Isabel Moctezuma
After the Spanish conquest, Doña Isabel was recognized as Moctezuma's legitimate heir, and became one of the indigenous Mexicans granted an encomienda.
Doña Isabel's mother was Princess Teotlalco and her birth name was Tecuich(po)tzin, translated as "lord's daughter" in Nahuatl.
After her father was killed, either by his own people or the Spanish, she was quickly married to her uncle Cuitláhuac who became emperor after Moctezuma's death.
On surrendering, Cuauhtémoc asked the Spanish to respect the ladies of his court, including his young wife Tecuichpotzin.
[7] Cortés arranged the marriage of Doña Isabel to his close colleague Alonso de Grado in June 1526.
In July 1526 Cortés gave Alonso de Grado, Isabel's husband, the position of "Visitador Real" – a traveling auditor with authority to exert judicial and executive power in the name of the crown – of New Spain.
[12] The causes for this change of heart are uncertain, but set the basis for a recent portrayal of her as an anti-slavery "activist" and a mother of native independence in some ideological spheres.
According to Spanish sources, she refused to recognize the child, who was placed in the care of Juan Gutiérrez de Altamirano, another close associate of Cortés.
Cortés however accepted the child as his own and ensured that she was brought up well and received an inheritance from his and Doña Isabel’s estate.
She directed that her Indian slaves be set free, one-fifth of the estate be given to the Catholic Church, and that all her outstanding debts, including wages owed to servants, be paid.
[18] Isabel willed the majority of her encomienda to her eldest son, Juan de Andrade, but his inheritance of her encomienda was disputed by her widower, Juan Cano, and Diego Arias de Sotelo, son-in-law of Leonor (Mariana) Moctezuma, who he claimed was Moctezuma's true heir.
The result after years of litigation was that Arias de Sotelo's claim was dismissed, and Tacuba was divided between Cano and Andrade.
[19] The Miravalle line of Spanish nobility began with Isabel's son, Juan de Andrade.
Her son, Juan Cano Moctezuma, married into a prominent family in Cáceres, Spain, where the Palacio de Toledo-Moctezuma still exists.
Isabel and Leonor's descendants quickly intermarried with the most important families of Extremadura, one of the richest areas of Spain at the time.
Isabel is the ancestress of Rosario Nadal, the wife of Kyril, Prince of Preslav, Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, 19th Duke of Alba, Marie-Liesse Claude Anne Rolande de Rohan-Chabot, the wife of Prince Eudes Thibaut Joseph Marie of Orléans and Ignacio de Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, 19th Duke of Segorbe, husband of Princess Maria da Glória, Duchess of Segorbe, the former wife of Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia.
Her descendants were the most prominent example of her day of mestizaje – melding Spanish and indigenous Mexican ancestries – that would characterize the future of Mexico.
