Interpreters have sometimes played crucial roles in history. A prime example is La Malinche, also known as Malintzin, Malinalli and Doña Marina, an early-16th-century Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast. As a child she had been sold or given to Maya slave-traders from Xicalango, and thus had become bilingual. Subsequently given along with other women to the invading Spaniards, she became instrumental in the <answer>Spanish conquest of Mexico</answer>, acting as interpreter, adviser, intermediary and lover to Hernán Cortés.
What was La Malinche essential to?
Spanish conquest of Mexico