What does the house where La Malinche lived in Mexico City look like today

Malinalli or better known as La Malinche is a very important and controversial character at the time of the Conquest of Mexico. The year he was born is not accurate but it is estimated that it was between 1500 and 1504 in Painala Veracuz. Opinion about her is divided into whether she is a traitor or if she had no control over her destiny, yet it is a crucial part of our country's history.

Very close to the Plaza and the Church of the Immaculate Conception is the house where La Malinche lived with Hernán Cortes for a year. When the conquest ended, Hernán Cortes explored Tenochtitlán and began to build European-looking buildings and temples, one of the areas that most caught his attention was Coyoacán. There he ordered the construction of the Church of Santa Catarina and that of Juan Bautista, as well as the Town Hall Palace.

Hernán Cortes was captivated by Marina (name she was given when she was baptized), first she was her interpreter and later became his wife. That is why the Spaniard wanted to build a house in which they could live around 1521, today it is known as the “Casa Colorada” and is an official colonial property.

The conquistador Hernán Cortés had a right-hand man named Juan Jaramillo, whom he thanked so many battles at his side and in 1523 he handed him the Xilotepeque parcel, which had 18,000 taxpayers and an annual income of 17,000 pesos of gold, one of the largest granted in America, making him the second most rich man from New Spain after Cortes.

But the Spaniard's gratitude did not stop there, because he later handed her to Doña Marina even though she had just had a son with her named Martín Cortés. Once married to Jaramillo on a trip to Honduras, he had a daughter named Maria on the way back, while Cortes had nine more children and married Spaniard Juana Zuniga for the second time.

However, this was not the only house in which La Malinche lived in Mexico City, because in the Historic Center, specifically in the Republic of Cuba 95 next to Plaza de Santo Domingo, is the house where she lived with Juan Jaramillo during 1526. La Malinche died shortly after her daughter was born, between the end of that same year and the beginning of 1527; Jaramillo married for the second time but now to a Spanish lady.

It is said that La Malinche was going to testify in the trial against Hernán Cortes, who was accused of corruption, but it never came because it is believed that Cortes himself sent kill Malinalli. Currently the house is a primary school called Licenciado Miguel Serrano.

Another version is that his death was due to one of the measles or smallpox epidemics that were in Mexico at that time and resulted in many deaths among the indigenous population, who lacked defenses against these diseases.

Next to the door is a plaque that reads: “According to tradition, the house of la Malinche and her husband Juan Xaramillo stood here in 1527. Catalogue of the Insp. Gra. Of Artistic and Historical Monuments”.

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