Virtudes del Indio The Virtues of the Indian

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Palafox y Mendoza

History • Latin America

Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1600–1659) was a reforming royal minister and priest whose titles included those of visitor-general of New Spain and bishop of Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico. Nancy H. Fee is an independent scholar based in California.

˜ Alejandro Caneque is assistant professor in the department of history at the University of Maryland.

Cover image: Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, from a painting by Diego Borgraf. Photograph by Dolores Dahlhaus.

Rowman & Littlefield

For orders and information please contact the publisher Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 www.rowmanlittlefield.com

An Annotated Translation

Presented in a parallel text translation, this important book brings the work of the controversial and powerful Bishop Juan de Palafox to non–Spanish speakers for the first time. A seminal document in the history of colonial Mexico and imperial Spain, Virtues of the Indian tells us as much about the Mexican natives as about the ideas, images, and representations upon which the Spanish Empire in America was built. The deeply informed introduction, biographical essay, and annotations that accompany this vivid translation further explore the turbulent Palafox’s thought and actions, contributing to a better knowledge of a key figure in the history of Spanish colonialism in the New World.

Virtues of the Indian/Virtudes del indio

“A superb edition that brings this important text to non-Spanish readers. The nuanced translation by Dr. Fee provides a fascinating window into a major intellectual and policy maker of an often-neglected time period. The editor’s impressively researched introduction and biographical essay place Palafox and his work in historical and cultural context, allowing not only scholars but students to understand and consider the important issues of seventeenthcentury political and religious life. Virtudes del indio is timely and essential reading for those interested in empires, colonialism, and ethnic relations in Latin America.” —Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, University of Nevada, Reno

Juan de Palafox y Mendoza Nancy H. Fee ˜ Alejandro Caneque

Edited and Translated by Introduced by

Virtues of the Indian Virtudes del indio An Annotated Translation

Virtues of the Indian/ Virtudes del indio

Virtues of the Indian/ Virtudes del indio Juan de Palafox y Mendoza Edited and with General Introduction, Biographical Essay, and Annotated Translation by Nancy H. Fee Introduction to the text by Alejandro Cañeque

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de, 1600-1659. [Virtudes del indio. English & Spanish] Virtudes del indio = Virtues of the Indian / Juan de Palafox y Mendoza ; edited, and with general introduction, biographical essay, and annotated translation, by Nancy H. Fee ; introduction to the text by Alejandro Cañeque. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-4123-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7425-4123-1 (cloth : alk. paper) eISBN-13: 978-0-7425-5707-9 eISBN-10: 0-7425-5707-3 1. Indians of Mexico. 2. Indians, Treatment of—Mexico. 3. Spain—Colonies— America. I. Fee, Nancy H., 1961- II. Title. III. Title: Virtues of the Indian. E65.P1413 2009 972.004’97—dc22 2008038201 Printed in the United States of America

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Editor’s Note and Dedication

ix

Abbreviations Used in the References

xi

Chronology

xiii

General Introduction

1

Biographical Essay Part I: A Biographical Sketch of Palafox Part II: Paradoxical Politics, Virtue and Blood’s Honor, and Tridentine Magnificence Palafox and the Virtuous Indian: An Introduction to Virtues of the Indian by Alejandro Cañeque

15 35 77

Virtudes del indio

102

Virtues of the Indian

103

Annotations to Virtues of the Indian

176

Works Cited

215

Index

233

About the Editor

243

v

Acknowledgments

I came to this book by way of a sage and casual recommendation of my husband, Peter G. Platt. After learning that Palafox wrote a short treatise on Mexican Indians in the seventeenth century, he suggested an annotated English translation of this piece would be useful and intriguing to those, like him, who do not read Spanish but are interested in this period and place in history. When the translation was in its final stage, Peter applied his English fluency to a close reading of the text before offering editorial comments. I thank him for presenting the abstract idea of this book, for assisting with the clarity of my translation, and for providing encouragement upon request from start to finish. I became acquainted with the works and writings of Palafox through my dissertation in art history, “The Patronage of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza: Constructing the Cathedral and Civic Image of Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico” (Columbia University, 2000). It was at this time that I first took an interest in translation. While I was writing my thesis, the incomparable art historian and colleague Montserrat Galí y Boadella invited me to colloquia she coordinated in Puebla. These conferences allowed me to explore questions both within and outside my discipline and to participate in a burgeoning and distinguished community of scholars. Professor Galí was not involved with this book specifically, yet I wish to thank her for her continuing support of my work. Marcia Welles, professor emerita of Spanish and Latin American cultures at Barnard College, helped me untangle about a dozen knotted phrases of Virtues of the Indian that had me flummoxed. Miguel de Cervantes compared reading a translation to looking at the Flanders tapestries from behind: one could see the essential shapes, but they were so filled with threads vii

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Acknowledgments

that one could not “fathom their original lustre.” Professor Welles’s interpretations allowed me to tease out threads of meaning from these vexing passages and translate them cogently, albeit perhaps with only occasional flickers of their original sheen. She approached this task with brio, and I am very appreciative of her generosity and expertise. After I had begun work on this book, I read Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell’s critical edition and translation of Sor Juana’s The Answer/La Respuesta, at the suggestion of my collaborator, Alejandro Cañeque. The format of Arenal and Powell’s book paralleled the one I had already envisioned for Virtues of the Indian and proposed previously to Rowman & Littlefield, but The Answer/La Respuesta was still a source of inspiration for me. Our editor at Rowman & Littlefield, Jessica Gribble, was as robust and rapid in her embrace of this project as she was patient and flexible in waiting for the final manuscript to be submitted. I am immensely grateful for her competence, constancy, and tenacious enthusiasm. My thanks go also to our excellent editorial team at Rowman & Littlefield. They inspired confidence and were capable and considerate. Alden Perkins, responsible for putting the manuscript into a printed format, guided me expertly as I navigated what were for me uncharted waters of book production. Always an encouraging and prompt correspondent, Carrie Broadwell-Tkach handled details meticulously. Susan McEachern graciously assumed the editorial reins at the end stage of the project and oversaw the completion of Virtues of the Indian with quiet mastery. Regarding the translation of Virtues of the Indian, I am most indebted to Alejandro Cañeque. With copies of the Diccionario de Autoridades and the Diccionario de la lengua español as guides, Alejandro reviewed a penultimate draft of my translation and provided thoughtful and nuanced clarification and confirmation on passages where I had questions. He also offered astute corrections and/or alternate translations of words or phrases, most of which I integrated into the translation. He evaluated my questions carefully when, after revisiting that edited draft, I decided upon further revisions. Alejandro brought to bear not only his native language skills but also his sizeable understanding of seventeenth-century Mexican history, both of which were indispensable. Any errors or omissions in the annotations and translation are my responsibility alone. I hope that these will qualify only as what Nabokov in “The Art of Translation” described as “excusable” errors—those “stemming from ignorance or misguided knowledge” and representing the “first and lesser grade of evil” in “verbal transmigration.”

Editor’s Note and Dedication

In his 1995 prologue to three essays written by prominent North American scholars on the architecture of New Spain, Francisco Vidargas wrote, “The growing interest in Mexican art in general (and that of New Spain in particular) primarily has attracted studious North Americans who saw in novohispanic art—as described by don Justino Fernández—‘the revelation of a new world, rich in attractive and original forms’ ” (Tres Visiones Norteamericanos sobre el arte novohispano: Kubler, Markman, Wright [Mexico City: Textos Dispersos Ediciones, 1995], 9). In recent years, it seems, Elizabeth Wilder Weisman’s 1941 and 1975 calls “for pioneers” among North Americans in the field of Mexican colonial art have been heard (as cited in Marcus Burke and Linda Bantel, Spain and New Spain, Mexican Colonial Arts in Their European Context [Corpus Christi: Art Museum of South Texas, 1979], 16). What once slipped through canonical cracks now seems released from the margins of art history in North America. As residents of the United States wrestle with questions of identity and the mestizaje of their own national heritage and populace, Mexico’s historical and ethnic complexity presents an increasingly compelling and topical realm for investigation. Walter Benjamin wrote that translation “ultimately serves the purpose of expressing the central reciprocal relationship between languages. . . . Languages are not strangers to one another, but are, a priori and apart from all historical relationships, interrelated in what they want to express” (“The Task of the Translator” in Illuminations, edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt and translated by Harry Zohn [NY: Schocken Books, 1977], 72). Rather than being voyeuristic opportunists or culture consumers— epithets sometimes hurled their way—many North Americans, myself included, feel the pull of a common continental heritage with Mexico (Robert ix

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Editor’s Note and Dedication

T. Buck, “Foreword,” in Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America, ed. Diana Fane [New York: Abrams, 1996], 10). This pull seems particularly strong in states such as California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Florida, where the Hispanic past forms part of a regional antiquity, sometimes nostalgic or romanticized, and often visible in the remains of missionary settlements. Parishes actively worship and congregate in many of these missions. For some of the residents of these states, embracing the Hispanic past is a way of making a connection to the land, a kind of regional creolism. Establishing identity through land is part of the North American ethos. For those North Americans who don’t claim Spanish or Mexican heritage, this connection to a Hispanic legacy is similar to the reverence for Native American culture once practiced by the Creole Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora in seventeenth-century Mexico. One hopes such North Americans will approach this subject with open-mindedness and sensitivity, invoking Sigüenza y Góngora’s curiosity and wonder without twisting new discoveries to fit preestablished narratives. Mexican history is unknown to many North Americans. Indeed, Mexico has been termed a distant neighbor to the United States (Alan Riding, Distant Neighbors: Portrait of the Mexicans [New York: Knopf, 1985]). Until the twentieth century, many history texts within Mexico glossed over the colonial era as the country’s nationalist imagery was somewhat estranged from the colonial period. Concerned with the integration of colonial history into Mexico’s legitimate history, Mexican historian Francisco de la Maza wrote, “This country . . . so very much needs generous efforts to really be that which it believes it is, that which it wants to be, that is to say a country open to culture” (Francisco de la Maza as cited by Efraín Castro Morales in “Puebla: Un ejemplo de degradación urbana,” Boletín del Centro de Investigaciones Históricas y Estéticas 16 [Caracas, 1973], 118). De la Maza’s charge is a valid one for Mexicans and North Americans alike. As we turn our attention to this multifaceted period and its legacy, our understanding of our shared continental past and present will be enhanced and Mexico’s rich historical landscapes will become more tangible and vivid.

DEDICATION With these aspirations in mind, I would like to express my gratitude to my friends and colleagues in Spain, Mexico, and the United States who have made my study of the Spanish language and the history of Mexico vital, meaningful, and ever pleasurable. This book is dedicated to them and to my family, whose love and support have filled my life with grace and happy adventures.

Abbreviations Used in the References

AAP AGI AGNMC AGNP BN, Madrid

Archivo del Ayuntamiento, Puebla de los Angeles Archivo General de las Indias, Seville Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City Archivo General de la Notarías, Puebla Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid

xi

Chronology

24 June 1600

1609 1610 27 April 1620 January 1626

10 March 1629

October 1629

Palafox born illegitimate in Navarre from premarital alliance of don Jaime de Palafox y Rebolledo, third son of the Aragonese marquis of Ariza, and doña Ana de Casanate y Espés. Later rescued from abandonment by Pedro Navarro, who took him into his care. Adopted by his father and taken home to Aragon. Commenced studies at Colegio de San Gaudencio de Tarazona. Graduated in canon law from University of Salamanca. Called upon to be a delegate of nobility in Aragonese Cortes that were summoned by Philip IV to negotiate kingdom’s contribution to the Union of Arms. Received holy orders from Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, patriarch of the Indies, and ordained a priest by the bishop of Plasencia. Appointed to the post of councilor of jurist don Juan de Solórzano y Pereira, his friend and ally, whom he then replaced as Fiscal in the Council of the Indies. Appointed by Olivares as chaplain and chief almsman to the king’s sister, the infanta doña Maria, whom he subsequently accompanied in two-year tour of Italy, Austria, xiii

xiv

1633

July 1633 18 March 1639 27 December 1639

21 April 1640 24 June 1640 1640–1649

June–November 1642 February 1642 March 1643 August–November 1643

1646 June–November 1647 April 1649

June 1649 1650

June 1653 March 1654– October 1659 October 1659

Chronology

Germany, Bohemia, the Palatinate, Flanders, and France. Resumed post as public prosecutor in the Council of the Indies after returning to Madrid from European tour. Appointed councilor to the Council of the Indies. Appointed visitor-general of New Spain. Ordained bishop of Puebla de los Angeles, the largest diocese in New Spain, with a rent of sixty thousand pesos and many clerical offices to distribute. Palafox accepted the bishopric under the condition that he retain his post at the Council of the Indies. Embarked upon his first transatlantic journey. Arrived in Veracruz, Mexico on his fortieth birthday. Under Palafox’s leadership, more than fortyfour temples built in his bishopric, not including many hermitages and more than one hundred retables. Acted as interim viceroy of New Spain. Appointed archbishop of Mexico. Relinquished archbishopric of Mexico. Completed first part of his pastoral visit; June–August 1644 completed second part of his pastoral visit; February–June 1646 completed third and final part of his pastoral visit. Founded the seminary of San Pedro and San Pablo in Puebla. In hiding, having fled Puebla due to threats of viceroy’s militia. Consecrated the Puebla cathedral, after receiving a letter from King Philip IV requesting him to return to Spain at the first opportunity. Set sail for Spain. Discharged from his post on the Council of the Indies and assigned to a post on the Council of Aragon, which he occupied until 1652. Appointed bishop of Osma by Philip IV. Acted as bishop of Osma. Died in Osma.

Chronology

xv

PARTIAL LIST OF PALAFOX’S WRITINGS 1632 Diálogo de Alemania y comparación de España con las demás naciones, written upon returning from his European voyage. 1635 Juicio Político de los daños y reparos de cualquier Monarquía. 1635 Historia de las guerras civiles de China y la conquista de aquel dilatado Imperio por el tártaro. 1636 Vida de la Serenísima Infanta Sor Margarita de la Cruz. 1638 Olivares commissioned Palafox to write Descripción histórica del sitio y Socorro de Fuenterrabía, a treatise praising the triumph of Spanish arms against the French. 1638 Dictámenes espirituales, morales, y politicos (includes Juicio político de los daños y reparos de cualquier monarquía). 1640 Manual del Sacerdote, a manual directed toward an imagined recently ordained priest. 1641 Varón de deseos, an ascetic piece that borrowed from a work by Hugón, a Jesuit. 1644 El Pastor de Nochebuena, an ascetic treatise on virtue and vice, published in Puebla. July 1642 Historia Real Sagrada, Luz de Príncipes y Súbditos. 1646 Epístola Exhortatoria a los curas y beneficiados de la Puebla de los Ángeles, a letter written after completing his diocesan pastoral visit and intended as a manual for parish priests. 1646 Vida de San Juan el Limosnero, a treatise on virtues with a sixth century Alexandrian bishop as its protagonist. 1646 Direcciones pastorales o instrucciones de la forma con que ha de gobernar el prelado, a treatise with ascetic counsel and practical instructions written in the form of a manual on bishop’s governance in the Indies. 1646 Letter to Pope Innocent X titled “De la debida paga de los diezmos y primicias” on the doctrine of tithes. 1649 Cargos y Satisfacciones de gobierno, a letter written as a defense of his actions in New Spain. 1649 Últimas instrucciones de gobierno, a letter of instruction on the ecclesiastical governance of the diocese of Puebla directed to Doctor Juan de Merlo, vicar-general of the diocese of Puebla, Nicolás Gómez Briseño, and Alfonso de Salazar. September 1653 “Carta de despedida a los fieles de Puebla,” a farewell letter to his diocese with six primary pieces of advice. 1656 Manual de Estados y profesiones. Note: After the prologue to Palafox’s Obras is a short chronological description of his writings entitled “Razón Cronológica de los Escritos que contiene esta Obra.”

General Introduction: Palafox and Virtues of the Indian

In one of the more intriguing statements of his career, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza wrote to King Philip IV of Spain in 1642: I believed that I knew something about the Indies, having served your Majesty on that Council thirteen years, but I assure your Majesty that it is most different to see things than to read them.1

Living in New Spain morphed Palafox’s views. One marked change was in his valuation of Native Americans. Like a few others in the century before who wrote of Spanish atrocities, Palafox deplored the treatment of Native Americans he witnessed in New Spain, though not due to pure altruism. He claimed the Indians were the “world benefactors of the Church of America” and those “whose hands sustained all” despite their being “subject” to all humankind in New Spain. He advised that, if the necessary path to the salvation of the Indians were followed, it would lead to the salvation of the Spanish empire.2 At a time when the ethics and effectiveness of Spain’s colonial enterprise were increasingly called into question and its empire widely perceived to be in a state of decline, Palafox aimed to justify the system of royal patronage through its official cause of rescuing Native American souls. The catechism of New Spain’s Indians was one of his primary objectives and one to which he referred when contemplating the justification of their conquest and conversion. The Spanish Crown’s rationale for its colonization of New Spain was evangelization. The king came to supplant the pope in New Spain through the institution of the Patronato Real, which fused religious influence with political agendas. In accepting this perpetual obligation and its 1

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General Introduction

financial weight, Spanish kings were granted the privilege of levying and controlling the tithe.3 Appointed Bishop of Puebla by Philip IV, Palafox acted as a representative of the Patronato Real and in so doing also represented the Catholic Church and the monarch himself.4 In Virtues of the Indian, Palafox begged the Spanish king to maintain the dignity, legality, and sacredness of this royal inheritance, asking him to act directly on behalf of the Indians. He issued a plea to Philip to guard Native Americans against corrupt governing bodies, both secular and religious. To Palafox, adherence to the law or lack thereof meant the difference between the reformation of the world and global ruin.5 In Virtues of the Indian, Palafox drew the king’s attention to the Indians’ hardships and vulnerability. Acting as their advocate, he outlined their virtues and reiterated their piety and devotion to God and King, arguing that the abundance of these qualities merited immediate enforcement of royal laws designed to protect the Indians and the health of the empire at large. Palafox elevated Native Americans above certain Spanish peasants deemed delinquent and corruptible, primarily due to the Indians’ servitude. He instructed beneficiaries to treat Indians as if they were their own children, and shelter them from harm.6 In the second half of the seventeenth century, a certain pessimism in relation to Indian Christianity became widespread. A series of treatises were written in Mexico in this period to denounce the survival of idolatrous practices among Indians. In contrast, Virtues of the Indian presented the Indians’ conversion to Christianity and loyalty to the Spanish Crown as voluntary and total. He portrayed their Christian faith as natural and unfailing.7 According to his descriptions in Virtues of the Indian, New Spain’s Indians possessed what Palafox elsewhere declared to be the principal virtues of subjects: fidelity to the king; obedience to superiors and to their laws and decrees; patience in work; contribution to political strength and security through the payment of tribute; and the preservation of peace.8 Despite his emotive display of concern for the Native American condition in Virtues of the Indian, Palafox explicated their virtues not simply to praise the Indians but to assert their economic utility to the Crown and Spanish residents of Mexico. He ascribed to Native Americans an offsetting, irreplaceable contribution to the construction and maintenance of New Spain’s edifices and institutions. In fact, much of Virtues of the Indian portrayed Indians as a commodity of empire—chiefly as docile, malleable, and productive royal servants. While he lauded their intellectual quickness, natural talents, and ready comprehension and observance of Christian doctrine, he presented them as uniform. Though he made references to Indians past and present from different areas of Mexico, he did not document distinct Indian nations, languages, or cosmology. In writing about them this way, Palafox homogenized the Indians.

Palafox and Virtues of the Indian

3

While it features descriptions of certain Native American customs and skills like a few treatises on Indians from the sixteenth century, Virtues of the Indian was not an ethnographic study in the way these antecessors were. Palafox did not situate his accounts of Indians within a historical context or a temporal trajectory. Though he bemoaned the mishandling of the Indians and lamented their suffering, he did not rebut the claim made by royal apologists that the Spanish Crown had a legitimate right to dispossess the Native Americans of their practices and beliefs.9 The vehemence with which Palafox stated his case reflected his concern for the Spanish Crown, then debilitated by wars, financial crises, and image problems, and what he felt was neglectful rulership of this empire.10 He upheld the Spanish monarchy—what he envisioned as the terrestrial ruler of one great Christian state—as essential to good governance. However, as an Aragonese, he maintained that distinct kingdoms should be governed by way of their own laws. He subscribed to what has been described as an ascending theory of sovereignty in which a given community granted power to a chosen superior provided that he respected their laws, customs, and privileges. Still, he idealized the Castilian monarchy, as the pillar and guardian of the Catholic Church in the New World.11 As a result, Palafox did not doubt the Spanish Crown’s ultimate mission in New Spain nor did he wish to see the monarchy’s reputation tarnished. Spread initially through Italy before being vividly retold by Dutch and English authors, stories of the Black Legend had fomented hatred for Spain in Europe. A repudiation of Spanish colonial practices was reflected in the defenses and exaltations of the Indians in the seventeenth-century writings of Francis Bacon, John Dryden, and Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, among others.12 In 1672, Melchisédek Thévenot (1620–1692), a French scientist, inventor, and royal diplomat, included a selected translation in French of Virtues of the Indian in his four-volume Relations de divers voyages curieux, dedicated to King Louis XIV of France. In this first extensive French travel collection, Palafox’s text was one of only four treating the Americas within a total of fifty-five accounts.13 Some of Palafox’s material was omitted and his language abbreviated as the French piece, numbering only fourteen pages, was more extract than complete translation. As his motivation and approach differed from those of Palafox, Thévenot shifted the tone in places from the dramatic and baroque to the more journalistic and scientific. Thévenot’s chapter titles were more literal and direct than those of the Virtues edition translated here. Curiously, the only chapter title that Thévenot did not fold into his presentation of the Spanish text was “On Obedience”—a pivotal focal point and repeating theme for Palafox, upon which he constructed his primary argument that the Indians merited full legal protection.

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General Introduction

Thévenot’s translation was referenced in an English review of contemporary writings published under the auspices of the Academy of Bologna in 1672. Taking its title, “A Pourtraiture of the Indians,” from Thévenot’s piece, the English account listed Palafox’s titles in New Spain to preface its claim that Palafox had “acquired a perfect knowledge of the evils, which those Indians were made to suffer” before asserting that he had thereby submitted his “discourse to Philip IV, King of Spain, to acquaint him with the Innocence of those people, the ill treatment they lay under, and the remedies that might be administered for it.”14 One of the most interesting aspects of Virtues of the Indian is how it reflects Palafox’s worldview and contemporaneous tensions within and outside the Spanish empire: while controversial, Palafox’s insistence on regional independence and interdependence, his intense pursuit of reform, and his efforts to improve the welfare of New Spain’s Indians and Creoles (American-born Spaniards) did not contradict his fundamental belief in the Spanish monarchy or its Christian causes. In his time, Palafox complicated the image and practice of Spanish colonialism. Virtues of the Indian complicates the depiction of this empire and manifests the complexity of Palafox’s views and undertakings.

WRITINGS ON PALAFOX Palafox had a long, distinguished, and troubled career in the service of the Catholic Castilian Crown. His turbulent time in Mexico may explain why he has been characterized in contradictory ways as both an “imperial visitor in the New World” and as “the most genuinely popular leader of the Creoles, not only of his own time, but of the whole seventeenth century.”15 He has also been heralded as a benefactor of the Indians, acquiring a reputation as a second Bartolomé de las Casas.16 One of his first biographers titled him a “glorious Liberator of the many oppressed.”17 Defining him by his commitments to both Church and Crown, a contemporary historian called him “the greatest theologico-political figure of the Mexican Baroque, the man who embodied both ‘Majesties’ in one.”18 Another living scholar described Palafox as “the most interesting, and arguably the most important, single figure in seventeenth-century Mexican history.”19 While superlatives such as these have been used to describe Palafox’s leadership, dualities—Crown and Church, New Spain and Spain, Creoles and Indians, family and flock, regionalism and monarchism—delineate his loyalties. Palafox’s commitments to Catholicism, the Spanish Crown, the city of Puebla, and the manifestation of his honor led to the most visible and heralded accomplishment of his years in New Spain: the completion of the structure and most of the interior of the Puebla Cathedral, the first cathe-

Palafox and Virtues of the Indian

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dral to be consecrated in Mexico. To Palafox, the realization of the Puebla Cathedral justified and fulfilled Spain’s colonial enterprise and brought him closer to God. During his tenure in Mexico between 1640 and 1649, Palafox aimed to weed out corruption, put power in the hands of the secular clergy and local Creole oligarchy, and restore the stability and integrity of the Spanish monarchy. His truculent attempts at reform engaged him in a series of bitter clashes with the regular clergy, the Jesuits, several Inquisitors, and the viceroy of Mexico.20 The escalation of these battles ultimately led to his being recalled to Spain where he died in 1659 as Bishop of Osma. Though his reform efforts were ultimately divisive and unsuccessful, his often dual loyalties were not opposing, paradoxically, but united as part of one system of thought. Writings on Palafox, however, have been characterized by polarity more than unity. They have been weighted heavily toward his notorious battles with the Jesuits and his controversial efforts to transfer their power to the secular clergy.21 In her incisive and groundbreaking book from 2004 on Palafox’s life and politics, Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo aptly described the literature on Palafox as mostly “panegyric or calumny.” As she noted, Antonio Domínguez Ortiz summarized a significant debate about Palafox’s life when he questioned whether the bishop’s motivations were based in “piety or pride.”22 Rather than being derived strictly from one or the other, Palafox’s motivations—again, dual if not multiple in nature—seemed to have stemmed from both. These and other issues on Palafox’s life were raised in conferences held on both sides of the Atlantic around the quadcentenary of Palafox’s birth in 2000.23 Some of these studies, based on careful scrutiny of previously unconsidered archival documents, depart from a more traditionally partisan approach and take a fresh look at the bishop’s politics and patronage. However fruitful, these conferences were held exclusively in Spanish-speaking countries. One of the primary aims of this book is to better introduce Palafox to an English-speaking audience. Several sixteenth-century writings on Indians have been translated into English. Currently, no English translation exists of any complete seventeenth-century text on Native Americans. This annotated translation is meant to redress this imbalance. Moreover, most of these earlier pieces were written by mendicants. Virtues of the Indian was the first extensive treatise on Mexico’s Indians written by a bishop and member of the secular clergy of New Spain. Until recently, historians and literary critics have tended to concentrate on sixteenth- and eighteenth-century Mexico to the neglect of Mexico in the seventeenth century.24 While lacking the drama of the initial contact between Europeans and Native Americans in the century which preceded it and the rise of nationalism in the centuries to follow, the seventeenth century

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General Introduction

in New Spain was a period of transformation, quieter perhaps than in the centuries which bracketed it but in many ways more substantial. In this era of acculturation and mixture, literature and religious pageantry flourished; institutions and urban society were consolidated; regional and intellectual cultures were distinguished; and cathedrals built and consecrated. Most of Palafox’s biographers have drawn upon his Obras, a fourteen-volume collection of his writings patronized by King Charles III of Spain, edited by the Order of Discalced Carmelites, and published in Madrid in 1762.25 Included in his Obras and of particular importance to his biographers was his Vida Interior, a confessional autobiography written in the third person and completed shortly before his death. Full of embellished, baroque language, this postured narration came out of the failures and frustrations of Palafox’s Mexican career. For Palafox, justice, what Alvarez de Toledo has described as his “personal dogma,” was primary. In general, his unrelenting commitment to reform took precedence over his concerns about political intrigue.26 Still, through this writing, Palafox tried to address and counter his enemies’ accusations that he was ambitious in a worldly sense. According to Palafox, his Vida Interior was written first to honor God and second to present his sins. Incorporating the confessional styles of Saints Augustine and Theresa, Palafox’s apologetic, self-deprecating discourse seemed aimed at winning sympathy and support as much as confessing his flaws and misjudgments.27 Palafox’s Vida Interior inspired, among others, Antonio de González de Rosende’s laudatory biography of the bishop. González de Rosende, a Palafox admirer accused of Jansenism, published his text in Madrid in 1666. It was included in the 1762 edition of Palafox’s Obras.28 Posterior accounts have dipped into González de Rosende’s biography, invoking his appraisal of the bishop. Mexican historian Genaro García published two accounts of Palafox’s life just after the turn of the century. Not overly romanticized, these accounts offer basic historical details, particularly on the bishop’s Mexican career. A prioress of the convent of Santa Paula in Seville and a Palafox relative, Sor Cristina de la Cruz de Arteaga wrote a lengthy biography of the bishop which has become one of the standard modern sources for information on his life. Hers is a carefully researched and seemingly factually reliable biography. However, Arteaga’s veneration for Palafox makes her work an idealistic and biased portrayal.29 Ricardo Fernández Gracia has issued a brief biography of Palafox and also catalogued the canons of Palafox portraiture, pursuing issues around the reproduction of the bishop’s image. In his book on Palafox’s Puebla bishopric, José Eduardo Castro Ramírez has provided a useful, chronological outline of Palafox’s pastoral visits and writings.30 Francisco Sanchez-Castañer has also completed an extended biography of the bishop which includes transcriptions of some of Palafox’s writings. Sanchez-Castañer’s introduction to a

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collection of Palafox’s writings, the Tratados Mejicanos, is informative in its presentation of historical details.31 Like his biography, however, it is more descriptive than analytical. Ideas Políticas, an assemblage of various Palafox political writings with a prologue by José Rojas Garciduenas, also contributes to an understanding of Palafox’s politics. In his Race, Class and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610–1670, Jonathan Israel has effectively shown how Palafox both initiated and was enmeshed in seventeenth-century Mexican political conflicts. Providing pertinent biographical details throughout, Israel was one of the first historians to closely examine Palafox’s involvement with New Spain’s Creoles. He also looked beyond the bishop’s conflicts with Jesuits to probe the political workings of contemporaneous viceroyalties. David Brading’s terse discussion of Palafox’s tridentinism and religious politics in his book The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State, 1492–1867, also noted Palafox’s role with the Creoles.32 Aiming to redress a neglect of the link between Palafox’s reform politics and his actions, Alvarez de Toledo has adroitly woven together these historical threads. In so doing and in recognizing its importance in order to more fully understand the world of New Spain, she has established vital connections between contemporaneous political events and figures on both sides of the Atlantic. While Brading and Israel both made significant contributions in English to the understanding of Palafox and his controversial political life, Alvarez de Toledo has added to these interpretations substantially, grounding the field in exhaustive and new primary source research and redefining its boundaries. She has put Palafox studies within the purview of historians who do not read Spanish. Hers has become the definitive work on Palafox for Spanish and English readers alike.33 While it is not possible here to address many aspects of Palafox’s life, I hope this annotated translation will follow Alvarez de Toledo’s lead in furthering the understanding of his role in both reflecting and shaping the political issues of seventeenth-century Spain and Mexico. It is also my desire that this book stimulate more extensive studies of Palafox’s relationships with the Indians of New Spain and, if at all possible, deeper investigations into the lives and contributions of Native Americans in Mexico during the mid-seventeenth century.34 To introduce the author of Virtues of the Indian, a biographical essay written in two parts follows. Part I of this essay provides a skeletal, chronological biography, emphasizing Palafox’s life trajectory prior to and during his stay in Puebla. Brief discussions of relevant topics—the viceroy’s gubernatorial agenda and methods as juxtaposed with those of Palafox; Creole identity in New Spain; Puebla’s history; and Indian labor with regard to the secular clergy, Jesuits, and mendicants—are interspersed throughout this section to situate Palafox’s views and actions within the context of

8

General Introduction

seventeenth-century central Mexico. Part II fleshes out this biographical sketch, exploring several veins in his ambitions and beliefs—his regionalistmonarchist political views, his sense of honor and his formation in a courtier culture of “magnificence,” and his commitment to the principles of the Council of Trent—as a means of better understanding his mentality, performative sensibility, and motivations. Concluding the biographical essay will be a brief discussion of the “Cult of Palafox.” “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian” introduces the text of Virtues of the Indian. Following this critical reading is the Virtues treatise itself, in a parallel text format, showing both the Obras edition of the Spanish original and the English translation.35

ON THE TRANSLATION OF VIRTUDES DEL INDIO Alejandro and I chose to title the translation Virtues of the Indian, as this seemed closest to the Spanish title, Virtudes del indio. However, I reflected on using The Virtues of the Indian, and felt somewhat torn when making the final choice as this title, with the addition of the article, seemed more declarative and suggested a more complete listing of Indian virtues, which in turn seemed to more closely approximate the structure and aim of Palafox’s text. We chose Virtudes del indio over an alternate Spanish title of the text, De la naturaleza del indio (On the Nature of the Indian), for two reasons. First, Virtudes del indio is the title used for the edition of the piece printed in Palafox’s Obras and, second and more importantly, it seemed to more aptly describe the contents and thrust of the piece. In general, I strove to translate literally, adhering closely to the original text and aiming to maintain word order, sentence length, syntax, and semantics as much as it seemed feasible without sacrificing legibility or grammatical correctness. All quotations and footnotes in the Spanish text have been left as they were printed in Palafox’s Obras. Where I encountered what seemed to be a typographical or textual error in the original, I explained my reading of the word or phrase in a note. I maintained the punctuation of the Obras edition, even if that meant transcribing without some conventions— accents most specifically—of contemporary Spanish. I tried to avoid adding to or subtracting from the original text. The most common alteration of format involved breaking a sentence from the Spanish into two or more sentences in English and omitting an “and” at the start of the phrase. I did not purposefully simplify, modernize, or normalize Palafox’s language; hence, some may encounter a few archaisms in the translation. Though this approach may result in trying or awkward readings at times, I hope it will better display the baroque style and flavor of the piece, facilitate a more nuanced transmission of Palafox’s literary voice, and encourage the reader to consult the Spanish text more frequently.36 The an-

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notations, which I composed as endnotes, are meant to expand on points raised by Palafox in the text and to refer readers to his sources, further reflections of mine, and the conclusions of other scholars.

