La Malinche
ca. 1500-ca. 1529
Most of the indigenous peoples of Mexico
hated the
Aztecs. We don't know why - maybe it was all the human sacrifice - but
when Cortez and the Spaniards invaded, many natives offered to help
him. One village he passed through on the way to the capital gave him
several enslaved women to enjoy. One of them, Malinche, was quite a
cunning linguist. She already knew several local languages
fluently, and she quickly picked up enough Spanish to translate
conversations between the Spaniards and the natives. She even mastered
subtle nuances of tone and grammar, and supplemented her translations
with notes on local customs, traditions and power dynamics.
Subsequent generations of Mexicans have largely reviled Malinche for
betraying her people to the invaders, but which
people did she betray exactly? Was it the people who originally sold
her into slavery? The people who bought her? The people who gave her to the Spaniards as a sex toy? It's a puzzle.