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.
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