Her work as translator and interpreter for Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés made her a protagonist in a violent colonial period whose effects still reverberate through Latin America. Her story, told only by others, generated myths and legends. Was she a traitor to her people? The conquistador’s lover? A slave using her language skills to survive? Or someone with agency who influenced Cortés and shaped major events? Five centuries later, the debate continues and Mexico’s first woman leader, President Claudia Sheinbaum, is weighing in.

Beginning Sunday, Mexico will kick off cultural events dedicated to reclaiming the story of Malinche on the anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas. “We have a working group of anthropologists, historians, and philosophers studying this important, much-maligned figure, and it is very important to vindicate her,” Sheinbaum said recently.

Born around 1500, Malinche learned Nahuatl and the now near-disappeared Oluteco, growing up south of the Gulf of Mexico. The Aztecs sold her as a slave to a Mayan people who later gave her and other women to the Spanish after being defeated in battle. By then, she could speak two more Mayan languages. The Spanish baptised the women, providing religious cover for them to be raped. Malinche was “at their mercy as a victim,” said Camilla Townsend, a historian at Rutgers University and an expert on Malinche. But she easily learned Spanish and “she saved her own life really by choosing to translate.” Soon she would find herself in front of Moctezuma, the Aztec leader, in the imposing capital Tenochtitlan. As a translator for Cortés, she bridged two radically different worldviews, relaying the desires of Cortés and possibly trying to influence negotiations. Some historical documents say she saved lives but she was also placed in complicated situations. “She was forced to be an intermediary between the Spaniards and these other poor women who were going to be raped,” Townsend said. (Jamaica Gleaner)