Women in warfare (1500–1699)

Active warfare throughout history has mainly been a matter for men, but women have also played a role, often a leading one. While women rulers conducting warfare was common, women who participated in active warfare were rare. The following list of prominent women in war and their exploits from about 1500 AD up to about 1700 AD.

Only women active in direct warfare, such as warriors, spies, and women who actively led armies are included in this list.

For women in warfare in what is now the United States during this time period, see Timeline of women in war in the United States, Pre-1945.

Timeline of women in warfare from 1500–1699

1500–1550

1550–1599

  • 1555: Zhuang Chinese woman Wa Shi leads troops into battle on behalf of the Ming Dynasty.[25]
  • 1557: Wa Shi leads over 6000 Zhuang infantry against pirates and successfully defeated them at Wangjiangjing (north of modern Jiaxing). She personally fought in combat, using a dao sword.[26]
  • 1558: Scotland, Janet Beaton marches at the head of an armed party consisting of two hundred members of her clan to the Kirk of St. Mary of the Lowes in Yarrow, where she knocked down the doors in an attempt to apprehend Sir Peter Cranstoun.[27]
  • 1559–1560: Scotland, Mary of Guise leads French armies against the Protestant rebellion, and women fight at the Siege of Leith.
  • 1562–1566: Mary, Queen of Scots, leads armies against several rebellions by nobles, including the Chaseabout Raid of 1565.
  • 1564: Indian queen Rani Durgawati leads her forces against the Mughal army, but is defeated.
  • 1569: Marguerite Delaye loses an arm in while fighting Admiral Coligny during his siege of Montélimar. A one-armed statue is erected in her honor.[28]
  • 1569: Jane Howard, Countess of Westmoreland, is instrumental in raising the troops for unsuccessful Rising of the North.
  • 1569: Brita Olofsdotter, widow after soldier Nils Simonsson, serves in the Finnish troup in the Swedish cavalry in Livonia; she is killed in battle, and king John III of Sweden orders for her salary to be paid to her family.[29]
  • 1569: Lady Agnes Campbell, married to Turlough Luineach O'Neill, Chieftain of the O'Neill's in Ulster, leads Her Scottish dowry troops against occupying English forces.
  • 1571: An Italian woman participates as a member of the Marines at the Battle of Lepanto dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1572: In defense of the city during a siege of Haarlem by Spanish troops, which lasted from December 1572 to 1573, Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer (1526–1588) supplied the Dutch forces with wood. She owned a wood company at Haarlem. Myth says she led a force of women defending the city and ever since "kenau" has been a Dutch expression for a harsh woman.
  • 1572: Maria van Schooten participates in the defense during the siege of Haarlem by Spanish troops, dies and are granted a military funeral: she is believed to have been one of the women who was led by Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer[31]
  • 1573: Trijn Rembrands allegedly participates in the defence of Alkmaar.[32]
  • 1576: Portuguese explorer Pedro de Magalhães de Gandavo reports that some Tupinamba Indian women of northeastern Brazil "give up all the duties of women and imitate men, and follow men’s pursuits as if they were not women. They wear the hair cut in the same way as the men, and go to war with bows and arrows and pursue game, always in company with men; each has a woman to serve her, to whom she says she is married, and they treat each other and speak with each other as man and wife."[33]
  • 1577: Dutch woman Trijn van de Leemput allegedly rallies women in Utrecht against the Spanish.[34]
  • 1580s: A woman is reported to have served as a man in the Portuguese army in Angola for a period of five years before she was discovered.
  • 1581: According to legend, Brianda Pereira participate against the Spanish in the Battle of Salga on the Azores.
  • 1584: Mary Ambree participates in the fighting against the Spanish for the city of Ghent. A ballad is eventually written about her.[35]
  • 1587: Catharina Rose commands a women battalion at the Spanish siege of Sluis in Flanders.[36]
  • 1587: An unnamed woman served in guise as a man in the Dutch army.[30]
  • 1589: Maria Pita defends Corunna against the English armada.[37]
  • 1589: An unnamed woman served in guise as a man in the Dutch army.[30]
  • 1590: Françoise de Cezelli defeats the Spanish army during the battle of Leucate
  • 1590: According to legend, Kaihime participates in the defence of Oshi Castle.
  • 1595: Indian Queen Chand Bibi fights the Mughals.[38]
  • 1597: Ebba Stenbock leads the defense of the Turku Castle in Finland after the death of its governor, her spouse.[39]

