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Jesuit Contributions to the Ideology of Spanish Empire in Mexico Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Peggy K. Liss
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Extract

No satisfactory account exists of how Jesuits functioned in Mexican society; nor has any assessment been made of their Jesuits importance to the Spanish crown; nor has anything been written evaluating the extent of the Jesuits' role in molding and maintaining, throughout most of the colonial period Mexican adhesion to Spanish culture, civilization, and political arrangements. Previous writing has, in fact, tended to obfuscate the Order's attitudes and activities in Mexico by stressing special aspects of them, notably missionary activity, and slighting others, particularly formal education—paying little attention to its effects on Mexican society. Moreover, while many specialists in sixteenth-century Mexican history acknowledge that of course Jesuits in New Spain supported the empire, none have explained and substantiated just how they did so. In addition, historians of the same period in Europe, unacquainted with the special situations in Spain and colonial Mexico, would argue from a more general point of view that the assertion that Jesuits may be thought to have contributed at all to loyalty to any monarchy other than the papacy needs strong evidence to support it.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , January 1973 , pp. 314 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1973

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References

1 The author gratefully acknowledges a grant from the American Philosophical Society and criticism and suggestions made on an earlier draft of this essay by Ernest Burrus, S. J., George McCully, and Charles Gibson.

2 y Garay, Ricardo del Arco, La idea de Imperio en la política y la literatura españolas, (Madrid, 1944 Google Scholar, passim; Koenigsberger, H. G., The Habsburgs and Europe, 1516–1660, (Ithaca, 1971),passim Google Scholar; Post, Gaines, “Two Notes on Nationalism in the Middle Ages, Traditio, 9,(1953), pp. 306–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 In a tract entitled De dignitate regum regnorumque Hispaniae. Valdés was judge of the Chancery (court of equity) of Granada and professor at the University of Valladolid. See Arco y Garay, pp. 225, 402.

4 Ibid., p. 225. III, ch. 4.

5 Green, Otis H., Spain and the Western Tradition, (Univ. of Wisconsin, 1965),Google Scholar

6 de Salazar, Francisco Cervantes, México en 1554, translated from Latin by Icazbalceta, Joaquín García (Mexico, 1939), p.143.Google Scholar

7 See Manzano, Juan Manzano, La incorporación de las Indias a la corona de Castilla, (Madrid, 1948)Google Scholar; and Góngora, Mario, El estado en el derecho indiano, época de fundación, (1492–1570),(Santiago de Chile, 1951).Google Scholar

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9 Casas, Las, Tratados, (Mexico, 1965), 1: pp. 8–11 Google Scholar; tratado quarto, pp. 461–500; II: tratado octavo, pp. 914–1233. Vitoria, in Brown Scott, James, The Spanish Origins of International Law: Francisco de Vitoria and his Law of Nations, (Oxford, 1934) : first relectio, (app. A) pp. xxxiii, xxxvii; de Potestate Civili, (app. C), lxxii-lxxxiii; de Jure Gentium, (app. E), passim.Google Scholar

10 Lichtheim, , “Imperialism: I,” Commentary, 49:4 (1970), p. 44.Google Scholar

11 A good example of missionary mentality is Motolinía’s Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España , written in 1541 and published in 1858 as vol. I of his Colección de Documentos para la Historia de México by Joaquín García Icazbalceta. It could be argued, however, that Pedro de Gante established the principles and processes for missionary activity in Mexico and that he was Flemish. Yet as his letters indicate (Cartas de … , edited by Fidel de J. Chauvet, O.F.M., Mexico, 1951), that great Franciscan lay brother worked on behalf of Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor and later praised Philip II for continuing his father's Christian endeavors. De Gante assumed Spain the hub of temporal empire.

12 See Elliott, J.H., The Old World and the New, 1492–1650, (Cambridge, 1970)Google Scholar; Parry, J. H., The Spanish Theory of Empire in the Sixteenth Century, (Cambridge, 1940).Google Scholar

13 For example, de Mendoza, Pedro Salazar, in the prologue to Monarquía de España,(Madrid, 1770),Google Scholar written during the reign of Philip II, declared the Spanish empire 20 times greater than its Roman predecessor. Cited by Arco y Garay, p. 226.