NOTES 1. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Carta al Rey,” Puebla, April 21, 1642. 2. Upon enumerating several of the virtues he would assign to the Indians in Virtues, Palafox challenged Puebla priests to consider the possibility of the Indians being their judges at the Last Judgment. He wrote, “It could be . . . that their silence condemns our backbiting, their poverty our greed, their humility our arrogance, their obedience our wickedness, their parsimony our ambition, their peacefulness and humanity our vanity and lack of charity” (“Epístola II. Exhortatoria a los Curas y Beneficiados de la Puebla,” in Obras del Ilustrissimo, Excelentissimo y Venerable Siervo de Dios, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, de los Supremos Consejos de Indias, y Aragón, Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles y de Osma, Arzobishop electo de Megico, Virrey y Capitan General de Nueva España, 13 vols. [Madrid: Don Gabriel Ramirez, 1762], 3 part 1: 142–43, 145). 3. Lyman Johnson and Mark Burkholder have defined tithe income as “the tax levied on agricultural production and livestock, to sustain the ecclesiastical hierarchy, its physical facilities and its activities” (Lyman L. Johnson and Mark A. Burkholder, Colonial Latin America [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 93). The tithe was traditionally a tenth of agricultural yields owed to the Cathedral. 4. Robert Charles Padden, “The Ordenanza del Patronazgo, 1574: An Interpretative Essay,” The Americas 12, no. 4 (April 1956): 333–35. 5. Palafox wrote that the reform of the world would be founded in each person upholding the laws of his state; correspondingly, he warned that disregard of the law would lead to global ruin and damnation (“Manual de Estados y profesiones,” Obras 5: 342). 6. Palafox, “Epístola II,” 160. Other Novohispanic officials condoned priests playing the role of father to the Indians. In 1580 for example, Viceroy Enríquez urged his successor to act as a father to the Indians as their means, short of selling themselves, were so limited (as cited in Woodrow W. Borah, Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal aides of the Half-Real [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983], 82). 7. A. Arístides Gámez has written that Palafox’s appreciative tone was not capricious or based in “zeal to exalt indigenous dignity.” Instead, he claimed Palafox employed such high praise so as to proceed with impartiality, subsequently building his defense of the Indians by providing illustrative anecdotes (“La causa pro-indígena en la escuela de Salamanca de Juan de Palafox y Mendoza,” Revista Iberoamericana 61, no. 170–71 [Jan.–June 1995]: 144). In the sense that Palafox had to counterbalance a more critical view of Indians, this was true. However, Palafox used hyperbole as a persuasive device and presented specific examples of Indian virtue in order to further his appeal for their protection from abuse. Robert W. Patch has written that language, religion, and the concept of history were the most significant features of Indian culture to survive Spanish colonialism.

10

General Introduction

He posited that Indians expressed their resistance to Spanish rule by means of religion and the General Indian Court, by refusing to pay tribute, and through the use of the Spanish writing system to compose their own history, both pre-Conquest and future (“Indian Resistance to Colonialism” in The Oxford History of Mexico, ed. Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley, 188 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000]). In Virtues, Palafox did praise select aspects of Native American culture—language most especially—but presented these cultural values within a European framework, repeatedly extolling the Indians’ all-encompassing embrace of Catholicism and the Spanish Crown. 8. Palafox, “Manual de Estados y profesiones,” 343. 9. See Alejandro Cañeque, “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” in Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Virtues of the Indian, ed. and trans. Nancy H. Fee; intro. by Alejandro Cañeque (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 84–85. 10. Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform: The Life and Thought of Juan de Palafox, 1600–1659 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 11. From 1635–1640, Spain battled Flanders, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy (John Stoye, El despliegue de Europa, 1644–1688 [Mexico: Siglo Ventiuno, 1974], 114). Palafox warned that, if the hand of government responsible for meting out justice did not properly negotiate with or serve the needs of a kingdom’s subjects, obedience to royal authority and legal code would be jeopardized. He granted the power of discourse and reasoned reflection to the subjects of a kingdom (“Dictamenes espirituales, morales, y politicos,” Obras 10: 11). See also Joan-Pau Rubies, “Reason of State and Constitutional Thought in the Crown of Aragon, 1580–1640” in The Historical Journal 38, no. 1 (June 1995): 1–28; and José Maria Jover Zamora, “Sobre los conceptos de monarquía y nación en el pensamiento politico español del XVII” in Cuadernos de Historia de España 13 (1950): 144–45. 11. Jonathan Israel, Race, Class and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610–1670 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 201. 12. See, for example, John Dryden (1631–1700), “The Indian Emperor” in Dryden & Howard, 1664–1668; The text of an essay of dramatic poesy, The Indian emperor and The Duke of Lerma, with other controversial matter, ed. D. D. Arundell (Cambridge, UK: The University Press, 1929); and M. de Fontenelle (Bernard le Bovier) (1657–1707), Nouveaux dialogues des morts, ed. Donald Schier, Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, no. 55 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1966) and New dialogues of the dead in three parts (London: Printed for D. Y. V., 1684). 13. Nicholas Dew has written that, through the publication of the Relations de divers voyage, Thévenot wished generally to disseminate geographical knowledge and specifically to provide navigational material to French merchants. He cited the author himself saying that his task in the book was to “put together and translate into French those things in which other Nations surpass us in the Arts” (“Reading Travels in the Culture of Curiosity,” Journey of Early Modern History 10 [2006]: 1–2, 48, 51–53). 14. “Review: An Accompt of Some Books giving some account of the present undertakings, studies, and labours of the ingenious in many considerable parts of the world,” in Prose de Signori Academici de Bologna, Philosophical Transactions (1665–1678), vol. 7 (1672) (London: Printed for John Martyn, Printer to the Royal Society, 1672; New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1963), 5128. Each fascicle

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of the series was printed separately and could be distributed by private means. Thévenot was in contact with English intellectuals—among them Robert Boyle, Edward Bernard, and Thomas Hyde—to whom he sent copies of the fascicles as gifts once he had completed them (Dew, Reading Travels, 55–56). The scholarly networks in which Thévenot engaged may have led to the reference to his text in Philosophical Translations from 1672. 15. Israel, Race, Class and Politics, 200, 202. Ariel Rodríguez Kuri has described Palafox as being surrounded by an “aura of conflict”—a frequent assessment in much of the Palafox literature (“La Palabra y el Hombre,” Nueva Epoca 73 [Jan.–Mar. 1990]: 206). 16. For a comparison of the views of Las Casas and Palafox, see Cañeque, “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 84–86, 88–90, 92. 17. Antonio González de Rosende, “Vida de Don Juan de Palafox” in Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obras, 13: 6–7; Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 4. 18. Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power: A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 (New York: Harper Collins, 1998), 61. 19. Israel, Race, Class and Politics, 200, 202. 20. On Palafox’s confrontations with the Mexican Inquisition, see Richard E. Greenleaf, “The Great Visitas of the Mexican Holy Office, 1645–1669,” The Americas 44, no. 4 (April 1998): 399–420. 21. The literature on Palafox’s conflicts with the Jesuits is extensive. A partial list includes Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform; Ramón Kuri Camacho, La Compañía de Jesús, imágenes e ideas: scientia conditionata, tradición barroca y modernidad en la Nueva España (Mexico: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Dirección General de Fomento Editorial: Plaza y Valdés Editores, 2000) and La Compañía de Jesús, imágenes e ideas: la axiología jesuita. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y otros estudios novohispanos (Puebla: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, 1996); Pedro López de Villaseñor, Cartilla vieja de la nobilisima ciudad de Puebla (1781), intro. by Efraín Castro Morales, Jr. (Mexico City: Imprenta Universitaría, 1961), 260–82; Mariano Cuevas, Historia de las iglesia en Mexico, vol. 3 (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1992), 284–91, 310; Genaro García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo de Puebla y Osma, visitador de la Nueva España (Mexico City: Librería de Bouret, 1918), 143–203; Sor Cristina de la Cruz Arteaga y Falguera, Una mitra sobre dos mundos, La de don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo de Puebla de los Angeles y Osma (Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1992), 276–79, 330–37; Israel, Race, Class and Politics; Alberto María Carreño, Cedulario de los Siglos XVI y XVII. El Obispo Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y el Conflicto con La Companía de Jesus (Mexico: Ediciones Victoria, 1947); Charles E. P. Simmons, “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Reforming Bishop, 1640–1649” (PhD diss., Washington University, 1966), 3–4, 59–60, 76, 106–8, 113–53 and the conclusion; and David Brading, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State, 1492–1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 242–47. For archival citations of royal decrees pertinent to Palafox’s plight with the Jesuits, see Nancy H. Fee, “The Patronage of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza: Constructing the Cathedral and Civic Image of Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2000), 48 note 90.

12

General Introduction

22. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, vi; A. Domínguez Ortíz, La sociedad americana y la corona española en el siglo XVII (Madrid, 1996), 68, as cited by Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, vi. 23. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, v. 24. Evaluated in the nineteenth century as “the century when nothing happened,” the seventeenth century has since been described as “forgotten,” “misunderstood,” “quiescent,” “oppressive,” and “decadent.” Among the more recent descriptions for this period, sometimes attached by historians to the first half of the eighteenth century, have been the following: “the colonial siesta”; “the middle time”; the “mature colonial period”; the “obscure but fascinating and undoubtedly formative period”; “a dynamic period of intense cultural change”; the century of “the hispanization of Mexican culture”; “the century of depression”; and the period in which “the baroque style, the first national style,” was developed (I. A. A. Thompson and Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, eds., The Castilian Crisis of the Seventeenth Century [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994]; Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1513–1813, trans. Benjamin Keen [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976], 51; Kathleen Ross, The Baroque Narrative of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora: A New World Paradise [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993], 3–5; Montserrat Galí Boadella, Pedro García Ferrer, Un artista aragonés del siglo XVII en la Nueva España [Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1996], 56; Murdo J. MacLeod, “Some Thoughts on the Pax Colonial, Colonial Violence, and Perceptions of Both” in Native Resistance and the Pax Colonial in New Spain, ed. Susan Shroeder, 132 [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998]; James Lockhart and Stuart Schwartz, Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983], 122; Israel, Race, Class and Politics, 1; Manuel Toussaint, “El arte en la Nueva España,” in México y la Cultura, ed. Alberto Barocio, 167–170 [Mexico City: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1946]; Richard Boyer, “Mexico in the Seventeenth Century: Transition of a Colonial Society,” Hispanic American Historical Review 57, no. 3 [Aug. 1977]: 457–58). Kathleen Ross has written that the situation in literary studies of New Spain “mirrors the state of research in history, which has concentrated on the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in Spanish America to the detriment of the scholarship on the seventeenth. In the last two or three decades, however, this gap in the historical literature has been steadily addressed from several different angles, especially the economic and social” (The Baroque Narrative, 3). Virve Piho, seemingly reflecting a shift in historical perspective, called the seventeenth century in Mexico a period of “many tensions and dramatic events” (La secularización de las parroquias en la Nueva España y su repercusión en San Andres Calpan [Mexico: INAH, 1981], 17). 25. Palafox, Obras. For a historical summary of Palafox’s biographers, see Francisco Sánchez-Castañer, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Virrey de Nueva España (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1988), 9–12, 81. 26. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, vii. 27. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Vida interior ó Confesiones del V. Autor y la Historia Real Sagrada Luz de Principes, y Subditos,” Obras 1: 13. For a pithy analysis of Palafox’s “Vida Interior,” see Lidia E. Gómez, “Honor y poder a través de la obra de un obispo. La sociedad novohispana en la Puebla del siglo XVII reflejada en

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la obra de Palafox y Mendoza,” in La Catedral de Puebla en el Arte y en la Historia, ed. Montserrat Galí Boadella, 177–192 (Puebla: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1999). 28. González de Rosende, “Vida.” 29. García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza; Genaro García, “Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, su virreinato en la Nueva España, sus contiendas con los pp. Jesuitas, sus partidarios en Puebla, sus apariciones, sus escritos escogidos etc.,” in Documentos inéditos ó muy raros para la Historia de México (Mexico City: Librería de la viuda de C. Bouret, 1906), vol. 7; Arteaga, Una mitra. 30. Ricardo Fernández Gracia, Iconografía de Don Juan de Palafox: imágenes para un hombre de estado y iglesia (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2002); José Eduardo Castro Ramírez, Palafox: Su Pontificado en Puebla, 1640–1649 (Puebla: Secretaría de Cultura/Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 2000), 33–57. 31. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Tratados mejicanos, 2 vols., ed. Francisco SánchezCastañer (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1968). 32. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Ideas Políticas, prologue by José Rojas Garciduenas (Mexico City: UNAM, 1946); Israel, Race, Class and Politics; Brading, The First America. 33. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform. 34. Among the archives that merit further exploration for Palafox studies are parish archives within and around Puebla and the Jesuit and Vatican archives in Rome. 35. Due to differing schedules, Alejandro did not see my translation annotations before the publication of this book. I would also add that I drafted the General Introduction, Biographical Essay, and translation annotations before seeing Alejandro’s introduction. Though I encountered some repetition of material during the final manuscript revision, I decided to leave these individual parts of the book mostly as they were in hopes they would better stand alone that way. 36. Though I did not base my translation approach on the recommendations of Walter Benjamin, his arguments for literalness in translation are more poetic and convincing than mine: Fragments of a vessel which are to be glued together must match one another in the smallest details, although they need not be like one another. In the same way a translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language. . . . Therefore it is not the highest praise of a translation, particularly in the age of its origin, to say that it reads as if it had originally been written in that language. Rather, the significance of fidelity as ensured by literalness is that the work reflects the great longing for linguistic complementation. . . . This may be achieved, above all, by a literal rendering of the syntax which proves words rather than sentences to be the primary element of the translator. For if the sentence is the wall before the language of the original, literalness is the arcade.

Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator” in Illuminations, ed. and intro. by Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (NY: Schocken Books, 1977), 78.

Biographical Essay

PART I: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PALAFOX Infancy and Childhood Palafox y Mendoza was born illegitimate and of Aragonese lineage in Fitero, Navarra, Spain on June 24, 1600. His mother, a young widow from Zaragoza, was of “noble blood,” an aspect of his birth for which Palafox thanked God and which was noted by contemporary diarists and historians as a providential virtue.1 As instructed, a servant of Palafox’s mother set out to rid her mistress of this child, considered a product of a “sinful” alliance. At that time, a local shepherd, Pedro Navarra, encountered the servant and recovered the infant, taking him into his care. Palafox was baptized five days later in the Royal Cistercian Monastery of Fitero.2 Much in the same way Michelangelo Buonarroti alluded to his quickness and sculpting talent fostered by the breast milk of his wet nurse and the pure air of Arezzo, Palafox referred to the influence of the man who raised him from infancy and a boyhood spent shepherding.3 Palafox often represented himself as a pastor shepherd in his theological writings and was depicted this way in a Puebla cathedral portrait. At the age of ten, Palafox was recognized by his father, don Jaime de Palafox y Rebolledo, second Marquis of Ariza. His family in need of a male heir, don Jaime married a niece and, through adoption, assumed his son into his noble family and household.4

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Biographical Essay

Education and Courtly Duties Under his father’s wing, Palafox studied in Jesuit schools in Tarazona. Having decided Palafox would be an ecclesiastic, the second Marquis of Ariza sent his son to study philosophy in Huesca in 1615 and subsequently law in Alcalá. Palafox excelled scholastically and completed his bachelor’s degree in canonical law at the University of Salamanca in 1620.5 These were formative years for him socially and intellectually and marked the beginning of his education as a statesman. Between 1620 and 1626 Palafox most likely resided in Aragon. At his father’s request, he tutored his brother and assumed governing and household responsibilities in Ariza.6 With the death of his father in 1625, Palafox was assigned to the Cortes de Monzón and Barbastro. It is likely he met the king of Spain and the count-duke Olivares for the first time during this period of service. Subsequently, the king appointed him noble page of the queen. Palafox was also named Crown Attorney of the Council of War on the basis of his performance in the Aragonese court.7 In 1629, he was titled Fiscal or Crown Attorney of the Council of the Indies, a royal tribunal that oversaw the American colonies and advised the king from Seville. These appointments in various state councils were largely due to the favors of Olivares, under whom he served for fourteen years. Ordination Palafox received his priestly orders in March of 1629 in Madrid, after claiming to have been “delivered from wrath” and “granted a holy love of poverty.”8 Under the guidance of a Franciscan who received his first general confession, Palafox began to practice penitence, a custom he subsequently administered to himself with daily regularity and vigor. However, ambition, fueled by his illegitimacy, continued to model his life as much as penitence. While he pursued a life of priestly austerity, he never renounced his noble affiliations. Illegitimate children of the aristocracy frequently received ecclesiastical charges. In his Vida Interior, Palafox made reference to returning to the court after entering the priesthood and being disposed to an “ecclesiastical income or benefice” to which he was convinced he was entitled, given his tonsured state.9 Travels In 1629, Palafox was named almoner and chaplain for María of Austria. Sister of King Philip IV, María married her cousin Ferdinand III of Bohemia and Hungary in April of 1629. Palafox formed part of the entourage that ac-

Biographical Essay

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companied María to Graz to join her husband, resulting in nearly two years of travel during 1630 and 1631. The group, numbering up to eighteen hundred at various stages of the journey, traveled through Italy, Germany, Flanders, and France. Palafox’s travels with the Infanta María—who spoke highly of his service—influenced his theological-political thinking and educated him about art, architecture, and urbanism.10 Palafox was expected to deliver detailed written reports for the countduke on the political, military, and urbanistic workings of the countries he visited. As a result of these travels, Palafox produced texts that mixed history and philosophy, as did other contemporaneous and earlier writings.11 In his moralizing journals about his journey with the Queen of Hungary, Palafox commented on physical settings, buildings, and paintings. While traveling, Palafox surveyed the manifestations of varying approaches to morality, religiosity, and empire, seeking to determine the most effective means of organizing and promoting nation and church. Appointments to New Spain Upon his return from his travels, Palafox continued his service with various state councils, most importantly the Council of the Indies from 1633 to 1638. During this time, Palafox carried out his official and familial duties while pursuing a modest life of penitence and priestly reflection.12 Toward the end of 1639, Palafox was named visitador general (visitor-general) of New Spain and bishop of Puebla de los Angeles. Bishops in New Spain manifested and exercised the spiritual authority of the king of Spain. In a letter where he announced Palafox’s appointment as bishop, Philip IV cautioned that vacant bishoprics could allow communities to dissolve; active bishops were required for proper conversion and indoctrination. Due to problems in the viceregal administration and Spain’s economic crisis, the king also needed to make a shrewd appointment for visitor-general, a position that reviewed bureaucratic, political, and legal workings in New Spain. The viceroy, who served as the living image of the king and represented his temporal power, was duty-bound to extend the faith, keep the peace, compensate Spanish settlers, see to the proper treatment of the Indians, and safeguard the royal treasury. The Real Audiencia (Royal High Court of Mexico) was meant to keep the viceroy’s power in check and ascertain that he fulfilled his obligations. Though he was required to cooperate with the visitor-general’s investigations, the viceroy, as president of the Real Audiencia, was granted immunity from the visitor-general’s inspections. This exemption would prove a nearly insurmountable obstacle to Palafox’s execution of his reform program.13 The king offered Palafox Indian tributary labor as opposed to a salary for his labors in his appointment as visitor-general. Palafox may have viewed

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this compensation as a means to erect buildings; it did afford him certain opportunities he might not otherwise have had, having prohibited gifts to himself or his aids.14 Initially, Palafox resisted leaving Spain and assuming responsibilities he claimed could be formidable “even to the shoulders of angels.” The challenges he faced were substantial and he may not have wished to leave behind the familiar comforts of courtly life in Madrid and a family home in Aragon.15 In June of 1639, he wrote his brother about this royal designation, describing himself as the most unworthy of an assignment as important as the tranquility of those provinces, with such a great lord such as the Marquis of Villena going to serve as viceroy and he too subject to the jurisdiction of the visit.16

Despite the disclaiming of his eligibility and self-effacement, Palafox’s appetite for reforming power, whetted by this appointment, was apparent in this letter. Castro Ramírez has proposed that Palafox’s three primary objectives during his Puebla bishopric were the catechism of the Indians, consolidation of episcopal jurisdiction, and the care and augmentation of pious life in the diocese. His agenda was focused and weighty. The Journey to New Spain Palafox assumed debts in his voyage to New Spain as he had renounced all reimbursement for his expenses as visitor-general. He took fifty persons with him, including a few relatives and eighteen Aragonese compatriots. Also on the list were Pedro García Ferrer, Palafox’s painter protégé, and Diego Borgraf, who probably came along to work as García Ferrer’s apprentice. On April 21, 1640, Palafox and his entourage set sail on the Almiranta. The group endured many hardships including foul weather, epidemics, menacing pirates, and loss of life.17 Palafox’s ship arrived in Veracruz, Mexico on the bishop’s fortieth birthday and his name day. The chaplain who accompanied the viceroy wrote that the newcomers were received in full splendor. Indian officials reportedly came from as far as thirty leagues inland. Viceroy and bishop were subsequently regaled in Tlaxcala, where an ephemeral triumphal arch, erected for the entry occasion, depicted the lineage of the viceroy while a recitation celebrated it aurally.18 Palafox left Tlaxcala and journeyed ahead of the viceroy to Puebla, signaling what became a lifetime preoccupation with this bishopric. Entry into Puebla Upon arriving at Puebla in July of 1640, Palafox was said to have been “received with greater demonstrations of rejoicing and gladness than had

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ever been seen in this city.”19 Citizens and cathedral officials were meant “to leave the city for the countryside to receive and welcome the new bishop” as he approached his bishopric. As was traditional, Palafox rode on a mule and was escorted to the processional gateway of the city, the site of the Convent of the Holy Trinity. There he worshiped the cross and donned pontifical vestments. Palafox, the Puebla cathedral council, and other clergymen then proceeded to a Puebla cathedral portal where ceremonies were performed before a final rite was concluded inside the sanctuary. Entry festivities of viceroys and bishops were elaborate, costly, and designed to inspire reverence for the Spanish Crown and its representatives. Neither the king of Spain nor the pope ever visited New Spain so bishops and viceroys served not simply as emissaries but as the embodiment of these figures’ authority.

Efforts and Intrigue in New Spain Palafox, motivated by what he saw as an urgent need for reform, was indefatigably active during his years in New Spain. As visitador general, he was required to review the efficacy of viceregal government, both in terms of specific administrations as well as the system’s overall structure. Palafox set out to combat nepotism, complicity, tax evasion, general corruption, and abuse of Indian subjects.20 Through many of these offenses, Palafox feared, Peninsulares (Iberian-born Spaniards) and some Creoles reaped benefits and profits while the well-being of Indians, other Creoles, and the Spanish monarchy was compromised. The year of Palafox’s arrival in New Spain, Portugal and Catalonia rebelled against Castile. These rebellions were probably provoked by fiscal measures designed by the count-duke Olivares to raise income for Spain’s activities in the Thirty Years War in Germany. Subsequently, suspicions were raised regarding the loyalty of Portuguese merchants in New Spain. Eventually the viceroy’s loyalty was called into question for his favoring of Portuguese merchants and due to the fact that his cousin, the Duke of Braganza, had suddenly assumed the kingship of Portugal. To Palafox, this relationship implied disrespect to the king of Spain.21 Numerous and heated conflicts erupted between the viceroy and Palafox. Each struggled to strip the other of honor and power and to galvanize support for their respective and often conflicting efforts.22 As Alvarez de Toledo has articulated, Palafox’s reform program posed a threat to the existing power systems and governing administration in New Spain. Both viceroys who served during Palafox’s tenure were operating under a different set of assumptions than the bishop. These discrepancies led to repeated confrontations. In order to tighten the strings of royal control and increase revenues during a period of financial crisis and military pressure

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for the Spanish Crown, the viceroys argued for their having greater authority. Palafox pursued a “constitutional alternative,” a kind of government based on compromise and negotiation, designed to protect regional interests against unabated or overbearing royal control. Palafox believed that the exercise of kingship in New Spain would be effective and just only if it took into account Creole interests and recognized and actively maintained a contractual relationship between king and subjects. In order to arrive at what he felt was a more viable form of government which would most benefit the Spanish monarchy and its subjects, he sought to devolve some of the viceregal power to local municipal assemblies. Through this reform strategy, he hoped to reduce corruption generally and profiteering specifically through the sale of offices. In 1619, it was deemed that Creoles should have priority over Peninsulars in assuming public offices. However, in 1623, the king, changing course, sanctioned viceroys to appoint their relatives and dependents to public offices overseas.23 Wavering directives such as these, based on a desire for increased royal revenue, fomented schisms and flummoxed Palafox. Palafox accused the viceroy of selling judicial offices, embezzling royal taxes, granting special favors to clients for trade investments, and mismanaging the Armada de Barlovento as well as the monopolies of grain and cacao. Deeming the duke of Escalona unfit for the job, Palafox, in a carefully crafted plan worthy of a novel on palace intrigue, arranged to have the viceroy deposed by royal decree and for himself to act as interim viceroy, a position he held from June through November of 1642. Wanting to return to Puebla and his duties as bishop, Palafox urged the king to appoint a new viceroy as well as a new archbishop for Mexico.24 He wrote his friend, Luis Muñoz, regarding the charge of viceroy: I do nothing more than spend day and night feeling and wailing at the weight of the charge not so much because it is unwieldy but strange for shoulders dedicated to God. It does not console me to see that in these provinces secular jurisdiction heavily influences the proper government of ecclesiastical affairs as in the end I am an ecclesiastic and I govern the secular. . . . God does not bid me so much to reform that which does not pertain to me as much as to live reformed within my profession, cultivating my vine, indoctrinating the souls in my charge within my church and guiding my sheep. . . . He who truly cares for souls is not satisfied with his progress if he himself does not cause it; the love of a mother not only cures the child but she with her own hands puts ointment in a sore and protects and raises the child. . . . Oh my Lord! Return me to my occupation, to live and die at the feet of the poor in Puebla and in greater dignity as greater it is to kiss them than to have here at my disposal the richest and most powerful. . . . If viceroy and archbishop will come with the next ship, I will be able to return to the service of my Spouse.25

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In spite of his apparent eagerness to relinquish his viceregal responsibilities, Palafox provided the new viceroy, the Conde de Salvatierra, with specific recommendations for the coming term and a lengthy treatise on his experience as viceroy. Palafox was precise in his self-fashioning and presented himself in a variety of overlapping roles—noble courtier, reforming royal minister, lowly and self-flagellating priest, cathedral patron, and devoted bishop. He often emphasized his devotion to the humble but was also concerned with the privileged. However, he downplayed his own political ambition, of which his adversaries were critical, insisting that his reform efforts were solely in the name of religion and the betterment of the Spanish monarchy. Palafox repeatedly asserted that a bishop’s most abiding responsibility was to his first diocese. He claimed that he refused the offer to be archbishop of Mexico because of his commitment to his bishopric in Puebla. In Palafox’s mind a bishop’s diocesan loyalty was an essential support to the moral governance of a Catholic nation. Upstanding bishops formed the foundation upon which effective and just ecclesiastical institutions and secular government could be built.

