Bernal Díaz del Castillo

Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492 to 1496, birth date is uncertain – 1584) is a Spanish conquistador, who participates as a foot soldier in the conquest of Mexico with Hernán Cortés.

As a soldier of fortune, he participates in expeditions to Tierra Firma, to Cuba, and to the Yucatán peninsula before joining Cortés.

In his later years he is an encomendero and governor in Guatemala where he writes his memoirs called "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain".

This account contains the most reliable information we have about Dona Marina, the slave girl who served as a trilingual interpreter for Cortés, later known in legends as "La Malinche."

He begins his account of the conquest almost thirty years after the events and later revises and expands it in response to the account published by Cortes's chaplain Francisco López de Gómara, which he considers to be largely inaccurate in that it does not give due recognition to the efforts and sacrifices of common soldiers.

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