Franciscans produced two narrative genres. Both derived from their founding in 1209 as a monastic order dedicated to emulating Christ’s life of poverty and his last days of pain. As mentioned in the post for 10 April 2016, Isidro Félix de Espinosa wrote biographies of men associated with the missionary college in Querétaro that described their self-mortification rituals.
The second group of narratives arose from changing attitudes toward poverty. During the Black Death plague that arrived in Spain in 1348, Franciscan monasteries grew wealthy from "endowments for prayers for the dead, which were then usually founded with real estate."
In the stagnation that followed, the friars discipline was relaxed, and dissenters reformed into competing groups. In 1517, partly as a consequence of Bernardino Albizeschi’s sermons in Italy, Leo X selected one group as the true Franciscans, the Observant Friars Minors, and declared preaching their primary mission.
The Council of Trent reaffirmed their vows of poverty. However, by then many no longer understood that to mean they actually should live in poverty. Instead, they’d come to see their status as an opportunity for those with wealth, including monarchs, to insure their afterlives by supporting them with alms. Indeed, when Franciscans located their college at Querétaro, they selected that site over one closer to the missionary frontier "because of the hope that local alms would aid in supporting the college and its work, a hope which could not be realized in the sparse settlements of the north."
Unlike their contemporaries in New England, Franciscans had problems explaining why their expectations often were unfulfilled. Jonathan Edwards could point to "the meer Pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign Pleasure, his arbitrary Will, restrained by no Obligation" in Massachusetts in 1741, but Franciscans only had the kindly God who had sent them Christ.
Edwards could point to the "very Nature of carnal Men" where lay "corrupt Principles" that were "active and powerful, and exceeding violent in their Nature, and if it were not for the restraining Hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the
same Manner as the same Corruptions, the same Enmity does in the Hearts of damned Souls, and would beget the same Torments in ‘em as they do in them." Administering the sacraments precluded accusing the wealthy and powerful of witchcraft or sin.
When others didn’t honor obligations they believed were due them, Franciscan writers could only resort to legal arguments that represented themselves as martyrs. The theme had been voiced in Perú in 1677 by Miguel Serrano de Alvarracín when he complained criollos were keeping Iberians from their rightful places in provinces that had been established generations before by Spaniards. "Is it just" he asked, "that we should be deprived of what we have planted and cultivated without even a mouthful being given to us?"
In Nuevo México, Observant Friars merged legends of martyrdom and sacrifice learned from oral tradition with legalities when they described their experiences. In 1760, Juan Sanz began his "account of lamentable happenings" in contemporary New Mexico with the Pueblo revolt. In his first paragraph, he wrote: "twenty-one religious perished at the hands of the Indians, some of them burned, others shot with arrows, while some were clubbed to death."
This had occurred almost sixty years before Sanz arrived at Zía in 1748. He could only have known some of those details from listening to others.
He arrived just after an El Niño, but experienced several dry stretches during his term. In 1760, he could still intone "this kingdom is as fertile in grain production as Old Castile. The wheat is unequaled; corn and all kinds of vegetables do well; fruits are few on account of the great amount of snow and ice; the meats, both of cattle and sheep, are most excellent. Besides the silver-bearing ores, which are well known, there is much copper, lead, antimony, and everything necessary for mining."
The consequences of drought and Comanche depredations could be seen everywhere in 1760, but the friar couldn’t credit them as the reason "all this lies waste, a kingdom with such great resources void of human energy." Instead, he argued it was all sacrificed "by the governors, for these gentlemen attend only to filling their own pockets."
His underlying assumptions of potential wealth were based on tales he’d heard from "many old men both in New Mexico and in the vicinity of Chihuahua." Their anecdotes probably reinforced stories he heard as a boy in the port of Cádiz that may have inspired him to migrate. It was probably only when such wealth didn’t come his way that he joined the Franciscans in Mexico City when he was 28.
One source for his effigy of New Mexico surely was Carlos Delgado, who’d been part of a council called in 1722 to explain to a representative of the viceroy why the area wasn’t more densely settled. In making a plea for increased funding, the group said "the country was rich in metals and well adapted to agriculture and the raising of stock, and that any expenditure of money by the government would be a good investment."
Sanz wasn’t with Delgado when the latter went to induce Moquis to abandon their pueblo for the Río Grande in 1745. But, he’d been told that, "because the said government had not assisted them with the necessary food, men and animals, they could not bring out more than two thousand souls." Most didn’t go beyond Zuñi.
He wasn’t with Delgado when the older friar first evangelized the Navajo, but in 1748 Sanz had been sent to continue Christianizing the ones at Cebolleta. When their efforts were supported by the governor, Sanz complained Joaquín Codallos ordered the pueblo of Ácoma to build a church at Cebolleta. He believed the demonstration of conscripted labor was what "created such a schism among the Apaches that the latter desisted from the intended conversion, and revolted."
The Franciscan concluded, "We were left disconsolate at such a fatal misfortune, which we were without power to remedy. This proves the hopelessness, unless God provides, of there being any more conversions."
They didn’t share the Puritan attitude that a failure to overcome adversity was a sign one lacked God’s grace, a sign to be disguised by renewed efforts. The Franciscan attitude that poverty was a condition that entitled them to support by the monarchy was absorbed by others. At that meeting in 1722 when Antonio Cobián Busto asked why there was so little to show from the viceroy’s earlier expenditures on the kingdom, men blamed their poverty, and their fear of Indian raids. As mentioned in the post for 21 February 2016, officials in 1746 again were invoking poverty as an entitlement, this time to evade paying taxes.
Notes: Black death was bubonic plague. Cobián’s visit was described in the post for 28 June 2015.
Alvarracín, Miguel Serrano de. Memorial, Madrid, 22 June 1677, quoted by Antonine Tibesar, "The Alternativa: A Study in Spanish-Creole Relations in Seventeenth-Century Peru," The Americas 11:229-283:1955.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, 1889; quotations on council of 1722.
