Timeline of women in early modern warfare

Warfare through history has mainly been a matter for men, but women have also played a role, often a leading one. The following list of prominent female warrors and their exploits from about 1500 C.E. up to about 1750 C.E. can only indicate the involvement of women, some of them thrust into positions of leadership by accident of birth or family connection, others by force of circumstance from humble origins.

Female warriors of the early modern era

* 1500s: Sikhism founded. [cite book|author=Petrillo, Valerie|title=A Kid's Guide to Asian American History: More Than 70 Activities|publisher=Chicago Review Press|isbn=1556526342|pages=p.162] One of its tenets is equality for women [citebook|title=Sikh Women in England: Their Religious and Cultural Beliefs and Social Practices|author=Rait, Satwant Kaur|publisher=Trentham Books|year=2005|isbn=1858563534|pages=p.47] which extends to allowing them into participate in combat and warfare. [citebook|author=Holm, Jean|coauthors=JohnBowker|title=Women in Religion|publisher=Continuum InternationalPublishing Group|year=1994|isbn=082645304X|pages=p.151] See for more information.
* 1501: Christina of Saxony holds the city of Stockholm for the Danish during a Swedish rebellion against the Danish.
* 1505: Ingeborg Tott defends her fief Häme Castle in Finland against the attack from another noble fiefholder.
* 1520: During the Swedish war of Independence against Denmark, rebellion-leader Christina Gyllenstierna becomes the head military commander of Sweden and defends and commands the city of Stockholm. Anna Eriksdotter Bielke commands the city of Kalmar at the same point.
* 1521: Maria Pacheco Padilla defends the city of Toledo, Spain for six months after her husband falls in battle.cite book | title=The Encyclopedia of Amazons | author=Salmonson, Jessica Amanda | publisher=Paragon House | year=1991 |isbn=1-55778-420-5| pages=p.208]
* 1521-1523: Abbess Anna Leuhusen participates in the secret traffic in and out of the city of Stockholm during the Swedish War of Liberation.
* 1530-1599: Abbakka, a ruler of Tulu Nadu in India fights the Portuguese army.
* 1536-1573: Reign of Amina, ruler of the Hausa empire in Niger. She personally led an army of over 20,000 soldiers. [Salmonson, p.11-12]
* 1539-1540: Gaitana of the Paez leads the indigenous people of Columbia in armed resistance against the Spanish.
* 1541: Inés de Suárez, who came to the Americas to search her husband, fought with Pedro de Valdivia in Chile.
* 1541: Gaspar de Carvajal, a Dominican monk, reports being attacked by a band of armed women while travelling in Brazil.
* 1543: According to legend, Catherine Ségurane defends the city of Nice, France.
* February 12, 1545: Scottish women fight in the Battle of Ancrum Moor. Among them is Lilliard, for whom Lilliard Edge is named. [citebook|title=Monthly Chronicle of North-country Lore and Legend|publisher=Published for the Proprietors of the New Castle Weekly Chronicle by Walter Scott, Newcastle-On-Tyne, and 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row, London.|year=1888|pages=p.245]
* 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. [Salmonson, p.69]
* 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 [http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0236.html] .
* 1572: In defence 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.
* 1577: Dutch woman Trijn van de Leemput allegedly rallies women in Utrecht against the Spanish.
* 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.
* 1584: Mary Ambree participates in the fighting against the Spanish for the city of Ghent. A ballad is eventually written about her. [Salmonson, p.10-11.]
* Late 16th century: Muslim queen Chand Bibi fights the Mongols. [Salmonson, p.53]
* Early 17th century: Catalina de Erauso fights as a soldier in Mexico, Peru, and Chile. [Salmonson, p.82-82]
* 17th century: Sikh woman Bibi Dalair Kaur fights the Moghuls by rallying 100 Sikh women against them. She is killed, and Sikhs consider her to be a martyr.
* 17th century: Queen Keladi Chennamma of the Keladi kingdom of India fights the Mughals.
* 17th century: Respective reigns of Jaga warrior queens Mussasa and Tembandumba.