14 de Menchaca, Fernando Vázquez, Controversiarum illustriam, (Venice, 1563), 1, p.62. Cited by Arco y Garay, p. 233.Google Scholar

15 Green, III, p. 108. He also notes exceptions to the prevailing expansive outlook.

16 In this vein Philip wrote in 1566 to his ambassador in Rome “ You may assure His Holiness that rather than suffer the least damage to religion and to the service of God, I would lose all my states and an hundred lives, if I had them; for I do not propose nor desire to be the ruler of heretics. ” Cited by Koenigsberger, H. G. in New Cambridge Modern History, 3, (Cambridge Univ., 1968), p. 237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 In a letter to the Emperor of Germany, Philip stated that it was a royal duty to maintain a just peace and prevent civil disturbance, his implication being by armed force if necessary; cited by Arco y Geray, p. 219.

18 See Las Siete Partidas, translated by Samuel Parsons Scott, (Chicago, 1931), Partida II, title 1, law 7, p. 273.

19 Real cédula of Aug. 6, 1571, in Monumenta Mexicana, I, (1570–1580), edited by Félix Zubillaga, S. J., as vol. 77 of Monumenta Historica Societatis lesu, (Rome 1956) — hereinafter referred to as MM—Doc. 12, p. 19.

20 Ignatius Loyola to Prince Philip of Spain, Feb. 18, 1549. In Monumenta Historica Societatis lesu, vol. 26: Monumenta Ignatiana II, pp. 344–345, Letter 580.

21 De Legibus ac de Deo Legislatore, (Coimbra, 1612), Bk. III: 4, 6, 8, 11.

22 Ibid. Cited and translated by Hamilton, Bernice, Political Thought in Sixteenth Century Spain, (Oxford, 1963), pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

23 Fernández, Manuel Giménez, Las doctrinas populistas en la independencia de Hispano-América, (Seville, 1947),Google Scholar notes the populist content of Suárez’s thought, but not its organicism. So also did some disaffected creoles in Spanish America in the late eighteenth century; see Stoetzer, O. Carlos, El pensamiento político en la América española durante el periodo de la emancipación (1789–1825), (Madrid, 1966), 1, pp. 72–82.Google Scholar

24 Hamilton, op. cit., p. 38. She adds that “ the theory of kingship in Vitoria, Suárez, Molina, and De Soto is practically identical. ” (p. 40) Domingo de Soto, a Dominican, was Vitoria’s student. Luis de Molina was a Jesuit.

25 See Lewy, Guenter, Constitutionalism and Statecraft during the Golden Age of Spain: a study of the Political Philosophy of Juan de Mariana, (Geneva, 1960).Google Scholar

26 Political Theory from Gerson to Grotius, 1414–1621, (New York, 1960), pp. 190–191.

27 See S. J., Antonio Astrain, Historia de la Compañia de Jesús en la Asistencia de España, 7v. (Madrid, 1912–1925), 3, pp. 402–429.Google Scholar

28 Dec. 12, 1572. MM I, Doc. 23, pp. 50–51.

29 Ibid., p. 322.

30 Probably written in 1609. An edition with a prologue by Félix Ayuso was published as Fundación de la Compañia de Jesús en Nueva España, 1571–1580, (Mexico, 1945), and is cited in this essay. P. 159.

31 Ibid., p. 72.

32 Ibid., p. 40.

33 Ibid., p. 159.

34 Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús en Nueva España, edited by Ernest J. Burras, S.J., and Félix Zubillaga, S.J., (Rome, 1956), I, p. 88.

35 Catholic Historical Review, 21, (1935), p. 279. Creole education was stressed understandably, by Jacobsen, Jerome V. S. J., in Educational Foundations of The Jesuits in Sixteenth Century New Spain (Berkeley, 1938).Google Scholar

36 Philip II to López, March 26, 1571; MM I, Doc. 2, pp. 3–5. Philip II to Borgia, March 4, 1571; ibid., Doc. 3, pp. 5–6.

37 Cited by Felix Zubillaga, “ Instrucción de S. Francisco de Borja al Primer Provincial de Nueva España (1571). “Métodos Misionales,” Studia Missionalia, 3, (1947), p. 174.

38 No original copy of the cabildo’s petition exists. de Florencia, Francisco S. J., Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, (Mexico 1694),Google Scholar cites it (facsimile ed., Mexico, 1955, p. 71). MM I, Doc. 1, pp. 1–3, is a reprint of the Florencia text. Juan Sánchez Baquero stated that the Viceroy and Ayuntamiento of Mexico, wanting their sons schooled, “ suplicaron encarecidamente a su Majestad ” to send Jesuits, (p. 14).