The Founding of Tridentine Seminaries As part of his dedication to the precepts of the Council of Trent, Palafox founded and attempted to preserve churches, hospitals, schools, and seminaries in Puebla. In 1641, Palafox had received a royal mandate urging him to establish a Tridentine seminary in his bishopric. With twelve thousand pesos and an income consignment set aside, he founded the Colegio de San Pedro in 1643 for boys of the diocese eleven to eighteen years of age. Upon completing coursework in grammar, rhetoric, and music at the Colegio de San Pedro, students were to graduate into the Colegio de San Juan, converted by Palafox in 1643 into a Tridentine seminary. There they would study theology and sacred law.26 Palafox also established the Colegio de Vírgenes for young girls. He founded the Colegio de San Pablo for the advanced study of moral and aesthetic philosophy and the administration of the sacraments. Palafox’s seminary was confirmed in a papal bull, issued by Innocent X in 1648, which indicated the college would be supported through a grant from the cathedral as well as through the bishopric and community.27 In the constitution and set of statutes for the University of Mexico, which he completed at Philip IV’s request, Palafox included a clause which stated that Indians must be admitted to all degrees.28

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The Biblioteca Palafoxiana, Books, and Printing Like the founding of these institutions, Palafox’s donation of his library of five to six thousand volumes to the seminary in Puebla in 1646 also memorialized his contributions to Puebla’s intellectual and spiritual life. Palafox’s library constituted one of the largest and most notable in the Hispanic world. A promoter of literacy, Palafox felt a public library was necessary in Puebla.29 As part of his donation, designated as a pious act, he arranged for the collection never to circulate, be sold, or assumed into another bishop’s library and for Indians, Creoles, and Spaniards alike to be permitted to consult it. He also secured unlimited access for himself.30 Palafox advocated books as didactic companions. He listed obligatory holdings for priests which, if not owned, were to be “purchased at the priest’s cost accompanied by a fine of twenty pesos—ten for pious works and ten for the Cathedral.” He believed that a “lack of love for books” contributed to “slovenliness, dejection, and misery.” He claimed books taught in silence, reprimanded without giving offense, and diverted and provided companionship to man’s “weak and wretched nature.” He wrote: Books are good for everything, to teach us, to counsel us, to better us, to entertain us. A soldier should not lack arms nor a priest books. It seems to me that he who finds himself in a Benefice without books, finds himself in solitude without consolation, on a mountain without company, on a path without a staff, in darkness without guidance, or among many passions without a defender or relief.31

St. Augustine’s Confessions and the Life of St. Theresa were two of the texts Palafox read most following his entry into the priesthood.32 St. Theresa was one of his preferred authors; his last piece of writing was an annotation to her work. Though he was a great believer in the persuasive power of oratory, Palafox claimed the written word had greater reach and a more lasting impact, particularly in the realm of teaching Christian doctrine. He wrote, “The voice of a Prelate is heard only where he is whereas the pen and print are heard throughout the Diocese. This kind of presence can mitigate the potentially great damages of a prelate’s absence. . . . The written word endures a long time and teaches everywhere and always.”33 Palafox’s prolific correspondence and literary production stimulated the printing industry in Puebla.34 He established a printing press there in 1642. Until his arrival, printing within New Spain had been an enterprise exclusive to Mexico City. The first coat of arms to be printed in Puebla were those of Palafox in 1643. The first printing of the arms of the city of Puebla occurred as part of a funerary pamphlet commissioned by Palafox in 1645 on the occasion of Queen Isabel’s death. In 1646, Palafox requested a license

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from King Philip to print in his own home at his own cost. As part of this request, he offered to print government regulations.35 Palafox, the Mendicants, and the Jesuits Palafox wrote extensively on his disputes with the Jesuits of New Spain. In keeping with Tridentine legislation and as part of a strategy to strengthen the Spanish monarchy, Palafox sought to subdue and transfer some of the accumulated power and wealth (which included land) of the mendicant orders and Jesuits in his diocese by reducing their jurisdiction, enforcing licensing of privileges, and procuring tithes and contributions where possible.36 Palafox also hoped to free up Indian goods and labor—which the mendicants controlled in a kind of monopoly—and redirect them toward Creoles. Toward this end, he signed an edict in 1641 to implant a system whereby landowners could retain Indians on their property due to the Indians’ indebtedness. This debilitating state of indenture was facilitated and perpetuated by cash advances these landowners made to the Indians under the auspices of enabling them to meet their tribute payment requirements.37 Though some championed this effort, through it Palafox secured vituperative and vociferous enemies as well as layman landowner benefits. The conflict between Palafox and the Jesuits was primarily rooted in Palafox’s insistence that the Jesuits pay regular tithes on the produce of their agricultural lands and the Jesuits’ dogged determination not to pay. The Jesuits had come to New Spain in the 1570s, nearly a generation after the arrival of the mendicant orders. Known for their business acumen, the Jesuits quickly involved themselves with lucrative rural economies and amassed land, wealth, and institutional power. A formal plea had been made to the Council of the Indies entreating all religious orders to pay tithes on their agricultural produce; it was not until 1652 that this request was ratified by the Spanish authorities. Puebla land was the most arable of all of New Spain, making it especially desirable for cultivation. As Palafox noted, the dioceses of New Spain were more dependent upon tithes for their financial well-being than were their counterparts in Spain. In fact, their agricultural productivity was commensurate with their economic status. As bishop, Palafox was entitled to onequarter of his diocese’s agricultural tithe. Given that the Spanish treasury was entitled to retain two-ninths of the amount received by the cathedrals, any increase of income to the Puebla cathedral also represented a gain for royal coffers. In addition, Palafox believed that exacting tithes based on agricultural yields to fund the cathedral could result in a return of investment back to the local land economies as most curates were Creoles. He wrote the king that whatever expanded the power of the Jesuits comparably diminished that of the local cattle owner and farmer.38

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Different interpretations of Puebla’s seventeenth-century economy present different circumstances for Palafox’s causes. One historian has postulated that the economic crisis in seventeenth-century Spain may have been aggravated by the investment of American funds into American projects such as the Puebla cathedral. Another scholar has claimed that Palafox was acting as patron in a period of acute economic depression.39 Funds required for the Puebla cathedral were derived largely from sources in New Spain and not from Spain; however, the application of these monies to New Spain essentially deprived Spain of them.40 Palafox’s reform and building programs, from the seminaries to the Puebla cathedral, required funds and labor. Of the approximate four hundred thousand pesos spent on the Puebla cathedral during Palafox’s tenure, only ten thousand came from royal coffers.41 In 1640, the Puebla city council was ordered by royal decree to provide twelve thousand pesos over the course of six years to support the Puebla cathedral construction. Palafox and members of the Puebla cathedral council also periodically collected contributions and tithes from convents and monasteries in the diocese. Paying out between one thousand and eight thousand pesos, some participated more begrudgingly than others. On certain occasions, these contributions were derived from taxes on properties and Indian tribute or labor privileges connected in some way to particular institutions or Spaniards.42 Naturally, the monies Palafox required for the cathedral and other building projects provided him an incentive to exact tithe payments from the Jesuits. In Virtues of the Indian, Palafox suggested that the Native American population facilitated the construction of the edifices of New Spain. He emphasized the value to the Crown of inexpensive, unrestricted, and willing Native American labor. Lidia E. Gómez has noted that Palafox protested against the abuse of Indian labor in general; however, she has postulated that the bishop particularly resented the mendicants’ control and use of it to build extensive complexes which outshone the secular clergy’s counterparts. In order to make their labor available to the secular clergy and lay Creoles, Palafox sought to release Indians from their servitude to the regular clergy, with whom many had lived in closed communities, formed for evangelical purposes at the time of the Conquest. Around that time, the regular clergy, consisting of mendicants such as Franciscans, Augustinians, and Dominicans, were assigned to teach the Indians Christian doctrine, entitling the friars to receive free goods and labor from the Indians in their charge—a privilege that was often abused. The secular clergy, composed of ordained priests who had not taken vows of poverty but were subject to bishopal and archbishopal authority, was meant to minister to the Spanish settlers and the mestizos (literally meaning “mixed,” though most often referring to individuals of Spanish and Indian descent). The friars, due to the novel and missionary nature of their assign-

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ment, had been granted privileges and authority reserved typically for bishops. Regular clergy were supported by their orders in the early years of colonization; secular clergy were required to earn their keep by collecting wages from Spanish landholders or tribute from Indians, neither of which usually sufficed. This led to an obligatory benefice system for the support of secular clergy.43 Competition for posts and authority within the church in New Spain stiffened as the number of Creole priests grew with each successive generation and as mendicants continued to emigrate from Spain. Palafox encountered vehement resistance from the mendicants as he sought to transfer control of the Indian population to the diocesan church. The movement to secularize the parishes was mandated by the Council of the Indies and ratified by Philip IV in 1642.44 Defending his reform actions in the name of the Council of Trent, Palafox wrote, If the Council of Trent and rules and dispositions of the Law order that parish clergy be subject to secular clergy and bishops as priests, and the Royal Decrees and Provisions charge and order that this be executed and completed precisely and inviolately by myself and the other prelates: Then if they do not obey, legitimate clergymen should be installed. . . . Those who do not have approval, license and canonical collation are not legitimate. And I gave to the Franciscans of my bishopric the option to obey the decree as it was mandated or put the Indian parishes in the hands of genuine, virtuous, patrimonial clergy and that with this the poorest families could be sustained and they [the Franciscans] chose not to obey. What fault do I have in executing [orders]?45

The antagonism between Palafox and the Jesuits was sparked when the bishop objected to the donation of a hacienda to the Jesuit College in Puebla. The Puebla cathedral council rallied behind the bishop. Palafox then accused the Society of Jesus of not appointing Creoles to positions of power.46 This conflict reached a head when the vicar-general of the Puebla diocese ordered all Jesuits to display the licenses that allowed them to preach and hear confession. Canonical law stated that all priests were required to have episcopal license to practice public ministry. The Jesuits refused to act in accordance, claiming that the Holy See had authorized them to perform their ministry without episcopal authorization. Stating that this exemption from episcopal jurisdiction applied to missionary areas and not to Puebla where Catholicism was established, the vicar-general prohibited them from priestly activity in Puebla. To resolve the problem, the Jesuits appointed two Dominican friars as judges who voted in their favor and ordered their ministry rights reinstated on threat of the vicar-general’s excommunication and a fine for Palafox. Palafox then excommunicated the Dominican judges. The viceroy, enlisted by the Jesuits along with the archbishop, organized an armed expedition to force Palafox to yield.

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As a defense against the inquiries of the visitor-general and the potentially divisive power of the landed oligarchy of New Spain, the viceroy had sided with the mendicants in their campaigns to avoid Palafox’s parish reform. Salvatierra could rationalize this alliance by claiming that, as viceroy, he was required to see that the Indians received proper Christian instruction and were protected against exploitation by Spanish settlers. Both Palafox and Salvatierra feared political insurrection as had occurred in 1624 when the viceroy was ousted from office. However, the methods Palafox and Salvatierra proposed to minimize that threat, and presumably their views of its origins, were diametrically opposed. Salvatierra sought to curtail the prerogatives of Creoles and suppress autonomous longings in them and other groups, wanting to subordinate their interests to Spain’s European status and goals. On the contrary, Palafox aimed to negotiate with these same groups, seeking to balance their needs and governing authority with those of the monarchy in the hopes of keeping the peace, promoting monarchical allegiance, and ultimately creating a more unified and stable colonial society.47 Threatened by an uprising between his supporters and the viceroy’s militia, Palafox fled Puebla. Accompanied by Pedro García Ferrer and others, he hid on the estate of a sympathetic landowner from June to November of 1647.48 His ammunition and consolation while sequestered were a series of letters to King Philip, Pope Innocent X, and the Inquisitor General wherein he accused the Jesuits of nearly inciting mob violence due to their material greed.49 Palafox suggested the viceroy and archbishop were allied with the Society of Jesus because his own work as visitor-general had jeopardized and wreaked havoc on the profits they derived from a corrupt colonial establishment. The Jesuits ridiculed Palafox in public processions and mascarades while he was in hiding. They coaxed an intimidated cathedral council member into approving their licenses and then declared the See of Puebla vacant and its government dissolved. When apprised of these events, papal and monarchical authorities reprimanded the Jesuits, returned the Dominican judges to Spain, and put the canons of the cathedral under house arrest for violating the jurisdiction of the Catholic Crown. The Jesuits were instructed to display their licenses for the bishop’s authorization.50 Despite this mandate, Palafox’s efforts to subject the religious orders to episcopal authority were thwarted during his tenure as bishop. They were, however, instrumental in the Spanish Crown’s expulsion of the Jesuits from New Spain in 1767. After his ally Bishop Marcos de Torres y Rueda assumed the viceroyalty, Palafox made a lauded return to Puebla.51 Shortly after, Puebla city councilman Francisco de Aguilar y Velasco filed a proposal to be voted upon which summoned the city council to defend the city of Puebla and make an accusation against Diego de Orejón and his cadre for defamation and in-

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jury. Diego de Orejón, mediator between the viceroy and the municipality of Mexico City, and a man who had taken part in previous anti-Palafox campaigns, had been commissioned by the viceroy Conde de Salvatierra to investigate the causes of Palafox’s flight. Aguilar reported that Orejón had rigged the investigation and accused him of making trouble through unjust and atrocious judgments about Puebla. He claimed that Orejón’s tactics jeopardized the king’s impression of the “great and vividly expressed loyalty” of “one of the most noble and loyal cities which his Majesty has in his monarchy.”52 Aguilar’s outcry, resulting from Palafox’s plight and the increasingly polemical conflicts between Puebla and Mexico City authorities, indicated a growing concern for Puebla’s reputation and autonomy. This concern and the ensuing civic image that Aguilar and other Puebla elites aimed to uphold became more and more defined by Palafox’s colonial politics, even after the bishop’s death. Palafox’s attachment to Puebla and his conflicts with the viceroy and other Mexico City authorities roused the competition between Puebla and Mexico City elites. Many of Puebla’s elites identified with Palafox and he with them. His convictions and loyalties provided them with a framework through which to present their situation to Spain. As much as Palafox’s Puebla allies saw him as representing their interests and integral to their city’s image, his decline was their decline. Puebla’s seventeenth-century Creole culture was shaped by the circumstances of the city’s founding as a “Spanish” city. To distinguish Puebla, seventeenth-century literati described it not as an American “other” but as a superior Spanish city in the New World. Francisco de Florencia, for example, a Creole Jesuit, lauded Puebla not as an American marvel but as the “Toledo of the Indies.”53 Distinct from manifestations of creolism in other cities of New Spain, Puebla’s Creole elite claimed a Spanish Catholic heritage for themselves and their city more than a mythical, ideological, or historical alliance with Mexico’s pre-Columbian antiquity. They sought to ally themselves with Spanish traditions while asserting their city’s connection to its local landscape. Palafox’s values—his sense of nobility and monarchical loyalty, his belief in local oligarchy, ascending sovereignty, and the natural, divine origins of regional law, his piety and concern for reform, his industriousness and refutation of aristocratic excess, and his deep attachment to Aragon and his adopted home of Puebla—were the perfect fit for the hybrid civic image Puebla elites sought to create. A brief discussion of Puebla’s early years will elucidate how Palafox’s perspectives and programs complemented the civic identity that some contemporaneous Puebla elites fashioned through drawing upon and mythologizing their city’s history. Julián Garcés, Puebla’s first bishop and son of a noble Aragonese family, like Palafox, claimed God spoke to him through a dream in which two angels illustrated a plan for a city bracketed by two

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rivers and constructed upon a highly fertile lowland in a landscape marked by volcanoes. The day following his vision, Garcés reportedly journeyed south of Tlaxcala (where the bishopric was then located) until he arrived at the site where he believed God wished a new city be built. After being petitioned by Garcés, Queen Isabel of Spain entrusted the Real Audiencia with the foundation of a city for Spanish Christians in 1531.54 Puebla was strategically placed along the road from Mexico City to Veracruz, making it a trade bridge between Asia and Spain.55 The city was sited near Native American settlements but not upon pre-Columbian ruins, as was Mexico City. The strict grid of Puebla’s urban plan has been attributed to the fact that the city was specifically planned by and for Spaniards.56 By 1550, Native American barrios or districts, mandated by the city council and housing hundreds of families, were developed in a horseshoe form outlining the perimeter of the Spanish urban nucleus.57 Sixteen thousand Indians from the neighboring towns of Tlaxcala, Huejotzingo, and Tepeaca reportedly constructed the city’s central plaza and its early buildings, including modest homes of adobe and straw for the Spaniards.58 Puebla was designed to be a model city for immigrant Spaniards. It was to provide an example that financial gain in New Spain could be acquired only through hard work and self-reliance. The city was imagined as a place where farmers, artisans, and merchants would settle as opposed to a way station for fortune seekers who, after relying upon Indian labor, would take their earnings back to Spain. Royal permits were granted to Peninsular farmers to encourage them to settle in Puebla and “work the fields and cultivate the earth in the Spanish way.” Juan de Salmerón, one of Puebla’s founders, wrote that this was necessary because Spaniards in Mexico were accustomed to “resting.”59 Palafox concurred one hundred years later that the Spanish population in New Spain was in particular need of reform as many Spaniards had traveled to the New World only in pursuit of riches. Puebla was chartered to prosper over time without the encomienda (granting of Indian labor or tribute to certain Spaniards), a privilege abused early in New Spain’s history. This tenet was aimed at reducing Indian tributes while promoting virtuous Spanish economic, political, and religious systems. In fact, the encomienda was never totally suppressed in Puebla’s early years. In order to provide incentives for initial settlement, Puebla residents had been granted more independence than other urban dwellers in New Spain. As the leading cities of New Spain, both Mexico City and Puebla were represented at court in Madrid. As a result, Puebla citizens could appeal directly to the Crown and evade the viceroy’s jurisdiction if need be.60 Puebla residents were also allowed to elect a civic governing council. These factors and the city’s location in a highly fertile valley distant enough from New Spain’s viceregal administration granted Puebla’s ruling class an autonomy amounting to what has been described as “almost Republican self-government.”61

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One of its founders and the first priest to give Mass in the new city, Fray Toribio de Motolinía suggested that New Spain ought to have its own ruler, though one of royal Spanish descent, as the region’s distance from Spain compromised its effective governance.62 In some aspects, this proposal and Puebla’s founding principles foreshadowed Palafox’s arguments that regions should be permitted autonomy in governance while maintaining their interdependence and unity under the rule of the Spanish monarchy. In Puebla’s very early years, nearly one-third of its Spanish male residents were married to Native American women. This would suggest that a sizeable number of Pueblans in subsequent generations were mestizo. By the middle of the sixteenth century, however, unmarried Spanish women began to settle in Puebla, reducing the number of marriages there between Native American women and Spanish men.63 Despite distinctions in place of birth or amount of wealth, Puebla city council members maintained more economic and personal ties to one another, including those of intermarriage, than did those of Mexico City. Following a 1547 Toledo statute, candidates for offices in Spain had to exhibit legal certificates verifying their “limpieza de sangre” (purity of blood), to determine that they were free of any Moorish or Jewish lineage. This continued to be a means of discrimination in New Spain. Creoles in New Spain whose ancestry and blood composition could not be assured after generations of life in the New World found this an impediment to their pursuit of government offices.64 A Creole family could offer a Spanish immigrant wealth and local status through marriage just as a Spanish immigrant could offer a Creole family his or her economic resources, Spanish aristocratic pedigree, and/or “purity of blood.” For economic and social reasons, it was in the collective best interest of these Puebla elites to set themselves apart, maintain Spanish ethnicity in their progeny, and perpetuate the myth of Puebla, when juxtaposed to Mexico City, as the more prosperous and Spanish city of New Spain. Besides being planned to curtail the autonomy of encomenderos (those entitled to the encomienda) and the religious orders, Puebla was also expected to offset the viceregal power of Mexico City. Ongoing rivalry between the two cities modeled Puebla’s image and stimulated its economy. In the 1630s, Puebla’s ruling elite vied with those of Mexico City to see their city named capital of the viceroyalty.65 Palafox’s theories about regional law, his emotional attachment to his own regional identity, and his conflicts with New Spain’s viceregal administration amplified this civic rivalry. In both cities, however, the Catholic Church was extremely influential to Creole identity formation. By the early seventeenth century, the secular clergy in New Spain was comprised of more Creoles than Peninsulars.66 In general, the first generations of Mexican-born Spaniards in New Spain began to develop a sense of Creole identity in the late sixteenth century, as

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they struggled to integrate their allegiances to their native land with their Spanish heritage. Novohispanic Creoles asserted that they should share the same legal status as all the other “kingdoms” under the jurisdiction of the Castilian Crown. Creole identity became problematized when these “native sons” had to contest that they were entitled, by right of inheritance, to the economic and social reality they had in fact created in New Spain. The Castilian Crown tried to keep power and control in their hands by placing Peninsulars in the highest government and ecclesiastical positions in New Spain. By the middle of the seventeenth century many Creoles had come to believe that their ties with the land granted them the inalienable right to hold royal offices and ecclesiastical benefices. Indeed, by that time, Creoles occupied many of the more important positions in the royal administration.67 Royal bankruptcy forced legislation that enabled local persons to purchase certain municipal offices in New Spain as early as 1606. With each successive generation, both Puebla and Mexico City Creoles resented when they were excluded from the most elevated positions of local government or marginalized by Peninsulars. Immigrant Spaniards often evaluated Creoles according to their own discontent or success in New Spain.68 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many Peninsular imperial historiographers denigrated Creoles, claiming that New Spain’s natural environment and its native inhabitants had weakened their dispositions and corrupted their characters.69 The cabildo or city council of each town was the unit of government administration that acted as the social and political center for each Creole community in New Spain. Each city council usually consisted of two senior members, alcaldes ordinarios, and six or more regidores, or regular members. Not a regular member in that he was not allowed to vote (though he often did), a corregidor sat in on council meetings and served as a mediator between the viceroy and the municipality. Alcaldes mayores or district magistrates were obliged to act in the best interests of their Spanish and Indian wards. Cabildo members pursued their own personal and local interests, namely those of their immediate environs. Once a person had acquired a position of authority in local government through the purchase of office, he was sanctioned by law to pass that privilege on to his children. As a result, certain families became entrenched in local politics. Puebla had the largest number of city councilmen of any city in the Indies.70 The high rate of intermarriage between Puebla Creoles and Peninsulars merged the interests of these two groups. As a result, non-Creoles who had vested interests in Puebla also participated in the city’s Creole agenda. This degree of intermarriage coupled with Puebla’s founding as a city for Spaniards contributed to a local Creole consciousness which was in substantial part wed to Spain, probably more so than in Mexico City.71

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In her study on migration from Brihuega, Spain to Puebla, New Spain, Ida Altman explored how this unusually cohesive community interacted in and shaped Puebla from the late sixteenth into the seventeenth centuries. Though typically not noble families, the Brihuega immigrants were prosperous and helped make Puebla New Spain’s leading textile producer. They also contributed to the city’s infrastructure and institutions.72 Among other things, Altman discovered that Brihuega Pueblans, Creoles and non-Creoles alike, kept close connections to the traditions and next of kin of their Spanish homeland. However, they also maintained extensive networks within and around Puebla and many assumed it as their permanent home. She has concluded that some “may have felt equally at home in both places.” While religious practices between both places were quite congruent, newcomers often joined confraternities in Puebla. In this way they were able to integrate into their new community without divorcing themselves from the religious traditions of Brihuega.73 As they accrued years and/or generations of residence in Puebla, their loyalty to and affiliation with local devotions and politics deepened. Altman’s cultural and demographic studies of this community has shed light on my thesis that, in the seventeenth century, Palafox and other non-Indian Pueblans in positions of authority promoted a civic image that coupled Spanish and Novohispanic identities to show the devoutness and distinction of the city. The Puebla Cathedral Consecration Manifesting their commitment to their city’s sanctity and illustriousness, Puebla city council members had journeyed outside of town during Palafox’s temporary exile in 1647 to solicit a cathedral opening date from him, claiming that the building construction was progressing at a “heroic” pace. The secretary for the Puebla city council wrote to Palafox that, in the bishop’s absence, his subjects felt themselves to be “orphans without their father and pastor.” He elaborated their loss by detailing Palafox’s accomplishments, concluding his list with the completion in eight years of the structure of the sumptuous and ingenious temple of this cathedral and its most brilliant Retables when hope was lacking that it could be completed in eighty. . . . These and other works and benefits which cannot be Reduced to a single page oblige this city to supplicate your excellency and request him for the love of God to suspend his voyage and allow time so that this city may supplicate His Majesty . . . and if it is not possible to do this in this way the city earnestly and urgently requests that you not leave your church without ensuring that you retain it, that you sustain the hopes of your returning to it because all are pleased with the Cathedral Your Excellency has completed. This city prays of you to consecrate it.74

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On April 17, 1649, Palafox officiated at an evening Vespers ceremony held in the atrium area of the cathedral. Fireworks and luminarias initiated the consecration celebration that continued for twelve days.75 To Palafox and Philip IV, the cathedral project presented an auspicious opportunity to please God, persuade subjects, and expand the empire’s Catholicism. Of his revelatory experience consecrating the cathedral, Palafox wrote (referring to himself in the third person): The day of the Consecration, having been greatly indisposed prior, he found himself so invigorated in body and soul that he began his consecration at five in the morning; and . . . finishing at three in the afternoon, and in circling the Cathedral inside and out . . . he found himself so nimble, so strong, so agile, so tireless that he swore that that vigor he felt was not natural, and this kind of agility and physical recovery . . . has befallen him with great frequency.76

In consecrating a sanctuary that functioned in his mind as a bridge between the earthly and celestial realms, Palafox attuned his impulse for architectural patronage to his Christian virtue and commitment to Tridentine principles and the Patronato Real. The consecration of New Spain’s first cathedral also impressed Puebla’s elite, who projected their goals and values onto the building. During the nine years of Palafox’s bishopric, they saw the Puebla cathedral transformed from its pre-Palafox state as a cluster of half-built piers encased within exterior walls to a domed and vaulted sanctuary with an elaborate retable. In a city with few multistoried buildings, the Puebla cathedral represented a dramatic change to the urban skyline. Similar in plan, the Mexico City cathedral was not consecrated until 1656. Though larger, the Mexico City cathedral was less complete as a building in 1656 than the Puebla cathedral was at the time of its consecration in 1649.77 Having no equivalent in New Spain in Palafox’s time, the Puebla cathedral was comparable in scale and grandeur to European cathedrals. In his account of the cathedral, Antonio Tamariz de Carmona, a Creole Puebla aristocrat, wrote of a response to the opening of the newly consecrated building: They suddenly saw such beauty, clarity and sumptuous construction. They gazed upon and admired this distinguished edifice, its regal splendor and brilliant ornamentation . . . with incredible joy and thanksgiving to God for such a benefice and to our most pious and generous Monarch for having enriched and completed and perfected it and to our most vigilant Prelate for having executed the orders of his Majesty with such promptness and dedication.78

In seeing to the completion and consecration of New Spain’s first cathedral, Palafox called attention to Puebla, legitimizing it as a holy New World city. Palafox’s consecration sermon summarized the cathedral building process, justified the related expenses, and glorified the cathedral structure

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as the house of God and the gateway to heaven. In it, Palafox featured a conceit linking heaven and earth. He invoked the vision of Jacob, who, according to the Bible, saw a ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending. Palafox wrote: From the laying of the first stone close to two million pesos have been spent on the construction of this sumptuous and royal temple, no longer in abeyance and unexpectedly now perfect, and by my orders, in only nine years, more than three hundred and fifty thousand [pesos] have been spent; and these jaspers, these slabs, this grandeur and these retables, which exceed in beauty the greatest of the globe, all aspire to and conspire for our betterment and through these we make a formal temple for our souls wherein we receive the Lord, serve and adore him . . . who can doubt that churches are where God communicates his treasures and dispatches all purposes, where he decrees memorials, . . . enlightens hearts, directs wills and does countless good. . . . Witness the attention and respect with which earthly palaces are treated, with what courtesy and care their inhabitants dwell within them and labor over their lavatories; and if this is so for the earthly kings, consider how we must deal with our altars and churches, sacred houses of the King of earth and heaven. . . . This is no other than the house of God, this place is holy and I was ignorant of it, this is the gateway to heaven.79

Palafox here cited what he described as the “holy words” of Jacob to emphasize the sanctity of the cathedral. Subsequently in the sermon, he urged a God-fearing and sober reverence for the formidable power of the cathedral where priests and Christian warriors battled the devil and darkness, recalling Jacob’s words: “how dreadful is this place.”80 The bishop concluded his sermon by saying: All things tire and nothing satisfies this our weak and miserable nature until it arrives at that ultimate end for which it was created which is our God and Lord, forever to be blessed, glorified and praised.81

These final words invoked both triumph and resignation. The consecration of the cathedral represented the extraordinary completion of one of Palafox’s assignments and passions. It also marked the traumatic termination of his Puebla residence. Unable or unwilling to determine a liberating resolution to the conflicts in which Palafox was embroiled, Philip IV summoned Palafox to return to Spain in a royal decree of February 6, 1648. Early in January of the following year, the Puebla ecclesiastical council announced his imminent departure. Once the cathedral was consecrated, Palafox made preparations to leave.82 Palafox’s roles as bishop of Puebla and monarchical emissary bled into his responsibilities as cathedral ideator and supervisor. His narrative about these roles at times suggested a certain tension regarding his secular loyalties

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and desires. As tensions mounted, he poured himself deeper into the cathedral project, seeking transcendence from earthly worries and political condemnations through his civic and pious contributions. In this new Temple of Solomon, he pursued a vision of a New Jerusalem. Like many patrons, he also sought to immortalize himself through his building efforts. The consecration of the first cathedral in New Spain, effected by Palafox’s patronage and a culminating reflection of both his piety and pride, heralded the advent of Mexican Baroque architecture. Its fresh splendor galvanized an approach to building and retable design, ignited the proliferation of certain styles, and created a visible argument for the completion of the cathedral facade and other unfinished elements of the building. Puebla Departure Twelve days after the Puebla cathedral consecration, Palafox replaced his purple robes with black vestments to signify his grief at having to leave Puebla. The cathedral and city councils offered him money. His biographer, González de Rosende, trying to show that Palafox was popular with different ethnic groups, claimed that a group of Indians had offered to provide for him if the reason for his departure and woes was economic.83 Palafox renounced twenty thousand pesos in his credit, stating that “his Royal Majesty, who had sustained him in the Indies, would sustain him also in Spain.”84 After days of formal deliberations and blessings, the bishop bid farewell to Puebla in a letter to his diocese in which he reminded his congregation that they were all members of the mystical body of Christ, ruled by only one head. He urged them to adhere to the laws of the church, respect the clergy, and live in peace. According to Tamariz de Carmona, Palafox’s ritualized departure was marked by days of widespread lamentation and public grief. Well-wishers reportedly came from as far as four hundred leagues away. These throngs of admirers slowed his departure from Puebla, causing the procession, which Tamariz de Carmona described as “like that of an Apostle,” to endure four hours within the city confines.85 Final Years in Spain (1650–1659) Upon his arrival in Andalucia, Palafox was not permitted to pass through Seville. Its population decimated by bubonic plague, the city was quarantined. Palafox set out for Madrid by way of Toledo. He subsequently served in Philip’s court in Madrid as representative of the Council of Aragon, having been discharged from the Council of the Indies. This assignment, after Palafox had held such authority in New Spain, must have seemed like a penalty for the controversy his vigorous reform efforts had provoked. Many

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government officials in Spain feared that Palafox’s promotion of Creole and local community interests in New Spain had positioned him as a leader of a would-be group opposed to royal authority. They were concerned that his continued involvement with his supporters in New Spain would lead to more conflict and instability. Palafox pled with the king that he might return to Puebla, in his words, “for the great love he had for it and for the void his absence created for those souls.” His request was denied.86 It is speculated that Palafox wrote Virtues of the Indian in this period— circa 1650.87 This seems logical as his memory of New Spain and concern for the Indians’ plight would have been fresh at this time and his need to recover his reputation at a peak. His urge to advance his Mexican causes probably increased in proportion to his loss of authority to fulfill those very desires. He may have had more time than before to reflect on his Mexican career. This would have given him occasion to contemplate the disparity he described between the experience of seeing New Spain and reading about it. Feeling divorced from his Puebla diocese and the centers of power of the Spanish monarchy, Palafox was inclined to turn to writing. To Palafox, writing “to exhort others to be better” was “to oblige one’s self to be virtuous.”88 In this light, one could see Virtues of the Indian as a desperate attempt on Palafox’s part to redeem himself and redress some of the ills he witnessed in New Spain and was then disempowered to remedy. In 1653, Palafox was assigned to the episcopal seat of Osma, by his account one of the poorest dioceses of Spain. As a result, he was forced to relinquish his See in Puebla. In Osma he was called the “crying bishop.” He surrounded himself with objects of devotion indicative of his cultivation and travels. These objects connected him to his past and his faith but failed to comfort him in his despondency over the trials and failures of his career in Puebla. He served as bishop in Osma until his death in 1659.89

PART II: PARADOXICAL POLITICS, VIRTUE AND BLOOD’S HONOR, AND TRIDENTINE MAGNIFICENCE Palafox and Aragon As deep as Palafox’s affiliation with Puebla were his roots in Aragon. His family’s lineage there could be traced back hundreds of years. The kingdoms of Castile and Aragon had been united on equal terms in 1469 with the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. However, Castile assumed the dominant role it would maintain for centuries to come shortly after Ferdinand’s death. The Spanish king had more limited powers in Aragon, Sicily, and Flanders than in Castile, Leon, or the Americas, dominions governed by Castilian law. Though it had certain privileges, particularly its own set of

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laws, Aragon did not benefit from the monarchy’s attempts at centralization. By the seventeenth century, Aragon had become impoverished, in part due to the Castilian Crown’s demands.90 On the Spanish empire and its history, Palafox wrote: No matter how powerful it is, a great kingdom is not a monarchy if it does not dominate other great and powerful kingdoms. Castile was not a monarchy even when it was a powerful kingdom because it was girdled by Aragon, Navarre, Portugal and Granada which kept it in check. Neither was Portugal, which Castile always had restrained, nor Aragon having pursued new conquests after having annexed other kingdoms . . . because not even this was adequate if watch of a kingdom so close and powerful as Castile was not kept. Neither was Castile, having expelled the Moors of Granada and united with Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, Naples and Sicily, a monarchy as it had in such close proximity two crowns and one as great as France and Portugal and others that presented opposition. When Spain commenced then to be a monarchy was when . . . the world trembled and Spain was made superior to all the nations of Europe, comparable to the grandest of Africa and America. . . . And as such it can be said that the monarchy was resolved with the wisdom and great judgment of Ferdinand the Catholic, formed by the valor and zeal of Charles V and perfected by the justice and prudence of Philip II.91

In this discussion of a changing political landscape, Palafox showed the coincidence of his monarchism and regionalism. Recognizing that the Castilian monarchy was a recent one, historically speaking, and that Aragon had vied for the same authority, Palafox both championed Castile’s military acumen and subtly admonished Aragon for failing to keep a careful eye on Castile, thereby forsaking the monarchy. Palafox also made an important distinction here between a crown and a monarchy.92 He claimed that the Spanish monarchy, not simply a composite of territories and nations, was founded in and perfected by just, valorous rulership. The monarchy truly took shape and became grand, in his estimation, through the resolve and prudence of a series of Catholic kings. In this list, he stopped short at Philip II, after whose rule Palafox felt the monarchy to be falling into decline.93 Ultimately, Palafox considered the insurrections of Portugal and Catalonia under Philip IV’s rule to be a worldly reaction to unification efforts and a heavenly response to monarchical neglect and aristocratic excesses. In a treatise written while he was in Osma, Palafox advised, “As Kings address God through their Churches, Ministers and pious acts, so God ministers to his Crowns.” He argued that tyranny was preferable to discord as the former represented a form of government and the latter did not.94 He also warned that, second to honor, industriousness and occupation were “necessary and most useful virtues” for noble men and idleness their ruin. He urged priests and governors to better themselves daily and to pursue just causes in order to earn the grace of God within their homeland.95

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Palafox’s more personal disillusionment with the Castilian monarchy deepened as Philip failed to protect him from the mounting accusations and threats of the Jesuits and viceregal authorities. In a more global sense, he was exasperated at what seemed to him as irresponsible, misguided rulership of the empire at large. Palafox’s disappointment with Philip IV’s reign may have intensified his attachment to the governing traditions of his homeland. This Aragonese sense of place seemed to perturb royal sensibilities. The Castilians had taken issue with the Aragonese for their approach to history writing since the Middle Ages. These tensions escalated in the seventeenth century. In 1637, Philip IV, occupied with constructing official histories, which focused on monarchical supremacy and downplayed regional interests, mandated that the Council of Aragon not approve any history book without royal consent. The king further censured the Aragonese in 1645 with the intent of securing the Castilian monarchy’s leading role in history. The Aragonese nobility, who fought to maintain both their institutions and any legislation protecting them against full assimilation into Castile, inevitably resented this mandate and further censures.96 Believing each kingdom should be ruled with its own laws and allowed to maintain its particular regional customs, Palafox too must have disapproved of this censorship. For this same reason, he wrote about New Spain’s Creoles in such a way as to counteract their denigration by imperial historiographers. His writing of Virtues of the Indian suggests he also felt compelled to correct what he felt had been not only unjust treatment but also inaccurate portrayals of New Spain’s Native Americans.

