Escribir de esas condenadas mujeres: personajes feministas en La Viuda del Panamá (Writing about these Darned Women: Feminist Characters in La Viuda del Panama)

Maria Cecilia Herrera Astua, English

This excerpt from La Viuda del Panama explores the life of several female characters living in Nombre de Dios, a sixteenth century town in Panama. These four female characters defy the social, racial, and patriarchal structures which impose subservient roles on them.

The first of these characters is Maria Isabel, an orphaned mestiza who has been adopted by a Spanish couple. As a waitress in an inn, María Isabel is an easy target for sexual harassment: because she is a low class, dark skinned woman, newly arrived Spaniards assume that she is a prostitute. But the mestiza publicly insults the men who try to take advantage of her. Among one of her admirers is a Corregidor--a government official who is thirty years older than she is. 

The second character that assumes a feminist role is the india Micaela, a medicine woman who, through her connection with Archbishop José Arcaya y Ponce, promotes the intervention of ecclesiastical authorities into the slave trade that is emerging in Nombre de Dios.

The last feminist character that appears in this section is the castiza Salina, a seven-year old servant in the household of the Corregidor. Salina creates egalitarian relationships with her master and her grandfather. She does not treat any of them with the respect patriarchal society expects her too. Instead, she chides or ignores them.