Bihl, Michael. "Order of Friars Minor," Charles George Herbermann, The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6, 1909; quotation on effects of Black Death.
Edwards, Jonathan. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," sermon preached at Enfield, Connecticut, 8 July 1741; edited by Reiner Smolinski.
McCloskey, Michael B. The Formative Years of the Missionary College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro 1683-1733, 1955; quotation on alms and Querétaro
Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000; on Sanz’s background.
Sanz de Lezaún, Juan. An account of lamentable happenings in New Mexico and of losses experienced daily in affairs spiritual and temporal, 4 November1760; translation in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Franciscans and Society
Nueva México society was divided into four estates: Natives, Spanish-speakers, government employees, and the clergy. The first included those living in pueblos who still spoke one of several languages, nomadic groups like the Jicarilla and Navajo, and captives mainly from the plains. Spanish speakers were stratified by wealth, while the government was represented by short-term governors, longer-term appointees like alcaldes, and paid soldiers in the presidio.
Loyalties between groups were weak. Franciscans, like governors, were always outsiders who rarely heard the truth. Their relations with other groups were treacherous because none could be trusted. The appointees represented the local equivalent to the conflicts elsewhere between criollos and Spaniards.
Governors were expected to implement orders from the viceroy, while defending the kingdom’s boundaries. They knew there were rewards if they succeeded, and penalties if they didn’t. From at least the time of Diego de Vargas they wrote glowing, if misleading, chronicles of their deeds.
Viceroys learned to be suspicious, and instituted verification procedures. Each new governor was expected to canvass each of the towns and pueblos to learn if there were unreported problems from the previous administration. Of course, they never found any.
It isn’t clear if men with land or those in the pueblos were willing to make public complaints. The governor only stayed a few years, but each new man might regard anyone who criticized his predecessor with suspicion.
A bigger concern may have been members of governors’ administrations who would have been implicated in complaints. Soldiers in the presidio and alcaldes stayed in their communities. Angélico Chávez said, the Franciscan custos didn’t critize the secular clergyman, Santiago Roybal, "for fear that Roybal would avail himself of an excuse to set the military on the Religious."
The alcaldes were described by Franciscan Carlos Delgado as men who took the positions "solely for the purpose of advancing their own interests and acquiring property with which to make presents to the governors." Another friar, Juan Sanz, noted appointments went to those "who gives the most mules or sheep."
Pedro de Rivera probably was responsible for the regression of alcaldeships into the sinecures purchased in hopes of profit that were common in Nuevo España. In 1726, he had curtailed appointing men who were enlisted in the presidio because he believed alcalde mayores "had the privilege of retirement and who received a fixed salary from the king." Whoever held the position still had the same responsibilities, but suddenly had less income.
Franciscans found the pueblos equally unreliable. They had accepted missionaries under threat of force by Diego de Vargas, and used every tool available to them to keep both them and the alcaldes as distant as possible.
When the bishop of Durango talked to them in 1730, they told Benito Crespo what they thought he wanted to hear. They intimated the only reason they didn’t confess at least once a year was they had to use interpreters, and would do so more often if the fathers spoke their language. One suspects the real reason they didn’t confess was that it violated some basic norm. Language was simply a useful subterfuge.
After Juan Antonio de Ornedal made the same indictment in 1750, Delgado observed the Natives "know how to lament and complain in a language, or idiom, in which their laments may be understood and comprehended" and yet they are supposed to be "mute in Castilian."
Simultaneously, pueblo representatives were telling friars the reasons they didn’t covert was because of bad things the governor and his representatives had done to them. Then, they told the alcaldes negative things about the friars.
It may well be the reason the friars were transferred so often, especially if they began to understand the local language, was some comment made to the authorities to have them removed before they could be effective. The men who stayed the longest at San Juan and Santa Clara, Juan de la Cruz and Manuel Sopeña, were ones mentioned by Crespo as among the most negligent.
Reports from the colonists were equally suspect. They wanted the presidio to protect them, but didn’t like paying taxes or going on campaigns. Philip V and his viceroys wanted tax and tithe collection to be more efficient. Sanz believed that, since governors had become responsible for collecting the tithe, "the country has been even worse off. Formerly the settlers exerted themselves to sow because the governor bought everything from them in order to supply the presidio, but now it taxes them to be able to sow enough for their own sustenance."
At the same time, the settlers wanted the friars to pacify the pueblos they didn’t want them interfering in their own affairs, any more than was necessary to legitimatize marriages. Crespo indicated that, when he suggested the churches in Albuquerque, Santa Fé and Santa Cruz could be transferred to his jurisdiction, he was told "the citizens desire this with all eagerness, and they asked me to seek it."
Notes: Crespo comments on Juan de la Cruz and Manuel Sopeña were described in the post for 28 June 2015. Rivera’s directive on alcaldes was discussed in the post for 3 January 2016. Friar transfers between missions were discussed in the post for 6 April 2016. The post for 27 March 2016 discussed Benito Crespo’s proposed mission transfers.
Adams, Eleanor B. Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Bandelier, Adolph F. A. and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Chávez, Angélico. "El Vicario Don Santiago Roybal," El Palacio 65:231-252:1948.
Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Adams; recommended secularizing villa missions.
_____. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 25 September 1730; translation in Adams; discussed reasons for not confessing.
Delgado, Carlos. Report to our Reverend Father Ximeno concerning the abominable hostilities and tyrannies of the governors and alcaldes mayores toward the Indians, to the consternation of the custodia, 1750; translation in Bandelier.
Delgado [Esp Hist I17 p427] alcades; p439 - language
Rivera Villalón, Pedro de. Proyecto (inspection report), 1728, in Thomas H. Naylor and Charles W. Polzer. Pedro de Rivera and the Military Regulations for Northern New Spain, 1724-1729, 1988.
Sanz de Lezaún, Juan. An account of lamentable happenings in New Mexico and of losses experienced daily in affairs spiritual and temporal, 4 Novwmber1760; translation in Bandelier.
