[9] Despite her humble origins, she achieved great influence in the political world of the nascent Republican Chile, especially within government ministers during the Independence, who consulted her regularly.
[10] Alongside the autobiography of Ursula Suarez and collections of poems by Juana López and Tadea de San Joaquín, the epistolary production of Sister Josefa is included today within the first female literary records in Chile[11] that identify and express themselves "in the literate territory of the city and culture of eighteenth-century Chilean colonial society".
[13] There are little biographical data available on Josefa de los Dolores,[1] most of which are available in the monastery's records where she lived, some hagiographic publications, and her own confessional handwritten letters.
[26] In this context, literary works by nuns were framed and developed in Chilean convents and monasteries during the colonial period until the 19th century; these included spiritual letters, diaries, autobiographies and epistolaries.
[37] In the case of Sister Josefa de los Dolores, such writings have enabled to know their discursive production, and have allowed to include her in the group of the first female literates in Chile.