Assignment 4A

The Colonial period of Latin America was from 1492-1810. It was considered as being the era that did the most to shape out Latin America today. During that era the native population was wiped out. The natives where wiped out by a combination of the Spanish conquistadors and natural dieases, but mostly from new diseases to which their natural defenses could not defend against. Under the Spanish rule native religion and culture was banned.The Spanish system granted encomiendas which allowed certain tracts of land and everyone on it to be exploitated. Basically the locals on the land became slaves to the Spanish. Most of the power structures in Latin America were destroyed when the Spanish took over. The Spanish take over basically re wrote Latin America's history since they destroyed and exploited most of the natives and their culture.

I choose the topic of La Malinche beacause after watching the videos on youtube and reading about her on mexcoonect.com I found that she was an unsung hero of Mexico who is at times downplayed by the Mexican male historians. She was very interesting and I wanted to learn more about her.

La Malinche's real name is Dona Marina. She was named La Malinche by the Indians due her being the voice of New Spain conquerer Hernando Cortes. Cortes was always called Malinche which means Captain and since Marina had a close relationship to Cortes she was called La Malinche which stood for Captain's Woman. Anytime she spoke the Indians would recongize her as words coming from the Captain himself.

La Malinches has had injustice done to her because historians do not credit her for saving the lives of thousands of Indians by enabling Cortes to negotiate and not go to major war with all who opposed him. The fact she was able to get Cortes to negoitate rather than go to war was evidence enough Cortes was not out to destroy the Aztecs. The discredit and belittelement of La Malinche in Mexico history comes from mostly male historians.

To Hernando Cortes La Malinche was his interpreter,confidant, and mistress. It was said she and Cortes had a child together. Their child's name was Matin Cortes and he was the first Mexican, a mixture of Spanish and Indian blood. La Malinche role as an intepreter was an important role because it allowed Cortes to coomunicate with the Aztecs during his conquest. That also allowed for negiotations between Cortes and the Aztecs.

Two sources of my work is from youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQU4CXqrbDs&feature=related and also http://www.mexconnect.com/en/articles/670-la-malinche-unrecognized-heroine. These two sources are credible because the information is based of actual facts from authors who were supposedly eye-wtinesses to La Malinche.