Regionalism and Monarchism Despite his frustrations with the monarchy, however, Palafox’s belief in the divine origins of kingship was unwavering. Denouncing Machiavelli’s separation between politics and Christian ethics, he wrote, “Religious Princes, even those with false belief, always triumph over those who are Atheists.”97 In this same text, he cited historical examples to solidify his arguments that a virtuous Catholic king was essential to good governance. Palafox, like the count-duke Olivares, aspired to a large Christendom protected and controlled by the Castilian monarchy in collaboration with the papacy. Each of them assessed the monarchy through Judeo-Christian beliefs in God’s punishment of sins and Greco-Roman intellectual formulations of natural cyclical processes. Both men reacted to Spain’s seventeenthcentury economic decline by pursuing military, moral, and religious reform. While Palafox was in favor of a unified, moral monarchy, he parted company with the count-duke Olivares in a significant area of political strategy

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and thinking. To strengthen the Castilian government and bring stability to royal finances, Olivares had aimed to unify the Iberian peninsula under one Castilian law.98 Through this Union of Arms program, Olivares intended to revise the existing constitutional structure to integrate the monarchy. To Palafox, the application of only one system of laws to various regions would be impractical, inefficient, and against God’s creation of a natural network of varied and interdependent regions. He wrote: Alas only God can create Kingdoms with certain inclinations, but once created diverse, their laws and form of government must also be diverse. The result of this is that aiming to govern Aragon with the laws of Castile, Castile with those of Aragon, Catalonia with those of Valencia or Valencia with the usages and constitutions of Castile or all with one law, is the same as exchanging the bridles and bits of a group of horses or reducing them to only one with which some rear, others buck, and still others bolt, jeopardizing all. And therefore God, being the Creator who could create regions in a similar way made them different, and in all Biscay scarcely an orange will be found nor in all Valencia a chestnut, there being nothing other than oranges in Valencia nor in Biscay anything other than chestnuts, because He wanted to make regions need one another and thus our nature more sociable or for other exalted ends . . . it is also necessary that laws follow, like a garment, the form of the body and differ in each kingdom and nation. . . . Govern the Castilians in Castilian, the Aragonese in Aragonese, the Catalans in Catalan, and the Portuguese in Portuguese, in order to repair the distress in the kingdoms and encourage devotion to royal authority.99

In this passage, Palafox created an allegory of oranges and chestnuts to delineate distinct regions created by God according to a divine plan. He described natural and material essences translatable into a larger reality. In accordance with his friend and political philosopher Diego de Saavedra Fajardo’s (1584–1648) view that “in variety [nature] wanted to reveal its beauty and power,” Palafox wrote that a “great art of great kings, when they rule diverse nations, peoples, and circumstances is to speak to each in their own language, that is to consider them born and raised in their own kingdom or native to their place.” Each kingdom, he argued, must have laws that pertained to its residents, situation, and circumstances; to impose a new and uniform government upon a kingdom with its own traditions would be dangerous.100 Palafox wrote of being inspired by Juan Márquez’s study of Christian leadership derived from the lives of Moses and Joshua. Moses was also historicized by Aragonese scholar Antonio de Fuertes y Biota in 1657 as a student of the diversity of nature; a man whose politics incorporated not only book-learning and theory but also practical experience; a leader who respected his subjects’ distinctive practices and constitutions; and a ruler who recognized limits to his authority. Perhaps influenced by de Fuertes y Biota,

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González de Rosende, Palafox’s biographer, drew parallels between the lives of Palafox and Moses.101 In both Spain and Mexico, Palafox identified with and cultivated the local nobility while simultaneously promoting his ideal vision of the Spanish Crown. Like that of Puebla’s elite, Palafox’s regionalism was paradoxical, perhaps, but not contradictory of his monarchism. Palafox felt the Spanish empire should be, as described by historian John Elliott, one of “independent states which yet owed allegiance to the same sovereign.” In Palafox’s mind, the empire’s diversity was its strength.102 Though always guarding against religious syncretism or the perpetuation of pagan practices, Palafox manifested this belief in regional distinctions and independence in his inculcation of priests to master Native American tongues.103 Expectant parish priests in New Spain were to be examined for their proficiency in these languages—a significant tool, in Palafox’s mind, in empire-building and evangelism. Any missionary’s failure of the exam allowed Palafox to replace him. This proved a vehicle for the bishop’s promotion of secular clergy.104 Palafox, rigorous in his own study of Indian languages, urged priests to avoid improprieties in their speech so as not to compromise their authority and persuasiveness amongst Native Americans. This represented a significant challenge as Palafox claimed there were seven native languages in his bishopric alone.105 Palafox arranged to have catechisms he brought with him translated from Castilian into Nahuatl. He mandated that a reader consisting of questions and answers on Christian doctrine be drawn up for Indian boys.106 He ordered Puebla priests to see that Indian youth were instructed in doctrine at least two if not three times weekly as “in time they would have to govern” and the world would be the “color of the instruction” they were given as youths. “If they were indoctrinated and educated well,” he argued, “the world would be a better place.”107 Palafox also ordered that “the holy and laudable customs which the Indians followed in their parishes” be preserved. Despite grave concerns about idolatry and a general intention to uphold the precepts of the 1585 III Mexican Tridentine Council, he also urged that the Indians not be prohibited from certain types of dancing or other kinds of “honest and natural festivities that express a modest and christian happiness and joy.”108 Palafox and Blancas Underlying Palafox’s insistence upon the efficacy and divinely preordained nature of regional language, customs, and legal administration was his affiliation with Aragon. Palafox’s devotion to his native region or “patria” informed his ideas on governance as much as his belief in one great Christian state. These beliefs were also disclosed in Palafox’s inclusion of

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the crest of ancient Aragon in the Altar of Kings at the consecration of the Puebla cathedral.109 When questioned about this action, which resulted in a scandal, Palafox cited the writings of Gerónimo Blancas, an Aragonese who was titled royal historiographer by King Philip II of Spain. Blancas’s writings, particularly those featuring discussions of the Justicia, or Office of Justice, fostered potentially controversial ideas of distinct national constitutions and limited monarchical power. By definition, Blancas’s claim that there would always be a greater authority between the people of Aragon and their ruler rendered royal absolutism alien to the Aragonese constitution.110 Whether authentic, invented, or assembled from other pieces of medieval juristic writing, the laws Blancas discussed and the corresponding concepts of justice and rulership were synonymous with Aragon. In claiming Blancas as a source for the Puebla cathedral escudos, Palafox was asserting, via legitimate though controversial royal channels, his belief in regional laws and the Aragonese pact between king and subjects. He was also expressing his sympathy for the Iberian notion of patria chica. In medieval Spain, this sense of affiliation with one’s homeland developed out of the struggle against Islam. The tradition of loyalty to one’s patria was particularly strong in Aragon, in part because of its role in the Reconquista. In 1580, the Aragonese jurist, Juan de Costa, drawing upon Cicero, had written that “one’s obligation to one’s patria was greater than that owed to one’s parents.”111 By the sixteenth century, in Aragon, as in other parts of Spain, the concept of one’s civilizing patria had become synonymous with one’s municipality. In New Spain as well, one’s native patria was often defined as a city, a notion which stemmed from the Roman idea that the city should function as a mediator between the capital of the empire and the indigenous population of the colony.112 Just as he embraced this idea of patria as applied to New Spain, Palafox embraced Puebla as its physical embodiment. He projected and played out his views of empire and local governance on the cityscape and in the civic administration, in both the secular and religious realms. The controversial escudos, therefore, in as much as they reflect these views, also represented his loyalty to Puebla. Consulted when expressions of Aragonese identity and history were to be reconciled with the existing Castilian monarchy, Blancas’s texts continued to be topical in the seventeenth century.113 Blancas is perhaps best known historically for his involvement with a series of portraits of Aragonese monarchs, painted for the Sala Real de la Diputación in Zaragoza and copied among other occasions in 1634, at the order of Philip IV, for the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid. This cycle began with a portrait of the first ruler of Sobrarbe, the ancient kingdom of Aragon, and ended with the contemporaneous Hapsburg rulers—Philip II in Zaragoza and Philip IV in Madrid, respectively. Each picture consisted of two parts: a full-body portrait of each king or count and an encomiastic inscription in Latin ideated by Blancas,

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located at the base of the painting. Accompanying each portrait in the upper left corner was a royal coat of arms identifiable with Aragon during the era of the person pictured. Personal coat of arms, emblem, and title were located in the lower right corner. This format gave the pictures an emblematic quality. Those painted posthumously, while they displayed a Renaissance taste for veracity, were more like effigies than portraits. A historic/heroic style was employed for the portraits that represented a departure from many medieval representations of royal Aragonese figures. Besides writing the text for the inscriptions beneath the portraits, Blancas designed the decorative program of the Sala Real in Zaragoza. The images in this room and others in the building were occupied with the presentation— and in a sense, vindication—of Aragon’s history, especially at times when the kingdom was threatened by royal usurpation. One detail of the 1634 copies of the portraits for the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid merits further attention for our purposes. The motto and emblem of each king only appeared in a few images. As the Zaragoza series from 1580 disappeared after a fire in 1808, it is impossible to know whether this represented a significant change.114 However, not including the motto and emblem of a particular king did deemphasize the individual authority and mystique of that royal personage, an effect presumably desirable to Philip IV and Olivares. In general, the 1634 solicitation and placement of these pictures in the Buen Retiro were representative of Olivares’s unification program. In bringing these politically transcendent figures of the Crown of Aragon into the building that Olivares had tried to make into a symbol of a unified monarchy, Philip had not only aimed to show the legitimacy of his rule but also to metaphorically subsume the Crown of Aragon into the royal realm of Castile. A Portrait of Palafox These portraits are important to this discussion not only in what they tell us about Blancas’s and Palafox’s politics but also in their relationship to a portrait of Palafox by Diego Borgraf from 1643, pictured on the cover of this book. This portrayal was finished just after Palafox completed his term as interim viceroy and shortly after his assignment as visitor-general. It became the standard for Palafox portraiture and was often reproduced with variations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.115 Part of the gallery of bishops of the Puebla cathedral, this painting and the other eight in the series, instigated by Palafox, followed a traditional model.116 However, these Puebla portraits display remarkable formal similarities to the Diputación series in Zaragoza. Palafox’s portrait is a significant visual document rich with references to the bishop’s politics and theology. We will focus here on the ways in which his portrait corresponds to and departs from the Zaragoza portraits.

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In keeping with the Zaragoza Diputación series, Palafox’s portrait tops an inscription, listing his various titles. Palafox is shown standing and with a frontal gaze, a posture employed less often in the Zaragoza portraits. His direct and solemn look betrays his disturbance at government problems in New Spain and his concern for the empire at large. This gaze and the provocative gesture of his right hand, to be examined shortly, also suggest his regionalist convictions. Visible in the lower left hand corner are the arms of Palafox’s noble family. In the Diputación series, personal arms are shown to the lower right. Why, then, did Palafox’s portrayal depart from the Diputación template? Let us evaluate several possibilities. First, the vertical compilation of emblematic arms and objects, a trope used by Renaissance painters, writers, and theoreticians, creates a kind of symbolic hierarchy. Placing the family arms in the lower realm semiotically gives them a baser spiritual significance. Just as his noble family and upbringing were part of the foundation of his character and development, these arms are shown as part of a base for a table. Atop this table can be seen Palafox’s Historia Real Sagrada, written in his first two years in New Spain. Comprising six books, this text was developed through accounts of Old Testament personages, most particularly the twelve tribes of Israel. Historia Real Sagrada was organized as a didactic treatise on the moral obligation of a ruler, as God’s administrator, to serve his people and act according to God’s will, not his own. The primary thrust of the text was an argument for the political diversity of the Spanish monarchy. It probed the problem of Spain’s decline and admonished against the alteration of the historic relationship between king and kingdom. This text revealed not only Palafox’s more abstract, philosophical beliefs but also his specific and contemporaneous reactions to the reign of Philip IV and the governance of New Spain. It also represented an attempt to restore his damaged reputation. Palafox dedicated this book to Baltasar Carlos, prince of Asturias and inheritor of the throne, as if it were a hope for the resurrection of the monarchy. In Historia Real Sagrada, Palafox suggested that Philip III and Philip IV had committed sinful errors of neglect resulting in decadence, a kind of sin itself, war, and further troubles. Without moral fortitude, he cautioned, Spain could not enter into war. To guard against corruption and abuses of power, Palafox recommended the Residencia, an investigatory office with some functions like those of Aragon’s Justicia. In the final part of Book 6, Palafox, paraphrasing King David, wrote that, while the ruler lived in only one of the twelve kingdoms of which he was king, his heart resided in all of them, his love looked after all of them, and his providence attended to all of them.117 Herein Palafox described the kind of monarchical devotion and attention he believed was requisite of the Spanish Crown.

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Recognizing the political charge of the book and for fear of offending or further defaming his recently deposed mentor Olivares, Palafox did not send Historia Real Sagrada to Spain immediately upon its completion.118 The text’s centrality to the bishop’s thinking and his self-image is made clear, however, through its depiction in his portrait in the Sala Capitular of the Puebla cathedral. The placement of Palafox’s noble arms on the base for his text, Historia Real Sagrada, figuratively rendered his noble heritage and patria chica part of the foundation of his theological-political platform. His motion toward the book and his bishop’s hat, resting on top of the book, confirmed this. This gesture draws the viewer’s eye toward these objects and all they signify. The bishop’s hat, worn during pastoral visits and in a quotidian way, could symbolize his commitment to his bishopric and to the elimination of corruption and excess. Historia Real Sagrada was printed in Puebla, where Palafox seems to have experienced a synthesis between his political and theological theory and its practice. Therefore, the presence of the book in the picture, in addition to the miter of Puebla, expressed his devotion to his bishopric. The placement of the hat on top of the book, representing the joining of his beliefs and actions, suggested that his work as a Tridentine missionary rested upon his moral and theological concept of the ultimate monarchy. On the upper left corner of the Palafox portrait are the personal and episcopal arms of Palafox, namely, a crucifix resting on a heart. In the Zaragoza Diputación portrait series, this is the designated location for the arms of Aragon correspondent with the epoch of the king or count pictured. Displaying the crucifix instead of Aragonese arms made the statement that Palafox was ultimately in the service of Christ, with God’s kingdom as his nation. In this sense, one could imagine Christ acting as the Aragonese Justicia, mediating between Palafox and his bishopric, and God and his people. The crucifix placed here also functioned as a reminder that all earthly ministers and nations were subjects of God and obliged to act in his name and by way of his guidance. Honor, Magnificence, and Nobility To Palafox, acting in the name of God and King required not only piety and faith but also a deeply ingrained sense of honor. Palafox claimed that honor was the “essence of nobility” in “a man of blood.”119 Accumulation of honor as a kind of symbolic capital for himself, the Catholic Church, and the Spanish monarchy was a pursuit that threaded together his primary objectives in New Spain. Palafox believed that kingdoms as much as individuals were subject to principles of honor. He proposed that a kingdom without virtue was like “a body without blood.” Putting the church at the head

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of the nation, Palafox frequently used the metaphor of the body to describe his version of the ideal society of the Catholic state.120 As Alvarez de Toledo has pointed out, in his Juicio Interior, Palafox outlined a political structure where the king stood at the head of the nation body. This paradigm required honorable reciprocity between king and kingdoms, head and individual body parts, and bishop and flock. Each was expected to protect and serve the other in a mutually beneficial, interdependent relationship. Ties were maintained between ruler and individual kingdoms but not necessarily between the kingdoms themselves. In his Historia Real Sagrada, Palafox warned that kingdoms should be persuaded to enter into a monarchy by desire, not force, in order to build a strong monarchical edifice. He regarded “future benefits” a greater incentive to monarchical loyalty than the “threat of punishment.”121 In submitting willingly to monarchical control, individual kingdoms could also maintain their honor. Hapsburg officials, adopting an organic concept of power as discussed by University of Salamanca professor Francisco de Vitoria, used bodily and architectural metaphors to describe the Hapsburg state. The Spanish government was portrayed as an edifice or mystical body with each citizen a part of this unified whole. This was not a rarified trope in Spain at this time; authors equated distinct parts of the body with different classes, professions, and aspects of humanity.122 Palafox presumably built his conception of the ideal Catholic society upon a Christianized version of these and other related models.123 In his mind, Palafox would contribute to the virtue of New Spain by reforming viceregal government, ripening a Catholic community in Puebla, and completing its cathedral and other Christian sanctuaries. Palafox’s own “honor” (honor derived from family and birth status) was inaugurated through his bloodline and augmented by his political and ecclesiastical appointments, particularly those positions granted by the King of Spain. These privileges and responsibilities upheld his “honor,” in spite of his illegitimate birth. Castilian law of this period and prior mandated that a man belonged to his father’s social class.124 Palafox’s father’s nobility and his father’s assumption of his illegitimate son into his household granted Juan honorable status within this agnatic culture. Palafox’s “honra” or honor-virtue, however, needed to be constructed through magnanimous, civic-minded gestures and the exercise of civility. Palafox’s understanding of Aristotle, among other classical writers and philosophers, shaped his concept of honor and magnificence. During the sixteenth century, the University of Salamanca, Palafox’s alma mater, became a center of Aristotelian scholasticism, in large part due to the work of Francisco de Vitoria. In New Spain as well, the interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy was pivotal in academic and epistemological circles into the eighteenth century.125

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One way Spanish and Mexican thinkers became versed in Aristotle was through the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Seventeenth-century theologians commonly committed Aquinas to memory. Besides coediting an edition of Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, Vitoria was in the vanguard of a movement called “Second Thomism,” which attempted to relate Aquinas’s conclusions with contemporaneous problems. Much admired by Palafox, Aquinas had described an urban paradigm for the fruition of Christian ideals that linked the Aristotelian polis with Christian morality. Aquinas advocated civic duty, relating it to personal salvation. Aquinas’s De Regimine Principium informed fifteenth-century Spanish treatises and subsequently the Laws of the Indies, published in 1681. Through Aquinas’s efforts to reconcile faith and reason, his endeavors to synthesize pagan and Christian traditions, and his commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics, Palafox familiarized himself with Aristotle’s moral philosophy.126 Palafox subscribed to Aquinas’s claim, as defined by Cicero, that natural law was a part of divine law that all people could perceive by the use of reason. On reason and nobility, Palafox wrote, As nobility is created so it is subsequently maintained: virtues form, reform, sustain and preserve it. . . . Diligence, prudence and virtue are preserved in grand houses. Neglect, vice, and ignorance destroy and ruin them. The first and greatest virtue of nobility helping to fill them with the Divine is honor. . . . For plebes have only one rein on their appetite which is reason; and as such they are trumped easily, if passion prevails; but Noblemen have two which are reason and shame: if the former fails, the latter crosses, detains, and constrains the appetite.127

To Palafox, the capacity of noblemen to mitigate their vices through shame granted them kind of a natural hegemony. Holding aristocratic honor in high esteem, he regarded territorial nobility as potential allies of the monarchy and believed their cooperation and contentment were essential to the stability and vitality of the Crown. As part of the Union of Crowns, Aragon was represented by a council made up entirely of Aragonese participants—members of the kingdom’s elite and nobility, with the exception of the treasurer-general. This council, on which Palafox served, acted as a liaison between the king and a viceroy. Though independent councils were added as needed, the Council of Aragon became the exemplar for new territories of the Spanish empire. Palafox’s experience with this council motivated his pursuit of local participation in the Puebla city council and contributed to his discomfort with the hierarchy of viceregal authority within New Spain. As discussed above, he favored regional government in New Spain by the secular clergy and/or a local or Creole oligarchy. As an Aragonese schooled in political theory in

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Salamanca, he believed magistrates and local officials, even more than the viceroy, should mediate between royal demands and the aspirations of New Spain’s populace, negotiating to ensure the loyalty of subjects, the protection of the righteous, and the economic and spiritual health of the Spanish monarchy. In his mind, failing to compromise with Creole interests would ultimately jeopardize royal authority. This view put him in direct conflict with the viceroy. The viceroy Conde de Salvatierra wrote the king in 1645 that his greatest priority was to administer royal revenue. In contrast, Palafox considered the viceroy’s principal job to be moderating royal exigencies so as not to alienate subjects and risk revolt and/or civil disobedience.128 In Virtues of the Indian, Palafox applauded the Indians’ obedience and their general lack of rebellion, despite their enduring great hardships and abuses.129 Though never questioning the Crown’s jurisdiction in Native American governance, Palafox begged the king to intervene on behalf of the Indians. Above all, Palafox seemed to be most concerned that the monarchy was not upholding its most divine mission and the one that to him justified the existence of the empire—that of protecting a native population converted to Christianity only a century before. Palafox considered it the duty of nobility to eliminate their own aristocratic excesses and awaken to the universally devastating effects of idleness, spiritual neglect, and political corruption. He believed that all humans were capable of reason. However, he concurred with Aristotle and contemporary aristocrats in attributing magnificence exclusively to nobility. Palafox postulated: If a noble man recognizes, acknowledges and professes virtue, fidelity, truth, exemplarity in and for all . . . but is also generous and liberal, keeping his family intact and correct, his household well-sustained and governed, his vassals peaceful and law-abiding and [if he] helps the needy and poor and assists the virtuous, this is his true honor, reputation and esteem; this Noble Gentleman and Great Man, enjoys two glories; one in the Kingdom where he exercises these virtues; the other in the eternal Realm where he achieves and is rewarded for them.130

Privileging nobility, Palafox here suggested that the exercise of virtue could reward an honorable nobleman not only with civic recognition but also with transcendent, eternal glory. In this prescription for virtue and honorable comportment is a kind of highly Christianized sprezzatura, the quality advocated by Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529) in The Book of the Courtier, a guide for nobles on conduct and the art of self-presentation.131 Though Palafox would have known this text and understood its general missive, in his own writings on conduct he was careful to separate the sec-

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ular from the sacred. In his Pastor de Noche Buena, for example, he condemned the pursuit of secular honor as an end in itself and declared that the only honorable path was directed to God.132 The ideas of another fifteenth-century Florentine humanist, the architect and theorist Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), further illustrate this notion of magnificence. The treatises and theories of Alberti were important to King Philip II. They influenced sixteenth-century mission church designs in New Spain and the Laws of the Indies, which Palafox requested to print in Puebla in 1649.133 Copies of Alberti’s De re aedificatoria (1485) were being sent to book collectors in New Spain as early as the last quarter of the sixteenth century.134 Illegitimate, highly ambitious, prolific, educated in law, and a priest like Palafox, Alberti cited Aristotle in his discourse on wealth and nobility as prerequisites of public virtue.135 In his De re aedificatoria, Alberti contended that an outstanding building could elevate the morality of passersby and the dignity of its environs. He suggested that patronizing architecture was a wise investment for nobility as it contributed to a family’s reputation in perpetuity. He defended the construction and preservation of palaces and impressive urban settings as the responsibility of the elite. Alberti wrote about architecture and cities in terms of magnificence, claiming that a building reflected the honor of its owner or the glory of a nation. Magnificence and the notion of urbanity signifying civilization were seminal topoi to Alberti and influential in Spanish settlement in colonial Mexico. Most of the early Spanish settlers in the New World came from urban centers, making the city synonymous with Spain in America.136 Palafox too equated urbanism and civilization. On several occasions he suggested that Native Americans were more susceptible to the evils of idolatry and the devil outside city boundaries in remote or mountainous areas.137 For all its civilizing virtues, however, urbanity, for the Indians of New Spain, harbored the dangerously divisive influences of corrupt Spaniards. In Virtues of the Indian, he wrote, “In the mountains and lands that are very removed from us, they [the Indians] live with greater quietude as there is no one who sows arguments or divisions between them.” In Palafox’s estimation, the measured teaching of Christian doctrine was a necessary weapon to be used against the incursion of the devil into all Indian communities, whether urban or rural. He hoped the Indians’ piety and humility—virtues he praised highly— would guard against Satan’s influence, even if they couldn’t protect them from abusive Spaniards. Palafox commented on his own humility in his writings congruently with his discussions of the potential virtues of nobility. In his biography of the bishop, González de Rosende used a neoplatonic allegory of the foundation

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and vertical reach of a building to call attention to his subject’s humility, industry, and virtue: Humility is the foundation and cornerstone of all. . . . The virtues in the soul labor and form a building, the top of which reaches the heavens and is crowned by the stars; and buildings do not begin with towers but with ditches.138

Through this metaphor of architectonic verticality and moral elevation, González de Rosende could have been referring to Palafox’s early childhood spent in a shepherd’s modest home or to his labors to construct Christian buildings in Puebla, the cathedral being the tallest and most visually impressive of all. The importance Palafox placed on building a Christian community is evident in his architectural legacy in Puebla. Palafox informed the king that he instigated and supervised the construction of over forty-four churches and one hundred and forty retables in his diocese. While these figures may not be entirely accurate, they attest to his intentions and accomplishments as an architectural patron. On churches Palafox wrote, “Churches have their dowry like Wives who, in being sustained by husbands through marriage, have their dowry restored to them; and if there is a Wife who merits this care and preservation it is the Parishes and Temples where God resides.” Palafox described in detail how these churches, “Oratories of the Faithful, where we must ask for Divine Mercy,” were to be maintained. He specified how worship, music, and sermons ought to be conducted within these— and only these—sanctioned spaces.139 Palafox and the Puebla Cathedral Palafox’s subscription to Aristotelian notions of magnificence and expenditures for the public good was manifested in his investment of personal funds in the effort to complete the Puebla cathedral.140 In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defined magnificence as a civic virtue, originating in acts of public generosity, which in its highest form included the patronage of buildings or religious offerings.141 Monumental civic architecture was the primary medium for the expression of identity and power in New Spain. Situated on the city’s main plaza and far more physically impressive than any other building in its environs, the Puebla cathedral asserted the authority of the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church. It also demonstrated its patron’s determination and loyalty and the city’s sophistication, wealth, and piety. While Palafox’s biographer González de Rosende claimed fifteen hundred workers helped build the cathedral, the bishop himself said they num-

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bered two hundred, a more accurate estimate according to extant payment records. Indians, some from Puebla and others from neighboring Calpan and Huejotzingo, completed the bulk of the heavy construction of the building. It has been estimated that by 1640 between ten and twelve thousand Indians lived in Puebla. Palafox calculated that there were approximately two hundred and fifty thousand Indians living in his diocese.142 Native Americans also worked as cathedral carpenters; by the mid-seventeenth century, guild regulations (or the enforcement of them) had been relaxed enough so as to permit Indians to work as officers of carpentry and other occupations.143 Locating the Native American voice in the construction of the cathedral and other buildings is difficult as little related documentation exists. Written by an unidentified Native American(s), the Anales de Puebla are bilingual annals that textually and pictographically register major events in Puebla. Written in the last two or three decades of the seventeenth century, these annals primarily show pictures of earlier times. Images of more contemporary events were not included. In 1640, the events recorded in order of appearance were Palafox’s entry on the day of Mary Magdalene, the arrival of the viceroy, and the commencement of work on the cathedral fabric as ordered by Palafox. The next pertinent cathedral reference was from 1649. It read, “In this year, the Cathedral was consecrated on Tuesday, April 25, the day of the great evangelist St. Mark: the Illustrious Sir Juan de Palafox y Mendoza consecrated it.” These Anales de Puebla entries suggest the cathedral was a significant spatial, temporal, and spiritual landmark within the Indian community.144 While the Puebla cathedral was an impressive construct, the Retablo de los Reyes, as the iconographic fulcrum of the sanctuary, was also a potent architectural symbol. Functioning as an interior facade, the retablo was the processional culmination of the interior of the sanctuary. In a letter to King Philip IV from 1646, Palafox described the Altar of Kings and the chapel where it was housed as follows: The design is by Montañés, famous sculptor from Seville. Four canvases and the principal painting of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, the titular Virgin of the Cathedral and an image of great artistry . . . have cost a mere four thousand pesos; this retable has six sculptures, representing six saints from the most august House of Austria, ancestors of the Royal Person of Your Majesty. The columns and pilasters are of the finest jasper which is found five leagues from Puebla . . . some historiated and others serpentine, which are called solomonic and make a wondrous vision. The ciborium of this altar has another ten columns of jasper . . . with some inlaid work of a black mirror stone the likes of which I have not seen in churches in Europe, having recognized and seen the best of Spain, Italy, Germany, Flanders and France.145

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Let us briefly consider several salient aspects of this description and of the retablo itself. First, Palafox dedicated the retable, and the cathedral as a whole, to the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. The Aragonese, being the first in Spain to publish related accounts in 1461, maintained a special tradition of devotion to this virgin. In the seventeenth century, both Philip III and Philip IV of Spain campaigned to turn the doctrine of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception into dogma. Contemporaneous writings supporting these efforts associated this virgin with a strong Castilian monarchy. Despite some controversy (particularly among the Dominicans), the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception became a subject of popular devotion in Spain.146 As Rosalva Loreto López has discussed, in the early part of the seventeenth century, Iberian immigrants on the Puebla city council chose the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception as their spiritual patroness. They initiated a public commemoration of her feast day.147 Appointing this virgin as city patroness reflected a deliberate attempt to name a specifically Spanish and monarchical sacred figure as Puebla’s guardian and to make her primary in the city’s religious and cultural circles. Palafox took up this cause when he chose this virgin as the building’s central icon. Second, Palafox, figuratively playing Solomon’s role, chose the conceptual model of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem for his cathedral. He invoked Solomon when justifying expenditures on cathedral construction, writing, How mistaken are heretics when they condemn the exterior worship of God and how faulty christians when the expenditure on the grandeur, display, stature and majesty of cathedrals seems superfluous to them . . . this ointment, authority and grandeur, that to them seems wasted, is successful and employed well when it is applied toward the first and principal intent of the Church which is to exercise divine praise, not only internally but also externally. This was seen also in the grandeur of Solomon’s temple to God, built with wondrous grandeur.148

In 1596, Juan Bautista Villalpando (1552–1608) published a reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon in a work dedicated to King Philip II, whose monastery-palace outside Madrid, the Escorial, bore solomonic imagery. Also influential to Palafox were the solomonic columns incorporated by Bernini from 1624 to 1633 in the baldaquin heralding the sepulchre of St. Peter in Rome. Palafox concluded his Historia Real Sagrada by defining the governing principles of David, father of Solomon, as the paradigm of Judeo-Christian rulership. The solomonic columns, employed in the Puebla cathedral Altar of Kings for the first time in New Spain, may have been meant to represent admonitory aspirations for subsequent monarchs.149 These two significant iconographic programs—generally, the retable dedicated to the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and, specifically, the solomonic columns—symbolically honored the Patronato Real and the

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Spanish Crown in a general sense. Silently evoking Palafox’s analyses of the governance of recent Spanish rulers, they did not make specific reference to the reign of the contemporary king, Philip IV. Instead, they presented imagery associated more with previous Hapsburg monarchs, such as Philip II. Palafox’s contributions to the Puebla cathedral are well documented. So were his efforts in the remodeling of the seminary and the construction of the church of San Juan Bautista, the new episcopal houses, and the Sanctuary of San Miguel, built over a site previously used by Indians to worship idols. In an exhortatory epistle to the priests of Puebla from 1646, Palafox attributed the literal and figurative construction of the Catholic church and its sanctuaries to the Indians. He wrote, “Through the Indians chapels for music are formed. . . . They make the Temples, they repair them . . . their work aids all, their sweat benefits all and their hands sustain all.” In this same epistle, after stating that the Indians constructed the churches, their interior and exterior adornment, and all devotional artifacts used by confraternities for worship, Palafox rhetorically challenged the parish clergy’s application of income.150 Through architectural patronage, evangelism, and reform, Palafox aimed to preserve and elevate the Catholic mission of Spanish colonialism. Embedded in these programs was the pursuit of his own spiritual honor and moral virtue as well as that of his diocese, his native Aragon, his fellow clergymen, and the Spanish Crown. The Counter-Reformational Bishop: Palafox, the Borromeos, and Tridentine Magnificence Palafox’s commitment to the principles of the Council of Trent, which reaffirmed the authority and jurisdiction of bishops, motivated his ecclesiastical career, reform efforts, and building programs, and guided his pursuit of virtue and justice. References to the Council of Trent abound in his writings. On the power of images to persuade, he wrote, Another consideration has always seemed to me very effective in convincing the obstinate or consoling the afflicted; and it is that which results from the Holy adoration of images, so justly applauded and performed by the Faithful, contrary to the erroneous sentiment of perfidious Heretics.151

The heretics to whom Palafox referred were the Protestants, whose arguments that sacred art was idolatrous played a role in prompting the Council of Trent. Palafox’s expostulation here that devotional images could be didactic and revelatory revealed his Tridentine perspective. It also suggested he believed sacred images could be used to channel Indian devotion away from pagan idolatry toward Christian piety.

