María de Estrada

There had been the bloody unrest in Cortés' absence, and now the conquistadors were struck by a full-scale native revolt known as the Noche Triste: after a week of street battles, the army was forced to fight its way back out of the city, suffering heavy casualties and losing most of its baggage and artillery.

[7]: 302 Most of the early sources refer to María de Estrada in general terms among the small number of women who accompanied the army at this time, but a handful of writers of the later sixteenth century single her out as a soldier.

Cortés certainly gave María and her husband an extensive encomienda in this area, based at Tetela del Volcán, with subsidiary units at Nepopoalco and at Hueyapan itself, while Sánchez Farfán also gained additional estates further to the west.

[10] The basic fact that María de Estrada accompanied Cortés' army to Mexico is vouched for by eyewitness memoirs and most historians agree as to the reliability of the evidence on which her detailed biography is based.

Luisa Campuzano, in the fullest discussion of the problem, concluded that the sources support each other, and provide a consistent factual and psychological portrait,[11] but other historians have been more cautious, suggesting that María de Estrada's military prowess may be a literary fiction,[12] and inferring that she arrived in the New World too late to be the castaway rescued in 1513.