Loyalties between groups were weak. Franciscans, like governors, were always outsiders who rarely heard the truth. Their relations with other groups were treacherous because none could be trusted. The appointees represented the local equivalent to the conflicts elsewhere between criollos and Spaniards.
Governors were expected to implement orders from the viceroy, while defending the kingdom’s boundaries. They knew there were rewards if they succeeded, and penalties if they didn’t. From at least the time of Diego de Vargas they wrote glowing, if misleading, chronicles of their deeds.
Viceroys learned to be suspicious, and instituted verification procedures. Each new governor was expected to canvass each of the towns and pueblos to learn if there were unreported problems from the previous administration. Of course, they never found any.
It isn’t clear if men with land or those in the pueblos were willing to make public complaints. The governor only stayed a few years, but each new man might regard anyone who criticized his predecessor with suspicion.
A bigger concern may have been members of governors’ administrations who would have been implicated in complaints. Soldiers in the presidio and alcaldes stayed in their communities. Angélico Chávez said, the Franciscan custos didn’t critize the secular clergyman, Santiago Roybal, "for fear that Roybal would avail himself of an excuse to set the military on the Religious."
The alcaldes were described by Franciscan Carlos Delgado as men who took the positions "solely for the purpose of advancing their own interests and acquiring property with which to make presents to the governors." Another friar, Juan Sanz, noted appointments went to those "who gives the most mules or sheep."
Pedro de Rivera probably was responsible for the regression of alcaldeships into the sinecures purchased in hopes of profit that were common in Nuevo España. In 1726, he had curtailed appointing men who were enlisted in the presidio because he believed alcalde mayores "had the privilege of retirement and who received a fixed salary from the king." Whoever held the position still had the same responsibilities, but suddenly had less income.
Franciscans found the pueblos equally unreliable. They had accepted missionaries under threat of force by Diego de Vargas, and used every tool available to them to keep both them and the alcaldes as distant as possible.
When the bishop of Durango talked to them in 1730, they told Benito Crespo what they thought he wanted to hear. They intimated the only reason they didn’t confess at least once a year was they had to use interpreters, and would do so more often if the fathers spoke their language. One suspects the real reason they didn’t confess was that it violated some basic norm. Language was simply a useful subterfuge.
After Juan Antonio de Ornedal made the same indictment in 1750, Delgado observed the Natives "know how to lament and complain in a language, or idiom, in which their laments may be understood and comprehended" and yet they are supposed to be "mute in Castilian."
Simultaneously, pueblo representatives were telling friars the reasons they didn’t covert was because of bad things the governor and his representatives had done to them. Then, they told the alcaldes negative things about the friars.
It may well be the reason the friars were transferred so often, especially if they began to understand the local language, was some comment made to the authorities to have them removed before they could be effective. The men who stayed the longest at San Juan and Santa Clara, Juan de la Cruz and Manuel Sopeña, were ones mentioned by Crespo as among the most negligent.
Reports from the colonists were equally suspect. They wanted the presidio to protect them, but didn’t like paying taxes or going on campaigns. Philip V and his viceroys wanted tax and tithe collection to be more efficient. Sanz believed that, since governors had become responsible for collecting the tithe, "the country has been even worse off. Formerly the settlers exerted themselves to sow because the governor bought everything from them in order to supply the presidio, but now it taxes them to be able to sow enough for their own sustenance."
At the same time, the settlers wanted the friars to pacify the pueblos they didn’t want them interfering in their own affairs, any more than was necessary to legitimatize marriages. Crespo indicated that, when he suggested the churches in Albuquerque, Santa Fé and Santa Cruz could be transferred to his jurisdiction, he was told "the citizens desire this with all eagerness, and they asked me to seek it."
Notes: Crespo comments on Juan de la Cruz and Manuel Sopeña were described in the post for 28 June 2015. Rivera’s directive on alcaldes was discussed in the post for 3 January 2016. Friar transfers between missions were discussed in the post for 6 April 2016. The post for 27 March 2016 discussed Benito Crespo’s proposed mission transfers.
Adams, Eleanor B. Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Bandelier, Adolph F. A. and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Chávez, Angélico. "El Vicario Don Santiago Roybal," El Palacio 65:231-252:1948.
Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Adams; recommended secularizing villa missions.
_____. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 25 September 1730; translation in Adams; discussed reasons for not confessing.
Delgado, Carlos. Report to our Reverend Father Ximeno concerning the abominable hostilities and tyrannies of the governors and alcaldes mayores toward the Indians, to the consternation of the custodia, 1750; translation in Bandelier.
Delgado [Esp Hist I17 p427] alcades; p439 - language
Rivera Villalón, Pedro de. Proyecto (inspection report), 1728, in Thomas H. Naylor and Charles W. Polzer. Pedro de Rivera and the Military Regulations for Northern New Spain, 1724-1729, 1988.
Sanz de Lezaún, Juan. An account of lamentable happenings in New Mexico and of losses experienced daily in affairs spiritual and temporal, 4 Novwmber1760; translation in Bandelier.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Revivals
Religious fervor has a tendency to abate with time. By 1740, many Puritans in New England had grown so comfortable with their faith they do longer wondered if they were among the elect. It had become the corollary of their financial success.
Then, George Whitefield came from England to preach outdoors without patronage from any particular clergyman or church. While his theology was Calvinist, his style was drawn from theater. The audience didn’t hear about a fearsome God, it experienced salvation. What we now call the First Great Awakening spread through Pennsylvania, New York and New England.
In Nueva España another form of inertia had set in. Even under the constrictions of drought and war, life was comfortable. As David Brading mentioned in the post for 30 March 2016, no one protested when parishes administered by religious orders were turned over to secular clergy in 1749.
Isidro Félix de Espinosa had little interest in chronicling Franciscan activities when asked by the order in Michoacán to write its history. Instead, the Querétaro native suggested, more was happening in the missionary colleges where Franciscans were training men to convert the pagans in Tejas. The challenges of new conquests were invigorating the faith of men.
