La Malinche's Historical Presence

Below is the history section of my slowly growing 25-30 page paper.  Awesome?  Awesome.

La Malinche enters the realm of historical reality through her role in the conquest of the indigenous peoples of present day Mexico.  She plays a distinct role as translator and companion to Hernan Cortes.  Spanish chroniclers of the conquest vary in their representations of her.  Francisco Gomara, a Spanish priest hired by Cortes to write about the conquest from his point of view, only briefly mentions La Malinche.  On the other side is Bernal Diaz del Castillo, whose account of the conquest was written in opposition to Gomara’s version but was only published in the nineteenth century.  (Maybe cite Diaz writing poorly about Gomara here?)

The two histories spend different lengths on the presence of La Malinche in the conquest, but the most significant part is that they both note her as important to the mission.  Without these accounts, there would be little or no recorded presence of La Malinche.  Taking this a step further, without the Diaz accounts, written out of frustration with the official account by Gomara, there would be little known about La Malinche’s life before she encountered Cortes.

Gomara briefly sites La Malinche’s history in a chapter dedicated to her.  Here we switch to La Malinche’s Christian name, Dona Marina, as both Gomara and Diaz find it important to point out that she was baptized and therefore can only be refereed to as Dona Marina.   According to Gomara’s account, which are an amalgamation of the testimonies of Cortes and the men who served under him, Dona Marina was born to wealthy parents “who were related to the lord of that country.”[1]  Gomara then writes that Dona Marina claims that she was “stolen by certain merchants during a war and sold in the market place of Xicalanco.”[2]  She was a slave in several areas of the Yucatan before she was given to Cortes.  Gomara spends no more than a few sentences recounting Dona Marina’s life story, but he significantly introduces this personal history by using the phrasing “Marina…answered.”[3]  Here, Gomara is setting up the background of Dona Marina as a story she tells herself in reply to Cortes’s questioning of her.  It certainly reads as if this is the true history of Dona Marina from her own words. 

In contrast, Bernal Diaz del Castillo weaves a story about Dona Marina’s life before the Spanish that spans many years and reads more like a tale of tragedy and redemption than the simple summary Gomara supplies.  Diaz begins by establishing his own feelings towards Dona Marina: she was “one very excellent woman,”[4] “good looking and intelligent and without embarrassment.”[5]  Diaz then presents her story without associating it with her own words.  He says: “I wish to give some account of Dona Marina…It happened in this way.”[6]

Diaz’s history has Dona Marina being raised by parents who were also caciques – spiritual leaders – of Paynala.  Upon her father’s death, Dona Marina’s mother remarried and has a son with her new husband.  “Her father and mother had a great affection for this one and it was agreed between them that he should succeed their honours when their days were done.”[7]  With this plan in mind, Marina’s parents gave her to peoples living in Xicalango and then claimed that she had died as to not bring about any suspicion.  Dona Marina was then given to people in Tabasco, and she lived there until she was given to Cortes as a slave.  It is important to note that Diaz never refers to Dona Marina as a slave, but rather she is a person that is constantly being “given.” 

After Tenochitlan was conquered, Cortes went to Honduras to quell an apprising in the area.  Diaz and Dona Marina accompanied him, and they passed through Coatzacoalcos, the major town near Marina’s birthplace.  Here, her mother and half-brother were jointly ruling as chiefs.  The expedition sent for them, and Diaz writes that “these relations [relatives] were in great fear of Dona Marina, for they thought that she had sent for them to put them to death, and they were weeping.”[8]  Diaz uses this event to establish his statement that “Dona Marina was a person of the great importance and was obeyed without question by the Indians throughout New Spain.”[9]  It is a potent image to have indigenous chiefs cowering in the presence of a woman that was once a slave and was now among the most trusted of Cortes’s group.  Diaz is giving Dona Marina a powerful position within the conquest which stretches into the time afterwards as well. 

Diaz closes his account of Dona Marina by showing a righteous and forgiving side of her – she instantly forgives her mother and half-brother for her life in bondage.  She gives them gifts of jewels and calms not only their fears but the fears of the readers as well.  She

Told them that God had 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 Cortes and in marrying her to such a gentleman as Juan Jaramillo, who was now her husband.  That she would rather serve her husband and Cortes than anything else in the world, and would not exchange her place to be Cacica of all the provinces in New Spain.[10]

Diaz’s writing claims that these are words she indeed said to her family members, and this gives rise to the idea that Dona Marina – La Malinche – was actively denying her indigenous roots and taking the side of the Spanish.  This story is one which establishes her role as the betrayer of her people – why else would she so willingly become a Christian, bear a child for Cortes, and marry a Spaniard? 

            It is very important to note the disparities between the histories given by Gomara and by Diaz in relation to Dona Marina.  Both of these histories must be questioned in relation to their goals and the affect they would have on later generations.  Diaz has many positive things to say about Marina that in more recent history have been used to demonize her and other women.  However, the image of Dona Marina that Diaz presents is one which is only positive for the Spanish side of the conquest.  She willingly – at least as Diaz describes it – accepts Christianity and a Spanish lifestyle.  Diaz is careful not to call her a slave but Gomara does imply her initial status as one: He writes that Cortes “promised her more than her liberty is she would establish friendship between him and the men of her country.”[11] Her ability to make personal choices is not questioned by the historians of the sixteenth century, but it may be inferred that she accepted Cortes’s proposal in Gomara’s account. 

Both historians, however, are writing from a European point of view and do not go on to mention the degree of freedom Dona Marina was granted when she agreed to be Cortes’s translator.  The issue of La Malinche’s agency cannot be decided one way or another through the brief accounts of her actual life in the histories and is still vital to the discussion of La Malinche in the twentieth century movements which appropriated her image. 

Things to possibly add to this section:

• Cortes and Malinche’s son – first mestizo
• The house in Mexico City from the NYT article
• The disappearance of La Malinche in historical record after the conquest
• Native accounts! 

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[1] Gomara 57. 

[2] Gomara 57. 

[3] Gomara 56. 

[4] Diaz 62.  ?

[5] Diaz 64. 

[6] Diaz 66.  ?

[7] Diaz 66.  ?

[8] Diaz 68.  ?

[9] Diaz 67.  ?

[10] Diaz 68.  ?

[11] Gomara 56.