Antónia Rodrigues
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Antónia Rodrigues | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1580 Aveiro, Portugal |
| Died | 1641 (aged 60–61) |
| Allegiance |  Kingdom of Portugal |
Antónia Rodrigues (Aveiro, Portugal, 1572–1641), was a Portuguese soldier and national heroine.[1]
Antonia was born in the former parish of Sao Miguel de Aveiro and baptized on 5 January 1572 in a poor home of fishermen, right outside of the city walls of Aveiro. She was the daughter of Simao Rodrigues and Lianor Dias.[2] Her father died in 1574 when she was 2 and, at the age of 12, her mother obligated her to move to Lisbon to live with her older sister and brother-in-law, both of whom she did not get along with. She disliked her housework and fought with them and often ran away from their home. Eager to escape, she dressed herself as a man, cut her hair, and disguised herself and adopted the name of António Rodrigues, the joined a crew as a cabin boy of the ship named Nossa Senhora do Socorro, which loaded with wheat that was heading to the Portuguese territory of Mazagan, in Morocco.[3]
After her arrival at Mazagan she enlisted in the local infantry and acquired skills in weapons handling and achieved command of troops against an invasion of Moors. She made herself noted for her campaigns against the Moors and had a successful military career and was known as "o Terror dos Mouros". After disguising her body and avoiding any advancements from female suitors, Beatriz de Meneses, daughter of Diogo de Mendonca, one of the main nobles who lived in Mazagan, fell in love with "the handsome Antonio Rodrigues", so strongly that Beatriz fell ill and her father, the Chief knight, asked the major captain to force the marriage. Antonia feared being discovered, since it was not customary to refuse good marriages, she confessed that for about 5 years she had been hiding her body in order to have a life that is forbidden to women. The confession reached the governor and Antonia was forced to return as a woman. In 1603, She went on to marry a colleague and was decorated for service by Philip II of Portugal in 1619 in the courts of Madrid. After Philip's death in 1621, she retired from service and lived an anonymous civil life in Portugal and was no longer heard of and died around the year 1641.
Notes
[edit]- ^ Garcia, Francisco Vazquez (2015-10-06). Sex, Identity and Hermaphrodites in Iberia, 1500-1800. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-32118-7.
- ^ Hanks, Merry Wiesner; Chojnacka, Monica (2014-06-11). Ages of Woman, Ages of Man: Sources in European Social History, 1400-1750. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-87581-9.
- ^ Soler, Isabel (2003). El nudo y la esfera: el navegante como artífice del mundo moderno (in Spanish). Acantilado. ISBN 978-84-96136-03-8.
References
[edit]- António Maria José de Melo César e Meneses Sabugosa (conde de). Neves de Antanho. [S.l.]: Livraria Bertrand. 315 p.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
  | This Portugal biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- 16th-century births
- Portuguese soldiers
- Female wartime cross-dressers
- Women in 17th-century warfare
- People from Aveiro, Portugal
- 16th-century Portuguese military personnel
- 17th-century Portuguese military personnel
- Women in European warfare
- 16th-century Portuguese women
- 17th-century Portuguese women
- Portuguese people stubs