1600–1650

1650–1699

  • Roughly mid to late 1600s: Pashtun poet Nazo Tokhi defends a fortress.[64]
  • 1652: Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, fires the cannons against the army of Turenne during the Fronde.[65]
  • 1652–1653: Anna Jans serves in the Dutch Navy as a man during the war against England.[66]
  • 1652–1653: Johanna/Jannetje Pieters serves in the Dutch Navy as a man, Jan Pietersse, during the war against England.[67]
  • 1652–1653: Adriana La Noy serves as sailor dressed as a man in the Dutch Navy.[68]
  • 1653: Aagt de Tamboer serves in the Dutch navy dressed as a man.[30]
  • 1653: Anna Alders serves in the Dutch navy dressed as a man.[30]
  • 1653: The Princess of Moldavia, Doamna Ecaterina Cercheza, defends the city of Suceava toward the Ottoman siege.[69]
  • 1659: Anne Holck leads the defense of the Danish island of Langeland after the death of her spouse against the Swedes during the Dano-Swedish War (1658–1660).[70]
  • 1659–1665: Willemtge Gerrits serves in the Dutch Marine as a man.[71]
  • 1663: Annetje Barents serves in the Dutch navy dressed as a man under the name Klaas Barents.[30]
  • 1665: Jacoba Jacobs serves in the Dutch Marine as Jacob Jacobs.[72]
  • 1666: Hendrick Albertsz in the Dutch navy is discovered to have been a female dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1667: Engeltje Dirx serves in the Dutch army dressed as a man.[30]
  • 1667: Jacoba Jacobs serves in the Dutch navy dressed as a man.[30]
  • 1670: Alyona, a Russian female ataman rebel, commanded a detachment of about 600 men and participated in the capture of Temnikov.
  • 1672: Annetje Pieters serves in the Dutch navy dressed as a man; the same year, another unnamed female is discovered to have done the same.[30]
  • 1672: Margaretha Sandra, as well as several other women, participate in the defence of the Dutch city of Aardenburg against the French.[32]
  • 1673: Elisabeth Someruell is reputed to have served as Tobias Morello in the Spanish army.[30]
  • 1673: Isabella Clara Gelvinck serves in the Dutch army dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1673: An unnamed female serves in the Dutch army dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1674: An unnamed female serves in the Dutch army dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1674: Francijntje van Lint serves in the Dutch army dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1675: An unnamed female serves in the Dutch army dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1675: An unnamed female serves in the Dutch navy dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1676: Kong Sizhen succeeds her spouse as Chinese Imperial military commander of Guanxi during the rebellion of Wu Sangui.[73]
  • 1676–1691: Geneviève Prémoy serves in the French army dressed as a male.[74]
  • 1677–1689: Reign of Keladi Chennamma. During her reign of 12 years, she repelled the advances of the Mughal Army led by the infamous Aurangzeb from her military base in the kingdom of Keladi located in Sagara, Karnataka India.[75][76]
  • 1677: An unnamed female serves in the Dutch navy dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1679: Lisbetha Olsdotter is put on trial for having served in the Swedish army under the name Mats Ersson.[52]
  • 1683: The pirate Anne Dieu-Le-Veut becomes known in the Caribbean Sea as a great fighter, one of the first of many female pirates famed for their fighting skills.
  • 1684: Catharina Rosenbrock serves in the Dutch army as well as the navy dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1685–1688: Ilona Zrínyi defends the Palanok Castle in Munkács against the Habsburg forces.
  • 1688: A coup takes place in Siam. Women drilled in the use of muskets replace the mercenaries and samurai who had served the old government. They are led by a woman named Ma Ying Taphan.
  • 1688: Maria Jacoba de Turenne serves in the Dutch army dressed as a man[77]
  • 1690s: Kit Cavanagh disguises herself as a man in order to fight as a dragoon. She eventually fights openly as a woman.
  • 1690: Anne Chamberlyne, a female tar who disguised herself as man, fights the French at Beachy Head.[78]
  • 1691: Anna Isabella Gonzaga, Duchess of Mantua, defends Mantua against the Spanish as regent during the absence of her spouse.[79]
  • 1691–1696: Marie Magdelaine Mouron serves in the French army dressed as a male.[56]
  • 1694: An unnamed female serves in the Dutch navy dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1696: Joonas Dirckse in the Dutch navy is discovered to be a female dressed as a male.[30]
  • 1696: Mongolian Queen Anu dies saving her husband at the Battle of Zuunmod.
  • Late 17th century: A Finnish female serves in the French, English and Danish army dressed as a male.[30]

See also

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Further reading

  • De Pauw, Linda Grant. Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), popular history by a leading scholar
  • Dugaw, Dianne. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry: 1650-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 1989)
  • Fraser, Antonia. The Warrior Queens (Vintage Books, 1990)
  • Hacker, Barton C. "Women and Military Institutions in Early Modern Europe: A Reconnaissance," Signs (1981), v6 pp. 643–71.
  • Illston, James Michael. 'An Entirely Masculine Activity’? Women and War in the High and Late Middle Ages Reconsidered (MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 2009) full text online, with detailed review of the literature
  • Little, Ann. Abraham in Arms: War and Gender in Colonial New England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)
  • Lynn, John. "Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe" (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
  • McLaughlin, Megan. "The Woman Warrior: Gender, Warfare and Society in Medieval Europe." Women’s Studies (1990) 17: 193-209.
  • Martino-Trutor, Gina Michelle. "Her Extraordinary Sufferings and Services”: Women and War in New England and New France, 1630-1763" PhD Dissertation, U of Minnesota, 2012. online
  • Rediker, Marcus. "Liberty Beneath the Jolly Roger: The Lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Pirates" in In Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920 ed by Margaret Creighton and Lisa Norling, pp 1-33 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996)
  • Stolterer, Helen. "Figures of Female Militancy in Medieval France," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16 (1991): 522-549
  • Taufer, Alison. "The Only Good Amazon is a Converted Amazon: The Woman Warrior and Christianity in the Amadís Cycle" in Playing With Gender: A Renaissance Pursuit ed. by Jean R. Brink et al. pp 35–51. (University of Illinois Press, 1991)
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