39 de Peralta, Juan Suárez, Tratado del descubrimiento de las Indias…y del suceso del marqués del Valle segundo… (1579), (Mexico, 1949)Google Scholar; Orozco, Manuel y Berra, , Noticia histórica de la conjuración del Marqués del Valle, (Mexico, 1853).Google Scholar

40 Feb. 18, 1574; MM I, Doc. 38, pp. 94–95.

41 May 12, 1575; ibid., Doc. 65, pp. 164–165.

42 Ibid., Doc. 179, pp. 454.

43 Ibid.

44 July 22, 1579; Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, I, 4th ed., (Madrid, 1791), Lib. I, tit. 23, 1.11, pp. 211–212.

45 Philip II to Enríquez, July 29, 1578; MM I, Doc. 135, pp. 377–378. After a good deal of correspondence, the project was dropped.

46 Recopilación, I, I, Lib. I, tit. 23, 1.12, p. 212. Quiroga, too had sought Jesuits for his school. Juan Alfonso Polanco, secretary to Jesuit Generals from Loyola to Borgia, wrote in 1551 of the Bishop’s importuning of all Jesuits he met in Europe: “He speaks of a bounteous harvest, in greatest distress for lack of husbandmen, and he offers to provide the necessary funds.” Vita Ignatíí Loyolae et Rerum Societatis lesu Historia, II, p. 321.

47 Oct. 20, 1571; MM I, Doc. 13, pp. 20–29. Also see Zubillaga, op. cit.

48 Ibid. Also see Sánchez Baquero, p. 71.

49 Pedro Sánchez to Everard Mercurian, March 8, 1573; MM I, pp. 52–70; Sánchez Baquero, pp. 34–55; de Rivas, Andrés Pérez S. J., Corónica y historia religiosa de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de México en Nueva España (written in 1650), (Mexico, 1896), 1, 17–27 Google Scholar; Florencia, I, pp. 83–140; Alegre, I, pp. 50–65.

50 Sánchez Baquero, pp. 48–50; Florencia, p. 266, and Relación breve de la venida de los de la Compañía de Jesús a la Nueva España, edited by Cossio, Francisco González, (Mexico, 1945), p. 3.Google Scholar Written in 1602, several Jesuits have been put forth as its author. Ernest Burrus argues convincingly that it was written by Gaspar,de Villerías, a Mexican creole Jesuit and the official historian of the Province; see Burrus, , “ Mexican Historical Documents in the Central Jesuit Archives,” Manuscripta, 12, (1968), p. 155, n. 55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Their statements are corroborated by non-Jesuit sources, including correspondence of the Archbishop, Viceroy, Ayuntamiento of Mexico, and Philip.

51 Sánchez Baquero., p. 54. In one respect, Jesuits did themselves an ultimate disservice in their successful quest for public esteem, if accounts of popular response at certain Jesuit funerals are to be believed. On his death in Mexico City in 1607, “ all the city ” is said to have come to pay last respects to Hernán Suárez de la Concha, “ beloved of the poor… And they despoiled [the corpse] of ornaments and shroud. He thought himself lucky who could get a piece of it or of the holy body as precious relics to be held in great veneration, so deserved by his many rare virtues.” (Ibid., p. 70). When Diego López died, a well-placed grate saved his remains from the same treatment at the hands of the women of the capital, (ibid., p. 105). Less fortunate was the body of the Provincial, Juan de la Plaza. At his rites in 1602, another grand show of devotion and general grabfest ensued. (Ibid., p. 137).

52 Ibid., p. 44; also see Florencia, p. 104. The former, (p. 20) says that before embarking for America Pedro Sánchez had stopped at Madrid to see the king and his good friend of Salamanca days, Juan ele Ovando, President of the Council of the Indies.

53 Florencia, p. 69, notes the friendship. Alegre, I, p. 109 says they were related. Borgia died Oct. 1, 1572, three days after these Jesuits arrived in Mexico City.

54 MM I, pp. 68–69; Sánchez Baquero, pp. 53, 71; Florencia, p. 106; and Alegre, I, p. 133.

55 Relación breve, p.3.

56 Sánchez Baquero, p. 56.

57 “Catalogue Sociorum Provinciae Mexicanae,” 1576; MM I, Doc. 95, p. 222; Litterae Annuae, 1579, ibid., Doc. 173, p. 437; Alegre, I, pp. 559–63.

