[clarification needed] The story of the India Juliana comes from the 1545 accounts of adelantado[note 1] Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca—who briefly ruled the territory between 1542 and 1544—as well as those of his scribe Pero Hernández.

[8][9] Initially, giving women to the colonists was done under the framework of cuñadazgo, a concept through which Guaraní leaders created pacts of peace and mutual benefit, as it transformed the recipient in brother-in-law or son-in-law.

[10] The context in which the India Juliana's case took place has historically been called "Muhammad's paradise" (Spanish: "Paraíso de Mahoma"), referring to the "promiscuous" regime of sexual slavery to which indigenous women were subjected during the 1540s.

[14] In 1541, the initial Spanish settlement of Buenos Aires—built on the coast of the Río de la Plata—was abandoned in the face of attacks from indigenous peoples, and its inhabitants moved to Asunción, which was officially founded as a city by Irala on what was once the fort.

[10][4] After discovering that the region actually lacked gold, the colonists realized they could generate and accumulate wealth through the forced labor and slavery of indigenous people, especially the sexual exploitation of women of childbearing age.

[15] When the news of Ayolas' probable death reached the Spanish Court, explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was named second adelantado[note 1] of the Governorate, arriving to Asunción on March 11, 1542, and taking power from Irala.

"[10] Although the historical references about the India Juliana are brief, they establish a strong counterpoint with the more usual representations of Guaraní women in the early-colonial sources of the Río de la Plata region.

(...) The Governor proceeded ex officio against the Indian woman who killed her master with herbs and ordered her to be arrested and was imprisoned and by virtue of her confession of what was contained in the first process that was accumulated with the second she was sentenced to death and was quartered.

[23] Cabeza de Vaca's account of the India Juliana intended to expose the "chaos" that Irala's policies had caused in the colony, especially the promiscuity of the Spaniards with indigenous women, and to sanction these behaviors, demonstrating his "moral superiority and civilizing capacity".

[8] By writing that the India Juliana told the other women that she had been the only brave one to have dared to kill her master, Cabeza de Vaca implied that this made her proud and affirmed,[8] and that she urged others to do the same.

[8][11] Depending on the ideological position, some discourses portray her as a warrior and an icon of indigenous resistance, while others describe her as an enthusiastic builder of the Paraguayan nation and a facilitator of the union with the Spanish.

[8] Some nationalist discourses—both on the right and on the political left—emphasize the "bellicose character" of the India Juliana who, "in the style of the 'heroes of the homeland', wields the sword or the dagger to kill the Spanish enemy and defend the dignity of the Paraguayan nation, but not of the Guaraní people".

[8][31][30] In his 1963 book Formación histórica de la Nación Paraguaya, Argentine professor Oscar Creydt mentions the "uprising of the female servants under the leadership of the India Juliana, who died as a heroine, executed".

[8] Historian Roberto A. Romero's version—detailed in his 1995 book La revolución comunera del Paraguay—places the episode in 1542, writing: "Guaraní women were the protagonists of the great conspiracy against the Spanish colonizers, led by the India Juliana (...).

[11] Pigna dedicated a section to the India Juliana in his 2012 women's history book Mujeres que tenían que ser, in which he claims that she cut off Cabrera's head on Maundy Thursday 1539 and her incitement caused her companions to follow her example, all of them ending up tortured and hanged.

Jueves Santo, 1539", Helio Vera portrays the India Juliana as a naive girl that falls in love with Juan de Salazar and reveals a 1539 indigenous rebellion planned for Maundy Thursday, betraying her people.

[11] The figure of the India Juliana has been reclaimed as a foremother by Paraguayan academics and activists as part of a process of "recovery of feminist and women's genealogies" in South America, intended to move away from the Eurocentric vision.

[39] The same has happened in Ecuador with Dolores Cacuango and Tránsito Amaguaña; in the central Andes region with Bartolina Sisa and Micaela Bastidas; and in Argentina with María Remedios del Valle and Juana Azurduy.

[44] Paraguayan singer-songwriter Claudia Miranda included a song about the India Juliana in her 2020 debut studio album Las brujas,[45] which was made with the support of the organization Centro de Documentación y Estudios (Spanish for "Center for Documentation and Studies" [CDE]).