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The Council of Trent (1545–1563) contended that the nature of men was such that they could not easily be elevated to meditate upon divine things. As a result, it was argued that bishops, as delegates of the Papacy, should use images to teach the histories of the mysteries of Christian redemption and to confirm faith. The decrees of the Council of Trent declared that episcopal officials must authorize the exhibition of all art objects on a church interior and exterior and that religious representations must not contain anything profane, immoral, or false.152 Religious inspiration was expected to awaken the emotions; as a result, aesthetic pleasure derived from religious art was not condemned. Art and architectural grandeur were meant to inspire faith and instill morality and Catholic doctrine. Spain became a stronghold of the Counter-Reformation in the sixteenth century. During the reign of Philip II and on into the mid-seventeenth century, the Catholic Church in Spain promoted and enforced the decrees of the Council of Trent in part in an attempt to confront its Protestant and Islamic enemies and restore the debilitated monarchy.153 Palafox’s ideas on tridentinism and the inherent obligations of nobility were indicated in a text in which he juxtaposed and debated the politics of Tomás Villanueva of Valencia (1488–1555) and San Carlo Borromeo of Milan (1538–1584).154 Villanueva, born into a family of humble social extraction, was known for his personal austerity and negation of material comforts, his mysticism, and his charity, especially toward orphans, the indigent, and the infirm. In 1544, he was nominated archbishop of Valencia but did not accept the position until ordered to do so by a superior. In 1563, Carlo Borromeo, nephew of Pope Pius IV and an Italian aristocrat known to the Court of Madrid and King Philip II, was named archbishop of the diocese of Milan, the largest diocese in Italy at that time. The duchy of Milan had come under Hapsburg rule in 1535. Borromeo invested diocesan income into a seminary and Tridentine colleges, enacted and supported the edicts of the Council of Trent, approved of secular clergy reforms, and maintained one hundred clerics of noble rank in residence.155 Effective and uncompromising in his counter-reformatory administration, he was upheld as an illustrious bishop after his death. It has been suggested that Borromeo’s particular method of Tridentine reform was more prevalent in Castile and Aragon than in other parts of Spain.156 Before rhetorically leaving the final decision to God, Palafox concluded his debate by choosing Borromeo’s approach as the “most useful for the public” and therefore more effective. Palafox championed Borromeo’s investment of funds in the construction of seminaries, buildings, and reform programs. He likely identified with Borromeo’s noble lineage, though Villanueva’s parents too were owners of a prosperous estate. Palafox wrote, “Saint Charles spent gross quantities on buildings and foundations: Saint Thomas did not wish to spend three hundred ducats to expand a chapel.”157

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Palafox’s choice of Borromeo as an exemplary Tridentine prelate illustrated the nature of his conception of the Catholic Church. Like Palafox, Borromeo acquired government experience before assuming control of his diocese. Borromeo too felt that a bishop’s attachment to and physical presence in his see were vitally important, as reformed dioceses could facilitate a renewed Catholic Church. Palafox shared Borromeo’s view that bishops ought to be selected by the Council of Trent as agents of reform. His discussions of his commitment to the diocese of Puebla, always flavored with sentimentality and drama, indicated this perspective, probably cultivated in part from his interpretation of Borromeo’s ideas. Other parallels in the two men’s lives are worth noting. Both men believed in the political and spiritual necessity of a central Catholic governing authority. Both advocated diocesan reform, prosperity, and independence as a means to bolster the politico-religious system as a whole. John B. Tomaro has written that Borromeo wished to enact “some form of federative church structure that, by definition, was antithetical to Roman centralism.”158 Palafox’s approach to the governance of his diocese was in a sense federative. It was shaped by his esteem for regional nobility and culture, his constitutionalist sympathies, and his Tridentine convictions. His support for Puebla’s oligarchy menaced Mexico City officials. Some of these viceregal authorities in turn tried to suggest Palafox’s politics and actions posed a threat to the Crown and the stability of New Spain. Borromeo too had run into trouble with royal authorities for defending ecclesiastical autonomy and freedom. Borromeo’s ideas also influenced Palafox’s vision of the most appropriate and sanctimonious form for a church building. In 1577, Borromeo wrote Instructiones fabricae et supellectillis ecclesiásticae, the only known written response to the Council of Trent expressed in terms of architecture and church construction.159 The Council of Trent did not outline specific instructions for architecture. To Borromeo, the physical appearance of church property and the quality of devotional practices reflected the level of spirituality within them.160 A form of Christian “magnificence,” the thesis of Borromeo’s book was that a church and the masses and processions that occur within it must be as dignified as possible so that passersby, pilgrims, and priests would be inspired by the overall splendor. Decadent and pagan representations, however, would not be allowed. In general, Borromeo asserted that a church be organized for processions, mass, and ecclesiastical use. Adhering to practices advocated by the Council of Trent, Borromeo promoted a collaborative relationship between artist and priest.161 He contended that authority figures should dictate themes and artistic programs for churches, putting art in the service of religion. Palafox’s involvement with the Aragonese painterarchitect Pedro García Ferrer was in keeping with this approach to church patronage.

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In Carta II a los Curas and La Carta Pastoral VIII, Palafox delineated the proper construction, maintenance, and use of churches. These two texts dealt with the themes and recommendations of Borromeo’s book. In Carta Pastoral VIII, Palafox coincided with Borromeo in declaring that processions and rituals were part of Christian religiosity and a means to instruct and impress.162 From an orientation toward lighting to capacity and siting, the form of the Puebla cathedral Palafox consecrated corresponded with the majority of Borromeo’s recommendations. It seems probable, despite the apparent lack of a documented relationship between the Puebla cathedral and Borromeo’s Instructiones, that these recommendations were important to the conception and form of the building, given Palafox’s regard for Borromeo’s counter-reformatory approach and the burgeoning Tridentine artistic climate in Puebla in the mid-seventeenth century. Palafox probably also fashioned himself as a counter-reformatory bishop through the example of Federico Borromeo (1564–1631), younger cousin of Carlo. Heavily influenced by his older cousin’s efforts, Federico, as archbishop of Milan, directed a reform program in his diocese and founded the Ambrosiana (1607–1620), an official diocesan institution organized to reform sacred scholarship and the figurative arts according to the decrees of the Council of Trent. The Ambrosiana contained a library, art museum, and art academy. Federico wrote two treatises on art and collected and commissioned works of art for the academy’s teaching facility, the Ambrosian Museum. Federico’s endeavors into the figurative arts were innovative and extraordinary, though other aristocratic reformers of his day probably shared his values on religion and art. Both Palafox and Federico wrote copiously on a variety of subjects with the supposed purpose of promoting their reform projects. Critics argued their authorship was a case of quantity over quality. While it isn’t possible to compare their written approaches to art as Palafox did not write much on the subject and never with the detail or rigor of Federico, recognizing commonalities in their works and conceptions of the Catholic Church helps to situate Palafox as a counter-reformatory bishop. Both men founded impressive libraries. Though the Ambrosiana library boasted nearly ten times the number of volumes as did the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, each of the libraries constituted one of the most significant collections of its area and time. Though Federico’s style was more poetic and understated than that of Palafox, both bishops employed a writing style that included decorum, simplicity, historical accuracy, feeling, and attempts at persuasion. Both endorsed art as a means to instruct, inspire, and document Christian faith. Each imagined himself coming closer to God through oratory and the patronage of sacred buildings and artifacts.163

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A Turn toward Greater Piety For the entirety of his ecclesiastical career, Palafox described his patronage and reform efforts as an attempt to move closer to God. He deemphasized his pride and the privilege of his nobility and foregrounded his Christian humility and dignity. In an argument against Machiavelli’s separation of politics and Christian ethics, Palafox wrote the following in dialogic mode in Osma at the end of his life: I Father, believed that in Royal Palaces all was vanity, deceit and temporal grandeur and that the spiritual was absent there. Clearly, son, speaking generally, Royal Palaces are at the heart of this temporal world, because there wherein lie the high, the great, and the sovereign, ambition and human power labor more. But consider these things carefully, son, as there as in all realms there are crosses to bear and penalties. . . . Within the most superior Royal Palaces in the world, there could be a person who due to divine grace lives inside this world but is worldless and lives inside this realm of vanity but cherishes and seeks a path of humility, obliging himself to his post and Dignity on the exterior and to God on the interior.164

Palafox alluded to himself here as an obliging pastor and virtuous royal servant internally devoted to God but wrestling with the political machinations of an earthly ruling class. Stripped of political power and isolated in Osma, he struggled to come to terms with the failure of his reform efforts in New Spain. Palafox turned to writing to give voice to his profound frustrations, to provide exhortatory instruction for governance, and to rectify his soiled image in the wake of his foes’ accusations that his ambition was unbridled, seditious, and far more worldly than godly. In his despondency over these trials, Palafox consoled himself by turning to his faith. Despite the travails and stains of his Mexican career, however, the loyalty and concern of many of his allies was never in question. Anticipating later interpretations of Palafox’s works and piety, in 1648, Don Cristobal de Valdaura, Aragonese politician and man of letters, wrote to Palafox, his friend from the University of Salamanca, “The persecutions that you have been subjected to in that land are so great that, handled with patience, they could make you a saint.”165 The Cult of Palafox In death perhaps more than in life, Palafox was venerated in a nearly cultlike fashion. Seven years after his burial, while relocating his remains, the chaplains of Osma discovered that parts of his body had remained intact. This precipitated a movement toward beatification.166 Palafox’s successor in Osma was one of the first to raise the subject though support for Palafox’s

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case came from both Spain and New Spain. The Society of Jesus made its objection official in 1698. In 1726, the process of Palafox’s beatification was initiated in Rome with apostolic authority under Benedict XIII. In 1760, the Holy Roman Congregation of Rites and Pope Clement VIII approved all of Palafox’s works and writings. In 1762, under the patronage of King Charles III, fourteen volumes of Palafox’s writings and a biography—what became his Obras—were selected for publication to promote the cause of his beatification. In 1767, his sanctity, virtues, and miracles were declared and the fourth Mexican Council lobbied for the former bishop’s sainthood. Further endorsements followed but the protestations of Palafox’s enemies, most particularly the Jesuits, caused the case to remain suspended. In 1970, the Holy School of Christ in Madrid petitioned to renew the apostolic process of Palafox’s beatification.167 Tales of visions of Palafox were recounted after the bishop returned to Spain. Diarist Gregorio Guijo claimed that in 1654 letters arrived in Mexico City describing apparitions of Palafox in the windows of the high altar of the Puebla cathedral on the feast day of St. Michael. The stories were confirmed by scribes and sent to the viceroy. The accounts must have been provocative as the viceroy ordered that the testimony be kept silent. Palafox also reportedly appeared to a former opponent and Inquisitor, Juan de Santo Matía Saenz de Mañozca y Murillo, in Cuba in 1665.168 Though his enemies cleverly satirized these apparitions, Palafox’s mystical allure was legendary in Puebla.169 Officials ascribed the marvel of the cathedral progress entirely to Palafox and lamented the building’s suspended state following his departure. His consecration of the Puebla cathedral had immortalized him. Indeed, some revered him as a virtual patron saint of the city.170 On July 15, 1653, the Mexican Inquisition, following notice from the Inquisitor General of Spain, ordered that all portraits of Palafox be surrendered for collection with special attention directed toward the circulation of these images among Indians.171 Despite his emotional championing of their piety and presentation of their plight in Virtues of the Indian, depictions of Indians were surprisingly absent in Palafox portraits until the eighteenth century when some sensibilities toward Native Americans began to change.172 The 1653 order also decreed that no more Palafox portraits be created or sold. Pedro Salmerón, a priest loyal to Palafox, wrote that portraits of Palafox were to be found in many parts of Mexico, “painters copying them every day due to the great demand for them.”173 Palafox biographer González de Rosende claimed over six thousand portraits were collected in Puebla and its environs as part of this campaign.174 Palafox responded to this phenomenon stating, “The love which they had and have for me in Those Provinces

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is great, and as such everyone wants to have a semblance of me in his house.” He defended himself by stating that his image was consoling to members of his bishopric when he was thousands of miles away from them. He distinguished between authorized portraits, like that by Diego Borgraf in the Puebla cathedral, and unauthorized and problematic depictions that added inappropriate elements to his personage, such as angel wings. Recognizing the danger of this cult-like acclaim, he recommended these unauthorized images be burned.175 In May of 1691, the Mexican Inquisition reissued a prohibition of the bishop’s portraits, publishing an edict that called for the collection of portraits and stated, “We prohibited and ordered in years past that no person of any state, capacity, or disposition . . . neither have, paint nor sell portraits of don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza.”176 As much a measure of Palafox’s notoriety, the seizing of these portraits was indicative of contentious political infighting in Mexico. It reflected a concern that loyalties over these divided factions could become even more polarized and entrenched, perhaps erupting in a popular revolt. The Spanish Inquisition aimed to control popular devotion, particularly for figures with strong Creole affiliations such as Palafox. The Mexican Inquisition was displeased with the rise of a Palafox cult in Puebla because of the battles the bishop had waged with the viceroy, archbishop, and the Mexican Inquisition itself. Successful suppression of a Palafox cult could discourage a sense of collective identity among his sympathizers. The Mexican Inquisition’s failure to condemn González de Rosende’s biography and Palafox’s Vida Interior, however, suggests they recognized that such a ban could lead to outrage and protest. This case and others like it demonstrate an inclination among Puebla residents to venerate local figures. Puebla, more than any other city in New Spain, published the life stories of its local holy people.177 The politics behind Palafox being recalled to Spain and his proposed beatification may have given rise to this phenomenon. Canonization of individuals like Palafox could bring recognition and fame to Puebla’s religious community and bestow it with divine providence. Puebla’s city council members continually promoted their city as equal to Spain’s urban centers but superior by right of its being a New World phenomenon. The 1649 consecration of the Puebla cathedral granted the city a spiritually mature status. Venerating Palafox as a holy person and “one of their own” was a means to assert the city’s participation in the Catholic Church as a full and graduated member. Palafox’s reform campaigns in Puebla and the factions that arose out of them fomented this local Catholic pride and its expression. When Puebla citizens were notified of the pending and seemingly probable canonization of their former bishop in 1767, the city was quickly ablaze with celebration. Portraits of the bishop were brought out and paraded through the city streets. In one chronicle, the author, formerly of a Jesuit college, compared Palafox to Christ.178

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Palafox portrait makers, biographers, and chroniclers employed “invention” as a rhetorical device in their narrations of the bishop’s candidacy for sainthood. Antonio Rubial García has composed a terse exposition on the use of invention in several Palafox portraits. Distinguishing the pre-Enlightenment use of invention in Latin-derived languages—namely, “to recount reality”—from our more contemporary understanding of it—that is, to “fabricate falsehood”—he has cited Sebastián de Covarrubias’s 1611 Spanish lexicon: “To invent is to draw out something that has not been seen before and has not been imitated in another.” To be esteemed as valuable and legitimately truthful, a good invention, Rubial García has outlined, required multiple demonstrative elements: “praising of virtues, condemnation of vices, elaboration, exempla, proofs, digression, and citation of authorities, such as the Bible or Christian or Greco-Latin authors.” These rhetorical agents were meant to “teach moral behavior,” “entertain,” and “arouse feelings of repudiation or admiration.” This form of truthful narration was assessed by its viability as a spiritual guide. In Virtues of the Indian, Palafox, in keeping with Covarrubias’s definition of invention, aimed to elucidate Indian virtues he felt had not been properly catalogued and to make readily apparent injustices done against the Indians themselves. He incorporated the same rhetorical resources of invention used in his portraiture as a proxy to argue his case and advance his countrymen, nation, and king in what he believed was a path toward eternal salvation.179 Despite the efforts of his advocates through the centuries, Palafox has not been beatified. To this day, however, the city of Puebla continues to claim Palafox as one of their own and to foreground the bishop in the urban fabric and mythology. In 1997, the municipal government elected to change the name of one of the city’s oldest and most central thoroughfares to Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. Maximino Ávila Camacho (1881–1945), military patriot and state governor from 1937–1941, was the street’s prior titular honoree.180 What is now Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza runs east toward the older section of town from the Zócalo or main civic plaza, where the city council offices and cathedral stand. This street’s counterpart, Reforma, runs west toward the newer part of the city from the opposite side of the Zócalo. Semiotically, then, in this reconfiguration of streets seventeenth-century New Spain meets constitutional Mexico at the Zócalo, the historic, cultural, and physical heart of the city.181 The urban invocation of Puebla’s most renowned bishop and cathedral patron has been preceded by local, federal, and international recognition of the city’s colonial heritage over the course of several decades.182 This revision of Puebla’s street nomenclature serves as a metaphor for changes in the city’s approach to its Novohispanic history. It reflects not only Palafox’s enduring presence in Puebla but a public, pedestrian, and geomantic proclamation of his legacy.

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NOTES 1. Sor Cristina de la Cruz Arteaga y Falguera, Una mitra sobre dos mundos, La de don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo de Puebla de los Angeles y Osma (Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1992), 18, chapter 5; Genaro García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo, de Puebla y Osma, visitador de la Nueva España (Mexico City: Livrería de Bouret, 1918) 13. Francisco Sánchez-Castañer has written La madre del virrey de Nueva España, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1975), on the somewhat mysterious life of the woman presumed to be Palafox’s mother. 2. Arteaga, Una mitra, 4; Charles E. P. Simmons, “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Reforming Bishop, 1640–1649,” Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1966, 19. 3. Michelangelo’s reference can be found in Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. Gaston du C. de Vere, 2 vols. (New York: Knopf, 1996), 2: 643: “Giorgio, if I have anything of the good in my brain, it has come from my being born in the pure air of your country of Arezzo, even as I also sucked in with my nurse’s milk the chisels and hammer with which I make my figures.” 4. Sor Cristina de la Cruz Arteaga y Falguera, El Obispo Palafox y Mendoza (Madrid: Ateneo, 1966), 11; Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform: The Life and Thought of Juan de Palafox, 1600–1659 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 4. For Palafox’s family history, see Arteaga, Una mitra, chapter 2. 5. Arteaga, El Obispo, 11, 12; Arteaga, Una mitra, 36; and Montserrat Galí Boadella, Pedro García Ferrer, Un artista aragonés del siglo XVII en la Nueva España (Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1996), 70. See also Francisco SánchezCastañer, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Virrey de Nueva España (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 1988), 19–24. On Palafox’s academic career, see Sor Agueda María Rodríguez Cruz, O. P., “Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, escolar salmantino” in Revista del Seminario de Estudios Americanistas 3 (University of Madrid, 1960). For discussion of the intellectual climate in Salamanca in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Anthony Pagden, The Uncertainties of Empire: Essays in Iberian and IberoAmerican Intellectual History (Aldershot: Variorum, 1994). 6. Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 71. 7. Arteaga, Una mitra, 47, 48. Palafox was assigned to these courts in 1626. 8. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Vida interior ó Confesiones del V. Autor y la Historia Real Sagrada Luz de Principes, y Subditos,” in Obras del Ilustrissimo, Excelentissimo y Venerable Siervo de Dios, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, de los Supremos Consejos de Indias, y Aragón, Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles y de Osma, Arzobishop electo de Megico, Virrey y Capitan General de Nueva España, 13 vols. (Madrid: Don Gabriel Ramirez, 1762), 1: 5, 6. 9. Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 72. The tonsurado (literally meaning tonsured) was considered a comparable privilege and title to that of lawyer in the nineteenth century. 10. Arteaga, Una mitra, 63–66, 69. The Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla contains numerous books—many of them Flemish editions perhaps obtained by Palafox during these travels—about these subjects. 11. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Diálogo político del Estado de Alemania y comparacíon de España con las demás Naciones (1635) and Juicío político de los daños y reparos de cualquier Monarquía and Diario del viaje a Alemania (1638). These other texts in-

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clude Palafox’s Sitio y socorro de Fuente-Rabía y sucesos del año Treinta y ocho and Historia de las guerras civiles de la China y de la Conquista de aquel dilatado Imperio por el Tártaro. See also Edgar García Valencia, “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Literatura y Ars Gubernandi,” in La Pluma y el Báculo: Juan de Palafox y el mundo hispano del seiscientos, ed. Montserrat Galí Boadella, 177–88 (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004). 12. During this period Palafox was also engaged in the tutelage of his siblings and care of his family’s name and honor, responsibilities left to him by his father. Palafox expressed much concern for the status of his siblings and family name. 13. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 43, 52. See also Alejandro Cañeque, The King’s Living Image: The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico (New York: Routledge, 2004). 14. Palafox, “Epístola II. Exhortatoria a los Curas y Beneficiados de la Puebla,” in Obras 3, part 1: 132. 15. Arteaga, Una mitra, 79–83, 95; BN, Madrid, MSS 3048, folio 35v. On Palafox’s labors as visitor-general, see Ismael Sánchez Bella, “Ordenanzas para los tribunales de Mexico del visitador Palafox,” in Derechos indianos: Estudios, vol. 1 (Pamplona: Ediciones University of Navarra, 1991), 313–57. 16. Palafox, Letter from June 11, 1639, as cited by Arteaga, Una mitra, 94. 17. AGI, Contratación, 5422, no. 39, folios 00005–00012; Arteaga, Una mitra, 97–99; Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 78. 18. Cristóbal Gutiérrez de Medina, Viaje del virrey marqués de Villena (Mexico City: Imprenta Universitaria, 1947), 52–53. Tlaxcalan Indians had aided the Spaniards in their sixteenth-century battles against the Aztecs. Ritual representation and celebration of a new viceroy in Tlaxcala, hence, involved the deliberate coupling of Native American traditions and Spanish narratives. 19. BN, Madrid, MSS 3048, folio 36r; García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo, 68. See also Nancy H. Fee, “La Entrada Angelopolitana: Ritual and Myth in the Viceregal Entry in Puebla de los Angeles, 1640–1696,” The Americas 52, no. 3 (Jan. 1996): 283–320; and Linda A. Curcio, The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City: Performing Power and Identity (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 2004). 20. David Brading, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State, 1492–1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 230. For Palafox’s report as visitador general, see AGI, Patronato Real 244, Ramo 20, images 00005–00010. 21. On Palafox and the Portuguese, see Richard E. Greenleaf, “The Great Visitas of the Mexican Holy Office, 1645–1669,” The Americas 44, no. 4 (April 1998): 400; and Stanley M. Hordes, “The Inquisition as Economic and Political Agent: The Campaign of the Mexican Holy Office against the Crypto-Jews in the Mid-Seventeenth Century,” The Americas 39, no. 1 (July 1982): 32, 34. 22. BN, Madrid, MS 19286, Relación de la llegada y estancia en la Nueva España del Virey duque de Escalona, y del Visitador del Reino y Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1640–1642). On Palafox and the relevant events from 1640 to 1642, see AGI, Audiencia de México 344, July 15, 1644, and Audiencia de México 340, Sept. 13, 1640; Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Memorial al Rey Felipe IV. Respuesta de los que Habian dado a su Majestad el Duque de Escalona y su hijo el Conde de Santisteban,” in Obras 11. This document by Palafox is transcribed

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in Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Tratados mejicanos, 2 vols., ed. Francisco SánchezCastañer (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1968), 1: CXLIX–CLI. 23. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, viii, 45. 24. Arteaga, Una mitra, 145, 166–67; Louisa Schell Hoberman, “Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Mexico City: A Preliminary Portrait,” Hispanic American Historical Review 57, no. 3 (Aug. 1977): 488–89. Bancroft Library (Berkeley) manuscript M–M 503: 1 contains a copy of the king’s letter of Feb. 19, 1642, inviting Palafox to assume the role of archbishop of Mexico due to the death of Feliciano de la Vega. 25. Palafox as cited by Arteaga, Una mitra, 159–60. 26. Arteaga, Una mitra, 250, 397–98; and Brading, The First America, 233. Ariel Rodríguez Kuri has attributed some of the tension between the bishop and the Jesuits of Puebla to Palafox’s founding of these seminaries (“La Palabra y el Hombre,” Nueva Epoca 73 [Jan.–Mar. 1990]: 201). For further reading on the Colegios de San Juan, Pedro, and Pablo, see BN, Madrid, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Instrumento por medio del cual Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza establece en Puebla sus colegios; Pedro A. Palou, Breve Noticia Histórica de la Biblioteca Palafoxiana de su Fundador: Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y los Colegios de San Juan, San Pedro y San Pablo (Puebla: Gobierno de Estado, 1991); Antonio Tamariz de Carmona, Relación y Descripción del Templo Real de la Ciudad de la Puebla de los Angeles en la Nueva España y su Catedral (Puebla: Biblioteca Angelopolitana, Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1991), 40–41; Xavier Moyssen and Efraín Castro Morales, Puebla monumental (Mexico: Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1981), 38, 41–42. On Palafox’s efforts on behalf of Tridentine principles in New Spain, see Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Razón que da a Vuestra Majestad, don Juan de Palafox, de los acontecimientos del año de 1647,” and “Memorial al Rey Felipe IV en petición de volver a Méjico” in Tratados 1: cxlii–cxxliii, cxlix–cli. 27. Mariano Cuevas, Historia de la Iglesia en México, 5 vols. (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1992), 3: 201. See also Arteaga, Una mitra, 396–400; and Hugo Leicht, Las Calles de Puebla (Mexico City: A. Mijares & Hno., 1934), 79, 200. 28. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 88; See Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Estatutos y Constituciones hechas con comission particular de su Magestad para ello: Por el Excelentisimo y Ilustrisimo Señor D. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, de gloriosa memoria del Consejo de su Magestad, Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles, Visitador General de la Nueva-España, y de dicha Real Universidad, Virrey y Capitan General que fue en ella y Presidente de su Real Audiencia de México (Mexico: Viuda de Bernardo Calderon, 1668). The real cédula declaring Philip’s charge was from Dec. 29, 1639, and Palafox’s statutes were approved Oct. 14, 1645. 29. Leicht, Las Calles, 80; Johann Specker, “La biblioteca Palafoxiana en Puebla” in Libros europeos en la Nueva España a fines del siglo XVI: una contribucion a la estratigrafia cultural (Weisbaden: Franz Steomer Verlag, 1973), 142. This essay includes copies of the documents declaring Palafox’s library donation as well as instructions for the library’s management and care. On the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, see also Ernesto de la Torre Villar and Fausto Marin Tamayo, La Biblioteca Palafoxiana: Reseña Histórica (Puebla: Centro de Estudios Históricos de Puebla, 1957); and Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 64, 91, and 92. For a discussion of Palafox’s views on history, see Perla Chinchilla Pawling, Palafox y América (Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1992), 19–33. 30. Michael M. Brescia, “Material and Cultural Dimensions of Episcopal Authority: Tridentine Donation and the Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Seventeenth-Century

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Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 8, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 212, 218, 219. 31. The “teach in silence” sentence by Palafox was cited by Ricardo Fernández Gracia, “Palafox and His Passion for Books,” Artes de México 68 (2003): 87; Palafox, “Epístola II,” 175–76, and 203. 32. Palafox, “Vida interior” as cited by Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 73. 33. Palafox, “Vida interior,” 78. 34. Some of Palafox’s writing was excerpted as part of the definition for capricho in the 1729 Diccionario de Autoridades (John Dowling, “Capricho in Life, Literature, and Art from Zamoya to Goya” in Eighteenth Century Studies 10, no. 4 (Summer 1977): 419–20). His writing has been appraised as more moralizing and mystical than intellectual. His style has been described as “fluid, natural and sincere although at times a bit careless” (José M. Gallegos Rocafull, El pensamiento mexicano en los siglos XVI y XVII (Mexico City: UNAM, 1974), 234–35). Palafox’s written supplications and confessions often seem contrived and long-winded, though some of his letters of political instruction were more direct. His royal correspondence, often riddled with superlatives, could assume an unctuous tone. To us, his writing is embellished and baroque and can seem stilted and artificial. In Palafox’s time, however, many of his readers would have found it more easily legible, if not moving and dramatic. Aware of his audience, Palafox crafted his tone, blending his signature style with the deference appropriate to an ambitious minister. Sicilia Vojtecky listed Palafox’s poetic models as Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Garcilaso, Góngora, Quevedo, and Lope, as well as St. Theresa and St. John (Paul Andrew Sicilia Vojtecky, “El Obispo Palafox y su lugar en la mística española” (masters thesis, Spanish, Mexico City: UNAM, 1965), 38, 45). For Palafox’s literary influences, see the prologue in volume 1 of his Obras and José Rojas Garciduenas’s prologue to Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Ideas Políticas (Mexico City: UNAM, 1946), xxxix–xli. For a detailed analysis of Palafox’s poetry, see José Pascual Buxó, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Poesías Espirituales, ed. José Pascual Buxó and Artemio López Quiroz (Mexico City: UNAM, 1995). 35. Elías Trabulse, “Prólogo,” Cien impresos coloniales poblanos (Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora, 1991), 10; and Juan de Palafox y Mendoza as cited in Miguel Zeron Zapata, La Puebla de los Angeles en el siglo XVII (Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 1945), 156–57. For a discussion of what Palafox printed while in Puebla, see Sanchez-Castañer, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, 203–51; and Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 91–92. On the book trade and printing industry in New Spain, see Magdalena Chocano Mena, “Colonial Printing and Metropolitan Books: Printed Texts and the Shaping of Scholarly Culture in New Spain, 1539–1700,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 6, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 69–90; W. Michael Mathes, “Humanism in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Libraries of New Spain,” Catholic Historical Review 82, no. 3 (July 1996): 412–35; Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 236–37. 36. Palafox wrote that he did this “in execution of the orders of the Council of Trent and his Majesty” and with “divine favor” (“Epístola II,” 130). 37. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 88. 38. Palafox as cited by Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 77; Brading, The First America, 234.

