La Malinche's Role In Facilitating The Spanish Conquest In Mexico

La Malinche played a vital role in facilitating the Spanish conquest in Mexico, which through her, represented how colonial histories were also gendered histories. The life of the indigenous woman began when she grew up in a Nahuatl speaking area with the name Malinali, then changed to Malintzin when addressed with respect. Then her father died and her mother got remarried and sold her to Mayan slave traders and that is where she learned to speak Mayan, gaining her bilingual skills. La Malinche was one of twenty slaves given to the Spanish, which then she was immediately baptized and soon recognized as Malinche through their pronunciation. Throughout the conquest, she distinguished herself as being the interpreter and negotiator to the Spaniards;

being the right-hand person for Cortes.
La Malinche served many purposes for many individuals during the conquest; satisfying all needs without complaint.

Her father died when she was young, and the family agreed that her brother “should succeed to their honors when their days were done” (50). That night, her mother gave La Malinche way to some Indians to escape observation to then spread the news that she had died. She erased her existence for the status of the family. In the eyes of Diaz del Castillo and Cortes, their perspective on La Malinche is different. To Bernal Diaz, he praised her beauty and intelligence and viewed her as a women that possessed much valor, something uncommon being said from a conquistador. She served her purpose to Castillo as helping him appreciate the indigenous women for the first time, as he acknowledged that “without the help of Dona Marina we could not have understood the language of New Spain and Mexico” (51). On the other hand, to Cortes, La Malinche served the solely purpose of being his translator, nothing greater than that, hence not calling her with the title ‘Dona.’ La Malinche was not given enough credit for her help in the

conquest.
The evolving representation of La Malinche can be seen across five centuries of history.

La Malinche is referred to as the mother of Mexico for the reason that she bore a son to Cortez, thus creating the first mestizo. During the conquest, women were viewed as objects that can be exploited, and just like La Malinche, she was forced to travel with the Spanish, bear a son and marry a conquistador. In terms of social order, Spaniards wanted all the indigenous to follow their customs, so La Malinche was to give up worshiping her Idols to turn herself into a Christian. Cypress interprets her historical relevance as “a continually enlarging palimpsest of the Mexican cultural identity” (421) whereas Powers views her as a victim of rape, seen as a political strategy for the indigenous but as a sexual service for the Spanish.

La Malinche was forced to do things never before in her life she would think she would ever do. She fell under spiritual conquest, was given little value, and was used for work for the benefits for the Spaniards themselves. These factors summarize what the conquistadores did to the Indians in order to take possession of Mexico. La Malinche lived her life with mixed views, either seen as a traitor or a prostitute, but she will go down in history as a representation of the colonized

body.

Question 5:
The fate of the indigenous body under colonialism and colonial rule were often seen as a slim chance of surviving as they were taken as either slaves or prisoners forced to work in difficult conditions where many died or were killed for not obeying orders. The indigenous body were never respected nor given value as the superior power thought they were savages, unworthy of rights. In the works of Bernal Diaz, Bartolome de las Casa, and in the film, “Even the Rain,” the indigenous body is represented as individuals that are violent and thus should be destroyed and/or marginalized in society.
In Bernal Diaz’s work, the Indians were seen as violent people who needed to be civilized. “Adding that should they [Indians] make war on us [Spanish]…theirs would be the fault…threatening that if we landed they would kill us” (38). In other words, the colonial body was at fault for creating war, not the Spanish. In Bartolome de las Casa’s work, the indigenous body is viewed as people who needed to be colonized because they ignored the real religion. “The Spaniards made a rule among themselves that for every Christian slain by the Indians, they would slay a hundred Indians” (35). If the colonial subjects were not going to give up their religion, the Spanish had no choice but to eliminate them. Throughout the journey, the Spanish destroyed lands where the Indians lived in order to take possession of the resources the island offered. Moreover, in the film “Even the Rain,” the Taíno group protested against the privation of water. The directors in the film only cared about getting their movie done and the water company earning profit and not the lives of the impoverished group, hence viewing them as insignificant beings. In modern world history, when we put indigenous bodies at the center of analysis, it looks like a body covered with colonial abuse and pain.