Dr Amy Fuller
Appearances
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Well, explore and trade were the orders.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So he's off to the Yucatan. In 1517, they finally, even though they're right next to it, it takes them forever to find the Yucatan. It's just there.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So there are two expeditions before Cortés' expedition. So the first one goes in February of 1517. That's led by a guy called Francisco Hernández de Córdova. Many of the people didn't survive. They basically get attacked by the Maya and most of them die, including the leader of the expedition. Okay.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
but they realise that there's a place with these big cities, and so they think, hmm, want to investigate that.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Well, the second expedition, which leaves in 1518 in May, is led by another guy called Juan de Grijalva. That guy fares a little bit better... And he actually manages to meet some Aztecs as well. And that's where they find out about this great city called Tenochtitlan and Moctezuma and lots of treasure and things. And so this obviously piques Cortes' interest.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So despite the fact that there are other candidates who would be more experienced, Velazquez gives him the job to go on the next expedition. Since?
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, there is some death. Some partridge gets you, isn't it?
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
There's still some death. Not quite as catastrophic as the first one, but it's not great.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Now, Velazquez... Starts to hear rumours that Cortez has plans that don't involve him. And so at the last minute, Velasquez says, no, I don't want Cortez anymore. Let's let's not do this. However, Cortez kind of sticks his fingers in his ears and goes, la la la la la. And he manages to he goes to the other side of Cuba, basically, and gets more men, more supplies and then heads off.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
I think he goes to another bit of Cuba and he evades arrest about four times, I think. And then finally, yes, basically finally sets off in 1519.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Catalina's like, what? But I love you. He's not coming back so much so that he burns the boats. so that no one can go back. No way! OK, all right, so his men are like... I wanted to go back just to get a bit of feedback.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
He's like, tough, no, you're not going back.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
We know all about this from his first letter, essentially.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
It's not even a letter.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yes. So he knows essentially that in the meantime, Velazquez will have obviously written to the king and said, look, there's this complete wrongan who's gone, you know, rogue. He's off gallivanting. I don't even know what he's doing. And so Cortes knows all of this. So he doesn't even make it a letter from him. He makes it a letter from the town council of Veracruz.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
That he has found it. And essentially, it's an insane letter, but he essentially discredits Velazquez. He says that he is greedy. He's not doing any of the converting that he's supposed to be doing. He's only interested in his own personal wealth. He says that the first two expeditions were a total rubbish, got nowhere, that also they were not interested in converting anyone, which...
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
you know, was essentially the legal reason for them to be there. And so Cortez rants and rants and rants and then talks about how great he is, how he... Oh, I put all of my fortune into this. Every step of the way, I've done everything by the book. I've converted everyone to Christianity. I've made sure, you know, I took fries with me and I... It's a massively long letter.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Because he's essentially a fugitive, because he's gone over the head of Velazquez, therefore he's a traitor, essentially. But lots of people write about this saying, you know, they describe Cortez as this kind of, oh, he made all these risky decisions. And it's like, I'm sorry, if I was going to be arrested for treason and hung, I'd be a bit of a maverick too, quite frankly. Right. Right.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Sorry about the crime. He's got to double down. He wants Tenochtitlan. He wants the treasure from Moctezuma.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yes, yes. So Melintzin is one of 20 girls, I guess she's only 19, given to the Spanish conquistadors by the Maya as a kind of diplomatic gesture. Right. So, yeah, she's a present conqueror. Initially. Yeah.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
We're not sure at what point it becomes clear that she has really useful linguistic abilities. Right.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
What he also does is he picks up some Spanish men who had been shipwrecked in the Maya region and had lived with the Maya for a time. So they could speak Spanish and Chontomaya, I believe. So she could speak Spanish.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Maya and Nahuatl so Cortez would speak to a guy called Jeronimo the Aguilar and he would then speak Maya to Melintzin and then she would speak Nahuatl to any Aztecs and then backwards if the other way around with the old whispers it's like hang on a second I'm pretty sure I didn't say that but then she's got quite a lot of power
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. We think she learnt Spanish quite quickly. And actually, Aguilar, he becomes kind of almost obsolete quite early on. So then she can kind of do all of it.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, so she's baptised as Marina. She would never have been regarded as a slave among the Spanish. Right. Because as soon as he starts to kind of conquer, then she's a Spanish citizen, essentially. Yeah, she's baptised and then obviously can't enslave Christians anyway, or not supposed to. LAUGHTER But yeah, she was incredibly important.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
They wouldn't have been able to do anything without her, essentially. Not only can she tell people what he wants to say and vice versa, but she also understands the etiquette, which is incredibly different from...
