Alright, welcome back, everyone, to "Spanish conquistadors took native women." I’m James, here with Sophie and Isabel, and—if you caught us last episode—today we’re diving right into a feistier, fiercer side of the story: the ways native women actively resisted the Spanish. And I mean, not just with words. We’re talking serious subversion. Sabotage from the shadows, if you like that kind of Hollywood pitch.Yeah, because, honestly, a lot of that popular history has focused on the drama and trauma—rightly so, given what native women went through—but we hardly ever talk about how clever, downright subversive, some women were. Spying, misinformation, hiding resources… Gotta say, if I were stuck in that world, I’d be absolutely hiding the silver too.Especially because they had to move in a world where they had very little formal power. There are these accounts of native women poisoning food or shifting supplies right under the noses of the Spanish—literally disrupting those fragile, hungry colonial outposts from the inside. It’s—well, to me it’s almost poetic. You have women hosting dinner for conquistadors, and secretly making sure those men regret the second serving.Talk about a dinner party going sideways—"enjoy your soup, señor conquistador… or not, you bastard!" I mean, we laugh, but it actually highlights the huge risks they were taking. If you got caught, it was brutal. But if you succeeded, you probably saved your family, maybe even your entire village. It’s a kind of everyday heroism we don’t celebrate enough.And that brings us, of course, to Malintzin. Or La Malinche, as most people know her. The way she used her position as interpreter for Cortés—I mean, from what we know, she sometimes passed along Spanish plans she approved of, but there’s evidence she also subtly shaped those plans, sometimes possibly feeding misinformation to protect others. I always think about her walking this razor wire between survival and—what? Betrayal? Agency?Absolutely, Sophie. So much ambiguity, but also so much agency—despite her circumstances. All the secondhand accounts agree she was brilliant with languages. She knew how to read the room, and even though some remember her as a traitor, you can see she was just navigating a horrific situation. In a world where your choices are all between terrible options, small acts of resistance become survival mechanisms.Honestly, she gets a lot of flak in Mexican history for helping the Spanish, but sometimes I feel she just tried to keep herself alive, and maybe look out for whoever she could. Maybe some of her "help" was actually her subtly steering things so that there’d be less violence—or at least, not as much as there could’ve been. But we can’t know for sure, since, you know, the sources are—well—mostly written by those with their own agendas.Exactly. And even outside Malintzin, there are all those quieter stories. Women hiding food or medicine, sabotaging weapons, eavesdropping on Spanish plans. If you couldn’t win in open battle, undermining from the inside was often the only way. It’s like—what’s the saying? "Soft power," long before anyone used the term.And really, it was collective. Subversion wasn’t just one woman’s secret. Sometimes whole groups of women would work together to protect resources or pass along information—so it wasn’t just personal resistance, it became part of community survival.Which leads me to the next bit—the really dramatic stuff: outright rebellion. I’ve got to mention Micaela Bastidas in Peru and Bartolina Sisa among the Aymara. Both of them organized and led massive anti-colonial uprisings. We think of these movements as being led only by men, but these women were—in every sense—commanders.Honestly, if I’d been facing those smug conquistadors, I’d raise more than hell—I’d start with their egos… and tear the bloody lot down! But seriously, these women not only led, they mobilised entire regions. They developed communication networks, used sacred ceremonies as signals, spread word under the noses of Spanish authorities—it’s a kind of logistical genius that gets way too overlooked.And think about what that meant—putting yourself right in the line of fire. This wasn’t, you know, hiding behind a curtain giving directions; Bastidas and Sisa were on battlefields, leading men and women. Bartolina Sisa, if I’m not wrong, was captured and executed for her leadership. That’s not just defiance, that’s revolutionary courage.Right, and their communities developed whole systems for resistance. Coded messages in weaving, songs, traditional dances—these were not just cultural traditions but modes of secret communication. The Spanish underestimated them, thinking ceremonies were just spiritual, not understanding they were also political acts.And let’s not forget, female leadership looked different. Sometimes the resistance came from upending gender norms themselves—making men question their own roles as women led war councils or community decisions. It makes you wonder, how many more women would we hear about if colonial chroniclers even bothered to record their names?That’s a good point. Most of the sources we have come filtered through Spanish eyes—priests, chroniclers, even soldiers who were already shocked at women raising weapons, or even simply speaking in public. But these women’s actions survived in memory, oral tradition, and you can still see their influence in Andean and Aymara activism today.It’s almost like a hidden code running through the culture—rebellion as inheritance. And it shows that even in the face of overwhelming violence, indigenous women shaped history, not just as victims but as powerful agents of change.That power didn’t only stand up to the Spanish, either. It redirected the way resistance was organized from within native societies. I suppose it’s a bit of a callback to what we touched on last episode, James, about how women’s agency and voice often survived through action rather than the written word.Right, piling on what we discussed before—these moments of open rebellion stand as bright flashes, but there was a whole quieter resistance happening alongside: protect the community, preserve knowledge, and sometimes—simply survive. Maybe that’s a decent bridge to our final piece: the defiance built deep into culture itself.Yeah, because after the overt rebellion, there were these slower, stubborn forms of defiance—preserving language, rituals, and kinship structures, even while the Spanish tried to erase them. For native women, just teaching their children indigenous words or songs could be a radical act.And, you know, under colonial assimilation policies, women found creative ways to keep culture alive. There’s a whole history of clandestine education circles—women quietly passing on religious and ancestral knowledge to the next generation, even risking punishment or worse. My abuela always said: "If a Spaniard shows up with a Bible, hide the tequila and the bloody kids—they’re up to no good!" I mean, it’s a joke, but it comes from real fear. These enforced conversions weren’t just about religion—they targeted the core of family and identity.It’s that sort of wisdom and subversion that kept entire cultures from being obliterated. I read accounts where women used their traditional roles—midwives, healers, weavers—not just to help families survive, but to safeguard rituals in secret. It’s like everywhere you look, there are these forms of resistance hiding under daily life.Yeah and, to add, it’s easy to miss how radical that was. Imagine, after all you’ve lost—family, land, safety—you still choose to teach your child those old words, or sneak a ritual. Not because you think it’ll bring the past back, but just to say: ‘We’re still here.’Some of those rituals and languages are still alive, hundreds of years later. That’s the legacy of women whose names often never made it into official records. They kept things going by adapting, sometimes hiding, sometimes updating traditions—always bending, not breaking.And if you look at the bigger picture, it’s a miracle entire societies survived at all, given the violence, disease, and oppression. The agency of native women—whether through sabotage, leadership, or cultural survival—shows history isn’t just what’s written in Spanish chronicles. It’s in the food someone hid, the story whispered at night, the dance performed behind closed doors.So much of this story is about survival in the face of erasure. I know we’ll be digging even deeper into how these legacies show up in modern movements—but for now, I think that’s a good place to rest, unless you two have anything to add?No, just that we still have so much to uncover. Each layer we peel back on these histories, I’m in awe of how inventive and fierce these women had to be. Thanks for the chat, both of you—really, it’s a privilege.Cheers, Isabel. Sophie, always a pleasure arguing history with you. For everyone listening, we’ll be back soon to unearth even more stories that deserve the spotlight. Take care, everyone!Thanks, James. Bye Isabel! And thanks to everyone who tuned in—catch you next time!Hasta luego, amigos—see you next episode!

Episodes

Fierce Resistance: Native Women vs. Spanish Conquest