Hernán Cortés and Malintzin: the Spanish conquest of Mexico

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Hello, and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.

My name is Greg Jenner.

I'm a public historian, author, and broadcaster.

Today we are sharpening our language skills and sailing across the Atlantic to 16th century Mexico to learn all about the conquistador Hernán Cortés and his indigenous translator Malincin.

And to help us understand this pair, we have a pair of very special guests.

In History Corner, she's senior lecturer in the history of the Americas at Nottingham Trent University.

Her research focuses on early modern Spain and Mexico, specifically religion, identity and empire.

It's Dr.

Amy Fuller.

Welcome Amy.

Thanks for having me.

Delighted to have you here.

And in Comedy Corner, she's a stand-up comedian, actor and writer.

You'll have seen her on all the TV shows, including Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, Frankie Boyle's New World Order.

Perhaps you've seen her on tour, or read or listened to her hilariously honest memoir, The Other Mother, I love the audiobook, or her podcast, WTB, which I think is short for a slightly ruder title.

And you'll definitely remember her from our episode on Emma of Normandy, an absolute classic.

It's Jen Brister.

Welcome, Jen.

Oh, Greg, it's an absolute pleasure.

We had a lot of fun last time in medieval England trying to remember that everyone was called Elf Givu.

Oh, my God, what a name, Elf Givu.

And not only that, not understanding or not having any knowledge about my own history, like that is quite something.

And now,

I'm half English and I'm half Spanish.

So, what I've realized is in the last episode, I knew nothing about English history.

And today, it'll be proven I know nothing about Spanish history.

And Mexican history?

Mexican history, even less.

Okay.

Do you know the name Cortez?

I feel like he's a fairly big name from history.

I recognised the name Cortez, but it wasn't, and I thought, I don't, who is this chap?

And it was after I did a cursory Google, Amy, I hope you won't mind, that I went, oh, that guy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I do, unlike last time I was on the podcast where I had absolutely no knowledge at all of what was going on, I would say I have 3.5% more knowledge on this particular subject than it matters.

So yeah, guys, wait to be wound.

So what do you know?

This is the So What Do You Know, where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject.

I'm guessing you have heard the name Cortez, the conquistador.

I feel like it's a name that's in the ether.

He's appeared in all kinds of TV shows and films, most notably as the big baddie in the DreamWorks animation The Road to El Dorado.

But unless you are Mexican or maybe American, I suspect Melincin.

I imagine she's perhaps a lot less familiar as a name.

She's the subject of several Spanish language plays, operas, and books, and appears in some famous murals.

One painted by Diego Rivera in Mexico City, he was the husband of Frida Carlo.

Oh,

yes I do know who he is.

Look at me.

One point already.

Well done.

Now Melincin has also been confusedly conflated with the Mexican folk tale of the wailing woman La Iolorora.

La Lorona.

Thank you.

A vengeful ghost who drowns her own children.

Yeesh, you don't want that in a children's movie do you?

Sometimes she stabs them.

It kind of depends on the version.

So I don't think Disney's gonna take up that story.

No, no.

But was the real story of Cortez and Melincin its own different horror story involving ghosts and stabbings, maybe?

How have their reputations changed over time?

And what exactly is Moctezuma's revenge?

Let's find out.

Today, we're doing a bit of a buy-one, get one-free biography.

We'll start with Cortés, purely because he happened to be born first.

So, Amy, who was he?

Is he an aristocrat?

You know, when he's born, is he rich?

We don't know what his first name actually was.

It was either Fernando or Hernando, which has been contracted to Anan.

So, we always call him Anan-Cortez.

But his name was Fernando or Hernando Cortés de Monroy y Perjardo Altamirano.

He was born in 1485 in Medellín, which is in Extremadura in Spain.

It's the central west part of Spain, bordering with Portugal.

And weirdly, a lot of the conquistadors are also from here.

They seem to all come from this area.

So he was a Hidalgo.

He was petty nobility, we probably call him.

Not very rich, no titles, but he would have had a duty to bear arms for his feudal lord and exemption from taxation.

Fernando Hernando Cortes y Monroy Epidaro Altamirano is a great name.

That does sound quite noble.

That's like three too many names, surely.

It is.

It's greedy.

And what about his childhood?

Was he goes to school, educated?

Yeah, we don't know a massive amount about him, to be honest.

There's differing ideas about how educated he was.

Some people say he went to the University of Salamanca for a time.

We think he probably had some legal training.

Fairly well educated, I'd say.

He tells us a lot about himself.

He's his favourite subject.

Gotcha.

Okay, all right.

So there's an element of him telling his own history that he wants people to know.

Very much, though.

Fair enough.

But in 1492, do you know what happened in 1492, Jen?

Oh my gosh, don't ask me.

But let's, do you want me to guess?

Yeah, go on.

So he's born in 1485.

So in 1492, he is, what, seven?

He is.

So he is sent away.

That's a good guess.

He's sent away to school yeah well more broadly in history what do you think is happening in terms of a spanish history or global history in 1492 some kind of war i mean there are a lot of wars but it it's it's columbus right so i was going to ask you to contextualize columbus in this okay go on hernancortes is seven years old columbus sails on behalf of the spanish king and queen gotcha in search of india and bumps into what's called the new world inverted commas it's obviously not new to the people who live there so what makes hernan cortes decide he wants to follow in columbus's wake because soon after like 10 12 years later he's on a ship yeah he's off to seek his fortune in the new world he arrives in 1504 so he's 19 and he goes off to a place called hispaniola which is now haiti and the dominican republic at that point that's the base of operations in what they called the indies at this point the caribbean is on its way to being decimated basically

They kind of round up lots of indigenous people and they get them panning for gold, which kills a lot of people, mainly because they work them to death, essentially,

plus all of the disease that they bring from Europe.

