User:Smallchief/cabeza de vaca

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9364/pg9364.txt

https://archive.org/details/lifeinmexicolett0000cald/page/n5/mode/2up

https://www.pdcnet.org//collection/fshow?id=cssr_2018_0023_0141_0155&pdfname=cssr_2018_0023_0000_0151_0165.pdf&file_type=pdf

Spain

The Calderón de la Barca's departed the U.S. for Spain on 13 August 1853 and arrived on 17 September. Ángel was appointed Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, but Spain was in political chaos. The government of which he was a part fell on 17 July 1854. To avoid arrest, the Calderóns fled Spain for Paris where they would live for two years. Returning to Spain, Ángel became a Senator in the Spanish parliament, the Cortes. He died in 1861.

Calderón de la Barca entered a convent briefly after her husband's death, but was asked by the Queen, Isabella II to serve as the governess of her nine-year old daughter, Infanta Isabel. She moved into the royal palace and served as governess until Infanta Isabel married in 1868. Calderón de la Barca made a visit to the United States after the wedding, thereby missing the outbreak of another revolution which deposed Isabella II. The royal family fled to France. In February 1875, the Infanta Isabel was able to return to Spain and Calderón de la Barca also returned becoming her Lady-in-waiting and again residing in the royal palace. In 1877, Calderón de la Barca was given the title of Marquesa de Calderón de la Barca.

Calderón de la Barca was still in apparent good health until 1882 when she caught a cold at an elegant dinner party and died on 6 February.

The Attaché in Madrid

Published in New York in 1856 under the male pseudonym of a young German diplomat, Calderón's The Attaché in Madrid is, by far, her lesser known travel account. Although it was used as part of Spanish history, it has become more or less forgotten. This is partially due to its publication under a male name, which would have diminished the uniqueness of the female perspective present in Life in Mexico, since many male-authored travel accounts from writers such as Washington Irving had already been written on 19th-century Spain. Because her husband was now a diplomat in Spain, Calderón could not speak openly about Spanish life and had to be careful to conceal her identity.

Much like in Life in Mexico, Calderón describes the "charitable institutions" formerly of interest to her under the guise of the curiosity of her male persona's mother. She uses "his" family members’ interests as justifications for descriptions that might not have otherwise been significant to a male travel writer. But simultaneously, she also utilizes this male identity to speak on topics inaccessible to females of her class, such as the San Isidro Festival, the Burial of the Sardine and bullfights. In addition, by offering the "German" outsider's perspective, she frees her narrative from the typical mid-19th-century United States discourse on Spanish decadence, instead showing her German Catholic narrator's admiration of Spain.

Although she uses "anonymity" and "maleness" to justify her point of view, Calderón actually reconstructs the concept by offering multiple perspectives contrary to the primary theme of "domination" in male travel writing. For instance, as if in response to claims in male narratives about the infidelity of Spanish women, Calderón ’s narrator defends their honor. In effect, his "masculine voice" is only one amongst others, male and female, Spanish and foreigner, providing a balanced view that distinguishes her from authentic male travel writers.

Despite being poorly received in comparison to Life in Mexico, The Attaché in Madrid did experience a brief resurgence in 1898, after Calderón's death, having been circulated from the United States to Havana, Cuba, and discovered by a Spanish artillery captain, Cristobal de Reyna. He considered it a "valuable historical document" and published it under the name, "Don Ramiro", fully accepting its maleness and unaware of its true authorship.

Later life

After returning from Mexico in 1843, Fanny Calderón and her husband resided in Washington, D.C. for nine years before he was reassigned to Spain, where he died in 1861. During that time, she converted to Catholicism in 1847. Following her husband's death in 1861, Calderón served as the governess of Infanta Isabel, the daughter of Isabella II. In 1873, she was awarded the title, Marquesa de Calderón de la Barca. She died in Madrid, Spain on 6 February 1882 at the age of 77.