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Crossing Mexico (1620–1621): Franciscan Nuns and Their Journey to the Philippines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2015

Sarah E. Owens
Sarah E. Owens*
Affiliation:
College of CharlestonCharleston, South Carolina
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Extract

In 1620, almost a hundred years after the Virgin of Guadalupe is said to have appeared to Juan Diego on the Hill of Tepeyac, a small group of Spanish nuns paid a visit to the chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Like many others before and after them they stopped at the shrine on their way to Mexico City. The Franciscan nuns were traveling from Toledo to Manila and were about to cross Mexico to board the yearly Manila Galleon at the port of Acapulco.

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Articles
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The Americas , Volume 72 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 583 - 606
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Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2015 

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References

1. Sor Jerónima's birthdate is often given as May 9, 1555, but her baptismal records show that she was baptized on May 20, 1556. Libro de Bautismos de San Bartolomé, 1548–1577, Archive of the Parroquia de San Andrés de Toledo, Spain.

2. All quotes from Sor Ana de Cristo come from the manuscript Vida de Sor Jerónima de la Asunción, located at the Archivo del Monasterio de Santa Isabel de los Reyes in Toledo, Spain [hereafter, AMSIRT]. All translations from the manuscript are mine. This manuscript forms the base of my current book project, tentatively titled Nuns Navigating the Spanish Empire.

3. On the reasons that Spain chose Acapulco as its base for the Manila Galleon, see Colín, Ostwald Sales, El movimiento portuario de Acapulco: el protagonismo de Nueva España en la relación con Filipinas, 1587–1648 (Mexico: Plaza y Valdés, 2000), pp. 37–42, 52–62Google Scholar. See also Phelan, John L., The Hispanization of the Philippines (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959), pp. 42–43Google Scholar.

4. For a discussion of the papal bulls, see the introduction by Arias, Santa and Marrero-Fente, Raúl in Coloniality, Religion, and the Law in the Early Iberian World, Arias and Marrero-Fente, eds. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014), pp. x–xiGoogle Scholar.

5. From the convent of Santa Isabel de los Reyes, Toledo: Jerónima de la Asunción, Leonor de San Francisco, Ana de Cristo, Juana de San Antonio, and Luisa de Jesús (called Luisa de San Francisco before her vows); from the convent of Santa María de la Cruz, Cubas: María Magdalena de la Cruz and María Magdalena de Cristo; from the convent of Santa Clara de la Columna, Belalcázar: María de la Trinidad; and from the convent of La Visitación (Santa Isabel), Mexico City: Leonor de San Buenaventura and María de los Ángeles.

6. Fray José de Santa María, who accompanied the women to the Philippines, voiced this double mandate: one, to found a Poor Clare convent in Manila, and two, to encourage strict monastic reform of Poor Clares in Mexico City. The original document is located in the Archivo General de Indias [hereafter AGI], Filipinas, 36, N71. For a Spanish transcription, see Sánchez Fuertes, Cayetano O.F.M., “Los monasterios de Santa Clara de Manila y Macao. Nuevos documentos para su historia,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 105 (2012), pp. 77–78Google Scholar. For an English translation of Santa María's memorandum of request asking permission for the foundation of a convent of Franciscan discalced nuns in the Philippines, see Ruano, Pedro O.F.M., Jerónima de la Asunción: Poor Clares First Woman Missionary to the Philippines (Quezon City: Monasterio de Santa Clara, 1991), p. 79Google Scholar. See also Zymla, Herbert González, “La fundación e historia del convento de monjas franciscanas de Manila. Una frontera espiritual y artística del imperio español,” in Fronteras del mundo hispánico: Filipinas en el contexto de la regiones liminares novohispanas, López, Marta María Manchado and Talaván, Miguel Luque, eds. (Córdoba, Spain: Universidad de Córdoba, 2011), p. 216Google Scholar.