Cortez does make a bit of money from this initially.

So the idea is that they're going to populate this new world with settlers and they one by one they keep going to different islands basically.

And murdering people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That sounds very familiar.

Yeah.

And the indigenous people that lived in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic, would they have

had any sort of relation to the Incas or, you know, like Mexico is not that far away?

Yeah.

Were they more similar to...

They had smaller towns, so you don't find the kind of big cities with the pyramids and things like that in the Caribbean.

But you do see decent-sized kind of towns.

That's been kind of rewritten to make it seem like they're just in kind of mud huts.

But actually, through archaeological research, we found that they did actually live in decent-sized towns.

They were supposed to go and convert them to Christianity, and therefore, they shouldn't have been allowed to enslave them, but they just kind of enslaved them instead.

It happens.

You hop out there to talk about Jesus Christ, and before you know it, you've got, you know, hundred thousands of slaves.

Yes.

We should probably turn to Melincin.

In 1504, Cortez is 19 years old.

Melincin is a toddler at this point.

Yeah, so we think she was born in 1500.

Okay.

We don't really know much about her or her early life.

We think that her father was of some kind of nobility,

but we think that her mother was enslaved.

She's Nahua, so she's from central Mexico, but she's not Aztec.

That's quite important.

She's from an area that gets taken over by the Aztecs.

It's kind of on the Gulf Coast.

She's sold into slavery with the Maya, essentially,

when she's a young girl, we think.

She lives among the Maya for quite a time.

And we don't even know her real name, right?

We know her by a later.

No, we only know her baptismal name, which was Marina.

And Malintsin comes from that because there's no R in Noatl.

So they would hear Malina, but they put the Zin at the end, which is an honorific title.

So that is essentially Donia Marina in Nuatl.

Oh, okay.

Gotcha.

So you say she was kidnapped, sold into slavery by the Maya, who were different people entirely from the Aztecs.

Yes.

Who are different people entirely from the Nahuahua.

Yes.

So we already.

Well, you could be, if you were Aztec, you were Nawa, but you didn't have to be an Aztec if you were Nawa.

Gotcha.

Okay, gotcha.

So Malinsin, she is Nawa.

She's not Maya and she's not Aztec.

Yes, no, so she's from a different group entirely.

And the Nawa people are...

So they are

basically everyone who lives in the central region of what's now Mexico.

So basically where the Aztec Empire was.

And you've mentioned the Aztecs.

In our heads, I guess over here in the UK, we know the Aztecs as like the dominant superpower of the region.

Yes.

Is that wrong?

No, it's not wrong.

But what people often refer to them as is ancient, we call them ancient Aztecs and they're early modern, if anything, not even medieval.

Yeah, this is the same time as Henry VIII.

Yeah, so they they rise to prominence in the 1420s.

They managed to create this empire that's spreads from the Pacific to the Gulf Coast in a hundred years, basically, but it's patchy and this becomes a problem later on.

They don't conquer everywhere.

They're not after territory.

It's a very different idea than we understand an empire to be.

It's a franchise?

Is it like

Starbucks?

They're after tribute.

So both in terms of goods that they want, but also people for sacrifice.

So they essentially don't bother to conquer anyone who doesn't have what they want or is too difficult to conquer.

If listeners want to know more about the Aztecs, we did them in series one.

So scroll all the way down in the app to the very, very beginning.

But that's the political powder keg that is awaiting the Spanish spark, Jen, as you've pointed out, actually, that we've got all these different sort of power bases.

But let's get back to Cortés.

He's in Hispaniola, so he has, he's not got to Mexico yet.

No, no one has.

And he is, well, we've already heard he's doing horrible things to the indigenous peoples.

He's trying to get cash, but he's got a job.

Yes.

Is he a legal job?

Yes, so he's a notary for a while.

And then in 1511, he takes part in the conquest of Cuba, which was organized by Diego Velázquez, who then becomes the governor of Cuba.

Yes.

Initially, Velázquez is very impressed by him.

He becomes his secretary and that's when Cortez starts to rise to prominence.

He gains more wealth and power.

He's granted what's called an encomienda, which is essentially

legal slavery, basically.

Oh dear, yeah, okay.

Say grants of indigenous labor.

So you don't actually own the people because they're supposedly Spanish citizens, right?

Yeah.

But you have control of their labour.

So it is basically slavery.

So okay, it's

forced labour that the Spanish crown is allowing to happen.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

So the encomienda system is obviously being cooked up to exploit the indigenous peoples.

But the relationship with Velasquez, who's sort of his boss, sort of his patron,

sounds quite tense, Jen.

It sounds quite

competitive, yes.

Why do you think they fell out?

What do you reckon the

money is?

You've said that Cortez is very ambitious.

He probably realises that

if he's going to promote himself, he probably needs Diego Velázquez's job at the bare minimum, or at least to get rid of him so that he can have more control, more authority.

I don't know.

I mean, that's certainly the conventional way, but actually, there's a woman involved.

There's a lady.

Oh, my goodness, there's always a lady.

There's a woman involved.

And it's not a love triangle.

No.

It's a love rhomboid.

It's a sort of weird.

Yes.

So they fall out for a few different reasons.

In 1514, Cortes leads a group of settlers who aren't happy with their lot, essentially, in almost a bit of a rebellion.

So that obviously doesn't go down particularly well.

So you were sort of right there, Joan.

He sort of tries to strike out in his own.

It doesn't quite land, okay.

But then he also, Cortez has a relationship with a Spanish woman who is the sister of...

So Cortez shares an encomienda with a guy called Juan Suarez he gets involved with his his sister

Catalina Suarez that family come over with the vicerine as lady his sisters become lady in what ladies in waiting Catalina's one of them there's the mum and about three or four sisters now Velasquez is in love apparently with one of these other sisters

and so there's an understanding that if you get engaged to a woman then you can start sleeping together.