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
The other Nawa people. Yes. The Maya too, but it's the Nawa people that are more... That are in that part of... More kind of important to the conquest. Right.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, essentially, he learns quite early on that the Aztec empire isn't as solid as he thought it was. And he also learns that there are certain groups who aren't happy with the Aztecs. He gets the Totonacs on side initially by capturing an Aztec tax collector who... So the Tottenhacks aren't happy with the amount of tribute they're paying.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So he basically captures the tax collector and says, look, join us and you'll be free. Now, the most important allies that he picks up are the Tlaxcalans. They hate the Aztecs, absolutely hate the Aztecs. But they put up a big fight against the Spanish for quite a while. They're not happy to go back.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
to their side mainly because they see them with the Totonacs who were allies of the Aztecs essentially and they're like well we don't trust you so there are many battles before the Tlaxcalans eventually decide to allow them to you know to come to side I feel like the Spanish have arrived there's not that many of them they seem very annoying
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, well, the Tlaxcalans do... At one point, it seems like the Tlaxcalans might actually finish them off. The Spanish really have to think about their tactics in order to...
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
to not be killed basically the thing that the spanish have which helps them is obviously their steel swords yeah and gunpowder yeah although that will run out surely more has been made about the gunpowder than actually like it it's useful long range sure but what the spanish found was they had to stay in their kind of military kind of formations and
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
not dispersed whatsoever because the moment they dispersed they were just picked off one by one but also Cortez had the idea that they just needed to be really visible so they wouldn't fight at night that was kind of just not done So at night, Cortes would kind of say, right, we're going to kind of make ourselves visible so they know that we're not dead yet. You know, we're going to keep going.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
We're going to keep going. And then they kept trying to send gifts to them as well to say, look, you know, we come in peace. We don't want to fight you. There are factions within the Tlaxcalans who some of them don't want to join the Spanish at all. And had they got their own way, they probably would have killed them.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
No. If it had gone the other way, perhaps if they hadn't got on that well with the Aztecs, maybe the Tlaxcalans would have said sod it.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, with about 2,000 slash talons, probably. So about 2,500 people show up on the doors of this vast imperial citadel.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So along the way, obviously Moctezuma has heard about this. He has people all over his empire who can kind of go back and tell him things.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yes, we call the Tlatwani is the real word, which means he who speaks, but we tend to call him the emperor.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
I think we can all take that title. So he has spies that have told him about all of this and actually he would have known about them for at least a year before Cortez even got to set up Veracruz because the previous guy met an Aztec kind of diplomat and so he would have known that they're these weird guys around. Is he not like... We've got to do something about these guys. Yeah.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Well, they set traps for them, which were intercepted by the Tashkalans, by Melintzin.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, basically. Melintzin's like, don't step on that, don't eat that.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
but also gold which is not so in aztec terms that's basically a show of power and it would have sent the message of back off i've got all this power but obviously yeah to cortez he's like these guys love us they're giving us gold this is great ding dong
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yes, yes, on a causeway.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yes, Moctezuma invites them into the city. So his idea, and he's been painted very badly for this, but there's a few reasons why he does this. For a start, once they're in the city, they're... at their mercy, they're their hosts, basically, so they can control them to a certain extent.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Their weapons don't work quite as well, either in the confines of the city, but also Moctezuma would have been thinking, well, we can't have a battle kind of outside of the city because if it looks like we're losing, everyone else is going to join. Going to pile on. Oh, right. Exactly.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yes, exactly. So although he's been... People... say that he was stupid for doing this. There are reasons.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah. So they first meet, it's November. So definitely by April. So they're there for ages.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So definitely by then, but probably sooner, but we don't know when. Cortez basically kidnaps Moctezuma. Yeah. And they have this very strange... where Moctezuma's pretending that everything's fine because if he lets on, his people will essentially get rid of him and get the next Aztec emperor. I mean, have they not noticed there's something going on? Yes.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Well, he pretends that they're just, like... at leisure together. It's very weird. This weird situation where he's got hold of Moctezuma comes to an end because Cortez hears that Velasquez has finally got his together. Oh, I forgot about him.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