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39. John Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965–1969), 2: 160–228. On the seventeenth-century economic situation in Spain and New Spain, see I. A. A. Thompson and Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, eds., The Castilian Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 40. John H. Elliott has pointed out that Spanish building enterprises of the seventeenth century were limited in number and scale. He has claimed Spanish architecture of the period lacked the brilliance of contemporaneous art and literature (Spain and Its World, 1500–1700, Selected Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 267). 41. Mariano Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia, Historia de la fundación de la Ciudad de la Puebla de los Angeles en la Nueva España, su descripción y presente estado, 2 vols. (Puebla: Mixcoac, Imprenta Labor, 1931), 2: 67–68. One of Puebla’s first historians, Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia, was born and died in Puebla, studied at the University of Mexico, and was a lawyer by the age of nineteen. Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia cited the total cathedral expenditure under Palafox as 334,000 pesos. In book 2, he wrote that some scholars calculated the cathedral expenditures under Palafox as 400,000 pesos, ten thousand of which came from royal coffers (65–66). The rest resulted from Palafox’s fund-raising efforts and contributions. Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia claimed the author of one of the manuscripts he consulted wrote that the king had promised nine thousand ducats per year toward the cathedral construction. Half of this amount was to be taken from royal coffers and the other half from tribute from various towns in the diocese. The author then claimed that in eight years no funds were drawn from royal coffers and that 42,910 pesos were collected as tribute. 42. AAP, Actas de Cabildo, Libro de Cabildo 19, August 9, 1640, folio 168v–169r. For primary source documentation on censos, rentas, and diezmos during Palafox’s tenure, see Nancy H. Fee, “The Patronage of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza: Constructing the Cathedral and Civic Image of Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2000), chapter 3, notes 53–55. 43. James Lockhart and Stuart Schwartz, Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 156–57; Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 66, 72, 75, 86–91, 257; Brading, The First America, 235; Lidia E. Gómez, “Honor y poder a través de la obra de un obispo. La sociedad novohispana en la Puebla del siglo XVII reflejada en la obra de Palafox y Mendoza,” in Montserrat Galí Boadella, ed., La Catedral de Puebla en el Arte y en la Historia (Puebla: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1999), 187; Arthur Ennis, “The Conflict between the Regular and Secular Clergy” in Richard E. Greenleaf, ed., The Roman Catholic Church in Colonial Latin America (Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Latin American Studies, 1977), 64–65. Palafox’s efforts to wrest control of the doctrinas from the Franciscans is also mentioned in a discussion of Tridentine legislation and the doctrinas under Bourbon rule (D. A. Brading, “Tridentine Catholicism and Enlightened Despotism in Bourbon Mexico,” Journal of Latin American Studies 15, no. 1 [May 1983]: 7). 44. Genaro García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo, 94, 111; Brading, The First America, 242–43, 247. For Philip IV’s royal decrees, see AGNMC, Reales Cédulas Originales, vol. 3, Jan. 25, 1648.

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45. Palafox, “Memorial al Rey Felipe IV. Respuesta de los que habian dado á su Majestad del Duque de Escalona y su hijo el conde de Santistevan” (from 1657), Obras 11: 552. For Palafox’s endorsement of the Council of Trent, see also Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Informe del Ilustrisimo Senor Don Juan de Palafox, Obispo de la Puebla, al Excelentisimo Senor conde de Salvatierra, virrey de esta Nueva España,” in García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo, 27–94. The same document is transcribed in the Tratados (2: 129–51). See also Simmons, “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza,” 69–86, for more discussion of the Council of Trent, doctrinas, and mendicants. 46. Simmons, “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza,” 157; Brading, The First America, 242–43, 247. 47. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 214, 238–45, 283. For more on the Jesuits and the viceroy, see Israel, Race, Class, and Politics, 217–47. 48. Arteaga, Una mitra, 334; Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 86. 49. For a discussion of Palafox’s letters to Innocent X, see Simmons, “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza,” 120–33. See also Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 230–40. 50. Brading, The First America, 243–45. In his “Vida interior,” Palafox discussed the mascarades staged and satires produced by the Jesuits while he was away from Puebla (Obras 1: 87, 89). 51. Arteaga, El Obispo, 25 and Una mitra, 335. 52. AAP, Actas de Cabildo, Libro de Cabildo 22, May 28, 1648, folios 160v–64v. On Orejón, see Israel, Race, Class, and Politics, 225, 236, 238 and Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 238. 53. Francisco de Florencia, S.J., Narración de la Marabillosa Aparición que hizo el archangel San Miguel a Diego Lázaro de S. Francisco (Seville, 1690), 164. 54. Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1513–1813, transl. Benjamin Keen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 26; Rosalva Loreto López, The City of Puebla, trans. Kieran Maule and Lisa Heller (Mexico City: Reproducciones Fotomecánicas, 1997), 15. On Puebla’s founding, see also Francisco Pérez Salazar, “La fundación de la ciudad de Puebla” (1928) in Historia de la pintura en Puebla y otras investigaciones sobre historia y arte, 421–40 (Mexico City: Perpal S.A. de C.V., 1990). In 1543, Puebla was termed “Ciudad de los Angeles” or “City of Angels.” Queen Isabel had eliminated the word “puebla,” signifying “new city” in medieval Spanish, from the city’s founding charter of 1532. Palafox was the first to revive the name, Puebla de los Angeles, in his diocese documents from 1640. 55. On the historiography of Puebla’s unique founding, see Guy Thomson’s Puebla de los Angeles: Industry and Society in a Mexican city, 1700–1850 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989): 1–13. See also Julia L. Hirschberg, “Social Experiment in New Spain: A Prosopographical Study of the Early Settlement at Puebla de los Angeles,” Hispanic American Historical Review 59 (1979): 1–33. 56. Guillermo Boils, “Dos nuevas ciudades novohispanas en el siglo XVI: Queretaro y Puebla,” Cuadernos de arquitectura virreinal 17 (1995): 47. 57. Fausto Marín, Puebla de los Angeles (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1989), 61.

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58. Diego Antonio Bermúdez de Castro, Theatro Angelopolitano o Historia de la ciudad de Puebla (1746) (Mexico City: Museo Nacional, 1908), 16; François Chevalier, “La Signification Sociale de la Fondation de Puebla de los Angeles,” Revista de Historia de America XXIII (June 1947): 118. 59. Fray Toribio Motolinía or Benavente, “De cómo y por quién se fundó la ciudad de los Ángeles y de sus calidades,” in Crónicas de Puebla de los Ángeles según testimonios de algunos viajeros que la visitaron entre los años 1540–1690, comp. Ignacio Ibarra Mazari (Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1992), 11; Chevalier, “La Signification Sociale,” 107–8, 118; Fray Agustín de Vetancurt, Teatro Mexicano, Descripción breve de los sucessos exemplares de la Nueva España, 4 vols. (Mexico City, 1696; Madrid: J. Porrúa Turanzas, 1960), 2: 301. 60. Israel, Race, Class and Politics, 98, 203. 61. Thomson, Puebla de los Angeles, 3–4. 62. Motolinía, “De cómo y por quién,” 18. 63. Marín, Puebla de los Angeles, 54–55. 64. José F. de la Peña, Oligarquía y propiedad en la Nueva España, 1550–1624 (Mexico City: F.C.E., 1983), 166; Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 197; Israel, Race, Class and Politics, 93; Lockhart and Schwartz, Early Latin America, 123, 132. 65. Miguel Angel Cuenya Mateos, “Fiestas y virreyes de la Puebla Colonial,” Lecturas Históricas de Puebla 29 (Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Secretaría de Cultura, 1989): 9. 66. Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 85, 86, 92. 67. Anthony Pagden, “Identity Formation in Spanish America,” Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 60, 62, 64, 65. The number of emigrants from Spain to Mexico in the colonial period is unknown. However, between the second quarter of the seventeenth century and around 1720, the number of ships sailing to the Indies was reduced. This would suggest fewer Peninsular emigrants and a higher percentage of Creoles in the Spanish population in seventeenth-century Mexico than had been the case in the century before (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 85–86, 92, 113, 171, 197). 68. Marvyn Helen Bacigalupo, A Changing Perspective: Attitudes toward Creole Society in New Spain (1521–1610) (London: Tamesis Books, 1981), 142. 69. Stafford Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797 (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1995), 1; Ralph Bauer, “Imperial History, Captivity, and Creole Identity in Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñan’s Cautiverio Feliz,” Colonial Latin American Review 7, no. 1 (June 1998): 62–63; Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 80–81, 85–87, 92, 113, 171, 195–99, 213–14; Lockhart and Schwartz, Early Latin America, 154; Pagden, “Identity Formation in Spanish America,” 57, 81. 70. Israel, Race, Class and Politics, 95, 96; Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 42. 71. Sigüenza y Gongóra is perhaps the most studied seventeenth-century Mexico City Creole who attempted to construct Creole antiquity and identity in New Spain through linking his homeland and culture to his interpretations of the Aztec past. As I noted in my dissertation and as Peter Bakewell has pointed out, reconciling preHispanic Aztec grandeur with the abjection of his Indian contemporaries, however,

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was challenging (Nancy H. Fee, “The Patronage of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza,” 13–14; Peter Bakewell, “Review of David A. Brading’s The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492–1867” in The American Historical Review 97, no. 3 [June 1992]: 966). 72. Roque de Pastrana, the Creole son of a Brihuega immigrant, contributed over eight thousand pesos toward the construction of the Puebla cathedral drum and dome. Pastrana also donated funds toward the rebuilding of the hospital de San Roque (AGNP, 1642, folios 156f–157r and May 1649, folio 12r; AGNMC, Reales Cédulas originales, January 29, 1651). Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia claimed Roque de Pastrana contributed fourteen thousand pesos toward the construction of the cupola (Historia de la fundación de la Ciudad de la Puebla, 2: 87). 73. Ida Altman, Transatlantic Ties in the Spanish Empire, Brihuega, Spain and Puebla, Mexico, 1560–1620 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 1, 3, 33–37, 126–28, 210, 228. 74. AGI, Patronato Real 244, Ramo 25, Jan. 19, 1649, image 00048–00049. 75. Salmerón, Relación Breve de la Consagración del Real y Sumptuoso Templo de la Cathedral de la Puebla de los Angeles que hizo el Excmo. y Rev.mo Señor Don Juan de Palafox, y Mendoza, Obispo deste Obispado, del Consejo de su Magestad, y del Real de las Indias, Virrey, y Visitador General que fue desta Nueva España. Con las fiestas, y regocijos, que la Ciudad hizo en ella. Y De la despedida, y partida del Señor Obispo, à los Reynos de España (Puebla, 1649), folio 3r–v. Palafox sung Salmerón’s praises, calling him one of the most exemplary priests in New Spain (Palafox, Tratados 1: 113, 242). For a description of the events of the consecration, see also Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia, Historia de la fundación de la Ciudad de la Puebla, 2: 64–83; Bermúdez de Castro, Theatro Angelopolitano, 148–80; and García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo, 205–16. 76. Palafox, “Vida interior,” 70–71. 77. Israel, Race, Class and Politics, 256. For a discussion of the Mexico City cathedral from around the same time, see Isidro Sariñana, La Catedral de México en 1668. Noticia breve de la solemne, deseada, última dedicación del Templo Metropolitano de México, ed. Francisco de la Maza, Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 37, supplement 2 (UNAM: Mexico City, 1968). 78. Tamariz de Carmona, Relación y Descripción, 58. See also Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia, Historia de la fundación de la Ciudad de la Puebla, 2: 72–83. 79. Palafox, Tratados 1: 202, 203, 208–9. (Note that in the transcript of this sermon on page 122 of the Tamariz text this final phrase is “esta es Escala de los Cielos” versus “ésta es la puerta de los cielos” in the Tratados transcription). 80. Tamariz de Carmona, Relación y Descripción, 129. 81. Palafox, Tratados 1: 202–3, 208–9. 82. Sánchez-Castañer, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, 121–22; Arteaga, El Obispo, 27. 83. Arteaga, Una mitra, 406–7. 84. Tamariz de Carmona, Relación y Descripción, 79. 85. Palafox, “Carta pastoral VI a Los Fieles del Obispado de la Puebla,” Obras 3, part 1: 379; Tamariz de Carmona, Relación y Descripción, 79, 97. On Palafox’s departure, see Simmons, “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza,” 153; and Tamariz de Carmona, Relación y Descripción, 75–103.

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86. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 268; Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Exposición a S.M. suplicando liciencia para volver a servir a su Iglesia,” Biblioteca General de la Universidad de Sevilla: Varios, estante 109, number 110, n.d., folio 5. See also Palafox, “Memorial a Felipe IV en petición de volver a Méjico,” in Tratados 1. 87. According to Puebla historian Efraín Castro Morales, when Palafox returned to Spain he planned to write three treatises on his experiences with the Indians of New Spain to present to Philip IV. As Cañeque has also discussed (“Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 78), Palafox wrote that the first text would deal with the “qualities, virtues and properties of the Indians,” the second with their “works, in order to solicit and promote their relief,” and the third would contain the “means and remedies to be applied to these damages.” Castro Morales has stated that of these three texts only the first is known and that it is uncertain whether the other two were ever written. He has written that the piece was first included as a pamphlet within a biography of Palafox but that neither date nor place of publication was indicated in this version. Castro Morales has also claimed that an untitled, rare, and clandestine edition, printed on paper in Puebla around 1650, has been “described” though he has not specified when or by whom (Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, De la Naturaleza y las Virtudes del Indio, ed. Efraín Castro Morales [Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1987], 5). 88. Palafox, “Vida Interior,” as cited by José Eduardo Castro Ramírez, Palafox: su pontificado en Puebla, 1640–1649 (Puebla: Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Arzobispado de Puebla, 2000), 19–20. 89. Arteaga, Una mitra, 488, 536; Sánchez-Castañer, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, 142. 90. John H. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans: A Study in the Decline of Spain, 1598–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 1, 11; Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 19–21; Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714, A Society of Conflict (New York: Longman, 1991), 202–3. 91. Palafox, “Juicio Político de los daños y reparos de cualquiera Monarquía,” Obras 10: 37 or Ideas Políticas, 12–13. 92. In his manual on statehood written while he was in Osma, Palafox declared that twelve crowns made a monarchy (“Manual de Estados y profesiones,” Obras 5: 336). 93. Indeed Palafox documented the decline of the monarchy commensurate with the end of the reigns of Charles V and Philip II. He asserted that the monarchy, recently established, came to perfection in the year 1558—the final year of Charles V’s rule as Holy Roman Emperor—and began its downward slope in 1570. Palafox attributed the Crown’s further decline to the loss of part of the Low Countries and five to six other provinces in 1599, the year after Philip II’s death. Though he praised the Christian zeal and valor of Philip III and IV, he claimed the decline intensified after 1630, nine years into the reign of Philip IV, due to further rebellion and threat of loss of territory. He found this all the more disturbing and puzzling given that the Assyrian, Persian, and other empires endured for centuries before losing strength while the Spanish monarchy was scarcely thirty years old when its decline began. Moreover, he wrote, other monarchies were founded in ambition, tyranny, superstition, or violence whereas that of Spain was formed through a culture of law, religion, and justice. His discussion seemed pointed toward accounting for the decline

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through charting unfortunate political events instead of discrediting the governance of Philip III and IV. Palafox praised Charles V for his animating leadership, his “religious zeal,” and his “magnanimity” in risking his life by joining his soldiers on horseback in battle. Likening his virtues to those of the ruler’s grandfather, Palafox wrote that, in his judgment, Charles V was one of the most superior princes of all time (“Dictamenes espirituales, politicos, y morales” Obras 10: 38–40). In his analysis of seventeenth-century politics and Palafox’s Juicio Interior, José Maria Jover Zamora noted that Palafox attributed some of the monarchy’s decline to its centralization—namely, Philip II’s establishment of Madrid as the empire’s capital—in addition to his breaking with the royal tradition, practiced by his father and antecessors, of moving and being a living presence among his subjects. In an exposition on rulership and empire, Palafox applauded the custom of Ferdinand and Isabella who changed their costumes when moving between kingdoms to correspond with local traditions. He advised rulers to act as if they were born in the nations they visited in order to promote subject loyalty and contentment. When juxtaposing the empires of Augustus and the Hapsburg rulers, he cautioned that a ruler’s failure to leave the seat of his empire would mean the loss of it (Palafox, “Dictamenes espirituales, politicos, y morales” Obras 10: 43–45; José Maria Jover Zamora, “Sobre los conceptos de monarquía y nación en el pensamiento politico español del XVII in Cuadernos de Historia de España 13 [1950], 115, 119–20). These views, coupled with the fact that no Spanish king ever came to New Spain, piqued Palafox’s concern regarding the practices and morality of royal representatives in Mexico. 94. Palafox, “Dictamenes espirituales, morales y politicos,” 11. 95. Palafox, “Manual de Estados y profesiones,” 319, 338, 345; Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo, “El Proyecto Político de Palafox: Una Alternativa Constitucional en Tiempos de Crisis,” La Pluma y el Báculo: Juan de Palafox y el mundo hispano del seiscientos, ed. Montserrat Galí Boadella (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004), 200. 96. Richard Kagan, “Clio and the Crown: Writing History in Hapsburg Spain,” in Spain, Europe and the Atlantic World: Essays in Honour of John H. Elliott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 80–83; Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans, 12–13, 17–19, 531. Anthony Pagden has observed that there was an Aragonese political literature but it was not focused upon questions of empire (Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination: Studies in European and Spanish-American Social and Political Theory, 1518–1830 [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990], 3, 5). 97. Palafox, “Manual de Estados y profesiones,” 319. 98. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans, 528–29; John H. Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 488, 540; John H. Elliott, “Reformismo en el mundo hispánico: Olivares y Palafox,” in La Pluma y el Báculo, 13–32; David Brading, The First America, 228. On Spain’s “declinación,” see John H. Elliott, Spain and Its World, 1500–1700: Selected Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 246–85; John Lynch, The Hispanic World in Crisis and Change, 1598–1700 (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1992); Jonathan Israel, “The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?” Past and Present 91 (May 1981):

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170–80; and the rejoinder to this article by Henry Kamen, Past and Present 91 (May 1981): 181–85. 99. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Dictamenes espirituales, morales y políticos,” 45–46. 100. Palafox, “Diversos dictamenes espirituales, políticos y morales,” Obras 10: 13 and “Diálogo politico de Alemania,” Obras 10: 77. Diego de Saavedra Fajardo’s Idea de un principe politico cristiano representada en cien empresas was being edited at the time of Palafox’s departure for New Spain (Edgar García Valencia, “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Literatura y Ars Gubernandi,” in La Pluma y el Báculo, 179; Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 5). 101. González de Rosende, “Vida,” Obras 13: 6–7; Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 5, 10; Juan Márquez, El gobernador cristiano. Deducido de las vidas de Moisés y Josué, principes del pueblo de Dios (Salamanca, 1612). 102. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans, 9–10. See also Elliott, “Reformismo en el Mundo Hispánico,” 25; John H. Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies” in Past and Present 137 (Nov. 1992): 48–71. 103. This was considered an essential evangelical tool in the sixteenth century as well. In his biography of Fray Gerónimo de Mendieta (1525–1604), Fray Juan de Torquemada (1557–1664) remarked upon his subject’s command of Indian languages, asserting that his mastery was a miraculous response to his prayers more than a function of his “human industry.” Torquemada claimed Mendieta was called the “Cicero” of his province due to the style of his discourse (Monarquía Indiana [Seville 1615], ed. Miguel León-Portilla [Mexico: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1975], book 20 ch. 73, 367). 104. Virve Piho, La secularización de las Parroquias en la Nueva España y su repercusion en San Andrés Calpan (Mexico: UNAM, Instituto Nacional de Historia, 1981), 128–40. 105. One of those who accompanied Palafox on pastoral visits was a young Jesuit priest, an “eminent preacher in the Mexican language” (Castro Ramírez, Palafox, 48; Palafox, “Epístola II,” 161; Ricardo Fernández Gracia, “Palafox and His Passion for Books,” 87). It was the initial task of friars to learn native languages (Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, “Faith and Morals in Colonial Mexico,” in The Oxford History of Mexico, 155; Brading, “Tridentine Catholicism,” 8). 106. Gerónimo de Mendieta too wrote that Indian boys were taught catechism, reading, and writing in their native language. However, one would expect the Indians to have been less familiar with Spanish in Mendieta’s time as he lived in New Spain the century prior to that of Palafox (Historia eclésiastica Indiana [Mexico: Antigua Librería, Portal de Agustinos, 1870], 418–21). 107. Palafox, “Epístola II,” 161–63; Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 89. In his “Direcciones pastorales,” Palafox listed questions he posed to Spaniards regarding their parish practices while he made his pastoral visit. One of these questions was whether sermons had been given in Indian languages on Sundays and feast days (Obras 3, part 1: 57). 108. Palafox, “Epístola II,” 197–98. 109. See Nancy H. Fee, “Rey versus reino(s): Palafox y los escudos de la Catedral de Puebla,” in La pluma y el báculo, 56–103.

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110. Ralph Giesey, If Not, Not: The Oath of the Aragonese and the Legendary Laws of Sobrarbe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 27. See also Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 259–63. 111. Juan Costa, El regidor ciudadano (Salamanca, 1578) as cited by Richard Kagan, Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493–1793 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 24. 112. Kagan, Urban Images, 26. 113. Blanca’s texts were invoked in 1680, for example, when an image of Charles II, accompanied by a picture of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, was being added to an assembly of portraits of Aragonese monarchs in Zaragoza (Gerónimo de Blancas, Inscripciones latinas a los retratos de los reyes de Sobrarbe, condes antiguos, y reyes de Aragón, puestos en la Sala real de la Diputación de la Zaragoza. . . [Zaragoza: Herederos de D. Dormer, 1680]. 114. Carmen Morte García, “Pintura y política en la época de los Austrias: Los retratos de los reyes de Aragón para la Diputación de Zaragoza (1586), y las copias de 1634 para el Buen Retiro de Madrid (1),” Boletín del Museo del Prado 11, no. 29 (1990): 20, 22, 24, 26–27; John H. Elliott and Jonathan Brown, A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 119. 115. Ricardo Fernández Gracia, Iconografía de Don Juan de Palafox: imágenes para un hombre de estado y iglesia (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2002), 181, 184. 116. In the Ambrosiana, Federico Borromeo (1564–1631), archbishop of Milan, installed a series of portraits, some of them similar to these in the Puebla Cathedral Cabildo. See the Biographical Essay, 54. 117. Palafox, “Historia Real Sagrada,” (book 6, ch. 17) Obras 1: 651–52. On the political ideas expressed in Palafox’s Historia Real Sagrada, a text on government and the Castilian monarchy written in 1642 and later revised, see Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 145–56, and Ernesto de la Torre Villar, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Pensador político (Mexico City: UNAM, 1997). De la Torre Villar devoted one chapter of his book to Fray Juan Márquez’s El gobernador cristiano, deducido de las vidas de Moisés y Josué (Pamplona, 1615) wherein he suggested this text may have influenced Palafox’s conception of a Christian government. 118. Palafox wrote of this concern in a letter to don Juan de Solórzano (cited by Fernández Gracia, Iconografía, 38). See also Joan-Pau Rubies, “Reason of State and Constitutional Thought in the Crown of Aragon, 1580–1640,” The Historical Journal 38, no. 1 (Mar. 1995): 21. 119. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza as cited by Brading, The First America, 240. 120. To argue that disobeying the orders of superiors amounted to the ruin of public life, Palafox used a bodily metaphor wherein he warned of the threat to the body’s sustenance if the hand did not wish to obey the command of the mind to raise food to the mouth and nourish the corporeal system (“Año Espiritual,” Obras 5: 344). 121. Palafox, Historia Real Sagrada as cited by Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 152; Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 32–33, 77, 148, 152, 283, 286; Brading, The First America, 249. Palafox expressed this view also when insisting on the importance of governing with love, which, he argued, contrary to the use of rigor

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and force, allowed subjects to follow readily and willingly. He opined that winning nations by incentive and desire rather than by force made for a more stable and unified monarchy (“Luz a los vivos y escarmiento en los muertos” [from August 1658], Obras 8: 267; Historia Real Sagrada, book 1, chapter 9, 343, as cited by Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 152). 122. Other metaphors for the Hapsburg state included a giant composed of smaller bodies with the king as its head, a multistoried house with residents living within a vertical hierarchy, and a family with the monarch as its father/head. On the correlation of body areas with class, passion versus reason, and profession, see Julio Caro Baroja, “Religion, World Views, Social Classes, and Honor during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries in Spain,” trans. Victoria Hughes, in Honor and Grace in Anthropology, ed. J. G. Peristiany and Julian Pitt-Rivers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 91–102; and Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 8. 123. Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power: A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 (New York: Harper Collins, 1998), 62; Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 15, 32–33, 79, 283. 124. Sonya Lipsett-Rivera and Lyman Johnson have discussed how status and virtue were distinguished in the Spanish language of the time. “Honor” was more fixed, whereas “honra” or honor-virtue could be won or lost, accumulated, or squandered through the actions of an individual or family (The Faces of Honor, Sex, Shame and Violence in Colonial Latin America [Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998], 3–4, 15). The Partidas, a thirteenth-century Castilian legal code, established “honra” as meaning “preferment as a mark of praise, which a man gains by reason of the position he holds, or by doing some great deed, or by the goodness that is in him.” This code also equated the loss of honor with the loss of life, proclaiming that death was preferable to a bad reputation. For a closer study of the Partidas and the etymology of honra, see Julio Caro Baroja, “Honour and Shame: A Historical Account of Several Conflicts,” in Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, trans. Mrs. R. Johnson and ed. J. G. Peristiany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 84–88, 102. 125. Krauze, Mexico, 75. On Francisco de Vitoria’s ideas about Indian jurisprudence and rights, see Woodrow W. Borah, Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-real (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 28, 80–85. 126. Among other texts by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas in the Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla is a fourteen-volume set of texts in Latin from 1570 that includes “Obras Aristoteles” and “Expositio in omnes epistolas divi Pauli” by Thomas Aquinas. A relative of Juan de Palafox, R. P. Fray José de Palafox, wrote of his predecessor’s regard for Aquinas in “Advertencia al Tratado siguiente,” Obras 7: 400. De Regimine Principium was translated into Spanish in 1625 by Alonso Ordónez with the title Tratado del gobierno de los príncipes del angélico doctor Santo Tomás de Aquino (Madrid, 1625). See also Anthony Pagden, “The Diffusion of Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy in Spain,” in The Uncertainties of Empire, 287–313; Anthony Pagden, “The Preservation

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of Order: The School of Salamanca and the ‘Ius Naturae’ ” in The Uncertainties of Empire, 155–66; and Pagden, Spanish Imperialism. On Francisco de Vitoria, see also Colonial Spanish America: A Documentary History, ed. William B. Taylor and Kenneth Mills, 52–55 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1998). 127. Palafox, “Manual de Estados y profesiones,” 337–38. 128. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 16–17, 79, 163, 245, 287; Alvarez de Toledo, “El Proyecto Político de Palafox,” 44. 129. Seventeenth-century chronicler Thomas Gage remarked on how the Spaniards seemed strangely unconcerned about the threat of Indian insurrection. Historian Alan Knight has confirmed that in fact such fears were probably minimal. In Virtues, Palafox seemed to suggest that Indian rebellion would be comprehensible and nearly legitimate due to the mistreatment of Native Americans. The cry of the 1624 revolt, rooted in a struggle between an anticlerical viceroy (with whom the Franciscans sided) and a politically active archbishop (joined by the secular clergy and the Jesuits), was “Long live the Church, long live the Faith, long live the King, death to bad government” (Alan Knight, Mexico: The Colonial Era, 168–71). This refrain would have suited Palafox as a rallying cry for reform throughout his career. Creoles, another group to whom Palafox was sympathetic, participated in the 1624 revolt, in which opposing groups battled for control of Indian parishes in central Mexico. The focus of the struggle and the knowledge of this rebellion, which occurred only sixteen years prior to his arrival, would have increased Palafox’s determination to pursue the secularization of the parishes—as mandated by the Council of the Indies and ratified by Philip IV in 1642—and augmented his concerns about corrupt governance within New Spain. 130. Palafox, “Manual de Estados y profesiones,” 337–39. 131. See Baldassarre Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. Sir Thomas Hoby (New York: Dutton, 1959). 132. Palafox, “Pastor de Noche buena,” Obras 5: 524. 133. Palafox as cited in Spanish in Zeron Zapata, La Puebla, 156–59. On Alberti’s influence on mission compounds and church plans, see George Kubler, Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), vol. 1. See also Dora Crouch, Daniel J. Garr, and Axel I. Mundigo, Spanish City Planning in North America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982). 134. Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria. On the art of building in ten books, trans. Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988); Torrejón Chaves, “Arquitectura Virreinal,” in Influencias artísticas entre España y América (Madrid: Edición Mapfre, 1992), coordinated by José Enrique Garcia Melero, 184–86. The master architect of the Mexico City cathedral possessed copies of Alberti’s works in 1624. 135. Alison Cole, Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts (New York: Abrams, 1995), 17. 136. See Fred Bonner, “Urban Society in Colonial Spanish America: Research Trends,” Latin America Research Review 21, no. 1 (1986): 22, 24. In The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), Spiro Kostof noted that the word “political” is derived from the Greek polis for city and quoted Aristotle: “Man is a political creature, one suited by nature to live in a city” (36).