7. For more information on Sor Jerómina's observance of the First Rule, and the reformation of the Poor Clares, see Reginald D. Cruz, “Servir a Dios en Recogimiento: Religious Life as Woman's Space in the Archdiocese of Manila (1590–1700),” (PhD diss.: University of the Philippines, 2009), pp. 184–188. For a discussion on the struggles between different Rules within the Order of Saint Clare in Spain (Observants vs. Conventuals), see Lehfeldt, Elizabeth A., Religious Women in Golden Age Spain (Burlington: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 149–160Google Scholar.

8. The cultural politics and racial discrimination within convents was widespread throughout the Americas. For a Peruvian example, see Burns, Kathryn, Colonial Habits. Convents, and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 32–40Google Scholar.

9. González Zymla, “La fundación,” pp. 213–214. Sor Ana discusses the same topic but in very vague terms. AMSIRT, fol. 21, 31v, 106v.

10. See Owens, Sarah E., “Monjas españolas en Filipinas: la formación de lectura y escritura de sor Ana de Cristo,” in Las letras en la celda. Cultura escrita de los conventos femeninos en la España Moderna, Leturio, Nieves Baranda and Marín, María Carmen, eds. (Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2014), pp. 379–392Google Scholar. See also Cruz, Anne J.’s introduction in Women's Literacy in Early Modern Spain and the New World, Cruz, Anne J. and Hernández, Rosilie, eds. (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

11. Sor Jerónima was reputed to be quite a prolific author. However, with the exception of several letters, almost all of her works have been lost. Both Sor Ana and subsequent biographers such as Ginés de Quesada had access to Sor Jerónima's writings, in particular her autobiography titled Carta de marear en el mar del mundo, from which they drew information for their biographies, including transcriptions of her poetry. See de Quesada, Ginés, Exemplo de todas las virtudes, y vida milagrosa de la venerable madre Gerónima de la Assumpción, Abadesa, y Fundadora del Real Convento de la Concepción de la Virgen Nuestra Señora, de Monjas Descalzas de nuestra Madre Santa Clara de la Ciudad de Manila, (Mexico: Viuda de Miguel de la Rivera, 1713)Google Scholar. It should be noted that Quesada wrote his biography in 1632, before his departure to Japan where he died a marytr in 1634. For excerpts of her autobiography (cited from Quesada), see Triviño, María Victoria OSC, ed., Escritoras clarisas españolas (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1992), pp. 46–53Google Scholar. For an English translation of one of her letters, see Ruano, Jerónima, pp. 84–96.

12. The study of foundation narratives and convent chronicles written by Hispanic nuns is relatively new. See Rosa, Madre María, Journey of Five Capuchin Nuns, Owens, Sarah E., trans. and ed. (Toronto: Iter & Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2009)Google Scholar. For more information on this field, see Leturio, Nieves Baranda, “Fundación y memoria en las capuchinas españolas de la Edad Moderna,” in Memoria e Comunita Femminili: Spagna e Italia, secc. XV-XVII. Memoria y comunidades femeninas: España e Italia, siglos XV–XVII, Zarri, Gabriella and Leturio, Nieves Baranda, eds. (Florence: Firenze University Press-UNED, 2011), pp. 169–185Google Scholar. See also López, Ángela Atienza, Tiempos de conventos: una historia social de la fundaciones en la España moderna (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2008)Google Scholar.

13. There is a partial Spanish transcription of the manuscript in the Positio (papers for the process of beatification). Congregatio Causis Sanctorum. Manilen, Beatificationis et Canonizationis Ven. Servae Dei Sororis Hieronymae ab Assumptione (in saec. H. Yáñez), Fundatricis et primae Abbatissae Monasterii Monialium Excalceatarum S. Clarae Ordinis S. Francisci . . . Positio super Vita et Virtutibus, Rome, 1991.

14. Stephen Haliczer discusses the common practice for a nun to read aloud a book about the life of a saint while nuns went about their daily tasks, such as sewing. Haliczer, , Between Exaltation and Infamy: Female Mystics in the Golden Age of Spain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. AGI, Filipinas 85, N.86. For a transcription and translation of this letter, which is dated June 30, 1636, see Cruz, “Servir a Dios,” pp. 236–239.

