As interpreter for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, Doña Marina (or Malintzin) occupied a space between two peoples who were strangers to each other. As each side warily attempted to gauge the nature, capabilities, and intent of the other, they relied on Malintzin to bridge the cultural and linguistic divide. Even before she learned Spanish, Malintzin played a role in Spanish-Indian efforts at communication. Included as part of a gift from the Tabasco people to the Spanish, Malintzin’s transfer to Spanish ownership signaled Tabasco acknowledgement of subservience and defeat. While Cortés himself made little of her contribution, perhaps preferring to save as much glory as possible for himself, other observers had no doubt of Malintzin’s importance. The historian and conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo saw her as vital to Spanish success, and she was given a prominent place in the pictographic histories of the conquest produced by Indian artists.

The sixteenth-century images included in this activity provide an opportunity to further explore Spanish and Indian views of Malintzin’s role in the conquest. One of the images was created by an Indian artist for inclusion in a native history of the fall of the Aztec Empire. Two were created by Europeans for inclusion in Spanish histories of New Spain. The fourth was the result of a collaboration between Indians and Europeans that was intended to preserve the Indian view of the conquest. As you examine them, pay particular attention to the way the artists depicted Malintzin. What do the depictions of Malintzin tell you about how the artists saw her relationship to Cortés and the Spanish? To the Aztecs and other Indian peoples?