Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T09:10:50.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Observations on Mission Methods and Native Reactions in Sixteenth-Century New Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Stafford Poole C.M.
Stafford Poole C.M.*
Affiliation:
Los Angeles, California
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The purpose of this article is to examine some aspects of the evangelization of New Spain in the sixteenth century and the natives’ responses to it. This is a subject of tortuous complexity and one that cannot be adequately treated in a brief essay. Rather, this will be an attempt to highlight some of the more important and interesting aspects of this phenomenon. In doing so I will use some of my own researches into the Virgin of Guadalupe of Mexico to illustrate it and to show some of the pitfalls inherent in the topic.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , January 1994 , pp. 337 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The original version of this paper was given at the Conference on Latin American History in New York, 28 December 1990.

2 Ricard, Robert, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523–1572, Simpson, Leslie Byrd, trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).Google Scholar

3 Dibble, Charles E., “The Nahuatilization of Christianity,” in Sixteenth Century-Mexico: The Work of Sahagún, Edmonson, Munro S., ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1974) pp. 225–33.Google Scholar

4 Burkhart, Louise, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989).Google Scholar

5 Lockhart, James, The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

6 Ricard, , Spiritual Conquest, p. 243.Google Scholar

7 Hvei Tlamahvicoltiça [sic] . . . Libro en Lengua Mexicana, que el Br. Luis Lasso de la Vega hizo imprimir en Mexico, el año de 1649 ahora traducido y anotado por el Lic. Velazquez, Don Primo Feliciano. Lleva un prólogo del Pbro. Don Jesus Garcia Gutierrez Secretario de la Academia (Mexico, 1926), p. 34.Google Scholar

8 For some examples of this and the problems involved, see Burkhart, , The Slippery Earth, pp. 49,Google Scholar 52–54.

9 de Sahagún, Bernardino, Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España, 4 vols., Garibay K., Angel María, ed. (Mexico City, 1981), chap. 3, esp. p. 352.Google Scholar

10 Commentator in Santoral en Mexicano, Biblioteca Nacional de México, ms. 1475. de León, Martín, Camino del cielo en lengva mexicana, con todos los requisitos necessarios para conseguir este fin, co[n] todo lo que vn Xpiano deue creer, saber, y obrar, desde el punto que tien vso de razón, hasta que muere. Co[m]puesto, por el P.F. Martin de Leo[n], de la Orde[n] de Predicadores (Mexico, 1611).Google Scholar

11 Torquemada, , Monarquía indiana, 3 vols. Introducción por Miguel León-Portilla (Mexico, 1969), chap. 2, esp. pp. 245–46.Google Scholar

12 Vaillant, George C., Aztecs of Mexico: Origin, Rise and Fall of the Aztec Nation, revised by Vaillant, Suzannah B. (Baltimore: Penguine, 1975), p. 185 Google Scholar; Weckman, Luis, La Herencia medieval de México, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1984), chap. 1, esp. p. 240.Google Scholar

13 This refers to the assertion made in 1556 by the Franciscan Provincial, Francisco de Bustamante, that the picture was painted by a native artist, whom he identified as Marcos.

14 Robelo, Cecilio, Diccionario de Aztequismos (Mexico City, n.d.), p. 256 Google Scholar n.7.

15 Candelaria, Michael R., Popular Religion and Liberation: The Dilemma of Liberation Theology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 8.Google Scholar

16 Burkhart, Louise, “The Cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico,” World Spirituality, vol. 4: South and Meso-American Native Spirituality, Gossen, Gary and León-Portilla, Miguel, eds. (forthcoming), pp. 14–15 Google Scholar in manuscript. I wish to express my thanks to Professor Burkhart for allowing me to use this manuscript.

17 Ibid.

18 Información que mandó practicar con motivo de un sermon que en la fiesta de la Natividad de Nuestra Señora (8 de Septiembre de 1556) predico en la capilla de San José de los Naturales del Convento de San Francisco de Méjico, el Provincial Fray Franciso de Bustamante acerca de la devoción y culto de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (2nd ed.; Mexico, 1891), passim.

19 Sahagún, , Historia general, I, p. 46 Google Scholar; Clavigero, , Historia antigua de Mexico, edición y prólogo del Mariano Cuevas, 4 vols. (Mexico City, 1958), II, p. 82.Google Scholar Soustelle refers to Centeotl as a male divinity. Soustelle, Jacques, The Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest, trans. O’Brian, Patrick (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), p. 104.Google Scholar Andrews and Hassing say that in classical times Tonantzin was identified with Centeotl, who was a male deity ( de Alarcón, Hernando Ruiz, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, trans, and eds., Andrews, J. Richard and Hassing, Ross (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975), pp. 240,Google Scholar 221.

20 Schendel, Gordon, Medicine in Mexico: From Aztec Herbs to Betatrons (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), p. 28.Google Scholar

21 Burkhart, , The Slippery Earth, p. 154.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., p. 15.

23 Christian, William A. Jr., Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; idem, Local Religion in Sixteenth Century Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).

24 de Florencia, Francisco, SJ, La estrella del norte de Mexico aparecida al rayar el dia de la luz Evangelica en este Nuevo Mundo, en la cumbre del cerro de Tepeyacac, orilla del mar Tezcucano, à un Natural recien convertido; pintada tres dias despues milagrosamente en su tilma ò capa de lienzo delante del Obispo y de su familia, en su casa Obispal, para luz en la fé à los Indios; para rumbo cierto à los Españoles en las virtud, para serenidad de las tempestuosas inundancias de la Laguna. En la historia de la milagrosa imagen de nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Mexico Que se apareció en la manta de Juan Diego Compusola el Padre Francisco de Florencia de la extinguida Compáñia de Jesus … (Madrid, 1785), pp. 454–62.Google Scholar

25 For an intriguing survey of this question, see Sweeney, Ernest S., SJ, “The Nature and Power of Religion in Latin America: Some Aspects of Popular Beliefs and Practices,” Thought, 59:233 (June 1984), 149–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Imagen de la Virgen María, Madre de Dios de Guadalupe. Milagrosamente aparecida en la ciudad de Mexico. Celebrada en su historia, con la profecia del capitulo doce del Apocalipsis (Mexico, 1648). Reprinted in Beltrán, Lauro López, La primera historia guadalupana de México impresa (Mexico City, 1981)Google Scholar; and in Testimonios históricos guadalupanos, de la Torre Villar, Ernesto and de Ande, Ramiro Navarro, eds. (Mexico, 1982), pp. 152–281.Google Scholar

27 Florencia, , Estrella del norte, pp. 521–24.Google Scholar

28 Taylor, William B., “The Virgin of Guadalupe; An Inquiry into the Social History of Marian Devotion,” American Ethnologist (1986), 9–33.Google Scholar

29 Cartas de Indias. Publícalas por primera vez el Ministerio de Fomento (Madrid, 1877), p. 55.Google Scholar

30 Gibson, Charles, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964), p. 11.Google Scholar

31 Memorial to the bishops of the Third Mexican Council (1585) in Llaguno, José A., SJ, La personalidad jurídica del indio y el III Concilio Provincial Mexicano (1585); Ensayo histórico-jurídico de los documentos originales. Biblioteca Porrua 27 (Mexico, 1963).Google Scholar

32 Poole, Stafford, “The Last Years of Archbishop Pedro Moya de Contreras, 1586–1591,” The Americas (July 1990), 31–33;Google Scholar idem, Pedro Moya de Contreras: Catholic Reform and Royal Power in New Spain, 1571–1591 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 123–24.