[Music] [Music] uh [Music] in her brief life she was known variously as malina dona maria and la malinche by whatever name she was a woman who experienced the encounter of the old world and the new in particularly intimate ways even as she became a bridge between them born around 1505 marina was the daughter of an elite and cultured family in the borderlands between the maya and aztec cultures in what is now southern mexico two dramatic events decisively shaped her life the first occurred when her father died and her mother remarried bearing a son to her new husband to protect this boy's inheritance malinan's family sold her into slavery eventually she came into the possession of a maya chieftain in tabasco on the gulf of mexico here her second life-changing event took place in march 1519 when the spanish conquistador anand cortez landed his troops and inflicted a sharp military defeat on tabasco in the negotiations that followed tobasco authorities gave lavish gifts to the spanish including 20 women one of whom was malina described by bernal diaz one of cortez's associates as good-looking intelligent and self-assured the teenager malinao soon found herself in the service to cortez himself since spanish men were not supposed to touch non-christian women these newcomers were distributed among his officers quickly baptized and given christian names thus malina became dona marina with a ready ear for languages and already fluent in mayan and nawado the language of the aztecs dhonia marina soon picked up spanish and quickly became indispensable to cortez as an interpreter cross-cultural broker and strategist she accompanied him on his march inland to the aztec capital tenochtitlan and on several occasions her language skills and cultural awareness allowed her to uncover spies and plots that might well have seriously impeded cortez's defeat of the aztec empire diaz reported that donia marina who understood full well what was happening told cortez what was going on in the aztec capital where cortes took the emperor moctezuma captive it fell to donia marina to persuade him to accept this humiliating position and surrender his wealth to the spanish even cortez who was never very gracious with his praise for her acknowledged that after god we owe this conquest of new spain to gonia marina aztecs soon came to see this young woman as the voice of cortez referring to her as la malinche a spanish approximation of her original name so paired did cortez and la malinche become an aztec thinking that cortez himself was often called malinche more than interpreter for cortez ronya mourinho also became his mistress and bore him a son but after the initial conquest of mexico was complete and he no longer needed her skills cortes married donia madina off to another spanish conquistador juan yaramilo with whom she lived until her death probably around 15 30. cortez did provide her with several pieces of land one of which ironically had belonged to moctezuma her son however was taken from her and raised in spain in 1523 dona marina performed one final service for cortes accompanying him on a mission to honduras to suppress a rebellion there her personal life seemed to come full circle for near her hometown she encountered her mother who had sold her into slavery and her half brother diaz reported they were very much afraid of dhonia marina thinking that they would be surely put to death by their now powerful and well-connected relative but a replay of the biblical story of joseph and his brothers dhonia mourinho quickly reassured and forgave them while granting them many golden jewels and some clothes in the centuries since her death donia mourinho has become highly controversial for much of the colonial era she was viewed positively as an ally of the spanish but after independence some came to see her as a traitor to her own people shunning her heritage and siding with the invaders still others have considered her as the mother of mexico's mixed race or mestizo culture should she be understood primarily as a victim or as a skillful survivor negotiating hard choices under difficult circumstances whatever the judgments of later generations dona marina herself seems to have made a clear choice to cast her lot with the europeans even when cortes had given her to another man dona medina expressed no regret according to dia she declared even if they were to make me mistress of all the provinces of new spain i would refuse the honor for i would rather serve my husband and cortez than anything else in the world [Music] you