And so Cortez gets engaged to Catalina and then fobs her off, tries to run away.

And apparently, because Velasquez was in love with her sister, he puts, he put

it in

and he throws Cortez in prison for

this.

So he asks for Catalina's hand in marriage

so that he can sleep with her.

And then goes, do you know what?

I'm not into this anymore.

I've slept with you, but I've actually don't want to do this engagement.

And so then Velasquez goes, oh, you can't do that.

So I'm going to defend my, your, her sister's honor.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

And now I'm going to, what, have a duel?

Can I do that?

Yeah, no, because it was the

legally binding.

Yeah.

And

you could, if you were kind of the scorned fiancé, you, you could put, you could sue.

So that's essentially what Catalina did.

And then eventually he relents and goes, okay, all right, I'll marry you then.

that is the most romantic.

What a wonderful rom-com.

Oh, that's the happy ending we were all looking for.

Come on, Richard Curtis, pull your finger out.

This is the story you want to see.

Run to the airports, run to the jail cell.

I love you, really, probably.

I don't know.

These, these, you know, that's a great title.

I love you, maybe, probably.

I don't know.

I have to point out again, Joanne, I'm so sorry that

we're in a double name situation again.

We had El Gifu, Elgifu, Evgivu multiple times, and we've got Catalina Catalina because Cortez's mum is Catalina.

Oh no, this right this is gonna be he also calls one of his children Catalina.

Come on, there's other names guys.

There's other names.

This is what we've got your back, Jen.

We only do it if

we share names.

I appreciate it.

So okay, so his wife begrudgingly is Catalina Suarez.

Catalina Cortez or does she keep it?

Oh no, they don't change.

They don't change their names.

So she continues with her name.

But this seems to mend the rift with Velasquez and so Cortez becomes the mayor of Santiago in Incuba.

So, okay, so he does get a promotion.

He does, yeah, he gets a nice promise.

Oh, it's a happy ending for the good.

Exactly.

Great, great.

So, Cortez and Velázquez are besties again.

He was climbing the ranks, he was the mayor of Santiago, and then in 1518, Velasquez gave him another promotion.

And this one is an expedition promotion.

I want you to go and

explore, conquer,

well, explore and trade was

the orders.

The

Can you go and trade, please?

And bring lots of swords.

Yeah.

And where is he going?

So he's off to the Yucatan.

In 1517, they finally, even though they're right next to it, it takes them forever to find the Yucatan.

It's just there.

And the Yucatan is the peninsula of eastern Mexico, right?

Yes.

I've been there on holiday.

It's lovely.

So there are two expeditions before Cortez's expedition.

So the first one goes in February of 1517.

That's led by a guy called Francisco Hernandez de Córdoba.

Many of the people didn't survive.

They basically get attacked by the Maya and most of them die, including the leader of the expedition.

But they realise that there's a place with these big cities and so they think, hmm.

want

to investigate that.

So you say we say promotion, but is this Velesque sending Cortes off to his death?

Well,

the second expedition which leaves in 1518

in May is led by another guy called Juan de Grajalva.

That guy fares a little bit better and he actually manages to meet some Aztecs as well.

And that's where they find out about this great city called Tenochtitlan and Moctezuma and lots of treasure and things.

And so this obviously piques Cortez's interest.

So despite the fact that there are other candidates who would be more experienced, Velasquez gives him the job to go on the next expedition.

So the one in 1517 is

very bad.

Yes.

Doesn't go well, everyone dies.

1518 is led by

Juan de Grajalva.

Juan de Grajalva.

Okay.

Okay, so Juan goes out in 1518.

And that fares a bit better because they meet the Aztecs.

Yes.

Nobody dies.

Some people die.

Yeah, there is some people.

Partridge.

One person dies.

There's still some death.

Not quite as catastrophic as the first one, but

it's not great.

And then Velasquez goes, listen, third time lucky.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Once more with feeling.

I've got a really good.

Yeah.

I reckon this time they'll welcome us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is the third, this is time.

Third time.

And he's like, I've got a good feeling for you, Cortez.

Yes, yes.

Now, Velázquez starts to hear rumors that Cortez has plans that don't involve him

and so at the last minute Velázquez says no I don't want Cortez anymore let's let's not do this however Cortez kind of sticks his fingers in his ears and goes la la la la la la

and um he manages to he he he goes to the other side of Cuba basically and gets more men more supplies and then heads off I think he goes to another bit of Cuba and he evades arrest about four times, I think.

And then finally, yes, basically, finally sets off in 1519.

And he founds Veracruz, the first Spanish town in Mexico.

He immediately divorces Velesquez from his sort of chain of command, right?

He's just like, I founded a town and I answer to the Spanish king and Velesquez is dead to me and everything's fine.

So how war?

But what about...

so?

He's now.

But he's going to have to come back.

So, when he comes back, is he like, just to let you know, I'm not listening to you anymore.

I mean, how does that work?

So, he's not coming back.

Yeah, he's not.

Catalina's like, what?

But I love you.

He's not coming back so much so that he burns the boats so that no one can go back.

No way.

Okay, all right.

So his men are like,

I wanted to go back just so I had feedback.

Yeah, I actually left my wife and children back there, actually.

He's like, tough.

No, you're not going back.

Okay.

We know all about this from his first letter, essentially.

It's an amazing letter.

It is.

It's not even a letter.

It's like a rant.

Yes.

So he knows, essentially, that in the meantime, Velasquez will have obviously written to the king and said, Look, there's this complete wrongun who's gone, you know, rogue.

He's off gallivanting.

I don't even know what he's doing.

And so Cortez knows all of this.