* 17th century to 1894: Dahomey Amazons act as an all female regiment (under female command) of the west African Kingdom of Dahomey.
* 17th century: Hadi Rani, the wife of an Indian warrior, kills herself because she believed that her being alive was preventing her husband from doing his duty as a warrior. She has a messenger present her severed head to her husband, who, having nothing left to live for, fights bravely until he is killed.
* 17th century: Several soldiers are reportedly discovered to be female in the French army during the reign of Louis XIV of France.
* 17th century: Shen Ynying leads her own army in China. [cite web|publisher=Colorq.org|title=General Shen Yunying - Complete in Loyalty and Filial Piety|url=http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=asianwomen&x=shenyunying|accessdate=2008-06-30]
* 17th century: Gao Guiying leads her army as a general in China. [cite web|publisher=Colorq.org|title=Gao Guiying - General of the Peasant Rebels|url=http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=asianwomen&x=gaoguiying|accessdate=2008-06-30]
* 17th century: Qin Liangyu commands armies in China. [cite web|publisher=Colorq.org|title=Qin Liangyu - Commander-in-Chief of Sichuan Province|url=http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=asianwomen&x=qinliangyu|accessdate=2008-06-30]
* 1600: Inahime, a Japanese princess, participates in the Battle of Sekigahara.
* 1612: Swedish commander-wife Emerentia Krakow take up arms to defend the Fortress of Gullberg against the Danes during a war between Sweden and Denmark; when her husband becomes wounded, she temporarily took his place [http://www.gustavianer.com/forskning/Kvinnorna_Kriget.pdf] .
* 1620: Legendary Albanian heroine Nora of Kelmendi.
* September 13, 1624: Ketevan the Martyr, a Georgian queen, is tortured to death after offering herself as a hostage to Shah Abbas I to prevent war.
* June 5, 1639: Lady Ann Cummingham leads a mixed-sex cavalry troop in the Battle of Berwick.
* 1643: Lady Mary Bankes defends Corfe Castle from a siege in the English Civil War.
* 1643: Lady Brilliana Harley defends Brampton Castle during the English Civil War.
* 1643: Henrietta Maria of France returns to England from France, landing in Yorkshire and joining Royalist troops in the English Civil War.
* 1644: Charlotte Stanley, Countess of Derby defends Latham House from Parliamentarian Forces.
* 1650: Two sisters from a noble family fight a duel outside Bordeaux, France. Their names are not revealed to avoid embarrassing their family.
* 1661 : The Swedish noblewoman Görwel Gyllenstjerna, a woman known for her interest and skill in the "male sports", challenges lieutenant-colonel Nils Kohl to a duel after he married her cousin without the family's approval [http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0190.html] .
* 1670: Alyona, a Russian female ataman rebel, is burned at the stake.
* 1675-1676: King Philip's War. Awashonks, female chief of the Sakonnet tribe, initially supports Metacomet, but later makes peace with the colonists. [ [http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/awashonks.php Brooklyn Museum] article "Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art - The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Awashonks" Last updated March 21, 2007.]
* 1676: Colonists request that Pamunkey chief Queen Anne furnish warriors to fight in Bacon's Rebellion. She initially refuses on the grounds that her tribe was neglected by the colonists for twenty years, but relents when the colonists promise better treatment for her tribe.
* 1679: Lisbetha Olsdotter is put on trial for having served in the Swedish army under the name Mats Ersson.
* 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.
* 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.
* 1690s: The French actress Aubigny La Maupin becomes famous as a swashbuckler, and once defeated three young men at the same time. [Salmonson, p.176-177]
* 1690s: Kit Cavanagh disguises herself as a man in order to fight as a dragoon. She eventually fights openly as a woman. [Salmonson, p. 52]