And sent a massive army to arrest Cortez. No friars, just an army. No, just the army, yeah. So I think it's May, May of 1520, basically, Cortez hears he has to race off to the Gulf Coast. He manages to convince those guys to join him.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
He is very persuasive, this guy. He's a charmer. He is a charmer. In the meantime, he leaves a guy called Pedro de Alvarado in charge. And we don't know if he does hear these rumours or not, but his version of events is that he hears rumours that the Aztecs are going to attack them, so they engage in a massive massacre, basically.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So then he just goes on a... Yeah, and it's unarmed people as well. So basically there's a big festival and they seal off this kind of temple precinct and kill. So that's not from... Lots of unarmed people. That's not the orders from Cortez then? No, no. So when Cortez finds... Or at least Cortez tells us it's not... He doesn't... Yeah, we can't trust him.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, so... I'm sure his people killed him. His people aren't very happy with him, obviously. Actually, Melinton also goes on the terrace and tries to convey his messages. The conquistadors' version of events is that he is hit with a slingshot and later dies of his wounds.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
However, the indigenous version of events is that he gets stabbed, basically, by Cortez because he's no longer of any use, basically.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
She's so important that she becomes part of the conversion effort as well to begin with. and she also is involved in other missions that Cortés goes on, like to Honduras, for example. So she continues to be his right-hand woman.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
They do. We have no idea, obviously, how consensual that was, but they have a child called Martín.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
She marries a guy called Juan Jaramillo in 1524. He's one of the captains. We actually think that she probably wasn't given to him, that actually it was her choice to have this kind of... Because she would have understood that that was the way that she could acquire kind of her own power and everything. So it seems to be strategic.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Sometimes she stabs them. Well, it depends on the version. I don't think Tiffany's going to take up that story.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
No, we think she, sorry, we think that he rewarded her with an encomienda as part of her dowry.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
But she, which means that she would be one of only, I think, three indigenous people who were given permanent encomiendas.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So that shows kind of just how important she was. And Martín gets sent to Spain and actually lives with the Spanish royalty. So he and Cortés formally recognises him as his son as well.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, he legitimises them.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, so what we have to remember, obviously, with Cortez's letters are, it's the Cortez show, and this is all about me, and... You can't do this without me. So you can't possibly, you know, arrest me and try me for treason. So nobody gets a look in apart from Cortez, really, in his letters. But Bernal Diaz in particular, the conquistador, he loves her. He writes about her as if she's a saint.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
He compares her to Joseph of the Technicolor Dreamcoat fame. Wow. Yeah, he says that, you know... They both like colour. Yeah, and, you know, sold into slavery as a child. And he's got a whole scene where she goes back to her family and forgives them for what they did to her, even though that's probably never happened. Sure. Feels like a romantic trope. It's a bit of a hagiography thing.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Do we know how she died? I think she just kind of succumbed and in the end got one of the many diseases that the Europeans so kindly brought over.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Not so much. No. Well, historians, it depends on. So essentially, we have the big, great, great, I'm putting quotation marks around that, historian of the conquest. He's a Victorian and the Victorians have a lot to answer for in terms of history.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
history being written called william prescott he is the biggest cortez fanboy he is obsessed with cortez to the extent where he he desperately wants to find his tomb he wants an he wants an engraving of like he he never actually goes to mexico he kind of acquires stuff from mexico but he keeps asking yeah basically So he essentially wants like a, you know when kids do like those rubbings?
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So he wants that of his tomb. He also wants to collect Aztec skulls to go in the, yeah, in the indigenous American skull collection in Harvard. So yeah, he's a problematic guy and he not only kind of, he does say she's important, but he also sexualizes her quite a lot and talks about basically that, Her linguistic skills also included the language of love. I mean, where's he getting that from?
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So, yes, he does. Initially, he becomes the governor of... what they call New Spain, which is what Mexico is called initially. Yeah, he does get rewarded. He also makes sure to have his letters published very quickly. So I think there's five of them and they're all published by 1525. So his legacy is secure. He gets made governor of Mexico, but it doesn't always... He's too hot-headed, isn't he?