So he doesn't even make it a letter from him.

He makes it a letter from the town council of Veracruz.

That he's founded.

That he has founded.

And essentially, it's an insane letter, but he essentially discredits Velasquez.

He says that he is greedy.

He's not doing any of the converting that he's supposed to be doing.

He's only interested in his own personal wealth.

He says that the first two expeditions were total rubbish, got nowhere, that also they were not interested in converting anyone, which you know was essentially the legal reason for them to be there.

And so Cortez rants and rants and rants and then talks about how great he is, how he, oh, I put all of my fortune into this.

every step of the way i've done everything by the book um i've i've converted everyone to christianity i've made sure you know i took friars with me and i i i um it's a massively long

musk read this letter

this guy sounds like someone I need to model myself on.

So, because I was going to ask you, why on earth

if you have founded a town

and you have had a successful expedition, isn't it that you want to go back to Spain with all this glory and go, look at me, I did this, I've got a town, I've created this, I'm the big guy, not this guy.

Why would you burn all your boats to stay?

Because he's essentially a fugitive.

Because he's gone over the head of Velasquez, therefore he's a traitor, essentially.

But lots of people write about this, saying, you know, they describe Cortez as this kind of, oh, he made all these risky decisions.

And it's like, I'm sorry, if I was going to be arrested for treason and hung, I'd be a bit of a maverick too, quite frankly.

Right.

Once you've done one crime, you can't go back and go, so sorry.

Sorry,

he wants to notch it lane.

He wants the treasure from Moctezuma.

We know he's ambitious.

We know he's ambitious.

So he's obviously trying to to feather his own nest.

Tiny bit of trivia that's completely unrelated to the history, but I love it.

Is that the actor who voiced Cortez in the Road to Eldorado animation also was the voice of Winnie the Pooh.

And so I'm just.

I'm just that is upsetting.

I'm just hearing the voice of Winnie the Pooh whenever Cortez speaks.

Of course, Winnie the Pooh craves pots of honey.

Cortez is after pots of money.

So he's off.

He's off seeking golden glory.

1519.

And he is going to meet Melintsin.

Finally, we get our meat cute.

Except it's not a meat cute.

It's a meat yuck, because she is enslaved and he is arriving as a conqueror.

Yes.

Yes.

So Melintsin is one of 20 girls, I guess she's only 19, given to

the Spanish conquistadors by the Maya as a kind of diplomatic gesture.

Right.

So yeah, she's a present initially.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

We're not sure at what point it becomes clear that she has really useful linguistic abilities?

Right.

Cortez has shown up, obviously, not able to speak any of the languages spoken by the indigenous people he's meeting.

He's like, you know, hola!

And they're like, what?

So that's not going to work.

So, how does the translation work then?

You know, if Cortez wants to say something to the Maya.

What he also does is he picks up some Spanish men who had been shipwrecked in the Maya region and had lived with the Maya for a time.

So they could speak Spanish and Chonto Maya, I believe.

So she could could speak Maya and Noatl.

So Cortez would speak to a guy called Heronimo de Aguilar and he would then speak Maya to Malintin and then she would speak Noatl to any Aztecs.

Oh, it's like a change then backwards if she's not the other way around as well, does it?

With the old whispers.

It's like, hang on a sec.

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But then she's got quite a lot of power because then she can translate anything in any which way she can once in a way.

Like, oh yeah, he said this, did he?

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

We think she learned Spanish quite quickly.

And actually, Aguilard, he becomes kind of almost obsolete quite early on.

Yeah, okay.

So then she can kind of do all of it.

Does she become Marina then and there?

Yeah, so she's baptised as Marina.

She would never have been regarded as a slave among the Spanish

because as soon as he starts to kind of conquer, then she's she's a Spanish citizen essentially.

Yeah she's baptised and then obviously you can't enslave Christians anyway or not supposed to

but yeah she she was incredibly important.

They wouldn't have you know been able to do anything without her essentially.

Not only can she you know tell people what he wants to say and vice versa but she also understands the etiquette, which is incredibly different.

So she understands the etiquette of the Spanish and she also understands the etiquette of the Mayan.

Is it the Mayan people?

The other Nawa people.

The other Nawa people.

Yes.

The Maya too, but it's the Nawa people that are more

kind of important to the conquest.

And Cortez is presumably using charm and violence, those two lovely combinations.

Yeah, essentially.

He learns quite early on that the Aztec Empire isn't as solid as he thought it was.

And he also learns that there are certain groups who who aren't happy with the Aztecs.

He gets the Totonacs on side initially by capturing an Aztec tax collector.

So the Totonacs aren't happy with the amount of tribute they're paying so he basically captures the tax collector and says look join us and you'll be free.

Right.

Now the most important allies that he picks up are the Tlashkalans.

They hate the Aztecs, absolutely hate the Aztecs, but they put up a a big fight against the Spanish for quite a while.

They're not happy to go to their side, mainly because they see them with the Totonacs, who were allies of the Aztecs, essentially.

And they're like, well, we don't trust you.

So there are many battles before the Tlash Cannons eventually decide to allow them to, you know, to come to the side.

I feel like the Spanish have arrived.

There's not that many of them.

No.

They seem very annoying.

They're going around telling people what what to do.

Oh, you can do that, and I'll do that.

And it's like, why don't they, the Tottenhams and the Mayans, and everybody, they get together and go, let's just kill these Spanish guys because they are a pain in the butt.

And they keep talking about some guy called Jesus.

I don't know who he is.

What do you say?

I mean, it seems like somebody missed a trick very early on.

Yeah, well, the Tlashkalans do.

At one point, it seems like the Tlashkalans might actually finish them off.

The Spanish really have to think about their tactics in order to

not be killed, basically.

The thing that the Spanish have which helps them is obviously their steel swords

and

gunpowder.

