"The
Princess and the Priest"
By Mildred Boyd
May 2004 Guadalajara-Lakeside Volume 20, Number 9
Granted,
his success was not all chance. Cortez was a good soldier, a superb
horseman and a charismatic commander. He was also an intelligent and
skilled diplomat. Nevertheless, there is no denying that Hernan Cortez
possessed the Devil’s own luck.
Take, for instance, the matter of communication.
Charm and diplomacy were useless if he could not make himself understood.
Captive Indians with a smattering of Spanish were pressed into service
as interpreters. Alas!, not only were their linguistic skills minimal,
but they were strongly inclined to run away when sent on diplomatic
missions. One “ungrateful creature” took the opportunity
of such an errand to urge a surprise attack on his hated masters. When
the attack failed, the poor man was put to death by his own people.
When rumors of Spanish captives on the Yucatan
mainland reached Cortez, he sent two small ships with natives bearing
letters and ransoms. A week later, the ships returned without news and
Cortez was forced to assume that the reports of white prisoners had
been just rumors. He was wrong.
Some eight years earlier a ship sailing from
the established colony of Darien in Panama to Cuba had been wrecked
on the reefs off Yucatan. Seventeen men and two women had survived to
reach the coast in a small boat only to be captured and enslaved by
the Maya. Some were sacrificed, others died from disease and overwork.
Now, only two men remained.
Geronimo de Aguilar, a priest in minor orders,
was delighted when Cortez’s message reached him. His faith had
forced him to refuse any accommodation with “savages” and
he had remained a lowly slave. Once he had bought his freedom with the
trinkets provided, he hurried to inform his fellow prisoner of their
good fortune.
Gonzalo Guerrero, however, was no longer a prisoner.
Having no religious qualms, he seems to have accommodated with a vengeance.
His face was tattooed and his ears pierced. He had married well and
fathered three sons. He had become respected as a fighter and war chieftain
and, later, actually masterminded attacks against his countrymen.
Not surprisingly, Guerrero refused to be rescued;
Aguilar must go alone. Unfortunately, he arrived at the rendezvous only
to find that Cortez already sailed from Cozumel. But wait! It’s
an ill wind, they say, which blows nobody good. This was certainly true
of the storm which forced the little fleet to return to Cozumel for
repairs. Aguilar wasted no time in joining it. Cortez now had a reliable
interpreter as long as he remained among the natives who spoke the language
of Yucatan.
That happy state of affairs did not last long.
The people further up the coast spoke another language entirely; that
of the Aztec Empire to which they belonged. So it was back to square
one, linguistically speaking, until fortune dealt Cortez another trump;
if not a queen, at least a princess.
The girl was among a group of 20 servant women
given by the caciques of Tabasco to the Spaniards “to
make bread,” though it is somewhat doubtful that was their sole
purpose. Mallinalitzin had been, she said, heiress of considerable estates
in Coatzcoalco before she was sold into slavery by her own mother so
that her young half-brother might usurp her lands and titles. The story
is probably true. The “tzin” in her name indicates nobility
and Bernal Diaz records a later encounter in which she greets both mother
and brother with true Christian forgiveness. Whatever her losses, for
Cortez, at least, she still possessed invaluable assets; she spoke the
Aztec language as well as that of her captors and she threw herself
whole heartedly into the Spanish cause.
Baptized Dona Marina, she was first given to
Alonzo de Puertocarrero but, when he was sent to Spain on a mission,
soon moved into the Captain General’s bed. In time, she even bore
Cortez a son but her true value was neither as a bed warmer or brood
mare. Though the double translation, Nahuatl to Mayan by Marina then
to Spanish by Guerrero, may have been awkward, it allowed Cortez to
avoid many a sticky situation.
Nor did it hurt that his interpreter held high
enough rank among the Aztec elite to command their respect and address
them as equals. As Marina, who seems to have possessed a quick intelligence
as well as a talent for languages, became more fluent in Spanish, Aguilar’s
role became less important. So, probably somewhat to his chagrin, did
Cortez. They called her Malinche and, at first, referred to the Captain
General as “Malinche’s man,” then simply as “Malinche”
as if the two were parts of a single entity.
Even after she ceased to be of vital importance
either as bed partner or political advisor she remained prominent in
colonial affairs and to give him credit, Cortez did not callously abandon
her. She was given extensive land grants as a dowry and married off,
seemingly quite happily, to Juan Jaramillo. Cortez also had their son,
Don Martin, legitimized and made a Knight of Saint James by Papal bull
in 1529.
Throughout her life Marina was regarded as a
heroine by Cortez’s soldiers and the Indian allies she had done
so much to help. Unfortunately, that gratitude and esteem has not survived.
The erstwhile heroine has become a traitor. The duality with which Cortez
and Marina were regarded continues to this day, though she is, if possible,
actually the more hated of the two. By serving the Conquistadors this
deep-dyed villainies had supposedly betrayed her own people.
If so, she had plenty of other Indians for company
and their “betrayal” was, in fact, a revolt against their
ruthless conquerors, the Aztecs. Besides, just how much loyalty could
possibly be owing to a social system that views dispossession and enslavement
without raising an eyebrow, much less a finger? Add the fact that the
“Mexico” Marina is accused of betraying would not exist
for another 300 years and the defense rests.