In 1737, he published a biography of one man he knew from his years in Tejas. Antonio Margil de Jesús never looked anyone in the face lest he be tempted by the devil. He scourged himself daily, wore cilices three times a week, and every night went walking with a heavy cross.
A few years later Espinosa wrote a history of the Querétaro college where he had served as guardian. One of the men he identified as a model for young friars went into the fields barefoot every Friday. Melchoir López de Jesús carried "a heavy cross on his shoulders, a cord at his neck, and a crown of thorns pressed so tight that at times drops of blood drawn from the thorns could be seen on his venerable face."
Later, he wrote his own brother, Juan Antonio Pérez de Espinosa, slept on leather sheets, fasted regularly, wore cilices, scourged himself three times a week, and slept in a coffin. He kept a copy of his family tree decorated with skulls and skeletons.
Espinosa said nothing of his own habits, but did say when Margil and López were in Guatemala, they were so appalled by the prevailing idolatry they made the Indians repent by walking in public processions carrying crosses and wearing cilices.
While the two revivals occurred at roughly the same time, they differed in their consequences. The Great Awakening introduced a new style and new organization to reach a new audience, the artisans and yeomen who lived outside the Puritan, Quaker, and Anglican elites.
The Franciscan activities that attracted David Brading’s interest harkened back to medieval practice, perhaps done in the face of competition from Jesuits. Both were lobbying for rights to evangelize the Moqui when he was writing.
When the Jesuits were given the Moqui commission, Carlos Delgado and Ignacio del Pino went to the Moqui towns in 1743 and induced 144 Tiwa speakers to return. Then they demanded the governor, Gaspar de Mendoza, provide them with a pueblo. He refused to act without the viceroy’s authorization. Most of the returnees were sent to Jémez, the rest to Isleta.
Delgado was one of the men sent from Andalucía to the Querétaro college, but Jim Norris found he "left that group for unspecified reasons." No one I’ve read has said if he followed the self-mortification regimes of his college’s founders, but he did absorb their methods for conducting mass campaigns.
The next year, the head of the Franciscans in México recommended local friars direct their attention to the Navajo, who had been identified by Benito Crespo as potential Christians in 1730. Delgado and José de Irigoyen headed back west, distributed gifts, and claimed 4,000 souls.
The impressed viceroy authorized four missions with a garrison for the latter. The new governor, Joaquín Codallos, agreed to send an escort when Delgado, Irigoyen, and Pino returned west in 1745.
Juan Miguel Menchero followed them in 1746. He convinced 500 or 600 Athabascan speakers to move down to Cebolleta in the Ácoma region. However, when he returned two years later, the drought was so severe the springs had dried. The Navajo had been pushed south by the Utes who lived in an even more arid region. They could see the problems with sedentary agriculture.
In 1750, they told the priest assigned to Cebolleta, "they did not want pueblos now." They said, they were willing "to have water thrown upon" the heads of some of their children but they could not "stay in one place because they had been raised like deer." They thought maybe the ones who were baptized "might perhaps build a pueblo and have a father" someday.
In the meantime, Menchero did succeed in getting permission to resettle the Moqui émigrés at Sandía in 1748, satisfied he had planted "the seed of the Christian Faith among the residents of the pueblos of Ácoma, Laguna and Zía."
Notes: Cilices were what we commonly call hair shirts, although the rough cloths could be worn on the chest or around the loin. I don’t know if self-mortification was a dominant theme in the works of Espinosa, or was of particular interest to Brading. It may have been a matter of etiquette that individuals didn’t mention their own practices.
Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, 1994.
Espinosa, Isidro Félix de. Crónica Apostólica, 1746; cited by Brading on López.
_____. Crónica de la Provincia Franciscan, 1749 manuscript; cited by Brading on Franciscans in Michoacán.
_____. El familiar de la América, 1753 manuscript; cited by Brading on Juan Antonio Pérez de Espinosa
_____. El Peregrino, 1737; cited by Brading on Margil.
Menchero, Juan Miguel. Petition to Joaquín Codallos y Rabal, 5 April 1748; translation in Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 2, 1914.
Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000.
Reeve, Frank D. "The Navaho-Spanish Peace: 1720's-1770's," New Mexico Historical Review 34:9-40:1959.
Ruyamor, Fernando. Testimony as alcalde mayor of Ácoma and Laguna before Bernardo Antonio de Bustamante y Tagle at Ácoma, 18 April 1750, translation in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett; quotation on free as deer.
Sanz de Lezaún, Juan. An account of lamentable happenings in New Mexico and of losses experienced daily in affairs spiritual and temporal, 4 November1760; translation in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Then, George Whitefield came from England to preach outdoors without patronage from any particular clergyman or church. While his theology was Calvinist, his style was drawn from theater. The audience didn’t hear about a fearsome God, it experienced salvation. What we now call the First Great Awakening spread through Pennsylvania, New York and New England.
In Nueva España another form of inertia had set in. Even under the constrictions of drought and war, life was comfortable. As David Brading mentioned in the post for 30 March 2016, no one protested when parishes administered by religious orders were turned over to secular clergy in 1749.
Isidro Félix de Espinosa had little interest in chronicling Franciscan activities when asked by the order in Michoacán to write its history. Instead, the Querétaro native suggested, more was happening in the missionary colleges where Franciscans were training men to convert the pagans in Tejas. The challenges of new conquests were invigorating the faith of men.
In 1737, he published a biography of one man he knew from his years in Tejas. Antonio Margil de Jesús never looked anyone in the face lest he be tempted by the devil. He scourged himself daily, wore cilices three times a week, and every night went walking with a heavy cross.
A few years later Espinosa wrote a history of the Querétaro college where he had served as guardian. One of the men he identified as a model for young friars went into the fields barefoot every Friday. Melchoir López de Jesús carried "a heavy cross on his shoulders, a cord at his neck, and a crown of thorns pressed so tight that at times drops of blood drawn from the thorns could be seen on his venerable face."
