Healers were the other source for baptismal names used in Santa Cruz between 1733 and 1759. Some were the traditional holy helpers who emerged during the years of the Bubonic plague: Barbara, Blas, Catarina, Gorge, and Margarita. Two were angels, Miguel and Rafael or Rafaela.
Others were Cayetano or Cayetana and Roque, if that name was derived from Saint Rocke who was active during the plague. Bernardo or Bernarda and Joana were healed. Rosa, a Dominican in Lima, was said to have cured lepers.
María de Guadalupe appeared for the first time in the preserved record in 1733 as the daughter of Antonia Martín and Miguel de Agüero. The next year, Antonia de Medina and Juan Luiz Martines named their daughter María de Guadalupe.
The name next was used in 1738 for Marta de Guadalupe Trujillo and in 1739 for Rosa María de Guadalupe Archuleta. After that, María Guadalupe was used twice in the mid-1740s and five times in the 1750s.
Between the baptism of the Agüero daughter and the christening of the Trujillo girl, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe was transformed in México from a miracle worker into one who reversed the course of mysterious diseases. Simultaneously, she was transformed from a cult particular to Natives into a symbol shared by all people born in Nueva España. Of the eleven girls named for her in Santa Cruz, only three were Indians, probably Apache or Comanche. The rest had two known parents.
As discussed in the post for 24 February 2016, an infection began spreading through México in 1736. No one knew what matlazáhuatl was. They could only react with procedures that worked with other epidemics like the smallpox contagion of 1733. The viceroy, Juan de Vizarrón provided food and hospitals. Robert McCaa said, he funded four doctors and six pharmacists.
The city council opted for public prayers and asked the viceroy, who was also the archbishop, to lead a novena for the Virgin of Loreto in early January of 1737. When that failed, they asked to have Nuestra Señora de los Remedios brought to the cathedral for nine more days of prayers led by Bartolomé de Ita y Para.
That too failed to stem the disease that was killing more Indians than Spaniards. Rumors were spreading. Stafford Poole said, "a sick woman in delirium saw the fever in the form of a woman on the causeway to Guadalupe." Another told of an Indian woman shouting in the sanctuary at Tepeyac, "let the Spanish die also." Stories were repeated of Indians dumping corpses into aqueducts and mixing victims’ blood in bread dough.
Members of the city’s council suggested bringing the painting of Guadalupe to the city cathedral; others objected the agave fabric was too fragile. Instead, Vizarrón suggested a pilgrimage there for a Novena. Again Ita y Parra spoke.
Still no relief. A comet was seen, probably at the end of January. In February the council agreed to swear an oath of fealty to Guadalupe, with April 27 set for the ceremony. A partial eclipse of the sun occurred March 1, beginning just after noon and lasting 90 minutes. The oath was made public after a procession and mass on May 26. By chance or divine intervention, the epidemic finally began to recede.
The intensity of veneration that followed was not chance. David Brading suggested, it became the vehicle for Mexican-born criollo clergymen to assert their independence from Spanish superiors sent by the Bourbon king.
Ita y Parra, the man who preached the "The Mother of Health sermon" at Tepeyac in 1737, was a Puebla-born Jesuit. He was explicating a new founding legend couched in Old Testament symbols when he asserted Los Remedios failed to stop the epidemic because she was from Spain, a Ruth forever homeless. Guadalupe, on the other hand, would prevail because she was, like Naomi, a native.
Matlazáhuatl arrived in Zacatecas in 1737 during a grain shortage. The city stockpiled grain and called upon its one hospital, two charitable brotherhoods, and private doctors. The Franciscans took the image of Guadalupe to all the churches in mass processions that probably spread the air-born pathogen.
Within the church, men lobbied for Guadalupe’s elevation to patroness for all Nueva España, distinct from Santiago of Spain. In 1746, delegates from city councils and cathedral chapters gathered to acclaim her patronato. Benedict XIV approved their actions in 1754.
Meanwhile, Francisco de Echávarri began supervising construction of an aqueduct to take water to the shine in Tepeyac in 1741. He had been a mine inspector. This was an extension of the civil engineering then being introduced to drain mines. The water main was completed in 1751, after the end of the War of Austrian Succession in 1748.
Guadalupe bound the criollos to the Indians against the Spaniards. Once the villa of Tepeyac had its basic necessity supplied, a college of canons was established to officiate at the shrine. To be appointed, one had to speak a native language.