16. Some time in 1616 or 1617, Sor Jerónima herself commissioned a large sculpture of the Immaculate Conception for the Franciscan Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo. Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fols. 131–133. That statue has been returned to the convent of Santa Isabel de los Reyes and sits on the main altarpiece. Caviró, Balbina M., El monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes (Toledo: Iberdrola, 2002), p. 48Google Scholar. On the Immaculist movement and debate in Seville, see Stratton, Suzanne L., The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 3, 73–87Google Scholar; Bray, Xavier, The Sacred Made Real. Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600–1700 (London: National Gallery Company/Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 53 and 91Google Scholar; Cuadriello, Jaime, “The Theopolitical Visualization of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception,” in Sacred Spain. Art and Belief in the Spanish World, Kasl, Ronda, ed. (New Haven: Indianapolis Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 133–134Google Scholar; and Tiffany, Tanya J., Diego Velázquez's Early Paintings and the Culture of Seventeenth-Century Seville (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), pp. 28–29Google Scholar.

17. Cuadriello, “Theopolitical Visualization,” p. 123

18. It is also believed that Sor María Evangelista served as scribe for Sor Juana's most famous work, a series of sermons called El Conhorte. Much has been written about Juana de la Cruz. Surtz, Ronald E., The Guitar of God: Gender, Power, and Authority in the Visionary World of Mother Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Andrés, Inocente García, El Conhorte: sermones de una mujer. La Santa Juana (1481–1534), 2 vols. (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1999)Google Scholar; de Pablo Maroto, Daniel, “La ‘Santa Juana’, mística franciscana del siglo XVI español. Significación histórica,” Revista de Espiritualidad 60 (2001), pp. 577–601Google Scholar; Boon, Jessica A., “Mother Juana de la Cruz: Marian Visions and Female Preaching,” in A New Companion to Hispanic Mysticism, Kallendorf, Hilaire, ed. (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2010), pp. 127–148Google Scholar.

19. On an interesting side note, Sor Magdalena also made a name for herself as an author and an intrepid nun. In 1633, she joined another expedition of nuns, to the Portuguese colony of Macao, where they founded the first Franciscan convent in China. Sor Magdalena wrote several works including her autobiography (now lost) and a lengthy mystical text called Floresta franciscana de ilustraciones celestiales cogida al hilo de la oración en la aurora de María . . ., 3 vols. Manuscritos. Madrid, Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental, 387/1, 387/2, 387/3. On the nuns in Macao, see Penalva, Elsa, Mulheres em Macau. Donas honradas, mulheres libres e escravas (séculos XVI e XVII) (Lisbon: Centro de História de Além-Mar, 2011)Google Scholar.

20. Daza, Antonio, Historia, vida y milagros, éxtasis y revelaciones de la bienaventurada virgen sor Juana de la Cruz (Madrid: Luis Sánchez, 1613)Google Scholar; Navarro, Pedro, Favores de el rey de el cielo hechos a su esposa la santa Juana de la Cruz, religiosa de la Orden Tercera de N. P. S. Francisco: con anotaciones theologicas y morales a la historia de su vida (Madrid: Thomas Iunti, 1622)Google Scholar.

21. In his biography of Sor Jerónima, Quesada stated that all over New Spain and in the Philippines many people revered Juana de la Cruz and tried to obtain her beads. Exemplo de todas las virtudes, Book V, chapt. 35, p. 438. I am using the version of Quesada's book that is contained within the Positio on Sor Jerónima.

22. For a comprehensive overview of Juana de la Cruz and the power of her miraculous beads on the journey to the Philippines see Owens, Sarah E., “El legado del rosario milagroso en los escritos de viaje de sor Ana de Cristo hacia Filipinas,” Boletín de Monumentos Históricos/Tercera Época 30 (January-April 2014), pp. 22–35Google Scholar.

23. Lehfeldt, Religious Women, pp. 170–172.

24. For example, Daza, Antonio, Libro de la purísima Concepción de la Madre de Dios . . . (Madrid: Viuda de Luis Sánchez, 1628)Google Scholar.