* 1690: Anne Chamberlyne, a female tar who disguised herself as man, fights the French at Beachy Head.
* 1697: New England colonist Hannah Duston is captured by Abenaki Native Americans during a raid. She kills ten of them while they were asleep and escapes with the other prisoners, taking their scalps with her. She is possibly the first woman in the United States to be honored with a statue.
* Early 18th century: Juliana Dias da Costa rides on a war elephant alongside her husband, Mughal emperor of India Bahadur Shah I, in battles to defend his authority. [Salmonson, p.136.]
* Early 18th century : Mary Read serves as a soldier in Belgium before becoming a pirate. [Salmonson, p.219-220]
* 18th century: Kaipkire of the Herero leads forces against British slave traders. [Salmonson, p. 139]
* 18th century: Ghaliyya al-Wahhabiyya leads military resistance movement to prevent foreign takeover of Mecca. [cite web|publisher=Colorq.org|title=Warriors: Asian women in Asian society|url=http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=2002&x=asianwarriors|accessdate=2008-06-30]
* 18th century: Comtesse de Polignac and Marchioness de Nesle fight a duel over their mutual lover, Duc de Richelieu.
* 18th century: The ruling Princess of Sardhana, Begum Samru (Johanna Noblis), leads her armies in war [http://www.guide2womenleaders.com/womeninpower/Womeninpower1770.htm] .
* 1700: Tarabai, a queen of the Maratha empire in India, leads a war against invading Mughals.
* 1700-1721 Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar serves in the Swedish army under Charles XII of Sweden during the Great Northern War. Margareta Elisabeth Roos may have served as well, but this has never been confirmed. During the same war, Maria Faxell, the wife of a vicar, defends her village against a Norwegian attack by handing out old weapons to both men and women during her husband's absence [http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0160.html] . An unnamed woman serves in the Swedish army in the Great Nordic War; after the war, she is seen wearing men's clothing on the streets of Stockholm until the 1740s, were she was known as "The Rider" [http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0236.html] .
* 1704: Mai Bhago leads Sikh soldiers against the Mughals.
* 1711-1721: Ingela Gathenhielm operates the Swedish Privateering fleet jointly with her husband during the Great Northern War; when widowed in 1718, she continues herself.
* 1719: Brita Olsdotter, an old Swedish woman, meets the Russian army, who marches against Linköping after having burnt Norrköping, and makes them turn around and leave after telling them that reinforcements were arriving to assist Linköping [http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0323.html] .
* 1720-1739: Granny Nanny, a spiritual leader of the Maroons of Jamacia, leads rebel slaves in First Maroon War against the British. [http://www.jis.gov.jm/special_sections/Heroes/Heroes1.htm#Nanny Government of Jamaica, national heroes listing] ]
* 1730s-1740s: Female Ho-chunk chief Glory of the Morning allies her tribe with the French in order to battle the Fox tribe. [ [http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/topics/morning Ho-poe-kaw (Glory of the Morning) at the Wisconsin Historical Society ] ]
* 1740s-1760s: Maria van Antwerpen serves as a soldier in the Netherlands under the name Jan van Art [http://www.computerconsultingservices.net/mensworld/images/FTMHistory.htm] .
* 1740: Ann Mills fights on the frigate "Maidenstone" as a dragoon. [Salmonson, p.184]
* 1745: Countess Mary Hay raises an army of Buchan men for Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
* 1745: Lady Anne Farquharson-MacKintosh raises 200-400 men of her clan to fight in the Jacobite rising, but does not lead them.
* 1745: Phoebe Hessel fights in the Battle of Fontenoy with her lover. She had disguised herself as a man and joined the British Army to be near him.
* 1750: Hannah Snell, a British woman who had disguised herself as a man in order to become a Royal Marine, has her military service officially recognized and is granted a pension.

References

ee also

*Timeline of Women in Medieval warfare
*Women in warfare (1750 - 1799)