The first words spoken by Aztec emperor Montezuma to Spanish conquistador Hernándo Cortés were translated by a young Mexican woman, an intimate aid to the Spanish captain, whose language skills and political savvy helped de-throne Montezuma and topple Aztec civilization as much as did Spanish steel and gunpowder.

Her name was La Malinche, and since that fateful 1519 encounter her controversial role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico has evoked an uneasy tension in this country´s history, art and culture.

For many, La Malinche is the great “villainess” of Mexican history, a Mexican “Eve”, a betrayer of her own people and a whore. She has been routinely scapegoated by Mexican critics on claims her collusion with the Spanish invaders alone caused the catastrophic collapse of Aztec civilization.

Other views are more sympathetic: that La Malinche´s actions during the Conquest were merely those of a young woman following her own best interests in a turbulent and uncertain time.

Romantics see La Malinche as a woman in love, whose behaviour evolved naturally from her deep personal devotion to the Spaniard Hernándo Cortés, while Latina feminists have defended the image of La Malinche, portraying her as an independent woman whose only “betrayal” was of conformist female norms in a patriarchal world.

Whatever the truth of these speculations it is certain that La Malinche bore Cortés a son, Martín, and in the process became the figurative, if not literal mother of “mestizaje,” or the mixed-blood race which is Mexico today. “Mother as betrayer” is the curse that has weighed upon La Malinche ever since.

La Malinche was born into a noble family about 1500, in the modern Gulf-coast state of Veracruz. On her father´s death her mother remarried and bore a second child, a son. Seen as a rival to the male’s succession, La Malinche was cast off, ending up as a slave in the state of Tabasco. As a captive, La Malinche learned the Chontal Maya language of her masters, while retaining use of her first language Náhuatl (NA-whatl), the dominant language of the Aztec world. Despite her misfortune, La Malinche always carried with her the marks of her high birth and broad education. She was intelligent and astute, “with open expressive features and a generous temperament.”

Having sailed from Cuba on a voyage of exploration and conquest, 34-year-old Hernándo Cortés set ashore on the Tabasco coast in search of gold and provisions. After a fight with the local Indians Cortés, as keen on negotiating an advantage as he was on fighting for it, made peace with the native chief, who then presented the Spaniard with a gift of 20 young women, among them La Malinche.

“Cortés allotted one of the women to each of his captains, and (La Malinche) as she was good looking and intelligent, he gave to …Puertocarrero,” wrote Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a conquistador who often refers to La Malinche in his book “The Discovery and Conquest of New Spain,” first published in 1682.

Cortés soon learned of La Malinche´s fluency in Náhuatl, the language spoken by Aztec chief Montezuma. With La Malinche by his side as translator, Cortés realized, he would be able to communicate – and negotiate — directly with the powerful emperor. Cortés conveniently had Puertocarrero sent back to Spain as envoy to the king.

La Malinche settled in Cortés´ camp and soon became baptized. (The ever-vigilant Cortés forbade his men to sleep with native women until they were baptized). She took the name Marina, and was often referred to as Doña Marina by the Spaniards, out of respect for the woman who was now translator, counselor and mistress to Cortés.

Diaz wrote how La Malinche told him that “God has been very gracious (to her) in freeing her from the worship of idols and making her a Christian and letting her bear a son to her lord and master Cortés.”

La Malinche quickly began learning Spanish from Jeronimo de Aguilar, a missionary who could communicate with La Malinche in the Mayan language. Aguilar had been shipwrecked and enslaved by Mayan-speaking Indians on the Gulf coast eight years earlier.

Early conversations between Montezuma and Cortés actually involved three languages and two translators – La Malinche interpreted the emperor’s Náhuatl and passed the words on to Aguilar in Mayan, who then translated the message into Spanish for Cortés.

From La Malinche Cortés learned of the immense military might and thorough economic organization of the Aztec empire. He heard of the tribute system established by the Aztecs, whereby subject tribes were forced to supply Montezuma with enormous quantities of material goods and thousands of victims for human sacrifice. Cortés understood that these oppressed tribes were his natural allies against the Aztecs. If Montezuma chose to fight, Cortés would need native friends; and friends motivated by revenge would be especially useful.

La Malinche soon had an opportunity to help Cortés build the coalition he needed. Trekking inland from the Gulf coast, the outnumbered Spanish (there were only 400 of them, with 16 horses) fought and defeated an independent Indian force in a series of savage battles at Tlaxcala. But La Malinche engineered a reconciliation with the defeated chief, cajoling and flattering him into joining forces with Cortés. La Malinche even convinced local priests to allow the Spanish destruction of their temples and pagan idols – no easy task, as the Indians feared offending their gods as much as they feared the Aztecs.

