“Topics That Do Not Deserve So Much Consideration”: Women, Ritual, and Lawmaking in Early Modern Chile

Nothing happened the way it was supposed to happen with the arrival of Santiago de Chile’s new regent Fernando Márquez de la Plata and his wife María Antonia Calvo Encalada Recabarren in 1803. For some unexplained reason, Calvo had neglected to attend the customary first meeting with the governor of Chile and his wife, María Luisa Esterripa y Rameri, alongside her husband, upon their entrance into Santiago. This paper explores the aftermath of Calvo’s faux pax–years of impassioned letter-writing, which prompted multiple royal decrees on the matter–to investigate the parameters for women’s participation in the political sphere in the early-nineteenth century. It analyzes Esterripa’s influence over the petitioning process after 1803 on and off the official record while contextualizing this incident within her decades-long career of wielding her particular influence in Madrid to acquire favors. Finally, this discussion tracks how this localized conflict in Chile allows for a broader discussion about the royal court’s perception of so-called women’s issues.