Notes: Marta was probably meant to be María; her last name was written Truxillo.
Comets were still unexpected phenomena, not yet explained by science. In México, Augustinian Matías de Escobar wrote it was "a phenomenon notoriously caused by the exhalations of the seas and the corrupt humours of the body," while at Cambridge Isaac Newton suspected it might appear in 1737 based on orbits of previous comets, but wouldn’t commit himself to friends or to print. It was sighted in 1737 in Jamaica on January 26, in Philadelphia on January 27, and in Lisbon on January 29. Ignatius Kegler, a Jesuit missionary for whom it was named, observed it in Beijing on July 3.
Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, 1994.
_____. Mexican Phoenix, 2002.
Brodbeck, Roland. "Solar eclipses, Mexico, Coatzacoalcos, 1700 - 2100," 1998, in cooperation with the Swiss Astronomical Society.
Escobar, Matías de. Voces de Tritón Sonora, 1746; quoted by Brading, 1994.
Ita y Para, Bartolomé de "The Mother of Health," paraphrased by Brading, 2002.
Kronk, Gary W. Cometography, volume 1, 1999.
Lynn, W. T. "The Comet of A. D. 1737," The Observatory, May 1901.
McCaa, Robert. "Revisioning Smallpox in Mexico City-Tenochtitlán, 1520-1950," 27 May 2000.
New Mexico Genealogical Society, New Mexico Baptisms, Santa Cruz de la Cañada Church, Volume I, 1710 to 1794, transcribed by Virginia Langham Olmstead and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1994. Notes in the records varied, so they couldn’t be used to identify the ethnicity of the baptized. I’m assuming if both parents were known the parents were Españoles; if only the mother’s names were known the child was illegitimate and probably Español but possibly meztiso or captive; if no parents were known I’m assuming the baptized were captives.
Newton, Isaac. Comment on comet quoted by William Whiston and reported by Lynn; elaborated by Kronk.
Poole, Stafford. Our Lady of Guadalupe, 1995.
Raigoza Quiñónez, José Luis. "Factores de Influencia para la Transmisión y Difusión del Matlazáhuatl en Zacatecas 1737-38," Scripta Nova, August 2006.
Showing posts with label 07 México 6-10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 07 México 6-10. Show all posts
Sunday, May 22, 2016
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Secularization
Philip V’s attempts to modernize lands remaining under Spanish control often met with hostility from members of the upper classes whose parents were born in the New World. His problems were greater in Perú, but there was a burgeoning criollo elite in Nuevo España as well.
The conflict was nearly as old as the second generation. The usual solution was a system of quotas imported from Spain where alternativa had been used to resolve problems uniting formally independent states like Castilla, Aragón, and Andalucía.
In the viceroyalties, the group in the minority, the Spanish appointees and migrants, argued it was needed to maintain Iberian standards. The majority criollos believed qualifications, as they defined them, were appropriate criteria for the highest offices in religious orders. Since many of the changes in routine came from serving Indian parishes, the Spaniards also recommended such missions be turned over to bishops.
In 1614, Augustinians in Nueva España were forced to institute a formal policy that alternated the two groups in their highest offices. Only 50 of the 630 Franciscans friars at the time were from Spain. In 1627, they demanded equal access to office.
The policy moved to Perú, where Franciscans resisted its imposition. Their appeals to Pope Innocent XI were overridden by Philip IV who saw them as a threat to his power. Alternativa was imposed by force in 1679.
In 1683, Franciscans established a college in Querétaro to direct preaching missions in settled towns and to pagans. The original group had come mainly from Catalonia and Majorca. Within a decade, there was some attempt to introduce alternativa to balance power between the immigrant founders and the local recruits.
Smoldering resentments flared again when Philip’s appointments constrained ambitions of local men. Benito Crespo was promoted from Durango to the see of Puebla in 1734. His replacement, Martín de Elizacoechea, was from Navarre and educated at Universidad de Alcalá. He moved to México in 1716 where he managed incomes and collected tithes for the university.
The new bishop reasserted his authority over the Franciscans of Nuevo México when he entered the kingdom in 1737. Local priests then were fighting with Juan Bustamante for supremacy. He yielded to their complaints, and returned Santiago de Roybal as his vicar.
Pedro Anselmo Sánchez de Tagle was named obispo de Durango in 1745 when Elizacoechea moved to the bishopric in Michoacán. He was from Cantabria, perhaps the same area as Bustamante’s ancestors, and had moved to México in 1726.
Again, the Franciscan overseer, Juan Miguel Menchero, demanded Roybal be removed. Angélico Chávez noted, when they were refused, there was "no evidence of further demands."
Franciscans soon had larger problems. Philip died in 1746 and his son was crowned. In 1749, Ferdinand VI ordered all parishes administered by religious orders within the jurisdictions of Ciudad de México and Lima be turned over to secular clergy and supervised by archbishops.
When his command met with no resistence, except from the orders themselves, he extended the receipt to all parishes in the New World. Theoretically, that would have included Santa Cruz, Santa Fé, and Albuquerque.
His policy primarily affected Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians. Only a few Jesuits administered parishes. Other religious orders, like Los Hermanos de San Juan de Dios who provided medical care, weren’t impacted.
Serious disruptions followed, as secular clergymen who didn’t speak native languages were sent to Indian villages, and displaced friars crowded into urban areas with no support. Augustinians prepared legal cases.
In 1749 the Franciscan missionary college in Zacatecas was reprimanded for not requesting more recruits from Spain. The colleges had strict membership limits, and only accepted one or two novices a year. While the communities in Querétaro and Mexico City did still request new men from Iberia, Zacatecas had become the "exclusive preserve of creoles" and was intent on remaining so.
In Nuevo México a messenger sent by the viceroy in 1749 reviewed the status of the missions. Juan Antonio de Ornedal repeated Crespo’s recommendation that the missions of San Ildefonso, Santa Clara and San Juan de Caballeros could be combined because "of the short distances that he believes to exist between" them.
Carlos Delgado was assigned the Franciscan rebuttal. He wrote, Ornedal must have traveled along "the camino real in a carriage or on horseback" and that he must have passed "over them by day, at his convenience" with "an escort to guard him." In fact, he said, friars were "exposed to great danger and peril at all times, having to cross rivers in canoes and often at night, and at time when their waters are in flood and very rapid."
With a new king, the Jesuits renewed their efforts to evade paying tithes with another proposal after the end of the War of Austrian Succession. This time they won a reduction in the rate in 1750. Then, they apparently based their payments on net revenues not gross that the state assumed.
The order was in trouble again in 1754 when it opposed a treaty between Ferdinand and his father-in-law, João V of Portugal. The territorial exchange along the Rio de la Plata involved ceding land where Jesuits had missions. Ferdinand fired his primary advisor. Zenón de Somodevilla had supported both the Jesuits and the reorganization of missions in the New World.
Ferdinand modified his secularization policy in 1757. He allowed those friars who, in fact, had been appointed by bishops to continue until they died. Each order in each province was allowed to operate two parishes for income. All priories with at least eight members could remain open, but all the smaller ones that had been opened without licenses in Indian villages remained closed.
To handle the sudden surplus of clergymen, Ferdinand told the orders in 1754 to limit the number of new novices, and to prepare them for work in frontier missions. The Franciscans already had their colleges that trained men for work in Tejas. They concentrated their new efforts in the Bajio region around Querétaro.
That same year, Tagle was moved to Michoacán, and Pedro Tamarón was sent as his replacement in Durango. He was from Toledo and, like Elizacoechea, had been educated at Alcalá.
Roybal was still in Santa Fé when Tamarón made his formal inspection in 1760. Franciscan Juan Sanz de Lezaún wrote his own "account of lamentable happenings in New Mexico," but took a more conciliatory tone than had Delgado. "I am persuaded, in view of the report of the most illustrious señor, the Bishop of Durango, who has obtained information of all this from his experience during his visitation, that he will remedy all that I have described."
As Chávez noted on Roybal, "perhaps with the passing of the old friars who had known greater episcopal immunity in days gone by, or on receipt of more definite decrees from the Crown and Council of the Indies, the old animosities died away."
Notes: The post for 27 March 2016 discusses the beginning of this dispute over diezmo. Bancroft and Twitchell identified Ornedal as Ordenal. The viceroy in 1749 was Francisco de Güemes.
Bishop Tagle’s grandparents were Andres Sanchez Tagle, and Maria Pérez de Bustamante. The former governor, Juan de Bustamante, was the son-in-law and likely nephew of the earlier governor, Antonio Valverde y Cosío, whose Cantabrian background was discussed in the post for 23 August 2015. The vicar’s grandparents were Juan Antonio de Bustamante y Tagle and María Antonia Bracho Bustamante. Chávez didn’t know the relationship between the governor and the vicar’s father.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, 1889.
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.
Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, 1994; quotation on creole composition of college in Zacatecas.
Chávez, Angélico. "El Vicario Don Santiago Roybal," El Palacio 65:231-252:1948.
ChihuahuaMexico.com. "Pedro Tamarón y Romeral" section on "Historia" on its website.
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. The quotation on floods previously appeared in the post for 24 February 2016.
Gutiérrez Torrecilla, Luis Miguel. "Martín de Elizacoechea, Un Navarro Obispo en América (1679-1756)," Príncipe de Viana 55:391-406:1994.
Konrad, Herman W. A Jesuit Hacienda in Colonial Mexico, 1980.
McCloskey, Michael B. The Formative Years of the Missionary College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro 1683-1733, 1955.
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.
Rojas y Contreras, José. Historia del Colegio Viejo de S. Bartholomé (Salamanca), volume 1, 1768; on Tagle and Bustamante.
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.
Tibesar, Antonine. "The Alternativa: A Study in Spanish-Creole Relations in Seventeenth-Century Peru," The Americas 11:229-283:1955.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 1, 1914.
The conflict was nearly as old as the second generation. The usual solution was a system of quotas imported from Spain where alternativa had been used to resolve problems uniting formally independent states like Castilla, Aragón, and Andalucía.
In the viceroyalties, the group in the minority, the Spanish appointees and migrants, argued it was needed to maintain Iberian standards. The majority criollos believed qualifications, as they defined them, were appropriate criteria for the highest offices in religious orders. Since many of the changes in routine came from serving Indian parishes, the Spaniards also recommended such missions be turned over to bishops.
In 1614, Augustinians in Nueva España were forced to institute a formal policy that alternated the two groups in their highest offices. Only 50 of the 630 Franciscans friars at the time were from Spain. In 1627, they demanded equal access to office.
The policy moved to Perú, where Franciscans resisted its imposition. Their appeals to Pope Innocent XI were overridden by Philip IV who saw them as a threat to his power. Alternativa was imposed by force in 1679.
In 1683, Franciscans established a college in Querétaro to direct preaching missions in settled towns and to pagans. The original group had come mainly from Catalonia and Majorca. Within a decade, there was some attempt to introduce alternativa to balance power between the immigrant founders and the local recruits.
Smoldering resentments flared again when Philip’s appointments constrained ambitions of local men. Benito Crespo was promoted from Durango to the see of Puebla in 1734. His replacement, Martín de Elizacoechea, was from Navarre and educated at Universidad de Alcalá. He moved to México in 1716 where he managed incomes and collected tithes for the university.
The new bishop reasserted his authority over the Franciscans of Nuevo México when he entered the kingdom in 1737. Local priests then were fighting with Juan Bustamante for supremacy. He yielded to their complaints, and returned Santiago de Roybal as his vicar.
Pedro Anselmo Sánchez de Tagle was named obispo de Durango in 1745 when Elizacoechea moved to the bishopric in Michoacán. He was from Cantabria, perhaps the same area as Bustamante’s ancestors, and had moved to México in 1726.
Again, the Franciscan overseer, Juan Miguel Menchero, demanded Roybal be removed. Angélico Chávez noted, when they were refused, there was "no evidence of further demands."
Franciscans soon had larger problems. Philip died in 1746 and his son was crowned. In 1749, Ferdinand VI ordered all parishes administered by religious orders within the jurisdictions of Ciudad de México and Lima be turned over to secular clergy and supervised by archbishops.
When his command met with no resistence, except from the orders themselves, he extended the receipt to all parishes in the New World. Theoretically, that would have included Santa Cruz, Santa Fé, and Albuquerque.
His policy primarily affected Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians. Only a few Jesuits administered parishes. Other religious orders, like Los Hermanos de San Juan de Dios who provided medical care, weren’t impacted.
Serious disruptions followed, as secular clergymen who didn’t speak native languages were sent to Indian villages, and displaced friars crowded into urban areas with no support. Augustinians prepared legal cases.
In 1749 the Franciscan missionary college in Zacatecas was reprimanded for not requesting more recruits from Spain. The colleges had strict membership limits, and only accepted one or two novices a year. While the communities in Querétaro and Mexico City did still request new men from Iberia, Zacatecas had become the "exclusive preserve of creoles" and was intent on remaining so.
In Nuevo México a messenger sent by the viceroy in 1749 reviewed the status of the missions. Juan Antonio de Ornedal repeated Crespo’s recommendation that the missions of San Ildefonso, Santa Clara and San Juan de Caballeros could be combined because "of the short distances that he believes to exist between" them.
Carlos Delgado was assigned the Franciscan rebuttal. He wrote, Ornedal must have traveled along "the camino real in a carriage or on horseback" and that he must have passed "over them by day, at his convenience" with "an escort to guard him." In fact, he said, friars were "exposed to great danger and peril at all times, having to cross rivers in canoes and often at night, and at time when their waters are in flood and very rapid."
With a new king, the Jesuits renewed their efforts to evade paying tithes with another proposal after the end of the War of Austrian Succession. This time they won a reduction in the rate in 1750. Then, they apparently based their payments on net revenues not gross that the state assumed.
The order was in trouble again in 1754 when it opposed a treaty between Ferdinand and his father-in-law, João V of Portugal. The territorial exchange along the Rio de la Plata involved ceding land where Jesuits had missions. Ferdinand fired his primary advisor. Zenón de Somodevilla had supported both the Jesuits and the reorganization of missions in the New World.
Ferdinand modified his secularization policy in 1757. He allowed those friars who, in fact, had been appointed by bishops to continue until they died. Each order in each province was allowed to operate two parishes for income. All priories with at least eight members could remain open, but all the smaller ones that had been opened without licenses in Indian villages remained closed.
To handle the sudden surplus of clergymen, Ferdinand told the orders in 1754 to limit the number of new novices, and to prepare them for work in frontier missions. The Franciscans already had their colleges that trained men for work in Tejas. They concentrated their new efforts in the Bajio region around Querétaro.
That same year, Tagle was moved to Michoacán, and Pedro Tamarón was sent as his replacement in Durango. He was from Toledo and, like Elizacoechea, had been educated at Alcalá.
Roybal was still in Santa Fé when Tamarón made his formal inspection in 1760. Franciscan Juan Sanz de Lezaún wrote his own "account of lamentable happenings in New Mexico," but took a more conciliatory tone than had Delgado. "I am persuaded, in view of the report of the most illustrious señor, the Bishop of Durango, who has obtained information of all this from his experience during his visitation, that he will remedy all that I have described."
As Chávez noted on Roybal, "perhaps with the passing of the old friars who had known greater episcopal immunity in days gone by, or on receipt of more definite decrees from the Crown and Council of the Indies, the old animosities died away."
Notes: The post for 27 March 2016 discusses the beginning of this dispute over diezmo. Bancroft and Twitchell identified Ornedal as Ordenal. The viceroy in 1749 was Francisco de Güemes.
Bishop Tagle’s grandparents were Andres Sanchez Tagle, and Maria Pérez de Bustamante. The former governor, Juan de Bustamante, was the son-in-law and likely nephew of the earlier governor, Antonio Valverde y Cosío, whose Cantabrian background was discussed in the post for 23 August 2015. The vicar’s grandparents were Juan Antonio de Bustamante y Tagle and María Antonia Bracho Bustamante. Chávez didn’t know the relationship between the governor and the vicar’s father.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, 1889.
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.
Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, 1994; quotation on creole composition of college in Zacatecas.
Chávez, Angélico. "El Vicario Don Santiago Roybal," El Palacio 65:231-252:1948.
ChihuahuaMexico.com. "Pedro Tamarón y Romeral" section on "Historia" on its website.
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. The quotation on floods previously appeared in the post for 24 February 2016.
Gutiérrez Torrecilla, Luis Miguel. "Martín de Elizacoechea, Un Navarro Obispo en América (1679-1756)," Príncipe de Viana 55:391-406:1994.
Konrad, Herman W. A Jesuit Hacienda in Colonial Mexico, 1980.
McCloskey, Michael B. The Formative Years of the Missionary College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro 1683-1733, 1955.
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.
Rojas y Contreras, José. Historia del Colegio Viejo de S. Bartholomé (Salamanca), volume 1, 1768; on Tagle and Bustamante.
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.
Tibesar, Antonine. "The Alternativa: A Study in Spanish-Creole Relations in Seventeenth-Century Peru," The Americas 11:229-283:1955.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 1, 1914.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Franciscans and the Bishop
Franciscans were not beyond Bourbon reforms that emphasized accountability and metrics for measuring success. Along with financial support came audits and inspections to verify report accuracy.
Ferdinand of Aragon had negotiated control of church moneys in 1502 when pope Alexander VI "conferred the tithes of all the Indies on the king on condition that he should endow the churches and provide an adequate maintenance for their ministers." This bull coincided with the onset of Columbus’s fourth voyage, and ensured the church’s standing in the New World.
He already had been granted the power to nominate high ecclesiastical leaders during the conquest of Granada in 1486. Julian II extended patronato to the New World in 1508. The two agreed any proposal for a new mission would be reviewed by the audiencia, the viceroy, and the bishop before being presented to the Consejo de Indias. In return, the Vatican gained control of the Papal States on the Italian peninsula.
Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV of France, used patronato real to nominate religious leaders in the New World who appreciated the need for centralized secular power. He appointed Juan de Vizarrón arzobispo de México in 1730. The Andalusian had studied in Rome at the College of San Clemente before serving in Seville where he was Philip’s chaplain.
In 1734, Vizarrón renewed the church’s efforts to collect diezmo from Jesuit haciendas. The order proposed a "temporary arrangement" to the audiencia, who rejected it. The members felt both they and the archbishop/viceroy had been "insulted." They ordered full payment of tithes from 1734, and forwarded the paperwork to Madrid. According to Hubert Howe Bancroft, the "king’s council" ordered payment and demanded "sworn statements" declaring the value of the order’s estates.
In Nuevo México, subordination of religious orders to secular clergy was more important than tithes. The mere fact the obispo de Durango visited Santa Fé in 1730 was seen as an affront. Benito Crespo’s ensconcement of Santiago de Roybal as Vicario y Juez Esclesiástico was taken as provocation. The Franciscan’s local custodio, Andrés Varo, considered himself to be the legitimate local vicar.
Philip had appointed Crespo in 1722. Born in a small village in Castile near the border with Estremadura, he had trained at San Marcos de León in Salamanca and was a knight of Santiago. That military order had been under crown control since Ferdinand asserted his authority in 1499.
Roybal had been ordained in México by Crespo. He, no doubt, was selected because he was the son of Francesca de Gómez Robledo and Ignacio de Roybal. They had sent the boy to Mexico City for his education.
On his way back to Durango Crespo wrote the viceroy that the Franciscans were collecting fees for 40 friars, but only had deployed 33. The Santa Cruz parish was included in the endowment for Santa Clara, "where he has never resided." He recommended transferring Santa Cruz, along with the other Spanish-speaking parishes, to his jurisdiction, and consolidating Santa Clara and San Juan de Caballeros into the mission at San Ildefonso.
The Franciscan’s immediate response was to send Juan Miguel Menchero north in 1731 to develop a counterstrategy. Soon after, Santa Cruz began keeping better baptismal records that would prove they were serving the villa and would document the numbers of souls brought into the church. They had kept reasonably complete records from 1710 to 1714. After that only chance notes survived.
In a separate letter to the viceroy, Crespo criticized the fees charged by friars for baptisms, burials and other sacraments because they were "so high and exorbitant that there were no fixed schedule except the will of the father missionaries." To encourage more participation by parishioners and natives, he fixed price schedules. He cited a royal order from 1725 as his justification.
Menchero countered with an order that "no friar was to charge an Indian any fee whatsoever for administering the sacraments."
Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and San Juan de los Caballeros were given bound books in 1726 for recording baptisms, marriages, and deaths. They’re our only detailed record of the population between then and 1760. The diligencias matrimoniales are missing. Angélico Chávez believed Roybal, "kept or removed only the DMs pertaining to his term," but suggested no motive. It also may be the Franciscans refused to forward them to him, and they subsequently were lost.
With a forgivable bias towards the Franciscans, Chávez believed Roybal, "with the brashness of youth, had continued enraging some of his adversaries," and was moved to El Paso in 1733.