58 Burrus, Ernest S. J., “ Pioneer Jesuit Apostles among the Indians of the New Spain(1572–1604),” Archivimi Historicum Societatis lesu, 25, (1956), p. 577.Google Scholar

59 Sánchez Baquero, p. 61. See above, n. 46.

60 “Catalogue Sociorum…” 1576, MM I, p.224; Alegre, I, pp. 136–137, 271–272, 278–279, 304, 577.

61 Burrus, Ernest J., in “ Was Pedro Caltzontzín, Grandson of the Last Tarascan King, a Jesuit? ” AHSI, 24, (1955), pp. 211ȁ217,Google Scholar concluded that he had not joined the Society.

62 MM I, pp. 318–321.

63 pérez de Rivas, II, p. 178, mentions several Indians were ordained as priests but speaks of it as “ a thing very rare in the Indies. ” Jesuit catalogues did not state ethnic back ground. Carrion, Antonio, “ Indios celebres de la república mexicana.” in Zerecero, Anastasio, Memorias de las revoluciones en México, (Mexico, 1869), pp. 433–528,Google Scholar includes nine Jesuits of Indian background. For the sixteenth century, he lists only Juan de Tovar! He does not state his sources of information. The subject requires more research.

64 March 15, 1580; MM I, Doc. 212, p. 513.

65 Annual Letter of 1580; MM I, Doc. 214, pp. 516–530; Sánchez Baquero, pp. 161–162.

66 Pérez de Rivas, II, bk. 11.

67 See Powell, Philip Wayne, Soldiers, Indians, and Silver: the Northern Advance of New Spain, 1550–1600, (Univ. of Calif., 1952), pp. 172, 181, 189.Google Scholar

68 Preamble to Pt. IV, exp. A. Translated and printed in Fitzpatrick, Edward A., ed., St. Ignatius and the Ratio Studiorum, (New York, 1933), p. 49.Google Scholar

69 Zubillaga, op. cit., pp. 169–172.

70 –Catalogue primorum sociorum in N. Hispaniam designatorum,” (June 1571), MM I, Doc. 4, pp. 6–9; also see Borgia to López, June 15, 1571, MM I, Doc. 5, pp. 9–10. Borgia himself had first taken the Order into educational activity in founding the University of Gandia in 1541, providing schooling for lay pupils as well as for theological students.

71 Oct. 31, 1573; MM I, Doc. 30, pp. 81–83. Enríquez licensed a Jesuit school on Aug. 12, 1573; ibid., Doc. 27, pp. 77–78. Also see Moya de Contreras to Ovando, Sept. 10, 1573, ibid., Doc. 28, pp. 78–79; Mercurian to Plaza, Oct. 23, 1573, ibid., Doc. 29, pp. 79–81. Sánchez Baquero, p. 72, says the Colegio de San Ildefonso was founded in July 1574. The Jesuits had arrived in Mexico in September 1572.

72 MM I, Doc. 40, p. 97.

73 P. 26.

74 P. 149; also see Pérez de Rivas, I, p. 63.

75 Sánchez Baquero, pp. 106–107; app. II, p. 177.

76 Florencia, pp. 189-–190.

77 Sánchez Baquero, pp. 71–72.

78 Jan. 1579, MM I, Doc . 166, pp.414–416. Also Florencia, pp. 161–162.

79 April 24, 1579; MM I, Doc. 180, p. 458.

80 Philip II ordered a concordat between Jesuits and University in 1579; harmony ensued. Philip II to Enríquez, April 14, 1579; MM I, Doc. 179, p.454. Philip to Audiencia of New Spain, Jan. 18, 1580, ibid., Doc. 199, pp. 498–499. In effect, Jesuit schools and University were part of the same educational system. Both taught higher disciplines, although only the University could confer degrees. Jesuits had a monopoly on Latin studies. See Plaza, Cristobal Bernardo y Jaén, , Crónica de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México, (paleographic ed. by Rangel, Nicolás , Mexico, 1931), 2, p. 198.Google Scholar

81 Sánchez Baquero, pp. 74–133; Relación breve, pp. 27–29; Florencia, pp. 159–178.