|
MEXICO MAGICO
TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY... A history of the Mexican people |
CHAPTER IV, The Forefathers - The Baroque Years (72th part continues...)
By Prof. German Estrada - January 2007 |
To punish “bad examples of Christianity” and bar heretics, Philip II had, in 1569, dispatched the Holy Office of the Inquisition to New Spain. Run by the church, it functioned as “censor, detective, jail warden, and informer,” assuming the guilt of the accused until they were proven innocent. However, the Holy Office, at least in the sixteenth century, was not viewed as a repressive tribunal by most colonists; to the contrary, they looked upon it as a “benign and popular institution….protecting religion and……society from traitors.” Still, between 1571, when it assumed its vigilance, and 1601, it delivered thirteen “sinners” to secular authorities for burning at the stake. That attitude was also typical of Protestants, no less intolerant. In nearly three centuries of Spanish rule in the Americas, the Inquisition probably sentenced to the stake no more than ninety “sinners,” while in Tudor England victims of religious persecution exceeded five hundred.
Especially unwelcome in New Spain were “crypto-Jews,” converses suspected of not embracing Catholic dogma fully. In one famous trial, the Inquisition convicted Don Luis de Carvajal, a converse and the conqueror of Nuevo León, of sheltering Jewish relatives, some of whom it burned at the stake. Indians, classified as children by Spanish law, were, after 1571, excluded mercifully from judgment. Crimes against “good morals,” as defined by the holy fathers, mostly occupied the Inquisition: bigamy, sexual perversion, “solicitation in the confessional” (a common occurrence), blasphemy, quackery, and superstition.
Under the Baroque church, Indians, by and large, did not fare well. Less than a century after the arrival of the friars, there were churches, boasted Jerónimo de Mendieta, in the four hundred convent towns of New Spain, and an equal number in the secular parishes and chapels in the pueblos, all built by Indians, who also did the backbreaking labor for the construction of the sumptuous convents, monasteries, and cathedrals. To cite a letter of Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar of 1556, “Indians in gangs of five hundred, six hundred, or a thousand” were brought from a “distance of four, six, or twelve leagues, without paying them any wages or even giving them a crust of bread.” Once settled in their quarters, friars, nuns, and priests asked Indians to be “gardeners, servants, sacristans, messengers, all without a cent of wages.” The “cost of…..the rich and superfluous ornaments” in the churches was met by assessing them. In theory, the giving of alms was voluntary; by the early seventeenth century, it had become compulsory.
Not illogically, Indians often distrusted friars and priests. This attitude had early origins. By 1550, attendance at mass by Indians had declined drastically, especially among men. Even in regions thought safely Christian, few natives visited the church. Near Bacanuche, on the desolate frontier of Sonora, Indians told Father Kino why they neither wanted to be Christianized nor welcome missionaries. The fathers, they complained, killed people, stole the fertile land, permitted cattle to dry up watering holes, and, more telling, “deceived with false promises.”
That notwithstanding, in the provincial towns, the church was, more often than not, the center of social life. The myriad religious festivals of the ecclesiastical calendar offered plentiful opportunities for well-deserved social get-togethers, a time to rest from arduous labors. In the mining towns, work came to a halt during the holydays, at Santa Eulalia, a forlorn mining town in northern Chihuahua, to give one example, to hail San José, its patron, and later San Francisco, San Felipe, and San Andrés and to celebrate Corpus Christi. Many of these festivals took place on the square before the church in neighboring Chihuahua City, where priests and public officials in their Sunday best paraded, holding aloft the images of the saints being honored, joined by horsemen who waived banners and flags. The Ayuntamiento, for its part, set up benches and tables where food and drink were served. According to archival documents, a merry time was had by all.
Beyond that, in spite of the misdeeds of some, the early clergy left a valuable legacy, not only a record of piety and decency and a crusade for social justice but, additionally, a written record of the Conquest of New Spain. Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía), Jerónimo de Mendieta, José de Acosta, Diego Durán, Juan de Tovar, and Andrés Olmos rescued from oblivion the pictographs and oral traditions of the pre-Hispanic peoples. They wrote grammars and compiled vocabularies of their languages and, to ensure that posterity remembered, the first ethnographic and historical texts of the inhabitants of Mesoamerica. Who can forget Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s monumental Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, the story of Aztec life compiled with the aid of native writers? Without the endeavors of these men, much of what Mexicans know today about their past would be lost.
 |
 |
Bartolome de las Casas, Dominican Friar, 1544
|
|
 |
 |
Pages of the Florentine Codex. The text is in Nahuatl.
The Florentine Codex, is also known as Historia general de las cosas
de Nueva Espaņa (General History of the Things of New Spain).
|
In the next issue we’ll continue with Chapter V of this fascinating book, The Baroque Years.
Prof. Germán Estrada
E-mail: estradanav@yahoo.com
Source: From the book Triumphs and Tragedy, a History of the Mexican People by his author Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, and with his authorization. (W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London).
Prof. Germán Estrada is the author of the best selling book, México Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know About... But Nobody Told You..." available in Puerto Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc., Books, Books as well as directly from his website.
Archives by date |
Current
Weather Report
