The story of Catalina de Erauso is very interesting, especially for its time. It is hard to believe that many of the events in her story could have actually happened. Since the story was written a long time after it happened, it is possible that some of the events were added to it or exaggerated before it was written down.

It is interesting that Catalina was able to remain living as a man and be undiscovered for so long. It is also interesting that the Pope allows her to continue dressing as a man as long as she remained a virgin. If the Catholic Church suspected she was lesbian or transgender, they would believe she was committing a sin, especially during this time in history. It is odd that the Pope would encourage her to continue dressing and acting as man.

It’s hard to believe that many of the events such as this one are not fictional. But whether or not Catalina de Erauso’s story is a real one, it is still a very interesting piece of writing that tells us a lot of information about her life and this period of history.

It was very interesting to read about Columbus’ thoughts as he travels through the area and encounters native people. It was surprising to me that his first view of them was not necessarily negative. He comments that he believes they are intelligent and that he believes they could easily be converted to Christianity. He mentioned many times that they were very good looking. It was also interesting that he was able to communicate fairly well with the native people even though he would have known nothing of their language. Almost every comment he makes is about how the resources could be useful to Spain or how he could get the local people to give them to him.

Some questions I have are:

How is he able to communicate in so much detail with the native people without knowing the language?

Do we know what the native people actually thought of the Spanish when they arrived? Columbus believed they thought they were Gods, but he also says he believes they had no religion.

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