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
No, he gets too big for his boots, basically. He's been too big for his boots for about two decades. So part of the thing, in one of his last letters, he promises the king that he's not going to use the encomienda system. Because back in Spain, they're not liking it. They know that it's been responsible for the death of so many indigenous people, especially in the Caribbean.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
We don't know what his first name actually was. It was either Fernando or Hernando, which has been contracted to Enan. So we always call him Hernan Cortes. But his name was Fernando Hernan Cortes de Monroy Empiricado Altamirano. He was born in 1485 in Medellín, which is in Extremadura in Spain. It's the central west part of Spain bordering with Portugal.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
And he says, we won't do that. We won't do that here. Then he realises that Moctezuma doesn't have quite as much treasure as he'd hoped in order to reward his men. So how does he reward his men? By using the encomienda system. So he basically tells the king, oh, you know that thing I said I wasn't going to do? Well, I did it anyway. And then the king says... Don't do that.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
And if you've given any out, you take them back. And Cortes argues back again. And that doesn't go so well.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, so Ponte de Leon dies quite soon after he arrives. The second guy who is sent to investigate him also dies within like eight months.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, we don't know. I mean, some people have said it might have been Cortes, but we're not 100% sure about that. But yeah, in 1528, Cortes goes back to Spain to talk to the king. He's well-received. He's even given a title. He's removed from being the governor of New Spain, but he's made the Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca, given a massive encomienda there,
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, basically, so she's brought out in August of 1522, so a year after the conquest is complete, and she's not very happy because, obviously, he's been...
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
shagging everyone at this point melinson is is pregnant with martine um and everyone knows who who fathered that child right so it's a very uncomfortable situation for catalina she's not very happy with all his other women they have a lot of rows about this apparently and one night uh in october they have a party and um people overhear them rowing and
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
At about midnight, he kind of runs out of the room and says, she's dead, she's dead. There are kind of, yeah, finger marks on her throat, according to testimony. The guys who testify on his behalf say that she was a very sickly woman and she used to faint a lot. And Cortez says that the reason why there are finger marks around her throat is because she fainted and he tried to...
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Stop her from fainting. Catch her.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah. He also gets rid of her body very quickly, has a very quick funeral, which is not typical. Yeah. Yeah.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
By that point, he seems to think that she's not quite befitting his status. And he does end up marrying a woman of much higher status. And it just so happens that her uncle testified on his behalf in this whole investigation.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
And weirdly, a lot of the conquistadors are also from here. They seem to all... come from this area. So he was a hidalgo. He was petty nobility, we'd probably call him. Not very rich, no titles, but he would have had a duty to bear arms for his feudal lord and exemption from taxation.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, I think it's partly because he manages to cement himself in the legacy of a conquest by publishing these letters. They can't really ignore him. But he also drags out this investigation for years and years and years.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
I mean, what a way to go. Yeah, it sounds like a horrible death and, you know, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Truly, absolutely.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So sadly, after Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Melinsin's public reputation went downhill. There was a desire to reclaim the history of the nation from the coloniser and to explain how the conquest happened. But unfortunately, this led to her becoming a scapegoat.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
She's often referred to as the Mexican Eve, a traitor and a whore who betrayed her people, despite the fact that she wasn't Aztec, nor did she have much agency of her own. Weirdly, the hundreds of thousands of indigenous allies do not get blamed. They're presented as being tricked by Cortes into fighting against Moctezuma the tyrant. Yet she is not awarded the same dispensation.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
We know that the conquest was effectively an indigenous civil war that the Spanish took part in. So Melintzin could even be seen as a freedom fighter, maybe. But instead, she ends up being conflated with the tragic ghost story of La Llorona.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
However, as depressing as all that is, let's reflect on how she was viewed by her contemporaries, largely because it's quite annoying for Cortés and his fanboys.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So not only did the other conquistadors testify that she was absolutely fundamental to the conquest, so much so that they could not have achieved their victory without her, but the Tlaxcalans in their pictorial sources present her in every scene that Cortés features, even in amongst the fighting, like a real badass.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
And sometimes she's even depicted as bigger than him, basically insinuating that she was more important than him. And in fact, because she was always in Cortez's company, the indigenous people they spoke to referred to Cortez as the captain of Marina or Malinche.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