Yeah, although that will run out sure.

Yeah, more has been made about the gunpowder than actually like it it it's useful long range,

but what the Spanish found was they had to stay in their kind of military kind of formations and not disperse whatsoever, because the moment they dispersed they were just picked off one by one.

But also, Cortes had the idea that they just needed to be really visible, so they wouldn't fight at night.

That was kind of just not done.

So, at night, Cortes would kind of say, Right, we're going to kind of make ourselves visible so they know that we're not dead yet.

You know, we're going to keep going, we're going to keep going.

And then they kept trying to send gifts to them as well to say, Look, you know, we come in peace, we don't want to fight you.

There are factions within the Tashkalans who some of them don't want to join the Spanish at all.

And had they got their own way, they probably would have killed them.

We're talking an army of 600 Spanish soldiers.

It's not a huge army.

No.

If it had gone the other way, perhaps if they hadn't got on that well with the Aztecs, maybe the Tashkalans would have said sod it.

So we have to conquer Tenochtitlan, but we're not going to do it.

Cortez is going to do it.

A vast, vast citadel, an incredibly sophisticated, huge city.

Yeah.

And 600 Spaniards show up and some allies.

Yeah, with about

2,000 slash talons, probably.

So about 2,500 people show up on the doors of this vast imperial citadel.

And they just, what, ring the doorbell and say, hello, we've come to conquer you.

So along the way, obviously Moctezuma has heard about this.

He has people all over his empire who can kind of go back and see what they're doing.

So he's the Aztec emperor.

Yes, we call it the Tlatwani is the real word, which means he who speaks, but we tend to call him the Emperor.

Yeah, I should take that title, that's my job.

I think we can all take that inside.

So,

he has spies that have told him about all of this, and actually, he would have known about them for at least a year before Cortez even got to set up Veracruz because the previous guy met an Aztec kind of diplomat, and so he would have known that they're these weird guys around.

Is he not like we've got to do something about these guys?

Well, they set traps for them which were intercepted by the Tashkalans, by Milensin.

They found out about things that were.

Okay, so Cortez is about to step on various booby traps.

Yeah.

Malintin's like, don't step on that, don't eat that, no, that's not a fruit, that's a grenade.

Moctezuma also sends people out with gifts and things.

Chocolate?

Yeah,

chocolate.

But also gold, which is not.

So, in Aztec terms, that's basically a show of power, and it would have sent the message of, back off, I've got all of this power.

But obviously,

Cortez is like, oh, these guys love us!

They're giving us gold.

This is great.

Bing-dong!

And so we know that Moctezuma meets Cortez.

Yes, yes, I call as well.

And then suddenly the city falls.

I mean, that's very truncated but like

Moctezuma invites them into the city.

So his idea and he's been painted very badly for this but there's a few reasons why he does this.

For a start

once they're in the city they're at their mercy.

They're their hosts basically so they can control them to a certain extent.

Their weapons don't work quite as well either in the confines of the city but also Moctezuma would have been thinking, well, we can't have a battle kind of outside of the city because if it looks like we're losing, everyone else is going to join

to control the narrative.

Yes, exactly.

So, although he's been, people

say that he was stupid for doing this, there is, there are reasons behind.

PR is important.

It is.

You've got to keep on top of that sort of thing.

Yeah, so they first meet, it's November, so definitely by April.

So they're there for ages.

So November November 15, 19.

Yes.

Six months later.

So definitely by then, but probably sooner, but we don't know when.

Cortez basically kidnaps Moctezuma.

Yeah.

And they have this very strange

thing where Moctezuma's pretending that everything's fine because if he lets on, his people will essentially get rid of him and get the next Aztec emperor.

I mean, have they not noticed there's something going on?

Yes.

When he pretends that they're just like at leisure together.

It's very weird.

This weird situation where he's got hold of Moctezuma gets it comes to an end because Cortez hears that Velasquez has finally got his

together.

Oh, I forgot about him.

We forgot about Velasquez

and sent a massive army to arrest Cortez.

No fries, just an army.

No, no, just the army, yeah.

So, in I think it's May, May of 1520, basically, Cortez hears he has to to race off to the Gulf Coast He manages to convince those guys to join him nice he is very persuasive

in the meantime he leaves a guy called Pedro de Alvarado in charge and

we don't know if he does hear these rumors or not but he his version of events is that he hears rumors that the Aztecs are going to attack them so they engage in a massive massacre basically.

Wait, wait, sorry.

I feel like we've gone.

And then there was a massacre.

So

the Spanish army have arrived.

Yeah, Cortez races off to face them down.

Yeah, he's got, he's going, right, you guys join me and they're like, love to.

Yeah.

Here's all the gold I've got.

Like, come get some gold.

Yeah, look, I mean, we're loaded.

Why would you stick with a Velasquez guy?

Yeah.

Meanwhile, Pedro de Alvarado has left back in the city of Tenochtitlan.

Yes.

He then goes, oh, I've just heard the Aztecs are threatening to kill us all.

We'd better kill them first.

yes basically so then they he just goes on a so yeah and it's unarmed people as well so basically there's a big festival and they seal off this kind of temple precinct and and kill so that's not from unarmed people

that's not the orders from cortez then no no so when cortez finds or at least cortez tells us it's not i bet you he doesn't yeah we can't trust him he's not going to leave any evidence of his complicity is he he knows what he's doing oh my god this cortez guy yeah and so Motezumu appears on a terrace to convince his people to sort of calm down.

Yeah.

And then somehow he dies.

Yeah, so I'm sure his people killed him.

People aren't very happy with him, obviously.

Actually, Melintin also goes on the terrace and tries to convey these messages.

The conquistador's version of events is that he is hit with a slingshot and later dies of his wounds.

