María Estrada

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

María de Estrada (perhaps identical with María (or Marina) de la Caballería) was the only woman to arrive in Mexico with the expedition of Hernán Cortés as well as the only woman of European descent to take part in and survive the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

She is mentioned as the only woman in Cortés' party in the sources of Conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Tlaxcallan chronicler Diego Muñoz Camargo. She also is mentioned by Francisco Cervantes de Salazar. Each of these sources describe her as a very bold and warlike woman who "was as good a warrior as any man". She is mentioned as surviving the Noche Triste as well as the Battle of Otumba. The sources disagree about the identity of her husband, some claim him to have been Pedro Sanchéz Farfán and others Cortés' treasurer Alonso de Estrada. In the chronicle of Diego Durán she is described as being instrumental in the defeat of the Nahua indians of Hueyapan, charging head first and screaming "Santiago!" Some truth may be in this for Cortés gave her an encomienda in Ocuituco near Hueyapan after the conquest. In 1533, when widowed, she filed a petition to the king of Spain to ask for lighter taxation of her lands. Eventually, however, the land originally given her was taken from her heirs entirely and laid directly under the King.

Part of her description is probably exaggerated and twisted, and she has sometimes by historians been confused with Doña Marina (Danaher Chaison, 1976), but it seems reasonable to assume that the varying stories of Lady María Estrada have a core of truth.