Later, he wrote his own brother, Juan Antonio Pérez de Espinosa, slept on leather sheets, fasted regularly, wore cilices, scourged himself three times a week, and slept in a coffin. He kept a copy of his family tree decorated with skulls and skeletons.
Espinosa said nothing of his own habits, but did say when Margil and López were in Guatemala, they were so appalled by the prevailing idolatry they made the Indians repent by walking in public processions carrying crosses and wearing cilices.
While the two revivals occurred at roughly the same time, they differed in their consequences. The Great Awakening introduced a new style and new organization to reach a new audience, the artisans and yeomen who lived outside the Puritan, Quaker, and Anglican elites.
The Franciscan activities that attracted David Brading’s interest harkened back to medieval practice, perhaps done in the face of competition from Jesuits. Both were lobbying for rights to evangelize the Moqui when he was writing.
When the Jesuits were given the Moqui commission, Carlos Delgado and Ignacio del Pino went to the Moqui towns in 1743 and induced 144 Tiwa speakers to return. Then they demanded the governor, Gaspar de Mendoza, provide them with a pueblo. He refused to act without the viceroy’s authorization. Most of the returnees were sent to Jémez, the rest to Isleta.
Delgado was one of the men sent from Andalucía to the Querétaro college, but Jim Norris found he "left that group for unspecified reasons." No one I’ve read has said if he followed the self-mortification regimes of his college’s founders, but he did absorb their methods for conducting mass campaigns.
The next year, the head of the Franciscans in México recommended local friars direct their attention to the Navajo, who had been identified by Benito Crespo as potential Christians in 1730. Delgado and José de Irigoyen headed back west, distributed gifts, and claimed 4,000 souls.
The impressed viceroy authorized four missions with a garrison for the latter. The new governor, Joaquín Codallos, agreed to send an escort when Delgado, Irigoyen, and Pino returned west in 1745.
Juan Miguel Menchero followed them in 1746. He convinced 500 or 600 Athabascan speakers to move down to Cebolleta in the Ácoma region. However, when he returned two years later, the drought was so severe the springs had dried. The Navajo had been pushed south by the Utes who lived in an even more arid region. They could see the problems with sedentary agriculture.
In 1750, they told the priest assigned to Cebolleta, "they did not want pueblos now." They said, they were willing "to have water thrown upon" the heads of some of their children but they could not "stay in one place because they had been raised like deer." They thought maybe the ones who were baptized "might perhaps build a pueblo and have a father" someday.
In the meantime, Menchero did succeed in getting permission to resettle the Moqui émigrés at Sandía in 1748, satisfied he had planted "the seed of the Christian Faith among the residents of the pueblos of Ácoma, Laguna and Zía."
Notes: Cilices were what we commonly call hair shirts, although the rough cloths could be worn on the chest or around the loin. I don’t know if self-mortification was a dominant theme in the works of Espinosa, or was of particular interest to Brading. It may have been a matter of etiquette that individuals didn’t mention their own practices.
Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, 1994.
Espinosa, Isidro Félix de. Crónica Apostólica, 1746; cited by Brading on López.
_____. Crónica de la Provincia Franciscan, 1749 manuscript; cited by Brading on Franciscans in Michoacán.
_____. El familiar de la América, 1753 manuscript; cited by Brading on Juan Antonio Pérez de Espinosa
_____. El Peregrino, 1737; cited by Brading on Margil.
Menchero, Juan Miguel. Petition to Joaquín Codallos y Rabal, 5 April 1748; translation in Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 2, 1914.
Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000.
Reeve, Frank D. "The Navaho-Spanish Peace: 1720's-1770's," New Mexico Historical Review 34:9-40:1959.
Ruyamor, Fernando. Testimony as alcalde mayor of Ácoma and Laguna before Bernardo Antonio de Bustamante y Tagle at Ácoma, 18 April 1750, translation in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett; quotation on free as deer.
Sanz de Lezaún, Juan. An account of lamentable happenings in New Mexico and of losses experienced daily in affairs spiritual and temporal, 4 November1760; translation in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Wednesday, April 06, 2016
Franciscan Turnover
The viceroy sent Juan Antonio de Ornedal to Nueva México in 1750 to access the effectiveness of Franciscan missions. He reported there still were problems with communication between friars and members of the pueblos.
Carlos Delgado answered his criticisms by noting, "governors enjoy the royal patronage, whenever a religious begins to understand the language of the natives of a mission, they remove him to another and provide the mission with a different person, to whom the language is new and who needs some years in which to understand it and many more to speak it."
Turnover wouldn’t have mattered if friars only were expected to say masses and administer sacraments. Indeed, when there were vacancies or men were away, any ordained priest could fulfill the Tridentine requirements.
If men were transferred frequently, then the only way they could socialize Natives into Christian society was for everyone to speak one language. The need to rotate men on short notice, like cases of illness or death, meant Juan Miguel Menchero’s proposal that friars teach Castilian was more appropriate than Benito Crespo’s that friars learn native language. It also was more consistent with Philip V’s attempts to standardize the language spoken within Spain.
The extent turnover was a potential problem can be deduced from the list of names Angélico Chávez compiled from signatures in parish baptismal, marriage, and burial records. During this period, 54 men served in the missions of Nuevo México. Of the total, 16 were already here in 1730. They remained an average of 20 years after Crespo’s visit in 1730.
The longest serving when the bishop arrived was Pedro Montaño, who had come in 1710 and stayed until 1752. Second in seniority was Delgado himself, who first appeared in the record in Laguna in 1712 and was last known in Isleta in 1749. Between 1733 and 1760, 36 men were sent to the kingdom. Of those, twelve stayed six or less years.
While there was some stability within the Franciscan population as a group, there was little within the missions. The men who were here in 1733 were assigned to an average of 10 missions while they were in New Mexico, and spent an average of 2.7 years at each place.