However, the indigenous version of events is that he gets stabbed, basically,

by Cortez because he's no longer of any use basically.

So that's the end of Montezuma.

Cortez is now in control I think we can say.

It's quite interesting because I didn't know and this makes a lot of sense that the Spanish had allies amongst other indigenous communities or people.

I just assumed that all of the Aztecs were murdered by the conquistadors, like the Spanish.

But they actually

got help.

Cortez then continues and and Mexico is conquered by Spain and it becomes part of the Spanish Empire and sends home all the silver and gold back to Spain so that's sort of the the conquest story and then Melincin at this point has kind of done her job so

she could could she not just go all right job done thanks very much I'm off she's so important that she becomes part of the con the conversion effort as well to begin with and she also is involved in other missions that Cortez goes on like to Honduras for example so she's yeah she continues to be his right-hand woman.

I mean, they have a kid together, don't they?

They do.

We have no idea, obviously, how consensual that was, but

they have a child called Martin.

But she doesn't marry Cortes, because he's married.

So she's with Cortes, but she then marries another Spanish, another Spanish.

She marries a guy called Juan Jaramillo

in 1524.

He's one of the captains.

We actually think that she probably

wasn't given to him that actually it was her choice to have this kind of because she would have understood that that was the way that she could acquire kind of her own power and everything.

So it seems to be strategic.

The interesting thing about Melinton is that's sort of where the story ends.

She dies quite young.

She dies in 1529 when she's only barely 30 yet.

So that's quite sad.

And that's where we leave her in the story, apart from perhaps in your nuance window.

But what about Cortez?

Does he then say, oh, big thanks to Malinson?

Is there a sort of like immemorium section where he's like, she, you know, I really needed her?

Or does he just sort of pretend she never really did anything important?

No, we think she,

sorry, we think that he rewarded her with an encomienda as part of her dowry.

So she got enslaved workers too.

Yeah.

Right.

But she, which means that...

She would be one of only, I think, three Indigenous people who were given permanent encomiendas.

Right.

So that shows kind of just how important she was.

And Martín gets sent to Spain and actually lives with the

Spanish royalty.

So he and Cortez formally recognises him

as his son as well.

Right, so they're legitimate.

Yeah, he legitimises it.

Cortez does downplay her a bit in his letters, but

other writers sort of put her back into the picture.

Yeah, so what we have to remember, obviously, with Cortez's letters, are it's the Cortez show

and this is all about me and

you can't do this without me so you can't possibly you know arrest me and try me for treason.

So nobody gets a look in apart from Cortez really in his letters.

But Bernard Diaz in particular, the other conquistur, he loves her.

He writes about her as if she's a saint.

He compares her to Joseph of the Technicola Dreamcoat fame.

Wow.

Yeah, he says that, you know, both light colour.

Yeah, and, you know, sold into slavery as a child.

And he's got a whole scene where she goes back to her family and forgives them for what they did to her, even though that's probably, probably never happened.

Sure.

Feels like a romantic trophy.

It's a bit of a hagiography.

Yeah, yeah, it does feel very sadly.

Do we know how she died?

I think she just kind of succumbed, in the end, got one of the many diseases

that the Europeans so kindly brought over.

And she was so young.

You know, from it's like she really only in that whole period was around for a decade.

And within that decade, she had such a huge influence.

And I think when you're also a young woman and you've got literally no agency, you grab it where you can, don't you?

You do.

How does history view her?

Is she

do historians view her kindly?

Not so much.

No, she well, historians, it depends on

so essentially we have the big great great i'm putting quotation marks around that historian of the conquest who's a victorian and the victorians have a lot to answer for in terms of history being written called william prescott he is the biggest Cortez fanboy he is obsessed with Cortez to the extent where he he desperately wants to find his tomb he wants an he wants an engraving of like he he never actually goes to Mexico, he kind of acquires stuff from Mexico, but he keeps asking, yeah, basically.

So he essentially wants like a, you know, when kids do like those rubbings, yeah, yeah, so he wants that of his tomb.

He also wants to collect Aztec skulls to go in the um

yeah, in the indigenous American skull uh collection in Harvard.

So, yeah, he's a problematic guy, and he not only kind of he does say she's important, but he also sexualizes her quite a lot

and talks about basically that her linguistic skills also included the language of love.

I mean, where's he getting that from?

Oh, he's just absolutely no evidence of that at all.

Yeah,

old man.

Yeah, it's weird.

So for a long time, Cortez was viewed favourably for many centuries and would have been applauded and applauded.

This brings us to my next question, actually, Amy, because for so long, Cortez has been on the run from the Spanish authorities.

You know, people have been sending armies after him, but he finally conquers Mexico, which means presumably he gets to go to the King of Spain.

Hello, this is yours because of me, so do you want to let me off and give me a job?

I mean, does he get a reward?

So, yes, he does.

Initially, he becomes the governor of what they call New Spain, which is what Mexico is called initially.

Yeah, he does get rewarded.

He also makes sure to have his letters published

very quickly.

So they're all, I think there's five of them and they're all published by 1525.

Just so his legacy is secure.

He gets made governor of Mexico, but it doesn't always...

He's too hot-headed, isn't he?

He can't just settle for something and go, this is fine, this is enough.

No, he...

Oh, what does he do?

Well, he gets too big for his boots, basically.

He's been too big for his boots for about two decades.

So part of the thing, he, in one of his last letters, he promises the king that he's not going to

use the encomienda system because they back in Spain that they're not liking it they know that it's been responsible for the death of so many indigenous people especially in the Caribbean and he says we won't do that we won't do that here then he realizes that Moctezuma doesn't have quite as much treasure as he'd hoped right okay in order to reward his men so how does he reward his men

by the using the encomienda system.