This not only demonstrates her importance to the native allies, but even better, it effectively demoted Cortez because he was named in terms of his relationship with her.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Was he, goes to school, educated? Yeah, we don't know a massive amount about him, to be honest. There's differing ideas about how educated he was. Some people say he went to the University of Salamanca for a time. We think he probably had some legal training. Fairly well educated, I'd say. He tells us a lot about himself. He... He is his favourite subject. Gotcha.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, he's off to seek his fortune in the New World. He arrives in 1504, so he's 19, and he goes off to a place called Hispaniola, which is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. At that point, that's the base of operations in what they called the Indies area. At this point, the Caribbean is on its way to being decimated, basically.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
They kind of round up lots of indigenous people and they get them panning for gold, which kills a lot of people, mainly because they work them to death, essentially. plus all of the disease that they bring from Europe. Cortez does make a bit of money from this initially.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So the idea is that they're going to populate this new world with settlers and one by one they keep going to different islands, basically.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Were they more similar to...? They had smaller towns, so you don't find the kind of big cities with the pyramids and things like that in the Caribbean. But you do see decent-sized kind of towns that's been kind of rewritten to make it seem like they're... just in kind of mud huts, but actually through archaeological research we found that they did actually live in decent-sized towns.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
They were supposed to go and convert them to Christianity and therefore they shouldn't have been allowed to enslave them, but they just kind of enslaved them instead. It happens.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
a toddler at this point yeah so we think she was born in 1500 okay we don't really know much about her or her early life we think that her father was of some kind of nobility yeah but we think that her mother was enslaved she's now her so she's from central mexico but she's not aztec that's quite important She's from an area that gets taken over by the Aztecs. It's kind of on the Gulf Coast.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
She's sold into slavery with the Maya, essentially, when she's a young girl, we think. She lives among the Maya for quite a time.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
And Malintzin comes from that because there's no R in Nahuatl. So they would hear Malina, but they put the Zin at the end, which is an honorific title. So that is essentially Doña Marina in Nahuatl.
You're Dead to Me
Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Well, you could be, if you were Aztec, you were Nawa, but you didn't have to be an Aztec if you were Nawa.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So she's from a different group entirely. And the Nawa people are... So they are basically everyone who lives in the central region of what's now Mexico. So basically where the Aztec Empire was.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
No, it's not wrong. But what people often refer to them as is ancient. They call them ancient Aztecs and they're early modern, if anything, not even medieval.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, so they rise to prominence in the 1420s. They managed to create this empire that spreads from the Pacific to the Gulf Coast. in 100 years, basically. But it's patchy, and this becomes a problem later on. They don't conquer everywhere. They're not after territory. It's a very different idea than we understand an empire to be.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
They're after tribute. So both in terms of goods that they want, but also people for sacrifice. So they essentially don't... bother to conquer anyone who doesn't have what they want or is too difficult to conquer.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
No, no one has at this point.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yes. Is he a legal job? Yes. So he's a notary for a while. And then in 1511, he takes part in the conquest of Cuba, which was organized by Diego Velasquez, who then becomes the governor of Cuba. Yes. Initially, Velazquez is very impressed by him. He becomes his secretary. And that's when Cortés starts to rise to prominence. He gains more wealth and power.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
He's granted what's called an encomienda, which is essentially... It's legal slavery, basically. Oh, dear. Yeah, OK. It's a grant of indigenous labour. So you don't actually own the people because they're supposedly Spanish citizens, right?
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
But you have control of their labour. So it is basically slavery.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
So they fall out for a few different reasons. In 1514, Cortes leads a group of settlers who aren't happy with their lot, essentially, in almost a bit of a rebellion. So that obviously doesn't go down particularly well.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
But then he also, Cortés has a relationship with a Spanish woman who is the sister of, so Cortés shares an encomienda with a guy called Juan Suárez. He gets involved with his sister, Catalina Suárez. That family come over with the vicerean. as his sisters become ladies-in-waiting. Catalina's one of them. There's the mum and about three or four sisters.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Now, Velazquez is in love, apparently, with one of these other sisters.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
And so there's an understanding that if you get engaged to a woman, then you can start sleeping together. And so Cortez gets engaged to Catalina and then fobs her off, tries to run away. And apparently because Velazquez... was in love with her sister, he puts... He jumps in the family honour. Yes. And he throws Cortez in prison for this.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Yeah, no, because it was legally binding. And you could, if you were kind of the scorned fiance, you could sue. So that's essentially what Catalina did. And then eventually he relents and goes, okay, all right, I'll marry you then.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Oh, no. Right. He also calls one of his children Catalina. Come on. There's other names, guys.
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Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Oh, no, they don't change their names. So she continues with her name. But this seems to mend the rift. with Velázquez and so Cortés becomes the mayor of Santiago in Cuba. So he does well out there.