Mexico Vindicates Woman Widely Blamed for Aztec Empire’s Fall

A coating of Malinche with Cortés by Roberto Cueva del Rio. Credit: Jujomx – CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Mexico has launched a government-led effort to vindicate the beingness and bequest of a pistillate known arsenic ‘La Malinche’,  who has agelong been branded a traitor for her relation arsenic interpreter to the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés during the conquest of the Aztec Empire successful 1521.

President Claudia Sheinbaum unveiled a programme called “Mujeres del maíz” that volition tally from October 2025 done December and see nationalist events, scholarly fora, and taste presentations aimed astatine “revalorizing, recognizing and vindicating” Malintzin, known variously arsenic Marina to the Spanish and Malinche oregon Malintzin successful Indigenous languages, officials said. According to a statesmanlike statement, the programme brings unneurotic the Secretariat of Culture, the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, and the Secretariat of Women to survey and contiguous caller perspectives connected Malinche and different Indigenous women, past and present.

“We are going to vindicate her differently, not lone her but each Indigenous women of before, present and after,” Sheinbaum said successful a greeting property conference, the authorities connection said. 

A displacement successful however the state approaches humanities figures 

The determination marks a high-profile displacement successful however Mexico is approaching 1 of its astir divisive humanities figures. For 5 centuries, La Malinche has borne the value of a nationalist myth, a pistillate astatine erstwhile cardinal to the commencement of modern Mexico and vilified arsenic the archetypal traitor whose words helped topple the Aztec empire. The caller inaugural represents an authoritative effort to regenerate that communicative with assistance and taste designation that foregrounds context, coercion, and survival.

Scholars who survey the conquest of Mexico accidental the humanities grounds complicates the elemental statement of traitor.

Born astir 1500 successful the Gulf coastal region, Malinche spoke Nahuatl and an Olmec connection and aboriginal learned Maya dialects; she was sold into slavery to Maya captors and yet presented to the Spaniards aft a subject victory. Historian Camilla Townsend of Rutgers University  told Spanish paper El Pais,  “Malinche was astatine their mercy arsenic a victim,” and that “she saved her ain beingness truly by choosing to translate.”

A coating of La Malinche with a Spanish conquistador made by Jesus Helguera. Credit: Joseaqc – CC BY-SA 4.0

Those choices, historians say, placed her successful intolerable situations. She was a span betwixt worlds portion surviving nether force. Spanish chroniclers recorded her relation lasting earlier Moctezuma successful Tenochtitlan and helping to mediate communications betwixt Cortés and Indigenous rulers. Some sources suggest she helped forestall bloodshed successful peculiar instances, portion different outcomes of the conquest were catastrophic for Indigenous peoples. According to El País, Townsend and others enactment that labeling her a traitor ignores the fractious governmental scenery of 16th-century Mesoamerica, wherever immoderate Indigenous groups allied with the Spaniards against their section enemies.

La Malinche’s bequest wide misrepresented successful modern times 

The governmental and taste baggage attached to Malinche has deepened successful modern times. According to El País and literate historians cited successful their coverage, an anonymously published 1826 caller recast her arsenic a scheming seductress, and 20th-century intelligence Octavio Paz cemented the representation successful his influential publication The Labyrinth of Solitude, calling her a awesome of betrayal. The adjective “malinchista,” derived from her name, remains a pejorative successful Mexican Spanish for idiosyncratic who favors overseas things implicit their own.

Yet Indigenous communities and immoderate scholars person agelong maintained much analyzable memories. Many Indigenous traditions continued to grant Malinche arsenic volcanoes and accepted dances carnivore her name, and girls successful immoderate towns are inactive named oregon selected to correspond her successful ritual performances. Aguilar has characterized Malinche arsenic “a autochthonal pistillate who moved from being a enslaved to being respected and honored by nine successful her time.” 

The authorities inaugural besides dovetails with caller publishing efforts to reexamine humanities villains. A caller bid by the steadfast Crítica includes a caller biography of La Malinche by historiographer Úrsula Camba Ludlow that situates her beingness successful the discourse of slavery, determination warfare, and the societal norms of her era. The project’s editors said they hoped to springiness readers fuller portraits of arguable humanities figures, allowing for judgement informed by much humanities detail.

For Sheinbaum’s administration, the reassessment is explicitly governmental and cultural. The statesmanlike connection framed the programme arsenic portion of a larger propulsion to elevate Indigenous languages and rights: the greeting presumption included the speechmaking of a women’s rights booklet translated into 35 Indigenous tongues, the connection said.