Doña Marina

Mexican-Indian interpreter, translator, and guide

• Born: c. 1502
• Birthplace: Aztec Empire (now in Mexico)
• Died: 1527 or 1528
• Place of death: Unknown

Doña Marina aided conquistador Hernán Cortés during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico. She has been celebrated as a protector of the Spanish conquerors and for helping to bring Christianity to the Mexican Indians, but she also has been vilified as a traitor to her family’s indigenous roots for having mixed-race children.

Early Life

While there are many sixteenth century visual and textual sources that refer to Doña Marina (DAWN-yah mah-REE-nah), the details of her life remain sketchy. Hernán Cortés referred to her twice, briefly, in his own writings.

Most known biographical information about Marina comes from the pen of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a conquistador who accompanied Cortés during the conquest of Mexico. Díaz del Castillo left a vivid narrative account of those events, with some mention of Marina, in his Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva España (wr. 1560’s-1570’s, pb. 1632; The True History of the Conquest of New Spain , 1908-1916). There are also many surviving depictions of Marina, including those in a massive illustrated account of the Aztecs that was compiled from indigenous sources by the Spanish priest and missionary Bernardino de Sahagún. It is called Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (pb. 1829, 1831;General History of the Things of New Spain , 1950-1982), is better known by scholars as the Florentine Codex, and was compiled by Sahagún between 1576 and 1577.

Marina’s multiple names reflect her role as a transitional figure between Aztec and Spanish cultures and highlight the linguistic transformations and miscommunications that took place in the century of conquest. Her original name was likely Malinalli. The Spanish gave her the name Marina, and the conquistador Díaz del Castillo always referred to her as Doña Marina, “doña” being an honorific title given to Spanish woman of rank. Native peoples called her Malintzin (the Nahuatl -tzin was also a suffix of respect). The Nahuatl “Malintzin” turned into “Malinche” (Marina is also known as La Malinche) when pronounced by the Spanish, and it has since become a pejorative word used to designate traitors.

When she was still a child known as Malinalli, Marina’s world changed when her father died; he was a cacique (a native Indian chief). Her widowed mother married another cacique and, after she had borne a son by this second marriage, she sold Marina into slavery, presumably to protect the inheritance of the son. Marina was first sold to Mayan traders, who in turn sold her to Tabascan Indians settled on the Bay of Campeche. When a group of Spanish conquistadores led by Hernán Cortés attacked the Tabascans in 1519, the Mexican Indians gave twenty women to the invaders as a gift, and Marina was among them. Thus, Marina came to be in the service of Cortés, who was on his way to conquer the Aztec Empire.

Life’s Work

Cortés was a Spanish explorer charged with leading an expedition from Hispaniola to the North American mainland. He landed in the Yucatán in February of 1519, and after conquering Tabasco he headed north to Tenochtitlán , the capital of what was then the Aztec Empire and what is now Mexico City.

Doña Marina and nineteen other women were given to the Spaniards to serve as cooks and mistresses. (They first had to be baptized, which made them suitable partners for the Christian soldiers, whose religion forbade them from sleeping with heathen women.) It soon became apparent, however, that Marina had other skills that would serve the Spanish enterprise. Marina came from the border area between Nahuatl-speaking Central Mexico and the Maya-speaking Yucatán, giving her fluency in both languages.

Marina’s bilingual skills were immeasurably valued by the Spanish. She became a key player in the linguistic relay that took place when Cortés needed to communicate with the Nahuatl. Cortés would speak Spanish to Jerónimo de Aguilar, a Spanish priest who had been shipwrecked in 1511 and spent eight years in captivity among the Maya, during which time he learned the Mayan language and culture. Aguilar in turn would speak Mayan to Marina, who would translate into the language of the Aztecs. After Marina learned sufficient Spanish, Aguilar was no longer needed. Marina became not only Cortés’s translator and negotiator but also his eyes and ears and his point of entry into understanding indigenous culture. Indeed, the pair were so closely associated that they were practically inseparable as individuals to the Mexican Indians, who called Cortés Captain Malinche.

Marina not only interpreted for the Spanish, she also saved them from almost certain destruction. In the city of Cholula, a noble indigenous woman confided to Marina a plot to trap and murder the Spanish in the city. When Marina revealed the plan to Cortés, he massacred the Cholulans instead.

When Cortés and his men arrived in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, the Aztec Empire was at its height and the city bedazzled the Spanish soldiers. The empire was ruled by Montezuma II , and Marina served as a go-between for the Spanish commander and the Aztec emperor. Marina spoke the noble form of the language, in a way suitable for communicating with a person of such exalted status, and she did so with appropriate ceremony. Cortés eventually took Montezuma hostage, and the Spanish soldiers attacked the city. By August of 1521, Montezuma was dead and the great Aztec capital had fallen to the Spanish.

After the fall of Tenochtitlán, Marina bore a child by Cortés, a son named Martín. Marina was not Cortés’s only mistress, nor was Martín his only illegitimate child. Martín was eventually legitimized by Pope Clement VII , along with two of Cortés’s other illegitimate children, as a special favor to the conqueror of Mexico.

Young Martín was left behind when Cortés called on Marina to accompany him to Honduras in 1524. During this expedition, Marina was married to one of Cortés’s lieutenants, Juan de Jaramillo, but Marina continued to serve Cortés as his interpreter. While traveling in Honduras, Marina had a daughter named María with Jaramillo, and she died shortly thereafter, in 1527 or 1528.

Significance

Doña Marina’s importance lies as much in her posthumous symbolic role as it does in her actual life. In colonial Mexico, Marina was celebrated for protecting the Spanish from harm and for helping to bring Christianity to the Mexican Indians. Following Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, her reputation sank, and Marina came to be seen as the betrayer of her race for her collusion with the conquerors. Her having been a mistress to the Spanish is the most-remembered part of her life story. As the mother of two mestizo children children of both Indian and European parentage Marina is a fitting symbol for the conflicted birth of modern-day Mexican society.

Bibliography

Cypess, Sandra Messinger. La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. Literary study of changing representations of Marina from colonial to modern times. Focuses on issues of gender, ethnicity, and identity.

Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico. Translated by A. P. Maudslay and edited by Genaro García. New York: DaCapo Press, 2004. Account of Cortés’s conquest of Mexico by a conquistador who accompanied him. Provides most of the known information about Marina’s life and her role in the conquest.

Karttunen, Frances. “Rethinking Malinche.” In Indian Women of Early Mexico, edited by Susan Schroeder et al. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Summarizes Marina’s debated symbolism and redefines her as neither a hero for the Spanish nor a traitor to the indigenous of Mexico, but as a talented woman who did what was necessary to survive her turbulent times.

Leon-Portilla, Miguel, ed. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. Compilation of various Mexican Indian accounts of Cortés’s conquest of Mexico, with many references to Doña Marina’s role as translator.

Restall, Matthew. “The Lost Words of La Malinche: The Myth of (Mis)Communication.” In Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Argues against the conventional wisdom that only the Spaniards benefited from miscommunication, with an emphasis on Marina’s role in the process of communication.