Marina or Malintzin (c. 1500 – c. 1529), more popularly known as La Malinche , was a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, by acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. She was one of 20 enslaved women given to the Spaniards in 1519 by the natives of Tabasco. Cortés chose her as a consort, and she later gave birth to his first son, Martín. He is known as one of the first "Mestizos" (people of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry).