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.
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