So he basically tells the king, oh, you know that thing I said I wasn't going to do well I did it anyway.

And then the king says,

don't do that.

And if you've given any out, you take them back.

And Cortes argues back again, and that doesn't go so well.

So, yeah, so the king appoints an investigator, Ponte de Leon, to come after him, strips him of his governorship in 1526.

Yeah.

And Cortes does the classic apprentice candidate thing of banging on the boardroom door, saying, Let me in, come on, I've got to, you know, and then Cortes is accused of poisoning Ponte de Leon.

Yeah, so Ponte de Leon dies quite soon after he arrives.

The second guy who is sent to investigate him also dies within like eight months.

What are they dying from?

I think they're dying from Cortez, that's probably.

Yeah, we don't know.

I mean, some people have said it might have been Cortes, but we're not 100% sure about that.

But yeah, in 1528, Cortes goes back to Spain to talk to the king.

He's well received.

He's even given a title.

He's removed from being the governor of New Spain, but he's given, he's made the Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca, given a massive encomienda.

Wait a second, but that's

that doesn't make any sense.

He just said don't do it because that goes against our values.

But when you come back, that'll be your reward, baby.

Yeah, it's okay if the king gives them out, but nobody else.

Oh, so it's not actually slavery they have a problem with.

It's like who can give out slaves?

And then obviously we mentioned Catalina very, very early in the episode, his lovely wife that he's left behind, 1522 he'd left her behind.

She comes out to see him at last and they have a party and then she's found dead.

There's reports of finger marks on her throat.

Yes.

As if throttled.

Yeah, basically, so she's brought out in August of 1522, so a year after the conquest is complete.

And she's not very happy because obviously he's been

shagging everyone.

At this point Melinson is pregnant with Martine and everyone knows who fathered that child.

So it's a very uncomfortable situation for Catalina.

She's not very happy with all his other women.

They have a lot of rows about this apparently and one night in October they have a party and

people overhear them rowing and at about midnight he kind of runs out of the room and says she's dead, she's dead.

There are kind of yeah, finger marks on her throat according to testimony.

The guys who testify on his behalf say that she was a very sickly woman and she used to faint a lot.

And Cortez says that the reason why there are finger marks around her throat is because she fainted and he tried to stop her from fainting.

Catch her throat first,

as is traditional.

Yeah, he also gets rid of her body very quickly, has a very quick funeral, which is not typical.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean,

I mean, I'm not Miss Marple, but I think

I don't know, Jen, I think do you know what I mean?

I'm feeling that maybe we can pretty much guarantee he killed her, yeah.

And his motive for killing her was like, oh, you're just wanging on too much, or I just want to, I haven't seen you for however many years, and now I just want to live my life.

Yeah, I'm bored, yeah, yeah,

you're dragging me back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

By that point, he seems to think that she's not quite befitting his status, and he does end up marrying a

woman of much higher status.

And it just so happens that her uncle testified on his behalf in this whole investigation.

It's pure coincidence, Amy.

What are you talking about?

I mean,

honestly, the way

all of the men in this entire historical...

Jen, you're holding your eyes like you've got to migrate.

Absolutely appalling human beings.

And typically, once again, there is one woman and she's the one that is vilified.

Malinson.

Well, two women, one of whom's murdered and one of the women.

One of the many Catalinas.

It's absolutely incredible.

So,

despite us knowing all of this, Cortez is a hero.

Well, I mean, not now.

He's constantly investigated, isn't he?

They're constantly trying to investigate him for murder, for embezzlement, for not following orders.

He is ruthless, he is avaricious, even the Spanish think that.

But he gets away with it.

Yeah, I think it's partly because he manages to cement himself in the legacy of the conquest by publishing these letters.

They can't really ignore him, but he also drags out this investigation for years and years and years.

Because he's got the legal training.

He knows how to slow down the court case.

Okay, how does he die in the end?

Does he even get his revenge, as the famous idiom would have it?

Well, so he dies of, we think, pleurisy, but just before that, he has a really bad case of dysentery.

Good.

I mean, what a way to to go.

Yeah, it sounds like

death and you know couldn't have happened to a nicer

guy.

Truly, absolutely.

He shot himself to death.

I wasn't going to say it, Greg, because he was a shit and he deserved it.

Okay, so pleurisy isn't probably what killed him, but dysentery probably didn't help.

Okay, so there you go, Jen.

Hernane-Cortez and Melinson.

It's quite the story, isn't it?

It is quite the story.

It's quite a sad story.

There's no part of it that isn't, I mean, listen, comedy corner here, but it's pretty hard to find any light in that shade.

He is genuinely one of the most unpleasant men in history, I would say.

He's a truly awful human being.

And I'm glad he shat himself to death.

I hope it came out of both ends for hours.

He's a horrible, horrible man.

And sure, Melinson, by proxy, you could say, yeah, but you know, she was no saint either.

And and that is absolutely true.

But the power dynamic there was so

you know, you can't compare the two.

You're looking at a young girl who was enslaved and was trying to survive, and she wasn't to know how it was going to turn out-you know, that it was going to end up being some sort of genocidal mania.

And then this Cortez guy was just like total

narcissist psychopath.

Good guy, good guy, good guy, the nuance window.

Time now for the nuance window.

This is the part of the show where Jen and I machete away through the jungle for two minutes while Amy tells us something we need to know about Malincin.

So my stopwatch is ready.

You've got two minutes.

Take it away, Dr.

Amy.

So sadly, after Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Malincin's public reputation went downhill.

There was a desire to reclaim the history of the nation from the coloniser and to explain how the conquest happened, but unfortunately this led to her becoming a scapegoat.

She's often referred to as the Mexican Eve, a traitor and a whore who betrayed her people despite the fact that she wasn't Aztec, nor did she have much agency of her own.

