Not Just the Tudors Colonial Women of the Americas
Mar 12, 2026
Sofia Robleda, Mexican author of The Other Moctezuma Girls who blends scholarship and storytelling. She explores daily life, work, and ritual roles of pre-conquest women. She discusses Malinche’s contested legacy, Isabel Moctezuma’s survival and legal agency, and how colonial violence, Christianization, and archival gaps shape the recovered histories of Indigenous noblewomen.
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Archives Hide Women's Voices Without Native-Language Work
- Sources about women are fragmentary because most surviving documents were written by men and many indigenous books were destroyed.
- Robleda stresses learning Nahuatl and reading native-written Latin script sources reveals women's stories hidden in archives.
Conquest Included Widespread Abuse Of Indigenous Women
- Spanish conquerors often treated indigenous women violently, treating them as prizes and sexual spoils.
- Robleda gives examples of conquistadors keeping multiple women as sex partners and the broader exploitation during the conquest period.
Conversion Was Often Cultural Blending Not Pure Erasure
- Spanish missionaries often melded Christian and indigenous practices to ease conversion, producing hybrid devotions like the Virgin of Guadalupe.
- Robleda notes using noble indigenous women in Christian marriages helped model Hispanicization for wider society.