Malintzin's Choices

We don't know very much about Indigenous women's lives before and during the Spanish conquest. Camilla Townsend let me imagine how Malintzin, an enslaved Indigenous girl who was presented as a gift to the conquistador Hernando Cortés, experienced and made sense of that world.

I was transported to central Mexico and Yucatán through Townsend's careful but lively reading of art, poetry, and historical writings, her lush building of landscapes and lifeways created a space where I could place Malintzin and understand her choices. Those choices were complicated: she transformed herself from a slave into Cortés' most important interpreter and ally,… show more.

Townsend takes a novel approach to the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica by centering the narrative on one of the most pivotal yet misunderstood figures: the Native woman christened Doña Marina by the Spaniards and known historically as Malintzin or La Malinche. The last term is still a barbed one within Mexico, as it has been used historically to impugn Mexicans said to prefer foreign culture to their own and can be synonymous for treason. Malintzin was from the central Gulf Coast frontier between the Aztec and Maya worlds. Her ability to speak the Aztec imperial lingua franca (Nahuatl) and one… show more.