Asserting Female Agency in the Spanish Colonies: Doña Rosalía de Medina and the Confraternity of Saint Rosalía in eighteenth-century Cuenca

In the 1740s Doña Rosalía de Medina funded in colonial Cuenca—one of the most important cities in the Audiencia of Quito— a confraternity in the name of her namesake saint. She not only funded the construction of an altar with all its rich furnishings in honor of Saint Rosalía, but was also personally involved in commissioning the saint’s statue and a yearly procession in her honor. This procession brought the sculpture from its altar, located in the local Jesuit church, through the city’s main square and into Doña Rosalía’s own private chapel. This paper reconstructs the chapel of Saint Rosalía, her statue, and the yearly procession in order to underline the essential role that religious patronage had in asserting female agency in Spanish colonial society. This study argues that, by creating and leading a religious confraternity, Doña Rosalía was able to fashion her own identity and promote her social and economic status, as well as heighten her spiritual stance. It also addresses the ways in which wealthy women from the Spanish colonies were able to promote personal agendas in connection with larger institutions, and to effect change in the social structure of deeply religious communities. Finally, this paper showcases the strategies used by women to appropriate the public space, usually linked to male dominance and influence.