25. The Spanish name is Defensores de la Purísima Concepción de la Virgen.

26. For the definitive work on Sor Luisa, see Barriuso, Patrocinio García OFM, La monja de Carrión. Sor Luisa de la Ascensión Colmenares Cabezón (Madrid: Ediciones Monte Casino, 1986)Google Scholar. Barriuso, García also has a shorter article, “La monja de Carrión Sor Luisa de la Ascensión y Sor María de Jesús, la monja de Ágreda,” Verdad y Vida. Franciscanos Españoles 49:193--196 (1991), pp. 547–552Google Scholar.

27. AGI, Filipinas 85, N.54. For a Spanish transcription, see González Zymla, “La fundación,” pp. 233, 234n130. For an English translation of the letter, see Ruano, Jerónima, pp. 84–86.

28. Sor Ana used the Spanish spelling ‘Guadalupe,’ but to avoid confusion with the shrine of Guadalupe I use the French name, Guadeloupe (the islands now belong to France). Christopher Columbus stopped at this small group of islands of the Lesser Antilles on his second voyage in 1493 and named them Guadalupe in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Extremadura. Poole, Stafford CM, Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997), p. 23Google Scholar.

29. “Catorce islas decían que eran en tierra muy linda con un río de agua dulce y muy del gana adonde se provee en las naos en harta necesidad y de aves, puercos y frutas y leña que haber allí cristiandad dicen se podían hacer naos por hay montes de arboledas hermosísimos; al amanecer lo vimos que parecía un paraíso terrenal.” Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 85v.

30. “los indios que llaman de Guadalupe que le cuestan muchas lágrimas ver que cada año pasa por ellos la armada de los cristianos.” Ibid.

31. “Trajeron sus mujeres y niños todos en cueros y en alma grados que aborrecían lo que eran al fin almas condenadas si Dios no los remedía.” Ibid.

32. “Y así lo escribió al Rey para que se diese orden de enviar ministros de la fe para que los alumbren en ella y todos los años hace lo mismo.” Ibid., fol. 86.

33. The term doctrinero was first applied to friars and then later to parish priests who “indoctrinated” Amerindians in the Christian faith. See Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, p. 69. See also Nesvig, Martin Austin, “The ‘Indian Question’ and the Case of Tlatelolco,” in Local Religion in Colonial Mexico, Nesvig, ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006), p. 66Google Scholar.

34. For a detailed description and maps of these routes, see Diego Panes, who was commissioned by Viceroy Matías de Gálvez y Gallardo to map the routes from Veracruz to Mexico (1783). Descripción de los caminos que desde la plaza de Veracruz se dirigen a México por distintos rumbos, facsimile edition (Madrid: Banco Santander, 1992). See also Sergio Arturo Vargas Matías, “El Camino Real de Veracruz: pasado, presente y futuro” (2011), http://aprendeenlinea.udea.edu.co/revistas/index.php/folios/article/viewFile/12769/11508.

35. “hallóla con gran quietud y sosiego colgada de una ramilla.” Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 87.

36. “Teníamos muy grande alegría de vernos en aquel campo; era jueves en la noche y considerándonos acompañando al Señor en el huerto por estar a propósito los árboles y río decíamos salmos a coros. Ibid., fol. 87v.

37. “subidas en las mulas como pollos mojados pero con buen ánimo pasamos el río y nuestra madre la primera como capitana.” Ibid., fol. 87v.

38. “Salió el pueblo en procesión con cruz y pendones, ramilletes en las manos que nos presentaron y a nuestra santa madre una corona y cadena de flores que le echaron al cuello, preguntando en su lengua por ella que causó a todos muy grande devoción y a ella aumentó de espíritu y decía, bendito sea Dios.” Ibid., fol. 88.

39. “Y como en aquellas tierras no se habían visto monjas, parecióles venidas del cielo, dabanse en los pechos diciendo ¿es posible que en nuestros tiempos hemos visto tal?” Ibid., fol. 88v.

