Catalina de los Ríos y Lísperguer (October 1604 – January 16, 1665), nicknamed La Quintrala because of her flaming red hair (similar in color to a scarlet flower called quintrala), was an aristocratic 17th-century Chilean landowner and murderer of the Colonial Era. She is famous for her beauty and, according to legend, her cruel treatment of her servants. Her persona is strongly mythified, and survives in Chilean culture as the epitome of the wicked and abusive woman.

Catalina was the daughter of Gonzalo de los Ríos y Encío and his wife, Catalina Lísperguer y Flores, both members of the Chilean nobility.

Her father was the son of Gonzalo de los Ríos y Ávila [es], a Spanish soldier who fought in the Conquest of Chile, and María Encío [es], the sister of Juan Encío, who was one of the financiers of the expedition of Pedro de Valdivia. Gonzalo de los Ríos y Encío was a landowner of Santiago's colonial society. He held the rank of general in the Royal Army and was a maestre de campo who served as mayor of Santiago in 1611, 1614 and 1619. He was also the owner of a prosperous farm in Longotoma, which grew sugar cane using the labor of enslaved Black people. He also owned plantations in the valley of La Ligua that grew fruit trees and vineyards, and another farm in Cabildo called El Ingenio.

Catalina and María de Lísperguer were the only girls. The sisters—who had been accused of poisoning Governor Alonso de Ribera in 1604, out of spite—had as a blood brother Juan Rodulfo de Lísperguer y Flores, killed in the battle of the fort of Boroa in 1626. Her sister, María de Lísperguer, who had been charged with murder for the attempted poisoning, was expelled to Peru. Catalina Lísperguer remained in Chile and, with Gonzalo de los Ríos, had two daughters: Águeda, wife of the Liman judge Blas de Torres Altamirano, and Catalina, called La Quintrala.

"La Quintrala" grew up in a family of rich landowners; both the De los Ríos and the Lísperguers were renowned families in the 17th century high society of Santiago. Despite this, she did not receive a good education and was semiliterate until her death. She was mainly cared for by her father and grandmother.

The nickname "La Quintrala" is probably a deviation from the diminutive of her given name, Catrala or Catralita. However, another theory says that the nickname comes from the fact that she whipped her slaves with branches from the quintral (Tristerix corymbosus), an indigenous parasitic plant whose red flowers matched Catalina's red hair. Magdalena Petit also maintains in her book La Quintrala that the nickname comes from the quintral, making a comparison to the color of her hair.

Catalina was considered a beauty, with a white complexion, a tall stature, red hair, and intense green eyes. She was a mix of Amerindian, Spanish, and German blood, which had given her remarkable physical attributes "that made her very attractive to men", according to the chronicles of bishop Francisco González de Salcedo (1622–1634).

It is said that one of her aunts, along with her grandmother Águeda Flores (daughter of Tala Canta Ilabe, the Incan governor of Talagante), had approached the young woman with the pagan practices of witchcraft.