Princess Eréndira of the Purépecha was the princess of the Purépecha from about 1503–1519.
Life
Eréndira was 16–17 when the Spanish came to Mexico. The Tarascan state's cazonci, Tangaxuan II, had given up his kingdom and people to the Spanish after he saw the downfall of the Aztec Empire to the Spanish. The story of princess Eréndira's subsequent role as a heroine is based on tradition and may or may not reflect actual events, since there are no contemporary records of her existence. According to the folk legend she led a war on the Spanish. Setting up base on a hill, she attacked the arriving Spaniards. She is said to have killed a Spanish horseman and stole his horse, later using it to train others in horsemanship. During one battle, some Spanish warriors found and murdered Eréndira's father in his sleep. Eréndira heard of his death and went to see him. According to the tradition, this was when the Purépecha began to lose the war. There are many theories as to what happened to her. Some of which include her suicide by drowning, her leaving to train others for war and that she killed herself for falling in love with a Spanish monk. One legend even claims that she was kidnapped by her own people and put into a temple so that the Spaniards should not find and kill her.
Legacy
When Lázaro Cárdenas was governor of Michoacán, he built a house in Pátzcuaro, which he named "La Quinta Eréndira." She had been a regional figure, but as governor and president, Cárdenas raised her name recognition significantly. She became a symbol of indigenous resistance to the Spanish conquest, specifically as a foil to the role of Cortés's indigenous cultural translator Malinche. Cárdenas commissioned muralistFermín Revueltas to paint murals of Purépecha history and reshape the national narrative from one focused on the Aztecs to one rooted in the indigenous of Michoacan. The story of Eréndira was also used to reshape "Mexico's nation-building ideology of mestizaje" and put "Purépecha past...as the idealorigin of the Mexican nation."