40. “Una ventera envió a un hijo suyo a otra a saber si habían llegado las monjas, dijole no ha venido sino unos padres con mantos y tocas negras, y la madre vino en un caballo por los campos corriendo a verlo y nos trajo algunos huevos y panes para comer y se holgó con nosotras y dijo que su hijo nos había llamado padres que no supo más y otros decían que éramos las mujeres de los padres que ya las habían llevado de Castilla que no eran monjas y así andábamos con los altos y bajos entre los indios como si vieras del otro mundo.” Ibid., fol. 89.

41. Friars or monks were part of the mendicant clergy, also known as regulars, who took vows of poverty and belonged to a religious community, such as Franciscans, Augustinians, or Dominicans. Many of them served as missionaries in the New World. Diocesan or secular clergy were not part of a religious order and instead answered to the bishop of their particular diocese.

42. “Ibamos encontrando algunas doctrinas de indios que hacen el oficio de curas porque no hay casi otros ministros sino los que vienen de España y esos están repartidos y en los lugares.” Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 89.

43. See Lundberg, Magnus, “El clero indígena en Hispanoamérica: de la legislación a la implementación y práctica eclesiástica,” Estudios de Historia Novohispana 38 (January-June 2008), pp. 39–62Google Scholar; Morales, Francisco, Ethnic and Social Background of the Franciscan Friars in Seventeenth-Century Mexico (Washington, D.C.: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1973), pp. 38–53Google Scholar; and Hsia, R. Po-Chia, The World of Catholic Renewal 1540–1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 192Google Scholar.

44. According to Stafford Poole, “By the 1570s Guadalupe had become the principal point of entrance into Mexico City, and it was customary for important figures, such as arriving viceroys and archbishops, to tarry there while being met by reception committees from the city.” Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe, p. 50.

45. “La postrera jornada de la Nueva España fue a una ermita que llaman de nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Estuvimos allí una noche, es un paraíso y la imagen de mucha devoción, vióse cuando se ganó México que andaba echando tierra a los contrarios en los ojos; y apareció a un indio en aquel lugar donde está, que es entre unas peñas, y le dijo que le hiciesen una casa y en el lugar donde se puso de pies manó un poco de agua clara que pasamos por él y le vimos, y está hirviendo como si estuviera a muy grande fuego, y nos dieron un jarro de él y estaba salado, más nos dijeron unas beatas que tenían cuidado de la ermita que la misma Virgen pidió el manto al indio que era de lienzo y se le midió de la cabeza hasta los pies y quedó detratado [sic] y diósela al indio diciendo que la pusiesen en aquel sitio; hace muchos milagros, tiene más de cuarenta lámparas de plata y aposentos para los que van a novenas.” Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 89v.

46. Much has been written on the history of the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Among other works, see Lafaye, Jacques, Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1531–1813, Keen, Benjamin, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe; Brading, D. A., Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe, Image and Tradition Across Five Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Marrón, Gustavo Watson, El templo que unió a Nueva España. Historia del Santuario y Colegiata de Guadalupe, extramuros de México, en el siglo XVIII (Mexico: Porrúa, 2012)Google Scholar; and Matovina, Timothy, “The Origins of the Guadalupe Tradition in Mexico,” Catholic Historical Review 100:2 (Spring 2014), pp. 243–270CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47. The Mexican scholar Arturo Rocha has compiled a beautiful facsimile edition of this text and other documents relating to the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the sixteenth century. Rocha, Monumenta guadalupensia mexicana. Colección facsimilar de documentos guadalupanos del siglo XVI custodiados en México y el mundo, acompañados de paleografías, comentarios y notas (Mexico: Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe/Grupo Estrella Blanca, 2010).

48. This modernized quote appears as cited from Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pp. 69–70. For a full version of Philips's account, see The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation . . ., Richard Hakluyt, ed., Vol. 6, (London: J. M. Dent and Sons Limited, 1927), pp. 296–336. See also Arturo Rocha for the facsimile version from 1598, Monumenta guadalupensia mexicana, pp. 76–85. Philips's account describes events occurring between 1567 and 1582.