Among those whose tenure coincided with the period and who stayed more than six years, the men were assigned to fewer places, an average of 5.8, but they also spent less time at each, an average of 2.25 years. Those who were still active in 1760, eventually worked in an average of 8.5 missions, and their average stay was 2.4 years.
Compounding problems arising from aptitudes in linguistics was the temperament of the men sent to Nuevo Mexico. Ornedal claimed "most of the of the religious who cannot be controlled by their prelates are sent to those missions, and that they assign them to that province as a banishment and punishment."
Delgado, of course, demurred.
Jim Norris has exhumed biographical data about many who were mentioned by Chávez. Almost all came from merchant families in Mexico City, Puebla or Spain; a few were sons of military men or highly skilled metal workers. Few, if any, had lived in a rural or isolated area.
Most were trained in a Franciscan facility in Mexico City or Puebla. At some point, Norris said, some were selected to be missionaries. He found no information on the criteria used. Perhaps Ornedal was correct that the most promising candidates were groomed for other positions.
The would-be missionaries were sent to Santiago de Tlatelolco outside Ciudad de México to hone their preaching skills. That institution’s primary mission was preparing men for work with people who spoke Spanish or one of the native languages used by Aztecs or in the mining towns.
Menchero had been sent there in 1732 to determine what changes were needed in missionary education to improve the work in Nuevo México. He reported, men weren’t prepared for the psychological strains of mission work and noted the school only taught Nahuatl, Otomí, and Tarascán. Its rector saw no need to change. Even when friars who retired from Nuevo México were available, they weren’t used.
The Bishop of Durango inspected the missions in 1737. Martín de Elizacoechea alluded to another problem with the local friars when he suggested the men should "not be too young nor too old, but a mature age, sensible and prudent."
Norris found evidence that while men assigned to the north in the early years were between the ideal ages of 28 and 35, the age of first assignment fell in the 1730s, just prior to Crespo’s visitation. When Elizacoechea was here, men in their middle and late 40s were appearing. Only in the 1750s, were seasoned, but still vigorous men sent.
With such prior experiences, little changed. In 1760, Santiago Roybal told another bishop, Pedro Tamarón, "that none of the friars, old or new, apply themselves to learning the native language, nor, in my opinion, would they do anything about it even if further precepts were applied. They are little inclined to be studious, and therefore they continue as always with their fiscals and interpreters."
Notes: The proposals of Menchero and Crespo were described in the post for 3 April 2016. Philip’s attempts to standardize the Castilian language were discussed in the post for 28 June 2015.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
Delgado, Carlos. Report to our Reverend Father Ximeno concerning the abominable hostilities and tyrannies of the governors and alcaldes mayores toward the Indians, to the consternation of the custodia, 1750; in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Elizacoechea, Martín de. Report, 1737, quoted by Norris.
Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000.
Ornedal y Maza, Juan Antonio de. Informe sobre el lastimoso estado y decadencia en que se encuentran las misiones de Nuevo México, to Francisco de Güemes, 26 July 1749, El Paso. Paraphrased by Delgado; no one has admitted or otherwise shown evidence he read the original.
Roybal, Santiago. Quoted by Pedro Tamarón y Romeral in The Kingdom of New Mexico, 1760; translation in Eleanor B. Adams, Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Tables
1. Data from Chávez.
2. Data from Norris. He included men serving at El Paso. I selected only those named by Chávez and used the latter’s dates to define the decade when men entered. Norris was able to find the age and date men professed for about half the men. Those numbers were used to calculate a birth date and age of first assignment in Nuevo México.
Carlos Delgado answered his criticisms by noting, "governors enjoy the royal patronage, whenever a religious begins to understand the language of the natives of a mission, they remove him to another and provide the mission with a different person, to whom the language is new and who needs some years in which to understand it and many more to speak it."
Turnover wouldn’t have mattered if friars only were expected to say masses and administer sacraments. Indeed, when there were vacancies or men were away, any ordained priest could fulfill the Tridentine requirements.
If men were transferred frequently, then the only way they could socialize Natives into Christian society was for everyone to speak one language. The need to rotate men on short notice, like cases of illness or death, meant Juan Miguel Menchero’s proposal that friars teach Castilian was more appropriate than Benito Crespo’s that friars learn native language. It also was more consistent with Philip V’s attempts to standardize the language spoken within Spain.
The extent turnover was a potential problem can be deduced from the list of names Angélico Chávez compiled from signatures in parish baptismal, marriage, and burial records. During this period, 54 men served in the missions of Nuevo México. Of the total, 16 were already here in 1730. They remained an average of 20 years after Crespo’s visit in 1730.
The longest serving when the bishop arrived was Pedro Montaño, who had come in 1710 and stayed until 1752. Second in seniority was Delgado himself, who first appeared in the record in Laguna in 1712 and was last known in Isleta in 1749. Between 1733 and 1760, 36 men were sent to the kingdom. Of those, twelve stayed six or less years.
While there was some stability within the Franciscan population as a group, there was little within the missions. The men who were here in 1733 were assigned to an average of 10 missions while they were in New Mexico, and spent an average of 2.7 years at each place.
Among those whose tenure coincided with the period and who stayed more than six years, the men were assigned to fewer places, an average of 5.8, but they also spent less time at each, an average of 2.25 years. Those who were still active in 1760, eventually worked in an average of 8.5 missions, and their average stay was 2.4 years.
| Dates | Total Men in NM | Average Locations | Average Tenure |
| Before 1733 | 18 | 10 | 2.7 |
| 1733-1760 | 19 | 3.9 | 1.9 |
| Stay 7+ yrs | 8 | 5.8 | 2.25 |
| After 1760 | 17 | 8.5 | 2.4 |
Compounding problems arising from aptitudes in linguistics was the temperament of the men sent to Nuevo Mexico. Ornedal claimed "most of the of the religious who cannot be controlled by their prelates are sent to those missions, and that they assign them to that province as a banishment and punishment."