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137. Palafox as cited by Brading, The First America, 232; Palafox, “Epístola II,” 172. Other Spanish chroniclers shared this perception. Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, for example, opined that superstitions and idolatry were more prevalent in barrios and villages in hills and deserts removed from main towns or “isolated from ministers of doctrine and justice” (Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the heathen superstitions that today live among the Indians native to this New Spain, 1629, trans. and ed. J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig [Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma, 1984], 49, 54). 138. González de Rosende, “Vida,” 303. 139. Palafox, “Epístola II,” 191, 197, 198. 140. Confirming what other chroniclers and historians have claimed about Palafox’s cathedral investment driving him into debt, Brading stated that Palafox set aside twelve thousand pesos from his own annual income and three thousand pesos each from the cathedral chapter and crown, investing around 370,000 pesos in the building project (The First America, 233–34). Arteaga claimed that Palafox put in fifteen thousand from his own purse (Una mitra, 399–400). Ecclesiastical records from 1687 and a manuscript/biographical account of Puebla’s bishops both indicated that Palafox spent over 150,000 pesos (AGI, México 346, 1687; BN, Madrid, MS 3048, folio 36). Tamariz de Carmona wrote that Palafox spent 400,000 pesos on various projects (Relación y Descripción, 42). 141. Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, trans. W. D. Ross and J. O. Armson and ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), Nicomachean Ethics, IV, 2, 1122a19–1123a33. 142. Palafox, Carta al Rey Felipe IV, BN, Madrid, MS 3048, folio 14. 143. Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 128. Though they changed over time, in the early to mid-seventeenth century Puebla neighborhoods or barrios were stratified socially and ethnically. The barrio under which each laborer was registered most often indicated the worker’s indigenous origins. Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia claimed Palafox made regular visits to the quarry (Historia de la fundación de la Ciudad de la Puebla, 2: 304). Hugo Leicht cited the Cartilla Vieja de la nobilisima ciudad de Puebla (from 1781) when noting that Puebla registered six lime quarries and three stone quarries among its city properties (Las Calles de Puebla, 58b). In October of 1646, when the cathedral vaults were being finished, 156 workers were employed. These workers, combined with those extracting and transporting stone from the quarry in Santiago Tecali and those who aided the official painters and carpenters who worked on the retables and tabernacle, would have comprised a total number which approximated Palafox’s figure. Building activity on the cathedral was at its height between 1643 and 1646, with an increase indicated in the number of Native Americans and Spaniards employed in the quarry of Santiago Tecali in 1643. The project progressed at an accelerated pace from 1643, when Palafox had completed his assignments of visitor-general and interim viceroy, until 1647 when his conflicts with the Jesuits sent him into temporary exile (AGI, México 347, Feb. 5, 1564 and March 31, 1631; Genaro García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo, 206; Galí, Pedro García Ferrer, 129; Israel, Race, Class and Politics, 40). On Native American participation in guilds, see, for example, the February 24, 1640, Puebla notarial document where Raphael, an orphan “Indian” of more than fourteen but less than twenty-five years, states his desire to learn the office of carpentry with Raphael de Penalosa, “mestisso” resident of this city. The details of this

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apprenticeship were established and negotiated through the use of a translator. Juan Correa, a mulatto, worked on the Mexico City cathedral and was one of the most successful and prolific painters in seventeenth-century New Spain. See Marcus Burke, Pintura y escultura en Nueva España, El Barroco (Mexico City: Grupo Azabache, 1992). In her article, “Artist and Patron in Colonial Cuzco: Workshops, Contracts and a Petition for Independence,” in Colonial Latin American Historical Review 4, no. 1 (Winter 1995), Carol Damian has claimed that notarial records of Cuzco from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries indicate that Spaniards, mestizos, and Indians were employed as maestros and patrons (28). 144. INAH, Archivo Histórico Catedral Puebla, “Anales de Puebla”; James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 307, 358. On the Anales and the Indian response to Palafox, see Lidia E. Gómez, “Palafox y Mendoza desde la perspectiva del indígena urbano en Puebla, sixlo XVII,” in La Pluma y el Báculo, especially page 265. On what the Anales del Barrio de San Juan del Río tell us about the way seventeenth-century Indians from Puebla’s Tlaxcalteca barrio shaped their community’s built environment and political and religious culture, see Lidia E. Gómez and Celia Salazar, “Cultura Indígena y barroco en Puebla durante el siglo XVII,” in Arte y Cultura del barroco en Puebla, ed. Montserrat Galí Boadella (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2000), 115–24. 145. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Carta del Venerable Obispo de Puebla Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza al Rey Don Felipe IV,” in Miguel Zeron Zapata, La Puebla, 154. 146. Suzanne L. Stratton, The Immaculate Conception in Spanish Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 4, 100; and Ricardo Fernández Gracia, La Inmaculada Concepción en Navarra: arte y devoción durante los siglos del Barroco: mentores, artistas e iconografía (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 2004). 147. Rosalva Loreto López, “La fiesta de la Concepción y las identidades colectivas, Puebla (1619–1636),” in Manifestaciones religiosas, 2 vols., ed. Clara García Ayluardo and Manuel Ramos Medina (Mexico City: Condumex, 1994), 2: 96, 103. 148. Palafox, “Excelencias de S. Pedro,” Obras 2, part 1: 409. 149. Palafox, “Epístola II,” 142. For an account of the early use of solomonic columns in Puebla and Mexico City, see Martha Fernández’s Artificio del barroco: México y Puebla en el siglo XVII (Mexico City: UNAM, 1990). 150. Palafox, “Epístola II,” 139, 142–46. 151. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Las luces de la Fe en la Iglesia,” Chap. XV, Obras 4: 164. 152. Brading, The First America, 241; Peter and Linda Murray, The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 542; H. J. Schroeder, ed. Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1941), 147. 153. Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power, 62. 154. To my knowledge, the first published consideration of the relationship between the theology of Palafox and the Borromeos was in my dissertation, “The Patronage of Palafox,” and subsequently in “Proyecto de magnificencia trentina: Palafox y el patrocinio de la Catedral de la Puebla de los Angeles,” in La Catedral de Puebla en el Arte y en la Historia, ed. Montserrat Galí Boadella (Puebla: Instituto de

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Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1999): 153–76. In my estimation, this subject merits more detailed examination. 155. Agostino Borromeo, “Archbishop Carlo Borromeo and the Ecclesiastical Policy of Philip II in the State of Milan,” in San Carlo Borromeo. Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, ed. John M. Headley and John B. Tomaro (London: Associated University Presses, 1988), 85; Brading, The First America, 240–41; M. Certeau, “Carlo Borromeo, santo,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 20 (Rome: Società Grafica Romana, 1977), 260. 156. Anthony D. Wright, “The Borromean Ideal and the Spanish Church” in San Carlo Borromeo, 196. 157. Palafox, “Diversos Dictamenes Espirituales, Morales y Políticos,” 24, 25. Palafox applauded Carlo Borromeo’s renunciation of his own personal material wealth as a Tridentine expression of Christian devotion (“Dictamenes de un Obispo,” Obras 3, part 2: 537–38). 158. John B. Tomaro, “The Implementation of the Council of Trent,” in San Carlo Borromeo, 69–70, 179. 159. Hanno-Walter Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory, From Vitruvius to the Present (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), 93–95. On Borromeo’s Instructiones, see E. Cecilia Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence on Sacred Art and Architecture,” in San Carlo Borromeo, 172–87. 160. Pamela M. Jones, Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana: Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century Milan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 25. 161. Carlo Borromeo, “Instructiones fabricae et supellectillis ecclesiasticae,” in Paola Barocchi, Tratatti d’Arte del Cinquecento, fra manierismo e Controriforma (Bari: G. Laterza, 1960–1962), 3: 1–113; Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450–1600 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 127–32. Borromeo dealt with the cleaning of church furniture and decoration in a pamphlet separate from the Instructiones. 162. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Carta II A los Curas y Beneficiados de la Puebla, Cap. VIII,” Obras 3, part 1: 198; Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Carta Pastoral VIII y Dictamenes de Curas, Cap. XV,” Obras 3, part 1: 454–55. The first reference was written in 1646 and the latter was written as Carta Pastoral 8 while Palafox was in Osma. 163. Jones, Federico Borromeo, 2, 5–6, 30, 38, 168, 210. 164. Palafox, “Manual de Estados y profesiones,” 324–25. 165. Cristobal de Valdaura as cited by Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, v. 166. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 291. 167. Arteaga, Una mitra, 592–616. The Discalced Carmelites patronized the first publication of Palafox’s Obras in the year of his death. In the Biblioteca Colombina in Seville is a manuscript by Bishop Fabian y Fuero, late eighteenth-century bishop of Puebla, written in defense of the cause of Palafox’s beatification. On the subject of Palafox’s canonization, see Fee, “The Patronage,” 81–87; García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo, 166–67 and 180–213; Antonio Rubial García, “St. Palafox: Metaphorical Images of Disputed Sainthood” in Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, 1500–1800, ed. Allan Greer and Jodi Bilinkoff (New York: Routledge, 2003), 193–207; Antonio Rubial García, La santidad controvertida:

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hagiografía y conciencia criolla alrededor de los venerables no canonizados de Nueva España (Mexico: UNAM, 1999); Sánchez-Castañer, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, 178–201; José Tudela de la Orden, Los manuscritos de America en España (Madrid: Marsiega, 1954); Bancroft Library, Berkeley, Manuscript M–M 153; AGN, Bienes Nacionales, 1769, vol. 327, expediente 28 and 1792, vol. 607, expediente 17. 168. The account of Palafox’s apparition in Cuba can be found in Genaro García, “Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, su virreinato,” 161–65. Guijo is mentioned in Michael DeStefano, “Miracles and Monasticism in Mid-Colonial Puebla, 1600–1750: Charismatic Religion in a Conservative Society” (PhD diss., University of Florida, 1977), 64–65. See also AGN, Inquisición, 1654, vol. 456, expediente 26. 169. BN, Madrid, MSS 8489, folio 97v. 170. AGI, Audiencia de México 346, 1687. 171. García, “Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, su virreinato,” 151; Gregorio Martín de Guijo, Diario, 1648–1664 (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1952), 200. 172. Fernández Gracia, Iconografía, 167. 173. Salmerón, Relación Breve, folio 11. 174. González de Rosende, “Vida,” 312; Salmerón as cited in Sánchez-Castañer, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, 130; Arteaga, Una mitra, 409; DeStefano, “Miracles,” 65–66; Leicht, Las Calles de Puebla, 287–88. See also Kelly Donahue-Wallace, “La Casada imperfecta: A Woman, A Print, and the Inquisition,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 18, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 240; Edelmira Ramírez Leyva, “La censura inquisitorial novohispana en algunos procesos sobre imagines y objetos de arte,” in La abolición del arte (Mexico: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 1998), 219–23; Palafox, Obras 13: 10, 11; AGN, Inquisición, 1651–52, vol. 416, expediente 46 and 1674, vol. 640, expedientes 2, folio 5r and exp. 3. 175. Palafox as cited by González de Rosende, “Vida,” 311; Fernández Gracia, Iconografía, 70. 176. González de Rosende as cited in Leicht, Las Calles de Puebla, 288. 177. Kathleen Myers, “Testimony for Canonization or Proof of Blasphemy? The New Spanish Inquisition and the Hagiographic Biography of Catarina de San Juan,” in Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World, ed. Mary E. Giles (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 275; Fee, “The Patronage,” 84–86; DeStefano, “Miracles,” 45, 138, 317. 178. D. Thomas Antonio Ruiz, Breve descripción de los sucesivos festivos con que Puebla de los Angeles celebró el Decreto. . . de la Fama de Señor D. Juan de Palafox (Madrid: Manuel Tuartin, n.d.), folios 7, 27, 46. 179. Rubial García, “St. Palafox,” 193. 180. Diccionario Porrúa Historia Biografía y Geografía de México (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, S.A., 1995), 286. On Maximino Ávila Camacho and his brother Manuel, see Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power, chapter 17. 181. Programa Operativo del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de Puebla, unpublished report by H. Ayuntamiento de Puebla, Dirección General de Desarrollo Urbano y Ecología, printed with permission of C. Presidente Municipal de Puebla, Lic. Marco Antonio Rojas Flores (Puebla: P y R Editores, 1994), 91. In 1917, the nomenclature of the streets was changed to effect a north-south, east-west division. This classification of streets reinforced the idea of the Zócalo as the physical center of the city. 182. See the epilogue of Fee, “The Patronage,” for further discussion.

Palafox and the Virtuous Indian: An Introduction to Virtues of the Indian Alejandro Cañeque

Palafox was an indefatigable writer, his collected works comprising fourteen thick volumes. He felt equally at ease in both the religious and secular worlds, and his many writings are a good reflection of this facility. The secular memorials and treatises he wrote are as numerous as those dealing with spiritual and religious themes. He also wrote many formal letters (cartas solemnes), which constitute true treatises on many diverse topics. Virtues of the Indian is certainly not the most elaborate work among the many written by Palafox, although it occupies a very special place in his abundant production.1 Palafox seems to have written this work in Madrid, shortly after his return from Mexico. It was printed almost in a clandestine way, as it was published without title nor place or date of publication.2 When Palafox’s collected works were first published between 1659 and 1671, the editors gave it the title of Virtues of the Indian, while in the 1762 edition of his complete works it appeared with the title On the Nature of the Indian. This work is in reality a long letter or memorial addressed by Palafox to the Spanish king. According to Palafox, he had been moved to put his observations and ideas on paper to make manifest to the king the wretched state of the indigenous population of New Spain, despite all the laws enacted by the Spanish monarchs in their favor. By making him more aware of this problem with a detailed account, argued Palafox, the king would find it easier to implement the necessary measures to remedy the evils that were afflicting the native population. Palafox begins his treatise on the Indian by thanking the king for all the honors and rewards he has received from him in the form of appointments to important posts in the imperial administration. Palafox goes on to contend that he is highly qualified to talk about the American Indians, because, 77

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as it happens, all these posts had allowed him to acquire an extensive knowledge of all the hardships experienced by the native peoples of the New World. Palafox observes that, although he is going to talk about the Indians of Mexico, who are those he knows the best because of his own personal experience, his arguments can also be applied to the natives of the viceroyalty of Peru, since both populations are very similar, despite some differences. In this regard, Palafox sees the natives of both viceroyalties as fundamental elements in the providential destiny of the Spanish monarchy. In the words of Palafox, “these two parts of the world, Northern and Southern, which comprise America, seem as if God created and delivered them in one birth unto the Church in relation to the Faith and to the Catholic Crown of Spain in relation to dominion. They are like twins, born of one womb and at the same time and hour. Thus, even in their nature, this resemblance between them, like that of brothers, is manifest in innumerable things” (p. 109). This providential view of the Spanish monarchy had been developed and propagated by the mendicant orders, above all the Franciscans, since the initial moments of the conquest of Mexico, and, by the mid-seventeenth century, it had become a fundamental element in the imperial rhetoric. The Spanish monarchs, it was argued, had been chosen from among all the rulers of the world by Divine Providence, through his vicar, the pope, to expand the Christian faith throughout the world and, especially, in the New World. And the Spanish kings were compelled by this providential destiny to ensure the spiritual and physical welfare of their new vassals.3 From his comments on the virtues of the Indian it is clear that Palafox also fully shared in the belief of the providential destiny of the Spanish empire. It seems that Palafox had initially planned to write a more comprehensive treatise on New Spain’s indigenous population. As he himself tells the king in the memorial, after having recounted the virtues of the Indian “and therein enlivened the Royal spirit of Your Majesty,” Palafox had planned to describe their hardships in another brief treatise, and in a third one he expected to lay out the remedies needed to alleviate the harm the native population had suffered. But the only extant part or, more likely, the only part he ever managed to write is the long memorial in which the bishop of Puebla describes the qualities and virtues that, in his opinion, adorned New Spain’s native inhabitants. The structure of the memorial is, for this reason, very simple. In the first five chapters, Palafox expounds all the reasons why the Spanish kings must protect the natives of New Spain. Chapters VI and VII, along with chapter XXI, the last one, are dedicated to demonstrating that the Indians are free from certain vices or defects or that they are affected by them in a very limited way. Chapters VIII to XX are devoted to describing all those qualities that, according to Palafox, characterize the Indians. For Palafox, the main obligation of the Spanish monarchs was the defense and propagation of the Catholic religion, and it is for this reason that they were especially obligated to reward the American natives. If, during its

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formative years, the Christian religion had struggled through great difficulties, having paid the cost by the blood of numerous martyrs, the natives of the New World had converted to Christianity “like the meekest sheep,” with very little effort. Likewise, while the Catholic religion in Europe had been hounded by all sorts of errors and heresies, nothing of the kind had happened on the American continent, where Catholicism had been preserved in all its purity. Not only had the Indians easily converted to Christianity, but they showed great fervor in their religious practices as well. Palafox appears especially impressed by the natives’ practice of public penitence, writing of their “scourging themselves harshly with unbearable hair shirts over their entire bodies and faces while looking at an image held in their hands of Christ our Lord crucified” (p. 113). According to Palafox, every Indian had an oratory in his home. They also showed great generosity in their offerings to the church, since whatever was left after paying their tribute to the king was willingly and without any type of coercion dedicated to divine worship, to pay for the images of saints, or to support their confraternities. Likewise, they generously contributed to the sustenance of their parish priests and the maintenance of their churches, showing great respect for friars and priests, whose hands they kissed “with great reverence,” kneeling or standing “in their presence awaiting their orders” (p. 115). The Spanish monarchs were obligated to protect the New World natives not only because they were devoted Christians, but also, Palafox contends, because they were among their most faithful and loyal vassals. They had willingly accepted the authority of the Spanish Crown with the same complaisance and docility with which they had converted to Christianity.4 After the Conquest, they had never rebelled against the king’s authority, in contrast with the Crown’s European subjects, many of whom had rebelled against their king using a variety of excuses. The loyalty and obedience of the Indians was so remarkable that it was possible for a district magistrate or a parish priest to live virtually alone, without the company of other Spaniards, safely and securely, in the midst of thousands of Indians, all the while giving them orders that the natives would obey without much resistance. All this was possible, argued Palafox, because of the love the Indians professed towards the Spanish king. Palafox notes that many Spaniards would allege that this Indian docility was due to their base character and pusillanimity, but he tries to refute this view with many examples. It is important to point out here that, by the time of Palafox’s writing, the image of the pusillanimous Indian had become one of the most enduring images of the native in the Spanish world. Many Spanish authors had in fact used this image to either defend the Indians or denigrate them. For example, the influential Franciscan friar Gerónimo de Mendieta, who, in the second half of the sixteenth century, had written countless letters denouncing the mistreatment of the indigenous population

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of New Spain, would argue that a ten-year-old Spanish or mestizo boy would be able to take on any Indian, no matter how large. According to him, this happened because the Indians were usually of little strength, besides being naturally timid and pusillanimous.5 Similarly, in one of the decrees issued by the Third Mexican Provincial Council, celebrated in 1585 to adapt the Church of New Spain to the mandates of the Council of Trent, one can read that “being the Indians of a timid and pusillanimous nature, it is most necessary that the priests treat them with gentleness and affability and not with harshness and threats.”6 In an attempt to convince the Crown of the impossibility of an Indian rebellion, another Franciscan, Juan de Silva, asserted that the Indians were so cowardly that just one Spaniard with a harquebus could put many of them to flight.7 It was precisely because of this weakness and pusillanimity that, in the view of many religious authors, the Castilian kings were obliged to defend and protect the Indians. The Spanish Crown would incorporate into its official rhetoric this idea that the indigenous population was basically made of “wretched” beings (personas miserables) who needed special protection. As it was straightforwardly stated in the Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias, published in 1681, “the Indians are wretched people of such a weak nature that they are easily harassed and oppressed,” for which reason all secular and ecclesiastical authorities were instructed to protect them and treat them with leniency and moderation.8 Although Palafox does use the image of the wretched Indian throughout his treatise, he nonetheless emphasizes other aspects of the natives which better fit his political-religious project. He is not really interested in talking about the Indians’ timidity but rather their valor and strength. For him, the main reason why the Spanish monarchs had to protect the Indians was their loyalty to the Crown. Palafox dedicates one of the longest chapters in his treatise (chap. IV) to show that the Indians obeyed the commands of the colonial authorities not because they were incapable of resisting Spanish domination, but because they willingly accepted the authority of the Spanish monarch. To demonstrate that the Indians were not lacking in valor, Palafox utilizes as an example their tenacious resistance—in spite of the many disadvantages they faced—during the conquest of Tenochtitlan. They not only had to defend themselves with “sticks and stones” from the firearms of the Spaniards, but they also had to confront unknown animals such as horses and dogs. In addition, they had to grapple with the negative psychological impact of some auguries which had foretold that the Mexica would be conquered by a people who would come from the east. But the most interesting and original of Palafox’s arguments in defense of Indian bravery during the Conquest, one which shows well his historical perspicacity, is an argument very few of his contemporaries were ready to acknowledge. As Palafox observes, had it not been for the divisions that existed among the different ethnic groups that inhabited the central valley of

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Mexico, divisions that explained the inestimable help given by the Tlaxcalans to the Spaniards, the conquest of Tenochtitlan would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, to carry out. As if he thought that some doubts about the bravery of the Indians might still remain in the mind of the reader, Palafox returns to this topic toward the end of the memorial and dedicates an entire chapter to “the courage of the Indian.” Thus, in chapter XVIII Palafox tries to demonstrate that the natives are not easily scared when in danger. He marvels at the way an Indian alone in the water was able to subdue a caiman, “a most fearsome animal,” of which he had seen many and “merely seeing them provokes terror” (p. 163). Palafox was also highly impressed by the Indians’ behavior during the construction of the Puebla cathedral. As he recalls, “The promptness with which they climbed to the highest points on the scaffolding was a thing of wonder” (p. 165). There was one last reason why the Spanish monarch was, according to Palafox, obliged to protect his indigenous vassals: they had brought many material benefits to the Crown. Many of the king’s European possessions did not contribute much to the royal treasury and indeed cost a great deal in blood and money to keep them under the dominion of the Crown. (Palafox specifically mentions the case of the Low Countries.) By contrast, the Indians, who were his least expensive vassals, were among those who enriched the Spanish Crown the most. It was thanks to all the silver, tributes, and taxes that the Spanish king received from the Indies that he was able to maintain his power and authority. To Palafox, a good vassal is the one who helps sustain the Crown with the payment of tributes. This is why the natives’ material contributions, which, according to Palafox, they paid willingly, made them excellent vassals of the Crown. After having made clear the reasons why the Spanish monarchs should demonstrate special care for the well-being of their New World vassals, Palafox proceeds to describe their characteristics in a decidedly positive way. In order to do this, he utilizes the seven deadly sins of Christian doctrine as a rhetorical strategy that allows him to pass judgment on the virtuous nature of the Indians. He starts by asserting that they are virtually free from the cardinal sins that, to a greater or lesser degree, afflict most nations; then he goes on to enumerate all the virtues that characterize the Indians. As it happens, these virtues are precisely those that oppose the deadly sins, the contrary virtues. This is why the main characteristic of the Indians is their “innocence,” as they are free from most of these capital vices. In the first place, the natives are free from pride and ambition, “which is so natural in men,” since the majority do not aspire to hold political posts in their communities such as those of governor or alcalde. Boastfulness and vainglory, two manifestations of pride, are therefore also unknown among the Indians. Because they have no ambitions, the Indians are equally free from the cardinal sin of envy. Palafox shows a special insistence on the sin of arrogant

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pride, the worst of all deadly sins. Furthermore, the two main virtues that Palafox identifies in the indigenous population of New Spain (humility and obedience) happen to be two virtues that oppose the capital vice of pride. In his treatise, Palafox insists again and again on the great humility that characterizes the Indians. In fact, he dedicates an entire chapter to the discussion of this virtue. As he observes, if the Indians “are reprimanded, they keep quiet. If they are ordered to do something, they obey. If they are given sustenance, they receive it. If they are not given sustenance, they do not ask for it” (p. 167). One thing that Palafox particularly admires in the Indians is their enormous respect for differences in rank, which he attributes to their humbleness and lack of pretension. Palafox likewise admires the sense of obedience in the Indians: “While in all virtues the Indians are admirable, in none more than obedience. As this is the daughter of humility and they are so humble and meek of heart, they are most obedient to their Superiors” (p. 151). Palafox writes that this sense of obedience is so deeply rooted in the native population that they obey every order they receive, whether it is fair or unfair, without any complaints. The Indians are also free from the cardinal sin of cupidity or greed, as they all live happily in their condition. Because they are neither greedy nor ambitious, the Indians live frugal and parsimonious lives. They make do with just a mat to sleep on the floor, their dress is comprised of a simple shirt and a pair of cotton trousers, without any need for hats or shoes, and they eat but a few corn tortillas and chiles. According to Palafox, many, in fact, voluntarily choose to live in poverty (p. 139). And it is precisely this poverty of the Indians that makes the Indies wealthy, since everyone there depends on the natives’ toil and hard work. All Spaniards should show their utmost gratitude toward the Indians for this reason. But, despite their poverty, the Indians show great generosity (which is the virtue that opposes greed). Their homes are open at all times to give shelter or help to whomever may be in need. As Palafox tells us, “Never do they go to see their Superiors, regardless of their rank or whether they are Ecclesiastics or Seculars, when they do not bring them hens, fruit, eggs, and fish. When they cannot bring more, they bring them flowers and are consoled if they are received and afflicted if their presents are not accepted” (p. 147). Another deadly sin which does not affect the Indians is wrath, as they rarely get angry, no matter how many wrongs they may suffer. As well, one of the virtues that characterizes the Indians is patience, which is the virtue contrary to the sin of wrath: For as many and as great are the offenses against them, very rarely do they exhibit wrath nor fury to avenge themselves or take revenge. Nor even are they stirred to go to complain to their Superiors except occasionally when influenced or encouraged by Spaniards or Clerics or Religious or others not of their kind. . . . They do not seek arms to avenge themselves, nor do they shout or be-

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come anxious, angry, or upset. . . . If a negro carrying a load tells an Indian to take that load he is carrying and the Indian carries it and in the course of this he is bumped and suffers injuries, he takes the load and the bumps and carries them with patience. Finally, they are, in my sentiment (at least in this material), the humble and poor in spirit—subject to everyone, patient, long-suffering, peaceful, calm, and worthy of the greatest love and compassion (p. 143, 145).

Palafox nevertheless admits that the Indians are prone to commit the cardinal sins of lust, gluttony, and sloth, although he immediately adds that they do so to a lesser extent than most other nations. He acknowledges that sloth is very typical in the Indians, although there is no need to worry much about this sin, because to cure it the Indians have many “spiritual and temporal doctors,” that is, their doctrineros and alcaldes mayores, who urge them to be diligent and make them work in the fields or in the obrajes. As for lust, the Indians commit this sin only when they are inebriated. Indian women, for their part, are distinguished by their chastity and modesty; most of them would rather dedicate themselves to serving God in the convents were it not for their poverty, as it prevents them from contributing the necessary dowry. On the other hand, excessive drinking is how the sin of gluttony is manifested among the Indians; they do not give themselves over to excessive eating, only to excessive drinking. Although Palafox recognizes that the Indians’ inclination to drunkenness is their primary weakness, he judges this matter with leniency, despite the fact that a majority of authors condemned the drinking excesses of the indigenous population in very harsh terms. In Palafox’s view, given the docile nature of the Indians, it would be rather easy to correct this defect, “because in the Indians there is no more resistance than that of a four-year-old child when one removes poison from the child’s hand and replaces it with another thing” (p. 135). It is in the hands of the lesser magistrates, the priests, and the alcaldes mayores, that the power to banish this indigenous habit lies, but the problem is that they do not seem to be very interested in doing so. Since his main purpose is to describe the Indians in the most positive light, Palafox could not avoid referring to their intellectual capacity. Although in the first half of the sixteenth century there had been many, especially among the mendicants, who strongly supported the incorporation of the natives (or at least their elites) into the intellectual and academic world of the conquistadors, by the end of the sixteenth century a consensus had been reached, even among the friars, that the Indians’ “rudeness” prevented them from acceding to the priesthood or to academic posts. The effect of this exclusion was the almost complete intellectual marginalization of the indigenous population.9 Palafox, however, rejects the common view of the lack of Indian intellectual capacity, while denying that the Indians were patient, tolerant, and obedient and lived in poverty due to the baseness of their spirit or the slowness of their intellect, as many would claim. Quite the

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contrary, contended Palafox. As he had been able to see for himself, the Indians possessed great mental sharpness. Moreover, they were good students, and, whenever they spoke to their superiors, not only did they do so reverently but also in an elegant way and always using the most appropriate arguments. The Indians also possessed a great facility for learning mechanical trades, especially those of painter, carpenter, and bricklayer. These views of Palafox seem to have been genuine, as proven by the fact that, when he drafted the bylaws of the University of Mexico in 1645, a provision was included that allowed the admission of natives to the university. This provision was justified on the grounds that they were free vassals of the king. At the same time, blacks, mulattos, slaves, and former slaves were expressly excluded from the university.10 Palafox also disputes other negative ideas about the Indians, such as the widespread view that Indians were given to senseless judicial litigation. Palafox, on the contrary, affirms that, despite the many wrongs they experienced, the Indians were not fond of lawsuits and, unless they were abused in an excessive manner or wrongly influenced by individuals who did not belong to their communities, they would rarely foment discords or participate in tumults. They also stood out for their sense of justice. In a similar way, Palafox also disputes the view of the “dirty Indian” by asserting that “besides being industrious, they are notably clean and neat. Despite the poverty they live with, one never sees anything in disarray” (p. 171). As an example of the characteristic cleanliness of the Indians, Palafox mentions the temascales, the indigenous public baths, which he praises, when the usual attitude of many Spaniards was to denigrate their existence, because they were seen as fomenting promiscuity and all kinds of sexual excesses.11 In order to understand the meaning and significance of the memorial written by Juan de Palafox, we need to place it in the context of a long tradition of “essentialization” of the native population of the New World that ascribed to them fixed and permanent characteristics. The Spanish discursive practices on the American Indian were shaped by two opposite traditions that were already present in the initial stages of the process of conquest and colonization. On the one hand, there were those authors with a negative view of the indigenous population. In the course of the great debates on the nature of the inhabitants of the New World that took place in the first half of the sixteenth century, these writers would use the Aristotelian argument that some peoples were slaves by nature to demonstrate the innate inferiority of the Indians and the natural right of the Spaniards to dominate and even enslave them.12 However, by the time of Palafox’s writing, the theory of the natural slavery of the Indians had been thoroughly discredited by men like the Dominican friars Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas, who had argued for the basic sameness of all humankind. If the In-

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dians seemed more barbaric than the Spaniards, this was not because they were innately inferior, but because they were in a different stage of historical evolution. In time and with the appropriate Christian education, they would, Vitoria and Las Casas argued, be capable of acquiring the same knowledge and virtue as the Spaniards.13 On the other hand, there was the opposite view, one that tended to idealize the natives and make them the instrument of utopian visions. It is this tradition that should most concern us in this case, as there is little doubt that Palafox used it to draw his beatific image of New Spain’s virtuous Indians. It was above all the Franciscans who, from the beginnings of their presence in the New World, would be responsible for transmitting to the metropolis this kind of image of the native population of New Spain. Consider, for example, this description of the natives of New Spain by the Franciscan Gerónimo de Mendieta, who, in the late 1500s, wrote the following: [The Indians] are gentle, domestic, and peaceful, . . . there are hardly any quarrels among them except when they drink wine, which usually turns them violent. They are humble, neglectful of their own interests, obedient, and of incredible patience. They are liberal with the little they have and not at all greedy; thus they care neither to amass properties nor to build sumptuous houses nor to leave entailments nor about the dowry they will give to their daughters, . . . which is a most suitable quality for a Christian and apostolic life. . . . They are inclined to religious things and all those matters which pertain to divine worship.14