That didn’t relieve Menchero of secular oversight. Crespo sent Juan Bustamante in his place.
He was another second generation migrant from northern Spain who had ties with the local elite. Chávez believed he was the son, nephew or brother of the earlier governor from El Paso, Juan Domingo de Bustamante.
Notes: The New Mexico Genealogical Society began transcribing and translating the sacramental books in 1976. They’ve published their extracts for Santa Cruz baptisms and marriages, and for Santa Clara and Juan de los Caballeros marriages. Microfilms of the originals are available.
Adams, Eleanor B. Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Archdiocese of Puebla. "Excmo. Sr. Don Benito Crespo (1734-1737)," their website.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Mexico, Volume III, 1600-1803, 1883.
Chávez, Angélico. "El Vicario Don Santiago Roybal," El Palacio 65:231-252:1948.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; on missing diligencias matrimoniales.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition; on Bustamante.
Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Adams; recommended consolidating missions.
_____. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 25 September 1730; translation in Adams; on fees for services.
Crivelli, Camillus. "Mexico," The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10, 1911; quotation summarizing bull of Alexander VI.
Kessell, John L. Kiva, Cross and Crown, 1995; Menchero quotation.
Traboulay, David M. Columbus and Las Casas: The Conquest and Christianization of America, 1492-1566, 1994.
Wikipedia. Entry for Juan Antonio de Vizarrón y Eguiarreta."
Table: Data from New Mexico Genealogical Society.
New Mexico Baptisms, Santa Cruz de la Cañada Church, Volume I, 1710 to 1794, transcribed by Virginia Langham Olmstead and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1994.
100 Years of Marriages, 1726-1826, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, New Mexico, extracted and compiled by Henrietta Martinez Christmas and Patricia Sánchez Rau.
A number of Apaches were baptized in 1713.
Ferdinand of Aragon had negotiated control of church moneys in 1502 when pope Alexander VI "conferred the tithes of all the Indies on the king on condition that he should endow the churches and provide an adequate maintenance for their ministers." This bull coincided with the onset of Columbus’s fourth voyage, and ensured the church’s standing in the New World.
He already had been granted the power to nominate high ecclesiastical leaders during the conquest of Granada in 1486. Julian II extended patronato to the New World in 1508. The two agreed any proposal for a new mission would be reviewed by the audiencia, the viceroy, and the bishop before being presented to the Consejo de Indias. In return, the Vatican gained control of the Papal States on the Italian peninsula.
Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV of France, used patronato real to nominate religious leaders in the New World who appreciated the need for centralized secular power. He appointed Juan de Vizarrón arzobispo de México in 1730. The Andalusian had studied in Rome at the College of San Clemente before serving in Seville where he was Philip’s chaplain.
In 1734, Vizarrón renewed the church’s efforts to collect diezmo from Jesuit haciendas. The order proposed a "temporary arrangement" to the audiencia, who rejected it. The members felt both they and the archbishop/viceroy had been "insulted." They ordered full payment of tithes from 1734, and forwarded the paperwork to Madrid. According to Hubert Howe Bancroft, the "king’s council" ordered payment and demanded "sworn statements" declaring the value of the order’s estates.
In Nuevo México, subordination of religious orders to secular clergy was more important than tithes. The mere fact the obispo de Durango visited Santa Fé in 1730 was seen as an affront. Benito Crespo’s ensconcement of Santiago de Roybal as Vicario y Juez Esclesiástico was taken as provocation. The Franciscan’s local custodio, Andrés Varo, considered himself to be the legitimate local vicar.
Philip had appointed Crespo in 1722. Born in a small village in Castile near the border with Estremadura, he had trained at San Marcos de León in Salamanca and was a knight of Santiago. That military order had been under crown control since Ferdinand asserted his authority in 1499.
Roybal had been ordained in México by Crespo. He, no doubt, was selected because he was the son of Francesca de Gómez Robledo and Ignacio de Roybal. They had sent the boy to Mexico City for his education.
On his way back to Durango Crespo wrote the viceroy that the Franciscans were collecting fees for 40 friars, but only had deployed 33. The Santa Cruz parish was included in the endowment for Santa Clara, "where he has never resided." He recommended transferring Santa Cruz, along with the other Spanish-speaking parishes, to his jurisdiction, and consolidating Santa Clara and San Juan de Caballeros into the mission at San Ildefonso.