Cortés continued his march on the Aztec capital of Tenochtítlan (Ten-notch-TEE-tlan), present-day Mexico City. Collecting rebel tribes on the way, Cortés assembled an allied Indian army numbering in the tens of thousands, an army that would prove in the end essential to Spanish victory. La Malinche´s language and negotiating skills were decisive in keeping the Spanish-Indian pact together.

Nearing Tenochtítlan La Malinche saved Cortés from certain disaster when she detected an Aztec plot to ambush the Spanish column at Cholula. Information supplied by La Malinche foiled the plan, and Cortés exacted a terrible price in lives from the Chololteca for their treachery.

Montezuma was stunned by this string of unlikely Spanish military victories. He was further unnerved by the ineffectiveness of curses placed on the invading foreigners by royal priests. And always there lurked the unsettling suspicion that Cortés might really be Quetzalcóatl, an ancient god whose return in the form of a bearded, pale-faced stranger had been foretold in myth and foreseen in recent omens.

Montezuma ignored advice to attack the Spanish, and opted instead to welcome Cortés into Tenochtítlan, magnificently set on an island in the middle of a large lake. The meeting took place on Nov. 8, 1519, on a five-mile-long causeway that connected the imposing Aztec capital with the mainland.

“You are weary my lord. The journey has tired you,” Montezuma greeted Cortés. “Now I have seen you at last.”

“Tell Montezuma we are his friends,” Cortés responded. “There is nothing to fear.”
La Malinche, former slave, orphan and not yet 20 years old, stood translating before two of the most powerful men of the early 16th century. She could scarcely have imagined how significant to world history were the events of that day, how critical was her role in those events, or how history would judge her.

The Spaniards stayed as guests in the magnificent Aztec capital for several weeks before finally making Montezuma a prisoner in his own palace. Fighting broke out soon after when the Aztecs were ambushed during a festival and massacred by Spanish arms.
Regrouping, the Aztecs forced the Spaniards to flee Tenochtitlan in a night battle which cost Cortés half his men and all his firearms. But the conquistadors returned several months later, having built 12 brigantines which they used to lay siege to the Aztec island city. (At 7400 feet above sea level, it was the highest-elevation naval battle ever fought.) Starving out the populace, now smitten by smallpox, the Spaniards’ Indian allies leveled Tenochtítlan block by block, forcing an Aztec surrender.

La Malinche stayed at the side of Cortés through it all, on several occasions narrowly escaping capture and a gruesome death (the Aztecs killed their sacrificial captives by cutting out their hearts). Diaz recorded that “Doña Marina….although a native woman, possessed such manly valor that, although she had heard every day how the Indians were going to kill us and eat our flesh with chili, and had seen us surrounded in the late battles, and knew that all were wounded and sick, yet never allowed any of us to see any sign of fear in her…. only courage.”

The fighting over, Cortés’ wife arrived from Spain. (She was later found strangled, possibly murdered by Cortes himself.) La Malinche was married off to a Spanish knight named Jaramillo and given lands, including a house on Higuera Street in Mexico City, which still stands.

La Malinche was later re-united with her mother, who had abandoned her, and with her step-brother, who had displaced her. Bernal Diaz, witnessing the re-union wrote that the pair, “were in great fear of Doña Marina…and they were weeping, (but) she consoled them and told them to have no fear…she forgave them…(and) gave them jewels of gold…and told them to return to their town.”

La Malinche’s son by Cortés, Martin, ran afoul of the Spanish Crown and was executed in 1548, a year after the death of his father. Of La Malinche’s time and place of death nothing is known for certain.

The figure of La Malinche appears in the painted works of Mexico´s great muralists and in the literature of Mexico´s many renowned writers. There is a statue erected to her memory in Veracruz, and also a volcano which carries her name. But the words “La Malinche” are synonymous with shame and dishonor in Mexico. To be labeled a “malinchista” – one who favors the foreign over the Mexican – is a jagged insult. Essential to an understanding of Mexican culture, the presence of La Malinche remains a dislocating element in the national consciousness.

In renouncing La Malinche (and Cortés), observes Mexican writer Octavio Paz “We condemn our origins and deny our hybridism. The strange permanence of Cortés and La Malinche in the Mexican´s imagination and sensibilities reveals that they are something more than historical figures: they are symbols of a secret conflict that we still have not resolved.”

Contents | Previous | Next