Delgado, of course, demurred.
Jim Norris has exhumed biographical data about many who were mentioned by Chávez. Almost all came from merchant families in Mexico City, Puebla or Spain; a few were sons of military men or highly skilled metal workers. Few, if any, had lived in a rural or isolated area.
Most were trained in a Franciscan facility in Mexico City or Puebla. At some point, Norris said, some were selected to be missionaries. He found no information on the criteria used. Perhaps Ornedal was correct that the most promising candidates were groomed for other positions.
The would-be missionaries were sent to Santiago de Tlatelolco outside Ciudad de México to hone their preaching skills. That institution’s primary mission was preparing men for work with people who spoke Spanish or one of the native languages used by Aztecs or in the mining towns.
Menchero had been sent there in 1732 to determine what changes were needed in missionary education to improve the work in Nuevo México. He reported, men weren’t prepared for the psychological strains of mission work and noted the school only taught Nahuatl, Otomí, and Tarascán. Its rector saw no need to change. Even when friars who retired from Nuevo México were available, they weren’t used.
The Bishop of Durango inspected the missions in 1737. Martín de Elizacoechea alluded to another problem with the local friars when he suggested the men should "not be too young nor too old, but a mature age, sensible and prudent."
Norris found evidence that while men assigned to the north in the early years were between the ideal ages of 28 and 35, the age of first assignment fell in the 1730s, just prior to Crespo’s visitation. When Elizacoechea was here, men in their middle and late 40s were appearing. Only in the 1750s, were seasoned, but still vigorous men sent.
| Date Arrive | Average Age | Number in Sample | Age Range |
| 1710-1719 | 32.25 | 4 | 28-35 |
| 1720-1729 | 28.5 | 4 | 23-34 |
| 1730-1739 | 38.5 | 4 | 28-46 |
| 1740-1749 | 39.7 | 9 | 28-49 |
| 1750-1759 | 36 | 5 | 29-38 |
With such prior experiences, little changed. In 1760, Santiago Roybal told another bishop, Pedro Tamarón, "that none of the friars, old or new, apply themselves to learning the native language, nor, in my opinion, would they do anything about it even if further precepts were applied. They are little inclined to be studious, and therefore they continue as always with their fiscals and interpreters."
Notes: The proposals of Menchero and Crespo were described in the post for 3 April 2016. Philip’s attempts to standardize the Castilian language were discussed in the post for 28 June 2015.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
Delgado, Carlos. Report to our Reverend Father Ximeno concerning the abominable hostilities and tyrannies of the governors and alcaldes mayores toward the Indians, to the consternation of the custodia, 1750; in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Elizacoechea, Martín de. Report, 1737, quoted by Norris.
Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000.
Ornedal y Maza, Juan Antonio de. Informe sobre el lastimoso estado y decadencia en que se encuentran las misiones de Nuevo México, to Francisco de Güemes, 26 July 1749, El Paso. Paraphrased by Delgado; no one has admitted or otherwise shown evidence he read the original.
Roybal, Santiago. Quoted by Pedro Tamarón y Romeral in The Kingdom of New Mexico, 1760; translation in Eleanor B. Adams, Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Tables
1. Data from Chávez.
2. Data from Norris. He included men serving at El Paso. I selected only those named by Chávez and used the latter’s dates to define the decade when men entered. Norris was able to find the age and date men professed for about half the men. Those numbers were used to calculate a birth date and age of first assignment in Nuevo México.
Sunday, April 03, 2016
Franciscans and Native Languages
Franciscans were successful in the early years in Nueva España, in part, because they were following Hernán Cortés through lands already subdued by the Aztec. Everyone spoke, or at least understood, some form of Nahuatl.
When settlement moved north with the mines, David Brading said, Franciscans "took the lead in learning native languages, publishing vocabularies, grammars and catechisms" in Tarascán, Mazáhua, and Otomí.
Their successes stopped when they reached the hostile, nomadic Chichimecas beyond Zacatecas. Michael McCloskey suggested, one reason was the sheer "diversity of languages."
Jesuits didn’t become active in the area until 1594, but they were able to establish ten missions and more smaller casas de doctrina in what today are "Sonora, western Chihuahua, northern Sinaloa, Durango, and a small part of Coahuila."
Franciscans retreated to serving the growing urban populations, both native and Spanish-speaking. McCloskey noted, two men usually were assigned to missions and three to eight were needed in the doctrinas they established to serve the surrounding pueblos. In the early years, they went everyday to teach, but, once most people had been instructed in the faith, they began only going on Sundays and feast days.
By 1680, both the advisors to Charles II and the Pope’s Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith were unhappy with Franciscans. The obispo de Durango was no happier with their activities in Nueva México in 1730.
Benito Crespo expected lay members to follow the sacraments defined by the Council of Trent, especially baptism and mass. He expected the clergy who were supported by the state to transform heathens into useful members of society. This meant they not only forsook all forms of religious observance except those sanctioned by the church, but also accepted their roles in the local economy.
He reported local Franciscans did neither. He wrote the viceroy, "all the pueblos of said missions remain in their paganism and idolatry, as the fathers themselves affirm, and they apostatize daily." He believed the only reason they didn’t revolt was the presence of the presidio.
Crespo emphasized communication was the problem. Friars didn’t understand the languages spoken in the pueblos, and Natives didn’t understand Castilian. The failure made Franciscans "as alien as if they had had no dealings with the said Indians." He was appalled that, since 1696, "there is no case when there has been a minister who knows the languages of the Indians."
The next year, the commissary general for the Franciscans, Juan Miguel Menchero ordered "the teaching of Spanish at every mission through the use of catechisms and readers."
The year after Martín de Elizacoechea followed Crespo as bishop of Durango silver was discovered at Planchas de Plata near modern Nogales in 1736. Overnight, the far western Zuñi and Moqui pueblos were reimagined from places too remote to be worth the cost of reconquering into population centers that might secure the northern treasure frontier from hostile raids. When Elizacoechea visited the kingdom in 1737, the bishop included the Zuñi on his itinerary.
