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Summary of a Basque Nun’s Memoir of her Life as a Conquistador
Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World is a firsthand account of the cultural aspects of the 17th-century Spanish colonial empire from the perspective of a female conquistador. In this era, a man’s life and honor depended on how well he could handle a sword and how quick he was to use it. As a woman, Erauso has to quickly adapt to this world when she assumes a man’s life.
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Native American Population Estimates When Columbus Arrived In 1492
Pre-Columbian population estimates range from eight million to Henry Dobyns’s high count of 142 million, with the average estimate of Native American demographers over the past century remaining steady at about 40 million.[2] The high estimates can easily be discounted as exaggerations, considering that the Aztec Empire—one of the most densely populated regions in the Americas—had only about six million on the eve of European contact.
