If you want to know the history of the historical women of Granada I recommend that you encourage yourself to join our Free Tour Historical Women of Granada.
Mary the Canastera.
Dancer and hostess, with the need to work to save her people.
Born in the Sacromonte of Granada, one February in the year 1913, she made her land and her Zambra a universally famous place. She called La Canastera after her father who worked making wicker baskets. Her first flamenco show was at the age of 16 at the Barcelona Universal Exposition. Artists such as Los Habichuela, Los Morente or Paco Cortés came out of her Zambra.
She died in 1966 and her cave Zambra María la Canastera is still open today, just as she left it. She also preserves the bed where she was born at the bottom of the zambra, the same one that is still located in the nerve center of the neighborhood with more Duende from Granada.
Morente star. Art and Passion.
The most recognized voice of all the singers and singers of Granada.
Daughter of her mother, the great bailaora Aurora Carbonell, and her father, the great cantaor Enrique Morente.
She has matured surrounded by a talented environment, full of family members who will give way to her bright future as a singer. She has art, passion, history, voice, talent and a blessed legacy in her blood.
He once quoted his land:
“Granada is part of my skin, my eyes, my hair, my cante, my food, my children, my parents… I will always return to Granada”.
Sultanas. Nasrid women of the Alhambra.
The unwritten and forgotten history of the Sultanas who inhabited the Alhambra.
History in the Middle Ages was written by and for men, so the writers of the time always avoided talking about the female human element. The woman belonged to the private and sacred space of the sultan, the Harem. This circumstance makes the task of scholars in the matter more difficult to reconstruct the plot line.
Elizabeth the Catholic Feminist and holy?
Powerful queen, pioneer and first woman in the history of female governors, cunning, strategist, studious, decisive, strict and cold-tempered.
Isabel I of Castile, we are not very sure that she was a saint but we are sure that she was a feminist. In her marital and political relationship with Ferdinand of Aragon, and in her mandate, she proposed to order and behave with the same protocol, process and dynamics as a legitimate king of his throne would do.
At that time, women, queens, princesses or infantas had a single purpose, which was to please the man in all his desires: sentimental, sexual, family, home and everyday, and in the case of the queen it was: to please and follow the king wherever you live and give birth to your sons and daughters. And this is the first time in court a woman "meddles" in military and political strategy, where the one who only had the credibility or the absolute respect of his vassals was a king.
Elizabeth was finally considered legitimate to the throne after the death of her two brothers, as there were no more men left, she will defend her belief in the right to the throne since the vast majority disagreed with having a queen instead of a king, because it was not enough to be heir queen, but it was indispensable to respect her a marriage with a man of the same rank or higher.
Even so, she declared herself powerful queen, granting herself deserved and legitimate rights, thanks to the support of the people of Castile and the war against Portugal and Juana la Beltraneja. By then a patriarchal system will hinder her exploits and struggles, even though we know very well that her intelligence was not lacking and she knew how to avoid it through infinite strategies and constant maneuvers throughout her life.
He bequeathed the throne to his third daughter. Juana I of Castile, commonly known as Juana la loca.
Juana La Loca. Crazy or Victim?
daughter of the sovereign Elizabeth the Catholic, inherited the throne of The Catholic kings and with it the absolute power of the many kingdoms conquered prior to Juana's succession, becoming the strongest crown in Western Europe. The power again in a woman, the same one that she could become at a political, legal, governmental and state level stronger than her husband: Archduke Felipe de los Habsburgs of Belgium, known as Philip the Beautiful.
Elizabeth knew that Juana could again suffer internal conflicts of interest, an entire court run exclusively by men, not accustomed to seeing or following women in charge.
Joan was one victim more of the patriarchal system, being dethroned and "diagnosed" crazy to lock her in a room at the age of 26, completely isolated from people and alone for the rest of her long and unhappy life, she died at the age of 76. She was also victim of machismo severe from her "beautiful" husband, who kidnapped her in her rooms, not letting her go out riding, read, write letters to her parents, much less receive them and was stripped of all the entourage that her parents gave her to lead a life always in good company in a foreign court, where no one would speak Spanish, these court ladies, advisers and advisers were sent by Felipe back to Castile, in order to control absolutely everything that surrounds the most sought-after infanta in Europe.
Historically, in this relationship, he will remain as the handsome, attractive, "don Juan" and womanizer man, and she as the jealous and crazy woman who did not know how to contain herself.
Mariana Pineda
Local heroine, revolutionary, liberal, feminist woman and very young single mother with 3 children.
Mariana Pineda Munoz As soon as she was born, her father already ripped her from her mother's arms, thus keeping her full custody in addition to all the family's assets, assets and houses, and thus banishing her mother, whose whereabouts are unknown.
Mariano Pineda He dies shortly after due to a chronic illness having previously granted guardianship of his daughter to his brother, who was blind and after marrying a much younger woman shortly after, he transferred Mariana's guardianship to some servants of his service, expropriating her from many properties in Seville and Granada. Her adoptive parents, too young too, who would educate Mariana only until she was 14 years old and would take over all her remaining assets, more than 6 properties and hectares of vineyards in the province of Granada alone, which went to their biological daughter. She claimed all the properties that her father left her as an inheritance, she constantly demanded her whole life to get it back, however she never finished getting it.
At the age of 15, she married a man eleven years older than her and who had just left the army, it is not known what he lived on, however the wedding was celebrated quietly since Mariana was an orphan, shortly after da birth to her first son José María and her second daughter Úrsula. Two years later her husband died, leaving her a widow with two children at the age of 18, and it was during that marriage that she joined the liberal cause after the new restoration of absolutism by Ferdinand VII.
The movement of the liberal heads sought a way for King Ferdinand VII to accept the force of the revolution and to grant equality and respect for all the people before Spanish law, but a few years later the monarch took a turn Absolutely breaking his word, he caused a personal revenge to be carried out: in search, capture and execution of all the leaders of the republic, thus demanding their names, even though it is true that Mariana was in the crosshairs of the Judge of Granada, at that time, Ramón Pedrosa, the same one who sighed for Mariana's affection and contact and even though he was in love with her because he could not peacefully accept that the young Mariana was the main head of a revolution, and that women by then they were not well seen in political matters or in any matter that was not home, to serve, to please and the family.
However, she would give him pumpkins a thousand times, and a contrary reaction will be born in him that was set in motion to look for her, judge her and force her to say each and every one of the names of the revolutionary leaders, meanwhile they sought to hide the flags, that the embroiderers of Granada already embroidered, and put them in Mariana's house so that they can finally attach legitimate proof or have proof of a crime against the king and the law.
A trial will be held without her presence where her defense attorney did everything he could, Judge Pedrosa having previously bribed her to release a pledge, even so Mariana stood firm, she preferred to pay with her life to commit such a betrayal of the movement that would save an entire society.
She was executed at the age of 26 on public roads, in Granada's Plaza del Triunfo, in front of her children and the entire people of Granada. She was asked for the last time if she would sing her names, her answer and also her last words were: “The memory of my ordeal will do more for our cause than all the flags in the world".
Virginia Wolf. Outstanding figure of international feminism.
British and writer. Paisana adopted by the Nasrid city, she travels to southern Spain three times, she described in her book what the Paseo de los Tristes was like and wrote letters to her friend Vita Sackville-West during his stay in Granada, with whom he had a very close relationship. In one of her books, she rescues a kiss, her first kiss, with a renowned actress who performed an adaptation of Resurrection at the Isabel La Católica Theater.
He sentenced with this phrase: «To write novels, a woman must have money and a room of her own.«.
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