India Catalina: language and gold. Indian women during the Spanish conquest of America

Abstract

It is common knowledge that Hernan Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, had an Indian interpreter and concubine called La Malinche. An equally fascinating fi gure, though slightly overshadowed by her Mexican contemporary, was India Catalina, who accompanied the governor of Cartagena Pedro de Heredia in his expeditions to the coast of New Granada (the present Columbia) in the 1530s. There is a statue of India Catalina in Cartagena de Indias; she is the heroine of many novels and poems. In the popular imagination she is a symbol of the Indian race, a mediator who soothes the “savage” breast and introduces peace. The article explores the history of Catalina on the basis of documents and chronicles, showing that this “microhistory”, an episode in the history of the Spanish conquest of America, gives us insights into the sixteenthcentury worldview, personalities, motivations and attitudes to the cultural “Other”.