49. The Chapel of the Pocito is named for the well housed in the chapel; the water source was originally hot springs, renowned for their healing powers among the local indigenous populations. Later, pilgrims from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries drank the salty waters in the hope of miraculous cures. The springs were covered with a basic structure some time between 1648 and 1649, but it was not until the end of the eighteenth century that the Mexican architect Francisco Guerrero y Torres built the lavish baroque chapel that stands on the spot today. de García Lascuráin, Ana Rita Valero, ed., Plano topográfico de la Villa de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe y sus alrededores en 1691 (Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social [CIESAS], 2004), pp. 32–33Google Scholar.

50. “As a Protestant, Philips was more impressed by a silver statue recently donated by a wealthy miner, Alonso de Villaseca, than by the simple painting of the Virgin which adorned the sanctuary,” Brading, Mexican Phoenix, p. 2.

51. Fuchs, Barbara, “An English Pícaro in New Spain: Miles Philips and the Framing of National Identity,” CR: The New Centennial Review 2:1 (Spring 2002), pp. 61–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52. The crown's Christianizing mission and the nexus between conversion and colonization is discussed in Rafael, Vicente L., Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 17–22Google Scholar.

53. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's work, written between 1570 and 1582, directly cites the shrine of Guadalupe as occupying the same location as the previous Aztec temple dedicated to Tonantzín, mother of the gods. Sahagún, Historia de las cosas de Nueva España (Mexico: Porrúa, 1982), pp. 704–705.

54. For a discussion on the tensions between Franciscans and Dominicans regarding the Virgin of Guadalupe and her relationship to Tonantzín, see Zires, Margarita, “Los mitos de la Virgen de Guadalupe,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 10:2 (Summer 1994), pp. 281–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55. Morales, Francisco, “The Native Encounter with Christianity: Franciscans and Nahuas in Sixteenth-Century Mexico,” The Americas 65:2 (October 2008), pp. 137–159Google Scholar. Motolinia was one of the first Franciscan friars to arrive in Mexico (1524). He was part of the famous group known as the Twelve Apostles because they had walked barefoot all the way from Veracruz to the capital.

56. Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe, p. 132. Matovina discusses the indigenous population living at Tepeyac, contradicting Stafford Poole's argument for the lack of indigenous devotion to the Guadalupe cult in his more recent book. Poole, The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006); Matovina, “The Origins,” p. 260.

57. Watson Marrón, El templo, pp. 74–78.

58. “Ella pidió a nuestro padre que fuesen por otra parte por huir la ostentación.” Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 89.

59. This was due to lack of charitable donations and the harsh physical conditions of the damp location. Muriel, Josefina, Conventos de monjas en la Nueva España (Mexico: Editorial Jus, [1946] 1995), p. 212Google Scholar. de Corsi, María Concepción Amerlinck and Medina, Manuel Ramos, eds. Conventos de monjas. Fundaciones en el México virreinal (Mexico: Grupo Condumex, 1995), p. 95Google Scholar.

60. Bartolomé de Letona provides a list of the eight abbesses who served the Convent of Saint Clare in Manila before 1662, including Sor Leonor de San Buenaventura. The nurse María de los Ángeles is not on the list. See Perfecta Religiosa (Puebla: Viuda Juan de Borja, 1662), no page number.

61. Sor Ana uses the ambiguous word ‘imagen’ so it is unclear whether she was referring to a painting or a sculpture. Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 90.

62. “ha escrito a nuestra madre diciendo el provecho que había hecho su ejemplo en aquellos conventos de monjas.” Ibid.

63. “Y en particular nos holgamos con la madre Leonor de los Ángeles tenida en gran veneración en su casa y en el pueblo.” Ibid., fol. 91.

64. See Lavrin, Asunción, Brides of Christ: Conventual Life in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), pp. 32–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Muriel, Conventos de monjas, p. 188; and Vetancurt, Menologio franciscano, pp. 209, 362–365.

