English speakers used to think “BC” meant “Before Christ.” When the acronym evolved to “BCE,” or “Before Common Era,” it expanded to include all faiths. Perhaps BC should now mean “Before Cameras.” All three of these woman warriors presented here fought for their land and their people before any photographic or bronze likenesses could be created of them. Bronze equestrian statues represent two of them, and the third, a Muslim, has no artistic guesses as to what she might have looked like since her faith condemns representation of animals or humans. In essence, we can still only imagine their countenances as they led, yes, led, their people with integrity against those who would take their land and destroy their cultures. One lived in the first century BCE and the other two in AD, from the 7th and 15th centuries respectively.
A bronze chariot with three women, the center one brandishing a sword, stands at the western end of the Westminster Bridge in London. The women—Boudicca (d. c.60-62) and her daughters suffered under the Romans. After the Romans invaded the land known as Britain, they encountered native tribes (like Native Americans in North America and the Aztecs and Mayans in South America) who refused to accept their sovereignty. One of these tribes, the Iceni, lived in the current counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. When King Prasutagus of the Iceni died, Romans raped his wife, Boudicca, and his two daughters. Then they enslaved other Iceni leaders. Boudicca gathered a large army, destroyed the Roman colony of Camulodunum (now Colchester), marched on Londinium and Veralamium (now London and Saint Albans), and sacked them. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, her troops killed around 70,000 Romans. Suetonius, Roman governor of Britain, had been fighting the Druids in Anglesey, but he rushed back to fight her with force and destroy her. In despair, Boudicca killed herself by taking poison on the battlefield. Information about Boudicca (Boadica) comes from archaeological digs and aerial reconnaissance as well as Agricola, Tacitus’s father-in-law, who was probably in London during the uprising. The Romans curtailed her bravery, but history remembers.
A’isha (614?-678) fought in the Middle East during the 7th century. The vivacious A’isha (Ayeshah) became the favorite young wife of the Prophet Muhammad after the death of his first wife, Khadija. Muhammad had originally married A’isha when she was nine to strengthen ties with his chief advisor, her father Abu Bakr. After Muhammad’s death in 632, she became a widow of eighteen, forbidden to remarry. With no children to mother, she helped her father become the first caliph of the Muslims and used her energies for social and family activities both during his caliphate (632-34) and that of Umar I, which followed. When Uthman then ascended, A’isha became aware of his weaknesses and led opposition to his administration. Uthman was murdered in 656, and three rivals tried to take over—Ali, Talhah, and Zubair. A’isha hoped to regain the caliphate for her family, but Ali, whom A’isha thought had killed Uthman, won the succession. After A’isha took a pilgrimage to Mecca in her early forties, she returned to Medina and began a civil war against Ali. She led a battle from atop her camel, but her army lost near Bashra in 656. Ali captured her, but when she promised to avoid politics, he released her. She kept her pledge; however, followers recorded her oral statements and public speeches, and Muslims credit her with 2,010 traditions, 1,210 of them that Mohammed supposedly related to her directly. Large crowds attended her funeral, and most Muslims still admire her as “Mother of the Believers.” Even though Ali’s supporters, the Shi’ahs, still show her hostility, according to the oral tradition 150 years after her death, she had a practical knowledge of medicine and astronomy, great political energy, and an ability to organize and to perpetrate propaganda.
Perhaps the western world knows the French warrior, Joan of Arc (1412?-1431), better than either Boudicca or A’isha. Over 37 statues of Joan of Arc surround the globe, 27 of them in France. The best-known is probably displayed on the Place des Pyramides in Paris. With little formal education, Joan of Arc helped the French overcome the English occupation. Born on January 6, 1412?, in Domrémy, she first acknowledged when twelve that she heard someone speaking to her. After hearing the voice on other occasions, she said that French defender Archangel Michael was asking her to be obedient so that God could help her and France. Joan believed that Michael had sent her three directives: go to Orléans to lift its siege, have the king crowned, and drive the English from France. The angel promised Joan that the commander of a nearby castle would help. When she met with Charles, he asked her why he should believe her, and she told him something in private that left him visibly affected. She and her troops floated down the Loire River to Or1éans, where she demanded that the British surrender. They laughed, but the French quickly won their first battle. The next day, May 5, 1429, they won a second, and finally a third battle, to save Orléans. The Burgundian troops captured her outside Compiègne in 1430, tried her, and convicted her of immodesty and blasphemy. In 1431, she was burned on the scaffold in Rouen. In 1455, when her family requested a new trial, the verdict was reversed. In 1920, the Roman Catholic Church finally canonized her as a saint. Whether she heard voices becomes irrelevant when one realizes her accomplishment.
These women supported their beliefs with their strength (only one surviving until elderly), but all of them were convinced of their rights and those of their people to live without external dominance. Would that women could do so today—oppose wrongs with strength and honor.