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208 PERIOD 2 • The Early Modern World, 1450–1750

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ZOOMING IN Doña Marina: Between Two Worlds
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n her brief life, she was Described by Bernal Díaz, one
Iknown variously as of Cortés’s associates, as “good-
Malinal, Doña Marina, and looking, intelligent, and self-
La Malinche. By whatever assured,” the teenage Malinal
name, she was a woman who soon found herself in service to
experienced the encounter Cortés himself. Since Spanish
of the Old World and the men were not supposed to touch
New in particularly inti- non- Christian women, these new-
mate ways, even as she comers were distributed among his
became a bridge between officers, quickly baptized, and given
them. Born around 1505, Christian names. Thus Malinal
Malinal was the daughter of became Doña Marina.
an elite and cultured family Doña Marina (left) translating for Cortés. With a ready ear for languages
in the borderlands between and already fluent in Mayan and
the Maya and Aztec cultures in what is now southern Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, Doña Marina soon
Mexico. Two dramatic events decisively shaped her life. The picked up Spanish and quickly became indispensable to
first occurred when her father died and her mother remar- Cortés as an interpreter, cross- cultural broker, and strat-
ried, bearing a son to her new husband. To protect this boy’s egist. She accompanied him on his march inland to the
inheritance, Malinal’s family sold her into slavery. Eventually, Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, and on several occasions her
she came into the possession of a Maya chieftain in Tabasco language skills and cultural awareness allowed her to
on the Gulf of Mexico. uncover spies and plots. Díaz reported that “Doña Marina,
Here her second life-changing event took place in who understood full well what was happening, told
March 1519, when the Spanish conquistador Hernán [Cortés] what was going on.” In the Aztec capital, where
Cortés landed his troops and inflicted a sharp military Cortés took the emperor Moctezuma captive, it fell to
defeat on Tabasco. In the negotiations that followed, Doña Marina to persuade him to accept this humiliating
Tabasco authorities gave lavish gifts to the Spanish,
including twenty women, one of whom was Malinal. photo: Bridgeman Images

Perhaps the most significant of European advantages lay in their germs and
diseases, with which Native Americans had no familiarity. Those diseases deci-
mated society after society, sometimes in advance of the Europeans’ actual arrival.
In particular regions such as the Caribbean, Virginia, and New England, the rapid
buildup of immigrant populations, coupled with the sharply diminished native num-
bers, allowed Europeans to actually outnumber local peoples within a few decades.

AP ® EXAM TIP The Great Dying and the Little Ice Age
The demographic effects However Europeans acquired American empires, their global significance is apparent.
of Afro-Eurasian diseases Chief among the consequences was the demographic collapse of Native American
on the Americas are an
especially important societies. Although precise figures are debated, scholars generally agree that the
concept for the AP® Exam. pre-Columbian population of the Western Hemisphere was substantial, perhaps
Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample.
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.

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