65. “para tanta gloria de mi dulcísimo Jesús que no desistan de ello.” Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 91v.

66. The road was also called the “camino de Acapulco” or the “camino de Asia.” According to Raquel Ofelia Barceló Quintal, the goods that traveled along it included silks from China, cotton textiles and emeralds from India, sapphires from Ceylon, and spices from the Moluccas. “Acapulco, frontera commercial del reino español (1565–1815)” in Fronteras del mundo hispánico: Filipinas en el contexto de la regiones liminares novohispanas, Marta María Manchado López and Miguel Luque Talaván, eds. (Córdoba: Universidad de Córdoba, 2011), p. 362. For a more detailed description of these goods, see Carmen Yuste López, El comercio de la Nueva España con Filipinas, 1590–1785 (Mexico: INAH, 1984), pp. 25–27. William Lytle Shurz's seminal work describes the China Road and the port of Acapulco during the colonial period. Schurz, , The Manila Galleon (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., [1939] 1959), pp. 371–387Google Scholar.

67. “Llegamos a otro lugar que estaba el cura diciendo misa y dos sacristanes a los lados con desaventadores quitando mosquitos porque había infinitos. Confesamos y comulgamos y allí en la iglesia nos dio de comer y fue con nosotras hasta el Río de las Balsas que le pasamos en unas calabazas, atadas unas con otras, remando unos indios. Pasamos el río del Papagayo que es el más recio de los caminos por sus altos y bajos y grandes peñascos, y Dios nos libró de grandes peligros porque había tigres y otras bestias fieras.” Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 93.

68. “Había muchos ríos y arroyos de lindas aguas y fuentes arboleadas, frutas, cocos, naranjales, plátanos y las hierbas de que se hace el hilo de pita . . . viñas y árboles a donde se cría el algodón, cañas tan gruesas y altas que se hacen de ellas casas e iglesias; pinos fuertes y maderas incorruptibles, campos tan amenos, flores, frutas, árboles que parecía un paraíso y en efecto de verdad nos decían que estábamos muy cerca de él y del río Jordán.” Sor Ana, AMSIRT, fol. 92v.

69. For a discussion on the metaphor of Mexico as a spring-like paradise in Creole texts, see More, Anna, Baroque Sovereignty: Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and the Creole Archive of Colonial Mexico (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 66–67Google Scholar.

70. Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge, Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550–1700 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), p. 141Google Scholar. Cañizares-Esguerra has also studied the trope of Spanish American nuns as flowers in God's garden. Ibid., p. 200.

71. Barceló Quintal notes that people in New Spain used the terms ‘Galeón de Manila’ and ‘Nao de China,’ while those who lived in Manila referred to the ships as the ‘Galeón de Acapulco.’ Quintal, “Acapulco, frontera comercial,” p. 368.

72. See Crossley, John Newsome, Hernando de los Ríos Coronel and the Spanish Philippines in the Golden Age (Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate, 2011), p. 81Google Scholar.

73. Sor Ana states they were there for almost a month. AMSIRT, fol. 93v. But Quesada says they spent 10 days in Acapulco. Quesada, Exemplo de todas las virtudes, p. 399.

74. Edward R. Slack Jr. describes the diverse group of people that converged upon Acapulco. He studies the ‘Chinos,’ a term used in New Spain to refer to anyone from Asia. Slack, , “The Chinos in New Spain: A Corrective Lens for a Distorted Image,” Journal of World History 20:1 (2009), pp. 35–67Google Scholar. See also Schurtz, The Manila Galleon, pp. 374, 381; and Barceló Quintal, “Acapulco, frontera comercial,” pp. 378–383.

75. See Sánchez Fuertes, “Los monasterios,” pp. 55–56.

76. See Tanya J. Tiffany's chapter “Portraiture and the ‘Virile Woman”: Madre Jerónima de la Fuente” in her book Diego Velázquez's Early Paintings and the Culture of Seventeenth-Century Seville (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2012), pp. 49–76.