fellow soldiers their desire to stay longer in the conquered Indians’ land and collect gold (p. 67). 

Throughout her story, Erauso makes it clear that being Basquera is not merely a geographic fact concerning her birth, but rather her national identity. The Basques have their own language and separate identity from the rest of Spain. This becomes evident throughout as time and again Erauso is aided by fellow Basques who feel a common blood kin to her. 

For instance, when Erauso and a barber are falsely accused by an Indian of cutting Dona Francisca Marmolejo’s face, the justice of the high court comes to town and tortures the barber on the rack, Inquisition-style, and nearly does the same to her (p. 70). Erauso was sentenced to ten years in Chile without pay, but through the help of her fellow Basqueros is allowed to go free. Her summary of the scenario smells of corrupt justice: “It just goes to show that persistence and hard work can perform miracles, and it happens regularly, especially in the Indies” (p. 70).

When the Trujillo sheriff and his deputies apprehend Erauso after she killed one of Reyes’s friends, the sheriff, who is also Basque, discovers her ethnicity. He suggests to her in their language that she might loosen her belt, which he is holding her by when they pass the cathedral. By doing so, she is able to escape inside, “while he stood outside bellowing for help.” (p. 50)

However strong her ties are to her native Basque Country, Erauso feels a strong national identity with the Spanish Empire. 

In Genoa, Italy, she meets up with an Italian who exclaims, “you sir, are a Spaniard.” (p. 110) She does not deny this or correct him by telling him she is a Basquera. When he begins insulting Spaniards and Spain, she defends her fellow Spaniards, accepts his challenge to a duel, and kills him. 

Later, in the chapel of Saint Peter’s, in a conversation with Cardinal Magalon, the cardinal tells her that her only fault is that she is a Spaniard. Her reply clarifies her newfound Spanish pride: “With all due respect, your Holiness, that is my only virtue” (p. 110).

Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun, is a woman in a man’s world, who defies the social rules of her day to experience that world. It is a world of violence and bloodshed, in which the slightest insult to one’s honor can mean the difference between life and death. But it is, nevertheless, preferable to Erauso than the dull life of a nun. 

The story of her adventure in the New World is filled with many different cultural insights into the life of a Spanish conquistador on the semi-lawless frontier of 17th century South America, as well as the jingoistic, nationalist imperialism that defined that era of Spanish dominance in both southern Europe and South America. 

Ultimately, Erauso receives the satisfaction of succeeding in her new life and permission to continue in a man’s world by the Pope himself (p. 109). 

De Erauso, Catalina. Memoir of a Basque Lieutenant Nun Transvestite in the New World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.