In Ciudad de México Franciscans were lobbying for permission to revisit the Moqui, but the Jesuits already had successful missions near the mines. They were awarded jurisdiction, with the associated funding, in 1741.
By then fundamental differences existed between Franciscans and Jesuits. From the beginning the latter valued an educated clergy. They trained their priests for ten years, and operated secular schools. Franciscans were more ambivalent about learning. Some recognized the need for knowledge, especially of church teachings and canon law, to be effective. Others saw it as a distraction from meditation and preaching.
The different styles of the two orders attracted different sorts of noviates. Both were attractive to young men in these years. In 1715, there were 30,000 Observant Franciscan friars worldwide, and 39,000 in 1762. The number of Jesuits in 1749 was 22,589.
The problem was partly one of self-selection. Those who had an inclination to learning and languages would have become Jesuits, not Franciscans.
Notes: Chichimeca was a generic term used to refer to all the hostile tribes north of Zacatecas. With time, more specific identifications were made.
Archdiocese of Puebla. "Excmo. Sr. Don Benito Crespo (1734-1737)," their website.
Bihl, Michael. "Order of Friars Minor," The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6, 1909; includes statistics on membership.
Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, 1994; quotation.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Eleanor B. Adams, Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Delcorno, Pietro. "‘Quomodo discet sine docente?’ Observant Efforts towards Education and Pastoral Care," James D. Mixson and Bert Roest, A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, 2015.
Encyclopædia Britannica. "Jesuits," online edition, attributed to the editors; includes statistics on membership.
McCloskey, Michael B. The Formative Years of the Missionary College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro 1683-1733, 1955; quotation on extent of Jesuit missions.
Naylor, Thomas H. The Presidio and Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain, volume 1, 1986; on Menchero.
When settlement moved north with the mines, David Brading said, Franciscans "took the lead in learning native languages, publishing vocabularies, grammars and catechisms" in Tarascán, Mazáhua, and Otomí.
Their successes stopped when they reached the hostile, nomadic Chichimecas beyond Zacatecas. Michael McCloskey suggested, one reason was the sheer "diversity of languages."
Jesuits didn’t become active in the area until 1594, but they were able to establish ten missions and more smaller casas de doctrina in what today are "Sonora, western Chihuahua, northern Sinaloa, Durango, and a small part of Coahuila."
Franciscans retreated to serving the growing urban populations, both native and Spanish-speaking. McCloskey noted, two men usually were assigned to missions and three to eight were needed in the doctrinas they established to serve the surrounding pueblos. In the early years, they went everyday to teach, but, once most people had been instructed in the faith, they began only going on Sundays and feast days.
By 1680, both the advisors to Charles II and the Pope’s Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith were unhappy with Franciscans. The obispo de Durango was no happier with their activities in Nueva México in 1730.
Benito Crespo expected lay members to follow the sacraments defined by the Council of Trent, especially baptism and mass. He expected the clergy who were supported by the state to transform heathens into useful members of society. This meant they not only forsook all forms of religious observance except those sanctioned by the church, but also accepted their roles in the local economy.
He reported local Franciscans did neither. He wrote the viceroy, "all the pueblos of said missions remain in their paganism and idolatry, as the fathers themselves affirm, and they apostatize daily." He believed the only reason they didn’t revolt was the presence of the presidio.
Crespo emphasized communication was the problem. Friars didn’t understand the languages spoken in the pueblos, and Natives didn’t understand Castilian. The failure made Franciscans "as alien as if they had had no dealings with the said Indians." He was appalled that, since 1696, "there is no case when there has been a minister who knows the languages of the Indians."
The next year, the commissary general for the Franciscans, Juan Miguel Menchero ordered "the teaching of Spanish at every mission through the use of catechisms and readers."
The year after Martín de Elizacoechea followed Crespo as bishop of Durango silver was discovered at Planchas de Plata near modern Nogales in 1736. Overnight, the far western Zuñi and Moqui pueblos were reimagined from places too remote to be worth the cost of reconquering into population centers that might secure the northern treasure frontier from hostile raids. When Elizacoechea visited the kingdom in 1737, the bishop included the Zuñi on his itinerary.
In Ciudad de México Franciscans were lobbying for permission to revisit the Moqui, but the Jesuits already had successful missions near the mines. They were awarded jurisdiction, with the associated funding, in 1741.
By then fundamental differences existed between Franciscans and Jesuits. From the beginning the latter valued an educated clergy. They trained their priests for ten years, and operated secular schools. Franciscans were more ambivalent about learning. Some recognized the need for knowledge, especially of church teachings and canon law, to be effective. Others saw it as a distraction from meditation and preaching.
The different styles of the two orders attracted different sorts of noviates. Both were attractive to young men in these years. In 1715, there were 30,000 Observant Franciscan friars worldwide, and 39,000 in 1762. The number of Jesuits in 1749 was 22,589.
The problem was partly one of self-selection. Those who had an inclination to learning and languages would have become Jesuits, not Franciscans.
Notes: Chichimeca was a generic term used to refer to all the hostile tribes north of Zacatecas. With time, more specific identifications were made.
Archdiocese of Puebla. "Excmo. Sr. Don Benito Crespo (1734-1737)," their website.
Bihl, Michael. "Order of Friars Minor," The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6, 1909; includes statistics on membership.
Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, 1994; quotation.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Eleanor B. Adams, Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Delcorno, Pietro. "‘Quomodo discet sine docente?’ Observant Efforts towards Education and Pastoral Care," James D. Mixson and Bert Roest, A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, 2015.
Encyclopædia Britannica. "Jesuits," online edition, attributed to the editors; includes statistics on membership.
McCloskey, Michael B. The Formative Years of the Missionary College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro 1683-1733, 1955; quotation on extent of Jesuit missions.
Naylor, Thomas H. The Presidio and Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain, volume 1, 1986; on Menchero.
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