Bernal Diaz del Castillo includes her in the group of "exceptional women" he extols for their bravery and intelligence along with Isabel Rodríguez, La Malinche, María Estrada, Beatriz Bermúdez de Velasco, and others.
She arrived to America in 1508, along with her husband, Alonso Valiente, Hernan Cortés´s cousin, and with other conquerors and their wives, to help develop the settlement there.
Both Bernal Diaz del Castillo and Francisco López de Gómara narrate how Salazar tried to persuade the wives of the conquerors that their husbands are dead and they must all remarry.
[4] Despite her status as colonial heroine and her reputation of "woman of character", her husband fell madly in love with the native American María Monctezuma.
Unsurprisingly, his reasons to repudiate Juana were considered invalid by the Pope too, and his marriage to María was forcefully dissolved.