- Use the materials found in the and the .
- Choose one of the options in the directions and answer the questions in the prompt.
Option A:
- Class material questions: What were the advantages Hernan Cortes had in defeating the Aztecs? Be sure to cite the class materials you used to find the information in your answer, and use the criteria and format in the .
- Personal connection question: Discuss a situation you entered and succeeded. What advantantages did you have that led to your success. This question does not require a citation
Option B:
- Class material questions: What gender role differences did Heckewelder identify between Algonquian and English society? What was his overall opinion of Algonquian society? Be sure to cite the class materials you used to find the information in your answer, and use the criteria and format in the .
- Personal connection question: Discuss a place you visited and were surprised by some practice there. What surprised you and why? This question does not require a citation
Option C:
- Class material questions: How well did Njinga conform to the gender norms of Central Africa in the 1600s? Was she a conformer, rebel, or adapter? Be sure to cite the class materials you used to find the information in your answer, and use the criteria and format in the .
- Personal connection question: Discuss a situation in which you were a conformer, rebel, or adapter? This question does not require a citation
Introduction:
When Hernan Cortes led his Spanish troops into Mexico to conquer the Aztec Empire, they quickly found a young slave named Malintzin who spoke several indigenous languages. They discovered that she was picking up Spanish quickly and would be a useful translator for them. The Spanish called her Dona Marina. One of Cortez’s men, Bernal del Castillo Diaz, wrote his memoirs in 1585 and gives us one of the most extensive histories on Malintzin. You will find excerpts of that below.
The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, by Bernal del Castillo Diaz, 1585:
Early the next morning many Caciques and chiefs of Tabasco and the neighbouring towns arrived and paid great respect to us all, and they brought a present of gold, consisting of four diadems and some gold lizards, and two [ornaments] like little dogs, and earrings and five ducks, and two masks with Indian faces and two gold soles for sandals, and some other things of little value. I do not remember how much the things were worth; and they brought cloth, such as they make and wear, which was quilted stuff.
This present, however, was worth nothing in comparison with the twenty women that were given us, among them one very excellent woman called Doa Marina, for so she was named when she became a Christian. . . .
Before telling about the great Montezuma and his famous City of Mexico and the Mexicans, I wish to give some account of Doa Marina, who from her childhood had been the mistress and Cacica of towns and vassals. It happened in this way:
Her father and mother were chiefs and Caciques of a town called Paynala, which had other towns subject to it, and stood about eight leagues from the town of Coatzacoalcos. Her father died while she was still a little child, and her mother married another Cacique, a young man, and bore him a son. It seems that the father and mother had a great affection for this son and it was agreed between them that he should succeed to their honours when their days were done. So that there should be no impediment to this, they gave the little girl, Doa Marina, to some Indians from Xicalango, and this they did by night so as to escape observation, and they then spread the report that she had died, and as it happened at this time that a child of one of their Indian slaves died they gave out that it was their daughter and the heiress who was dead.
The Indians of Xicalango gave the child to the people of Tabasco and the Tabasco people gave her to Corts. I myself knew her mother, and the old womans son and her half-brother, when he was already grown up and ruled the town jointly with his mother, for the second husband of the old lady was dead. When they became Christians, the old lady was called Marta and the son Lzaro. I knew all this very well because in the year 1523 after the conquest of Mexico and the other provinces, when Cristobal de Olid revolted in Honduras, and Corts was on his way there, he passed through Coatzacoalcos and I and the greater number of the settlers of that town accompanied him on that expedition as I shall relate in the proper time and place. As Doa Marina proved herself such an excellent woman and good interpreter throughout the wars in New Spain, Tlaxcala and Mexico (as I shall show later on) Corts always took her with him, and during that expedition she was married to a gentleman named Juan Jaramillo at the town of Orizaba.
Doa Marina was a person of the greatest importance and was obeyed without question by the Indians throughout New Spain.
When Corts was in the town of Coatzacoalcos he sent to summon to his presence all the Caciques of that province in order to make them a speech about our holy religion, and about their good treatment, and among the Caciques who assembled was the mother of Doa Marina and her half-brother, Lzaro.
Some time before this Doa Marina had told me that she belonged to that province and that she was the mistress of vassals, and Corts also knew it well, as did Aguilar, the interpreter. In such a manner it was that mother, daughter and son came together, and it was easy enough to see that she was the daughter from the strong likeness she bore to her mother.
These relations were in great fear of Doa Marina, for they thought that she had sent for them to put them to death, and they were weeping.
When Doa Marina saw them in tears, she consoled them and told them to have no fear, that when they had given her over to the men from Xicalango, they knew not what they were doing, and she forgave them for doing it, and she gave them many jewels of gold and raiment, and told them to return to their town, and said that God had been very gracious to her in freeing her from the worship of idols and making her a Christian, and letting her bear a son to her lord and master Corts and in marrying her to such a gentleman as Juan Jaramillo, who was now her husband. That she would rather serve her husband and Corts than anything else in the world, and would not exchange her place to be Cacica of all the provinces in New Spain.
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