Weirdly, the hundreds of thousands of indigenous allies do not get blamed.

They're presented as being tricked by Cortes into fighting against Moctezuma the tyrant.

Yet she is not awarded the same dispensation.

We We know that the conquest was effectively an indigenous civil war that the Spanish took part in, so Milincin could even be seen as a freedom fighter, maybe, but instead she ends up being conflated with the tragic ghost story of La Lorona.

However, as depressing as all that is, let's reflect on how she was viewed by her contemporaries, largely because it's quite annoying for Cortes and his fanboys.

So not only do the other conquistadors testify that she was absolutely fundamental to the conquest, so much so that they could not have achieved their victory without her, but the Tashkalans in their pictorial sources present her in every scene that Cortes features, even in Amongst the Fighting, like a real badass.

And sometimes she's even depicted as bigger than him, basically insinuating that she was more important than him.

And in fact, because she was always in Cortes' company, the indigenous people they spoke to referred to Cortes as the captain of Marina, or Malinche.

This not only demonstrates her importance to the native allies but even better, it effectively demoted Cortez because he was named in terms of his relationship with her.

Goodly.

It's really interesting that what you said though about her being scapegoated and that the indigenous allies weren't blamed because it was a civil war.

Why should she have any why would she support the Aztecs?

They enslaved her.

She's, you know, she couldn't possibly blame her, I don't think.

I actually am Team Berlinson.

Sure, I didn't turn out great in the long term, but I think she did what she had to do to survive.

So what do you know now?

Right, well, time now for the so what do you know now.

This is our quickfire quiz for Jen.

Oh, gosh.

See how much she's learned.

I was going to say, Jen, are you feeling confident?

No, I'm not sure.

Surely.

No, I'm not feeling confident at all.

There's so much detail.

You have taken some fantastic notes.

Look at this.

Oh, I missed a page.

No, I've taken way too many notes, and now I feel completely overwhelmed.

Eight pages of notes, listener.

Jen's written her own Cortez letter.

I have.

I have.

And most of it, I can't read my own writing, but let's try it.

Let's see what we can do.

All right, let's have a go.

Ten questions.

Question one.

Where does the name Melincin come from?

I've already fallen at the first hurdle.

Does it come from, what was the Spanish name?

Oh, no.

Yeah, it's from her Spanish name.

Marina.

That's right.

Well done, yeah.

Plus the honorific suffix of sin at the end.

So well done.

Question two.

On Cuba, why was Hernán Cortez thrown in jail by his boss, Velasquez?

Because

he had slept with his fiancée and then ditched her.

He had absolutely Catalina, he refused to marry.

And then he was like, all right.

Question three.

What was legally very dodgy about Cortes leading his conquering expedition to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico?

What was...

what had Velasquez said to him?

Oh, hang on, just give me a second.

I've got like 600 notes here, so we'll get there.

Well, he's promoted.

No, hang on.

Cortez has gone without him.

Yeah.

Without his approval.

So he's gone rogue.

So he hasn't got Velasquez's permission.

That's right.

He's on the run, basically.

Yeah, so he's a fugitive.

This is his start of his fugitive journey.

Question four.

How did Malincin and Cortez first meet?

He is...

Oh, no, she is one of 20 girls that is given to the conquistadors as a gift from the Aztecs.

From the Maya, yeah.

Well, from the Maya, yeah, well done.

Question five.

The Tashcalans were crucial allies in the conquest of Tetnoch Titlan.

Without them, how many Spanish soldiers would Cortes have had?

600?

It is 600.

Well done, yeah.

Question six, what happened to Cortes' first wife, Catalina, in 1522?

She was strangled

to death.

Or died of natural causes and was caught by the neck.

Yes, she sneezed.

He was worried about her.

He caught her by the neck and she died.

Ah, what a bastard.

Question seven: What was the encomienda system?

Slavery.

It was, but technically not slavery.

Technically, not slavery because you can't enslave Christians.

Yes, but it turns out you can.

But they did.

Question eight: What was the name of both Cortes' dad and his son with Malincin?

Martín.

It was Martín.

Question nine, who was the Aztec emperor based at Tenochtitlan who ultimately died at the hands of Cortes?

Is it Montezuma?

Montezuma.

Yeah, very good.

And this for a perfect 10.

How did Cortez die in 1547?

He died from pooing out of his bumhole.

And or pleurisy.

He did.

Both of those two things.

10 out of 10, Jen Bristol.

Oh, come on.

Never in doubt.

Here we go.

The prize is line.

Only.

I actually did only consult them with those once.

Well done, Jen.

Thank you.

And of course, thank you, Amy, as well.

Listener, if you're bursting for more Bristol, check out our episode on Emma of Normandy with all the Elf Givus.

For more Mexican history or famous interpreters, you can do the Aztecs episode, Series 1, the Sacagawea episode, or the Columbian Exchange episode, which is about Columbus and after that fact.

And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with friends, subscribe to your dead to me on BBC Sounds, and also make sure to switch on your notifications so you never miss an episode.

I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests.

In History Corner, we had the amazing Dr.

Amy Fuller from Nottingham Trent University.

Thank you, Amy.

Thanks for having me.

It was great fun.

And in Comedy Corner, we had the brilliant Jen Brister.

Thank you, Jen.

Oh, what a delight.

I've really enjoyed it.

And thank you, Amy.

I've learned a lot.

And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we translate another overlooked historical story.

But for now, I'm off to write a long letter to the King of Spain, blaming someone else for all of my failures.

Bye!

This episode of You're Dead to Me was researched by Ida Abishar.

It was written by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Nagoos, and me.

The audio producer was Steve Hankey, and our production coordinator was Ben Hollins.

It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer, Emma Nagoos, And our executive editor was James Cook.

Your dead to me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4.

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