The Franciscan’s immediate response was to send Juan Miguel Menchero north in 1731 to develop a counterstrategy. Soon after, Santa Cruz began keeping better baptismal records that would prove they were serving the villa and would document the numbers of souls brought into the church. They had kept reasonably complete records from 1710 to 1714. After that only chance notes survived.
In a separate letter to the viceroy, Crespo criticized the fees charged by friars for baptisms, burials and other sacraments because they were "so high and exorbitant that there were no fixed schedule except the will of the father missionaries." To encourage more participation by parishioners and natives, he fixed price schedules. He cited a royal order from 1725 as his justification.
Menchero countered with an order that "no friar was to charge an Indian any fee whatsoever for administering the sacraments."
| Year | Baptisms | DM's | Marriages |
| 1710 | 2 | 1 | |
| 1711 | 8 | 1 | |
| 1712 | 8 | 1 | |
| 1713 | 43 | ||
| 1714 | 12 | 5 | |
| 1715 | 3 | 3 | |
| 1716 | 4 | ||
| 1717 | 4 | ||
| 1718 | 8 | ||
| 1719 | 5 | ||
| 1720 | 2 | 5 | |
| 1721 | 27 | 1 | |
| 1722 | 2 | ||
| 1723 | 6 | ||
| 1724 | |||
| 1725 | 4 | ||
| 1726 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 1727 | 6 | 6 | |
| 1728 | 3 | 7 | |
| 1729 | 1 | ||
| 1730 | 1 | 12 | |
| 1731 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1732 | 50 | 1 | |
| 1733 | 35 | 16 | |
| 1734 | 62 | 7 | |
| 1735 | 38 | 6 | |
| 1736 | 26 | 9 | |
| 1737 | 2 | 15 | |
| 1738 | 48 | 8 | |
| 1739 | 19 | 10 | |
| Santa Cruz de la Cañada | |||
Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and San Juan de los Caballeros were given bound books in 1726 for recording baptisms, marriages, and deaths. They’re our only detailed record of the population between then and 1760. The diligencias matrimoniales are missing. Angélico Chávez believed Roybal, "kept or removed only the DMs pertaining to his term," but suggested no motive. It also may be the Franciscans refused to forward them to him, and they subsequently were lost.
With a forgivable bias towards the Franciscans, Chávez believed Roybal, "with the brashness of youth, had continued enraging some of his adversaries," and was moved to El Paso in 1733.
That didn’t relieve Menchero of secular oversight. Crespo sent Juan Bustamante in his place.
He was another second generation migrant from northern Spain who had ties with the local elite. Chávez believed he was the son, nephew or brother of the earlier governor from El Paso, Juan Domingo de Bustamante.
Notes: The New Mexico Genealogical Society began transcribing and translating the sacramental books in 1976. They’ve published their extracts for Santa Cruz baptisms and marriages, and for Santa Clara and Juan de los Caballeros marriages. Microfilms of the originals are available.
Adams, Eleanor B. Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.
Archdiocese of Puebla. "Excmo. Sr. Don Benito Crespo (1734-1737)," their website.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Mexico, Volume III, 1600-1803, 1883.
Chávez, Angélico. "El Vicario Don Santiago Roybal," El Palacio 65:231-252:1948.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; on missing diligencias matrimoniales.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition; on Bustamante.
Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Adams; recommended consolidating missions.
_____. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 25 September 1730; translation in Adams; on fees for services.
Crivelli, Camillus. "Mexico," The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10, 1911; quotation summarizing bull of Alexander VI.
Kessell, John L. Kiva, Cross and Crown, 1995; Menchero quotation.
Traboulay, David M. Columbus and Las Casas: The Conquest and Christianization of America, 1492-1566, 1994.
Wikipedia. Entry for Juan Antonio de Vizarrón y Eguiarreta."
Table: Data from New Mexico Genealogical Society.
New Mexico Baptisms, Santa Cruz de la Cañada Church, Volume I, 1710 to 1794, transcribed by Virginia Langham Olmstead and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1994.
100 Years of Marriages, 1726-1826, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, New Mexico, extracted and compiled by Henrietta Martinez Christmas and Patricia Sánchez Rau.
A number of Apaches were baptized in 1713.
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