“The Justice of warring against the notorious Chichimeca Indians of Mexico was a burning issue throughout the sixteenth century.” This simple statement covers more than half a century of theological, canonical, legal, and philosophical debate over whether or not the Spanish government was justified in waging total war a fuego y a sangre against the wild Indian tribes to the north of the capital. Should these Indians continue to be regarded, as they had been in the past, as wards of the Spanish Crown and so be punished as errant children, “ delincuentes,” or should they all, men, women, and children, be declared enemies of the Spanish nation and the Christian religion and so be punished by being pursued, hunted down, subjugated, and either enslaved or exterminated? This debate went to the heart of the question of the nature and justice of Spanish rule in the Indies and it vexed the consciences of viceroys, audiencias, colonists, and churchmen. It was only natural, then, that the question should be submitted to the most important ecclesiastical gathering of colonial Mexico—the Third Mexican Provincial Council of 1585. Though passing references are sometimes made to the consideration given to the Chichimecan question by the Council, no serious study has ever been made of the discussions and arguments nor of the official stand taken by the Mexican Church. This is particularly to be regretted since such a study casts some interesting light on the mentality of the second generation of Spanish settlers in Mexico.

The question of the jurisdiction of the Holy Office of the Inquisition over the native populations in New Spain and the rest of the empire has been one of controversy and confusion since the earliest days of the conquest. The perplexing problem of enforcing orthodoxy among the recently converted Indians was linked with the debate over whether or not the Indian was a rational human being who had the capacity to comprehend the Roman Catholic faith and enjoy the full sacramental system of the Church. As in the case of the rationality controversy, the position of the Indian vis-à-vis the Holy Office of the Inquisition was not resolved articulately, and after the first decades of the spiritual conquest the question took on added importance as the Mexican clergy discovered recurrent idolatry and religious syncretism among their flocks.

A distinguished British historian, commenting on the trial and execution of “ Edmund Arrowsmith, a Papist burned by pious Englishmen at Lancaster in 1628,” claims that “ clearly … there is no rational comparison between a victim of the bloody Spanish Tribunal and one who suffered at the hands of cool headed English justice.” Considering that Magistrate Henry Yelverton judged Arrowsmith guilty of high treason for being a priest, refused to allow the accused to testify in his own defense, and then gleefully witnessed the execution, it is possible that “ cool headed English justice ” might not compare so favorably with the proceedings of the Inquisition. This is particularly true when the Inquisition in eighteenth-century New Spain is studied, for although the Holy Office was then in decline and under the control of regalist prelates, its operations exhibited marked deliberation in the pursuit of justice as defined by the courts of that period.

During the second half of the seventeenth century and the early years of the eighteenth century relaxation of the morals of religious orders, especially the masculine ones, and of the priesthood was notable in Spain and her American dominions. That this situation also existed in New Spain was reported in detail by several contemporary Viceroys in the Instrucciones to their successors. This relaxation also extended to feminine orders, though in their case it did not lead to a similar moral looseness, but to a lack of proper observance of their Rules and Constitutions. Among the main charges against nunneries were: the possession of large numbers of servants; the constant demands made upon the families of nuns for money to be spent on the needs of convents; quarrels, both among members of communities and with their Superiors, leading to appeals to civil authorities and frequent contacts with the outer world, which deteriorated the spiritual character of these institutions.