In this passage Mendieta sees the Indians as possessing all the qualities of the good and perfect Christian, or, in other words, all the qualities that a good Franciscan friar was expected to have. This way of constructing the Indian fitted very well into the kind of new society—a Christian and Indian community ruled by the friars—that the Franciscans tried to create in New Spain after the conquest. The first Franciscans who arrived in Mexico, disillusioned with the miseries and corruptions of European societies, thought they had found in New Spain’s inhabitants the perfect individuals with whom to create their Christian utopia in the New World. The ideal society that the Franciscans wished to establish in New Spain would resemble a great school or monastery in which the Indians, under the direction of the friars and separated from the secular church and the European settlers, would endeavor to recreate the poverty and asceticism of the primitive church.15 The Franciscans were not the only ones who contributed to the diffusion of these types of images. The highly influential Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas also shared this particular view of the Indian, which in his case functioned as a foil to highlight the brutality and greed of the Spanish settlers. No doubt it was his very famous work A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, published in 1552, that contributed the most to disseminating this image, not only in Spain but throughout Europe as well. The

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work was translated into the major European languages and was published many times, a practice that has continued until the present. A Short Account characterizes the Indians as possessing apostolic purity and natural innocence and living in a rich natural environment. They have a lively understanding and make excellent Christians. They are “gentle sheep,” simple and poor people, always obedient and never proud, ambitious, or greedy. In the view of Las Casas, the Indians are “the most humble, most patient, meekest and most pacific” of all the peoples of the earth; they are also among the cleanest.16 Despite these beatific representations, the Indians were not seen as being totally perfect, for they possessed, according to Mendieta, two main defects: first, “the vice of drinking until they pass out”; and second, “natural laziness and sluggishness.”17 These images of the drunk and idle Indian were among the most persistent in colonial society, and not even the Franciscans were able to disallow them, let alone an imperial envoy like Palafox. Regarding excessive drinking, modern historians, not questioning this view, have tried to explain this phenomenon as caused by the cultural destruction and social dislocation created by the Spanish conquest.18 The fact is that the Spaniards never could or wanted to understand the real nature of “drunkenness” among the natives. The communal celebrations associated with the ritual ingestion of alcohol would be represented as bacchanals and orgies during which the unbridled consumption of liquor induced the participants to engage in all sorts of deviant behavior, from adultery to incest and sodomy. Moreover, while the Spaniards drank for pleasure, it was contended, the Indians drank to get drunk—that is, drunkenness was something innate to the Indians, a consubstantial defect.19 If celebrations in the towns were labeled as bacchanals, the taverns of Mexico City frequented by urban Indians, known as pulquerías and places of socialization for the lower classes of the city, were seen by the ruling elite as dens of vice, where all kinds of criminals were safe from prosecution, since the authorities could not enter their premises to make arrests (that was one of the clauses of the contract under which pulque, the drink favored by the Indians and made from the maguey plant, was sold legally).20 As for the laziness of the Indians, many Spaniards tended to construct the natives’ lack of interest in doing the hard agricultural, ranching, or mining work they themselves did not want to do as indolence or sloth. Juan de Solórzano, a good friend of Palafox and one of the most prominent theorists of the Spanish empire in America, wrote that experience had shown very few Indians would do this kind of work voluntarily, because “they are very lazy and given to idleness and drunkenness and lewdness and other vices, . . . and since they have little greed and content themselves with so little in order to eat and clothe themselves, many spending their lives like beasts, . . . some force and compulsion is necessary to make them abandon that state.”21 In the mind of many Spaniards, there was no doubt that forced

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labor contributed to the “civilizing” of the Indians. By being obligated to work, they would avoid giving themselves over to alcoholism, idolatry, and other vices characteristic of “uncivilized” peoples. The Indians were so little given to working that they had to be forced to work on their own plots of land, because otherwise they would not do it. This was the logical conclusion to which the rhetoric of the wretched Indian led: if the natives were constructed as extremely frugal individuals, for whom a few tortillas were enough, then it was easy for the Spaniards to assume that they hardly needed to break their backs toiling the land. The mendicants, and above all the Franciscans, also contributed powerfully to spreading another enduring image, that of the natives as children. In the words of Mendieta, for example, after their conquest by the Spaniards, the Indians had “lost their nerve and got frightened, losing their style of government without adopting that of the Spaniards.” They were left “in the state and with the ability and talent of children of nine or twelve years of age, in need of being governed like minors by guardians or tutors.” This lack of ability meant that the natives could be ruled as easily as schoolchildren.22 This image was especially attractive to the Franciscans because of the way it resonated with the teachings of the New Testament and the great love Jesus had showed for children. At the same time, this infantilization of the indigenous inhabitants of the New World was elaborated and rationalized in the Spanish universities in the first half of the sixteenth century, especially by Francisco de Vitoria and his disciples at the School of Salamanca. Following Aristotle, who had argued in his Politics that children were incomplete human beings who shared the same social status as slaves, Vitoria contended that the Indians were like fully grown children whose rational faculties, although complete, were potential rather than actual. Therefore, until they became fully developed human beings, true inhabitants of the polis, Vitoria argued, the Indians should remain under the custody of the Spanish king.23 Palafox clearly draws from these ideas, and, in the chapter that deals with the poverty of the Indian, he even mentions that he had obtained some information about the Indian population directly from the Franciscan friars. However, Palafox’s New World project was very different from that of the early Franciscans.24 There was very little that was utopian in Palafox’s thought. As a member of the Council of the Indies and as visitador general of New Spain, he was an imperial agent. He was essentially a political reformer, interested in solving the many problems that afflicted the Spanish monarchy in the mid-seventeenth century. As bishop of Puebla, he was a prominent member of the secular clergy, above all interested in asserting episcopal authority over the religious orders, which had achieved a preeminent position in the Mexican church. All this meant that the interests and perceptions of Palafox were very different from those of the religious orders. Thus, if the Franciscans had created a native who possessed all the

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characteristics necessary to build an ideal Franciscan community, the Palafoxian Indian was a mirror of both the perfect vassal of the Spanish empire and the good Catholic of the Counter-Reformation. It is undoubtedly his treatise on the virtues of the Indian that has done the most to promote Palafox’s enduring reputation as a second Las Casas. Great differences, however, distinguished both figures. Whereas the defense of the indigenous population was always at the center of the activities of Las Casas, both in the New World and in the Old, Palafox’s priorities were always elsewhere. There is no better proof of this than the fact that an author as incredibly prolific as Palafox (he wrote and published extensively while he was in Mexico) waited until his return to the peninsula to write a treatise especially devoted to the native population. As David Brading has observed, the most striking feature of Palafox’s extolling of Indian virtues is “its abstraction and its lack of historical context.” There is no evidence that Palafox took any interest in native antiquities or history. And unlike the Franciscans or Las Casas, he did not attribute any spiritual significance to the discovery of America.25 In reality, the similarity between Palafox and Las Casas lies more in their personalities than in their interests: both were prolific writers dominated by a tireless energy and both were transatlantic personages who moved around with ease on both sides of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, much had changed in the course of the century that had gone by since Las Casas launched his vigorous defense of the American Indian. By the mid-seventeenth century, the time when Palafox wrote his work on the Indian, the terms of the debate had changed in noticeable ways. No one was interested anymore in arguing about the humanity or right to liberty of the Indians, among other reasons because Las Casas himself had forcefully contributed to closing this debate. The defense of the Indians was now limited to denouncing the more or less systematic exploitation to which they were subjected by the colonial regime. But for that there was no need to write great philosophical treatises or complex studies of comparative ethnology; it was sufficient to send letters and reports to the king and the Council of the Indies. Nor was there anymore that great curiosity for studying the native cultures that had characterized the aftermath of the Conquest, an interest that had produced such fundamental studies as those by Bernardino de Sahagún or Diego Durán.26 In that sense, the publication of the encyclopedic Monarquía indiana by the Franciscan friar Juan de Torquemada in 1615, which was, in the words of Benjamin Keen, “the capstone and epitome of the Franciscan scholarly enterprise in New Spain,” marked the end of a period of intensive study of the Indian past.27 There is no better example of this shift in attitude in regard to the contemporary Indian than the contrast between Torquemada and another member of the Franciscan order, Agustín de Vetancurt, who, in the late seventeenth century, also wrote a massive compendium of the history of Mexico before and after the Conquest.28 Although Vetancurt drew much of his material on Indian history and culture

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from Torquemada’s book, he had little sympathy for the contemporary Indian and rarely criticized Spanish mistreatment of the natives. He contended that, under the Spaniards, the burdens of the Indians were much lighter than they had been before the Conquest. Moreover, while Torquemada was interested in studying the Indian past to prove the creative capacity of the native civilizations in culture and government, Vetancurt’s interest in Indian antiquity seems to have been rather an expression of Creole patriotism, which is why he stressed those episodes and aspects that provided Mexico with a dignified and heroic past.29 One characteristic that sets Virtues of the Indian apart from the sixteenthcentury works on indigenous societies is that it lacks the ethnographic qualities of the latter. It also lacks the complexity of the treatises of comparative ethnology written by Las Casas or the Jesuit José de Acosta. With their studies, both these authors had contributed in powerful ways to establishing the essential equality of all men by contending that the cultural differences that existed among the diverse human groups basically originated in the different historical development of their societies.30 Nor does Virtues of the Indian possess the level of knowledge of indigenous societies shown by those works which denounced Indian idolatrous practices. These works started to appear in Mexico some time before Palafox’s arrival in New Spain, when a certain pessimism towards Indian religiosity became entrenched among the members of New Spain’s religious elite. This pessimism stemmed from the persistence of heterodox practices in the native communities, which, in the view of the religious elite, was proof of the Indians’ lack of capacity to become true Christians. In any event, these works are of great interest, because, in their searching zeal, their authors allow us to fathom the religious life of the indigenous communities of the valley of Mexico, of Oaxaca, or the Yucatan after a century of Spanish colonialism.31 None of this appears in the Palafoxian treatise. Nonetheless, it is usually contended that Palafox had a great knowledge of the indigenous population. His treatise on the Indian would have been written, it is argued, based on the experience he had acquired during the years he spent as bishop of Puebla. In this capacity, it would have been easy for him to have had direct contact with the indigenous communities of his bishopric. This is what Palafox himself contends in one of his writings, a long letter to the priests and beneficiaries of the bishopric of Puebla, in which he exhorts them to comply with their pastoral obligations. This epistle advances many of the ideas about the Mexican Indians that would later be fully developed in his memorial to the king. In the pastoral letter, Palafox, in very graphic terms, assures the priests of his diocese that, despite the great extent of his bishopric, he had visited almost all of it. He adds: Through the most rugged mountains and roads I have arrived in benefices and parishes where, according to their old people, they had never seen their own

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prelate. I have seen and ascertained with my practical experience, and beyond my previous knowledge, the form of their administration and the nature and condition of the Indians. And thus, as one who has touched everything with his hands and identified the persons and the districts, I will be able to talk to you inwardly to your souls and in specific ways. No further proposition will be easily able to alter the practical knowledge that I have gained with these experiences.32

While there is no reason to doubt that Palafox, given his untiring activity, could very well have visited in person the entire bishopric, the idea that, through these visits, he developed a firsthand knowledge of the indigenous population is more questionable. Such episcopal visits took many months if not years and, of necessity, Palafox had to do his tour of inspection at full speed. Most of the nine years he spent in New Spain, although marked by an intense level of activity, were consumed with his attempts at reforming colonial institutions, both secular and ecclesiastical, and by his having to defend himself from the attacks of his many enemies. While it is true, as Palafox himself reminds us in both the exhortatory epistle and in Virtues of the Indian, that he occupied numerous posts of great influence, which allowed him to acquire a sophisticated knowledge of New World realities, these realities were those of high imperial policy. Although it is undeniable that he possessed a certain degree of direct experience with the indigenous population, this experience could never have been as broad as that of clerics such as Sahagún or Mendieta, who spent most of their lives among the Indians. That Palafox’s knowledge of indigenous society was essentially theoretical does not mean that his treatise on the Indian is not relevant or without interest, for the important question here is not whether it conveys a “truthful” or “ethnographic” image of the Indian. After all, we have already seen that even Las Casas or Mendieta, all their firsthand experience notwithstanding, created a homogenizing and essentializing image of the native that perfectly suited their ideals. What needs to be emphasized here is that the work written by Palafox contributed, as did many others, to creating or, more precisely, to conveying a particular image of the native population of Mexico that has endured for centuries and up to the present time. It is in this respect that Palafox can legitimately be seen as the heir to Las Casas and the first Franciscan friars who arrived in New Spain. If Palafox drew from what others had said or written about the natives of New Spain, there is no doubt that he must have been highly influenced by the image of the Indian developed by the mendicants, above all the Franciscans. This image could easily be adapted to his particular vision, and that would explain why so many similarities can be found between the Franciscan and the Palafoxian discourses on the Indian. To Palafox, as we have seen, the natives were humble, patient, long-suffering, resigned, and peaceful. The Indians lived frugally and many of them chose to live in poverty “through a modest, sparing, and Christian mode of living without greed or ambition” (p. 137). The

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words of Palafox resonate with the kind of Golden Age Christianity that the mendicants had aspired to recreate in the New World: “among them [the Indians] there are no thieves nor anything to steal. They live by a simple, holy Law, as was the law of nature” (p. 139). Referring to this almost evangelical poverty of the Indians, Palafox mentions that he had heard some Franciscans point out that, if St. Francis himself had known the Indians, he would have left their poverty as his legacy and the model to be followed by the members of his order (p. 139). But Palafox was not interested in creating a religious utopia in the New World. As a politician and imperial envoy, his main preoccupation was to secure the unity and stability of the Spanish monarchy, at a time when it was experiencing severe disorders (in 1640, the Portuguese and Catalans and, in 1647, the Sicilians had revolted against the authority of the Spanish Crown). In Palafox’s opinion, what kept the monarchy united was “the reverence, fidelity, obedience, and subjection to a single king.” Order, obedience, and discipline were effective antidotes to the division and decline that the Spanish monarchy was experiencing. Palafox dedicated many pages of what is probably his most important and complete political writing, Historia real sagrada, to condemning civic disobedience, which he regarded as a source of anarchy and disarray. Loyalty, in his opinion, was the mother of all virtues.33 Thus, if Palafox wanted to present to the king an image of the Indian as the perfect vassal, and if the virtue of obedience was what characterized the good vassal, this would explain why obedience was the virtue at which the Palafoxian Indian excelled the most, its most visible manifestation being the Indians’ loyalty to and respect for the Spanish monarch. Palafox concluded that for no other virtue were the Indians more admirable than this one. In Palafox’s view, the natives were such good vassals and so obedient to royal orders that they never protested when tributes were imposed on them or when they were sent to labor drafts; nor did they complain when they were forced to resettle in towns, as they allowed themselves to be taken “from the mountains to the villages and from the villages to the mountains, as if they were herds of the meekest sheep” (p. 151). The Palafoxian Indian was also a good and fervent Christian, who treated priests with humility and respect. This was not just a religious virtue, but a political and imperial one as well, because it mirrored the pious behavior of the Spanish monarchs, who always prided themselves on their respect for the Catholic Church. As Solórzano contended in his treatise on the government of the Indies, religion and piety were the defining virtues of the Spanish kings and what had made their monarchy a great empire. The Catholic monarch should always place religion and piety before anything else. He should show his piety by fomenting divine worship and recognizing that he needed to subordinate his power to the superior one.34 By asserting the Indians’ Christian devotion and respect for the church, Palafox was showing that, as good vassals, they were following their king’s example.

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On the other hand, as a member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, Palafox was above all interested in asserting the authority of the secular church visà-vis the religious orders. Since the beginnings of the Conquest of Mexico, in part due to the absence of an organized church and in part because the conversion of the natives became one of the Spanish Crown’s priorities, the religious orders, in particular the Franciscans, achieved a power and relevance that they had never had in Spain. In New Spain, they would be able to exert an effective control of the indigenous population through the doctrinas or Indian parishes that they established throughout the entire territory. But as the structure of the secular church developed, the bishops of Mexico started to demand that the friars be subject to their episcopal authority. Bowing to these demands, the Crown decreed the secularization of the doctrinas in 1583. However, for decades, the religious orders would tenaciously resist the implementation of such a decree. This was the context in which Palafox developed his pastoral and episcopal activity in New Spain. As bishop of Puebla, Palafox took a high view of his office. He believed that his main obligation as a bishop was to exercise and defend his jurisdiction (and in this he was no exception, as most members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy supported this view).35 In his opinion, the bishops were the “generals of God’s army,” while the secular clergy were the bishops’ chief assistants and agents. In this scheme of things, the religious orders were “useful workers” and a “light cavalry,” always subordinate in their operation to the main body of the church constituted by the bishops and the secular clergy.36 Palafox firmly believed that, by holding back the doctrinas, the friars were undermining the good ordering of the church in Mexico, let alone the fact that they were contravening the dictates of the Council of Trent.37 This would explain his insistence in Virtues of the Indian on the excellence of indigenous Christianity. To argue differently, to concede that Indian Christianity was not perfect would have meant to justify the mendicants’ arguments in favor of their continuation of the administration of the Indian parishes. Palafox had to make it perfectly clear that, because the Indians had become excellent Christians, they no longer needed the evangelizing efforts of the regular clergy, but just the ordinary spiritual care provided by the secular clergy. If being a good imperial subject implied being a good Catholic, then the attitude of Palafox toward Indian “idolatry,” which he defined as a “fugitive viper which hides in hollows and mounts,” had to be one of radical rejection. In contrast to Las Casas or his great adversaries, the Jesuits, who usually adopted a much more flexible attitude in regard to the question of conversion, Palafox laid down a drastic opposition between Christianity and paganism: one could be either a true Catholic or not a Catholic at all. His lack of tolerance in this respect got to such a point that, when he was the viceroy of New Spain, he ordered the removal of some statues or “idols” sculpted in stone of Mexica origin which the inhabitants of Mexico City

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had preserved and integrated into colonial buildings. Likewise, he requested from the municipal council, and this was accepted, that the image of an eagle standing on a cactus with a snake in its beak (which was a reference to the indigenous and pagan past of the city) be eliminated from the coat of arms of the city and replaced with images of either the Virgin Mary or an angel or the figure of Faith holding a chalice and the host.38 Palafox would even write to the king in 1647 to denounce the type of evangelization that the Jesuits were carrying out in China. In his letter, Palafox informed the king that, in their attempt to convert the Chinese, the Jesuits, who up to then had monopolized the evangelizing effort in China, had exempted them from some of the main obligations of Catholics (to attend Mass on holidays, to confess and receive Holy Communion at least once a year) or concealed certain Christian dogmas (the image of Christ crucified), because they were too alien to Chinese values. Furthermore, those already baptized were allowed to attend “idolatrous” rites (such as emperor or ancestor worship), along with those who still were gentiles, with the pretext that these were cults of a civil and familial nature. In Palafox’s view, the doctrine that was being taught to the Chinese was impure and polluted and put at risk the salvation not only of the neophytes but of their pastors as well.39 Far from engaging himself in the kind of negotiations, transactions, and even compromises with indigenous beliefs and practices that the Franciscans first and the Jesuits later understood as being necessary or even inevitable in order to be able to establish and strengthen the Christian religion among indigenous peoples, Palafox believed that only a resounding victory of the Christian faith was possible and that any traces of indigenous religion had to be extirpated. However, given the encomiastic tone of Virtues of the Indian, a discussion of Indian idolatry in this work would have been inappropriate. Nevertheless, Palafox had expounded his views on this topic in the already mentioned “Exhortatoria a los curas y beneficiados de La Puebla.” While in Virtues of the Indian there was only room to praise the religious purity of the natives, in the epistle to the priests of the Indian parishes of his bishopric, Palafox emphatically recommended that the Indians be recriminated with the utmost severity for believing in omens, as these were the door through which idolatrous practices were introduced. Dances in front of the Holy Sacrament or the introduction into the churches of intoxicating beverages should also be avoided; the dances, in particular, required special attention and those of a profane nature should be forbidden, as well as theatrical plays.40 In the last instance, Palafox recommended to the priests that, in cases of idolatry, it was “better to make use of the jurisdiction than of preaching.” That is to say, the sermonizing and preaching of the doctrineros were useless and repression was the only appropriate method.41 Palafox’s Tridentine and imperial Catholicism prevented him from understanding indigenous religiosity, which was as sincere as it was ambiguous, because of the processes of acculturation and identity

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reconstitution in which the native cultures were immersed at that time (the denunciations of the priests in charge of the extirpation of idolatries clearly attest to this).42 On the other hand, the interest of Palafox in China, something that usually goes unnoticed when studying the activities of the bishop of Puebla, may seem a little bit out of place. But, as a prominent representative of the Spanish empire, Palafox’s interest in China should not be surprising. As a matter of fact, in Mexico Palafox was ideally located to receive information about the ups and downs of the Middle Kingdom, since New Spain was well connected with Asia through the Manila Galleon, which arrived in Acapulco once a year. In this respect, New Spain functioned in many ways as a bridge between Europe and Asia. It could have been this familiarity that moved Palafox to write a history of the political upheavals experienced by China in the mid-seventeenth century. This history, which circulated widely in Europe, examines the conquest of the Chinese empire by the “Tartars,” which had taken place in the 1630s and 1640s.43 In this regard, it is quite revealing to analyze this work in the context of Virtues of the Indian. The latter treatise, besides being a work in praise of the American native, can also be seen as a veiled critique of the Europeans, in general, and the Spaniards, in particular—to praise the virtues of the Indians was to underline the vices and corruption of the Spaniards. Similarly, The History of the Conquest of China extols the virtues possessed by the Tartars in order to indirectly criticize the vices of the Spaniards. Palafox considered that the Middle Kingdom, with its admirable system of government and high moral standards, could have been a model for Europe and Christendom. He believed that Europeans, who saw themselves as superior, had much to learn from the Chinese “barbarians.” Palafox praised the rulers of China, who were depicted as excelling the kings of Europe in their care of their people. Palafox, however, clearly distinguished between the Chinese and their new Tartar masters. For him, the fall of the Ming empire at the hands of the Tartars offered suitable lessons for the Spaniards. It was the corruption of their traditional virtues that brought the downfall of the Chinese. Riches had brought undue luxury and sapped military courage. Palafox praised the Tartars for their hardy character, honesty, and military valor. Although invaders, they were quick to act for the welfare of the community and their moral qualities were impressive. Even the women were exemplary and as modest as enclosed nuns.44 In other words, the Tartars were as virtuous as the Indians. But, whereas Tartar virtues were those fitting conquering rulers, Indian virtues, as we have seen, were those appropriate for loyal subjects. To Palafox, the natives of Mexico were not only loyal subjects, but useful vassals as well. They were the bedrock of the transatlantic economy, as “their work makes the mines fertile and productive, cultivates the fields, puts into practice the manufacturing trades and arts of the Republic” (pp. 141, 143).

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For that reason, one of Palafox’s main concerns was the shortage of cheap Indian labor. In his opinion, in order to revitalize transatlantic trade and increase Crown revenue, it was first necessary to stimulate production in the American viceroyalties. But this would not be possible as long as the number of Indians available to cultivate the fields or work in the textile workshops and mines was limited by the segregation policy carried out by the religious orders in the doctrinas.45 In this regard, it is interesting that Palafox does not seem to have ever criticized Indian forced labor, when this was a highly controversial aspect of colonial society. From the very beginnings of Spanish settlement in New Spain, royal authorities had started to recruit the population of the valley of Mexico to carry out agricultural work (especially to grow wheat, which the Spaniards preferred over the corn cultivated by the natives), to participate in the building of the new capital city, and to work in the mines. This recruitment of labor was based on the principles of rotation and compulsion and would be known in Mexico as repartimiento. This system of forced labor had pre-Hispanic antecedents, which the Spaniards had been quick to take advantage of for their own purposes, although those aspects of the pre-Hispanic modality that had characterized it more as a system of community work rapidly disappeared to become a more or less efficient system of exploitation of native labor for the benefit of the population of European descent.46 The Crown was always hesitant about the labor draft, especially because the Franciscans were fiercely opposed to it. The system of forced labor began to exert an excessive pressure upon the Indian communities when a series of epidemics between 1576 and 1591 caused a notable decrease in the indigenous population, which still had to contribute the same number of workers as before even though the population of many of their communities had been dramatically reduced.47 This would lead the Franciscans to develop an intense campaign to abolish the repartimiento, which they accused of being responsible for the exacerbation of the indigenous death rate. Although by the time Palafox arrived in New Spain the repartimiento system had become limited to the mines and the desagüe (the drainage of the lakes surrounding Mexico City), this did not mean the complete end of forced labor in agriculture or public works. In reality, during the seventeenth century different systems of coercive and noncoercive labor coexisted in New Spain.48 In any event, Palafox, in this matter, seems to have followed the views of his friend Solórzano and also, ironically, of his great opponents, the Jesuits. All of them contended that, given the Indians’ proclivity to idleness, it was necessary to force them to work. Moreover, because they were not greedy, the Indians were not moved by any personal interest in making money. Solórzano hoped things would change in the future, as the Indians would become more “civilized” and willing to take these jobs for a wage, so the repartimientos would not be necessary. But in the meantime, there was no other alternative than “to tolerate” these labor drafts, because that was what

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the good of the community required.49 For his part, Palafox, despite his encomiastic treatise on the Indians of Mexico, was above all interested in advancing the interests of the Creole population, thus contributing to their strengthening. In his view, the existence of a regional nobility or oligarchy was essential to maintaining the Spanish empire. The rural and urban elites, be they Castilian, Neapolitan, or Creole, were the natural leaders of society and indispensable allies of the Crown. It was this vision of the Creoles as a provincial aristocracy, with the same responsibilities and rights as their peninsular counterparts, that accounted for Palafox’s efforts to support this group. That Palafox was willing to compromise Indian interests in order to favor the Creole rural oligarchy is shown in a decree he signed thereby authorizing landowners to hold the Indians on their estates if they could not repay their debts.50 No doubt, with this measure, the system of debt peonage, which was so detrimental to the Indian laborers of the rural haciendas in the colonial period, was greatly reinforced. Palafox knew that without Indian labor it would be impossible to maintain the Spanish empire in the New World. As he observed in his Indian treatise, “There is nothing significant or insignificant in which the Indians do not participate, as they are the hands and feet of these vast provinces” (p. 143). Since Palafox does not in effect argue against the exploitation of the Indians (which was necessary to keep the power of the Spanish monarchy), Virtues of the Indian should not be seen as a treatise in defense of the Indians. What then moved Palafox to write this work so late in his political and religious career? At the time of his writing, Palafox was still hoping to be able to return to Mexico, and it could have been this hope that led him to write it. In the relative quiet of the Madrid court, without the pressures of his many posts and obligations in New Spain, Palafox could afford the luxury of devoting some time to the writing of a piece on the natives of Mexico, a segment of the viceroyalty’s population to whom he had theretofore paid little attention. It was a way of keeping connected to New World affairs. But his appointment in 1653 as bishop of Osma, a second-rate diocese in the heart of Castile, made it perfectly clear to him that the Crown would never allow him to return to New Spain. This realization was a source of great disappointment to Palafox and would lead him, in the last years of his life (he died in 1659), to immerse himself in an intense spiritual activity, manifested in the writing of an impressive number of religious and spiritual works.51 This may also be the reason why he never completed the original plan of Virtues of the Indian, which, as mentioned before, was supposed to comprise three parts. Palafox might simply have lost interest in a topic that was never a priority for him. Moreover, if he never completed the initial plan, it was not because of a lack of creative energy. During his “exile” in Osma, Palafox kept on writing ceaselessly. Besides composing a large number of spiritual treatises, in this period he also wrote two of his most political works, a handbook on government and a personal and ret-

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rospective analysis of what he saw as the decline of the Spanish monarchy, all of which is clear evidence that the destiny of the Spanish empire and an understanding of the best ways of ruling it to guarantee its survival were and had always been Palafox’s true interests.52 In this context, Virtues of the Indian can be seen simply as Palafox’s personal tribute to the natives of New Spain for their humble albeit indispensable contributions to the maintenance of the Spanish empire, while reminding the Spanish king that he should do the same. In a society as troubled and contentious as New Spain in the mid-seventeenth century, the natives must have appeared to Palafox as the only ones who did not make the task of ruling the viceroyalty a trying experience. Palafox wrote his long and elaborate letter to the king when he had just returned from Mexico, frustrated and defeated in his attempts at reform and attacked and criticized by almost everyone. It is very likely that in this distressing atmosphere the memory of the indigenous inhabitants of New Spain would evoke in Palafox feelings of gratitude and idealized nostalgia. After all, the Indians had been the only members of colonial society with whom he had not run into trouble. It had been thanks to their efforts that one of his greatest successes in the New World—the construction of the great cathedral of Puebla—had been made possible. As Palafox himself reminds the reader, the Indians had been the ones who had erected it with their sweat and effort. With distance, the tendency to idealize the native, already present in works like the “Epístola Exhortatoria,” written in Mexico, is accentuated. The result is a work populated by “poor and wretched” Indians in need of royal protection and care and into which Palafox, in a nostalgic way, can pour all his sympathy toward them. In any event, Palafox did not need to make a great effort to write his memorial, as the official discourse, with the help of members of the religious orders, in particular the Franciscans, had already institutionalized the figure of the hapless and wretched native. Palafox’s treatise is but one more version, that of the obedient and pious Indian, of this discourse.

NOTES 1. Perhaps his most important work is Historia real sagrada (Sacred Royal History), published for the first time in Puebla in 1643 and reprinted several times in the course of the seventeenth century. This book is a perfect compendium of Palafox’s thought, as in it he uses the history of the first kings of Israel to write a manual for good government. The book is also a critique of what, in his view, was the authoritarian way in which the Spanish monarchy was being ruled at that time. For an analysis of this book, see Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform in Spain and Viceregal Mexico: The Life and Thought of Juan de Palafox, 1600–1659 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 147–55.

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2. Francisco Sánchez-Castañer argues that the work was printed for the first time in Puebla around the year 1650. See his “Estudio preliminar,” in Juan de Palafox, Tratados Mejicanos, 2 vols., ed. Francisco Sánchez-Castañer (Madrid, 1968), cxliv–cxlv. Because this first edition of Virtues of the Indian appeared with no place of publication, this argument is difficult to corroborate. 3. On the providential mission of the Spanish monarchy, see “Carta de fray Toribio de Motolinía al emperador Carlos V, enero 2 de 1555,” in fray Toribio de Benavente, Historia de los indios de la Nueva España, ed. E. O’Gorman (Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1969), 211–12; “Carta de fray Gerónimo de Mendieta a Felipe II, 15 de abril de 1587” and “Parecer del Dr. Alonso Zorita acerca de la doctrina y administración de los sacramentos a los naturales, 1 de marzo de 1584,” in Documentos inéditos del siglo XVI para la historia de México, ed. M. Cuevas (Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1975), 415–17, 347–53; Fray Juan de Silva, “Memorial Tercero” (1618), in Los memoriales del Padre Silva sobre predicación pacífica y repartimientos, ed. P. Castañeda Delgado (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1983), 371–86. See also John L. Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 11–14. 4. Here Palafox is echoing the legal fiction contrived by Hernán Cortés, which had become part of the official rhetoric of the Spanish monarchy, according to which Moctezuma had willingly ceded the sovereignty of his kingdom to the emperor Charles V. See Hernán Cortés, Letters from Mexico (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), 50, 56, 67, 85–86, 98–99, 155–56. 5. Gerónimo de Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana (Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1997), lib. I, caps. II, IV, V; lib. IV, caps. XXI, XXXIX. 6. “Decretos del III Concilio Provincial Mexicano,” in José A. Llaguno, La personalidad jurídica del indio y el III Concilio Provincial Mexicano (1585) (Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1963), 272. 7. Fray Juan de Silva, Los memoriales del Padre Silva, 282. It should be added that Silva used these arguments to attack the idea that the labor draft should be preserved as an adequate means to maintain the Spanish dominion over the Indians. 8. Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias (1680) (Madrid: Gráficas Ultra, 1943), lib. I, tít. VII, ley xiii; lib. VI, tít. X, ley ii. It needs to be pointed out that the concept of persona miserable was not invented to be applied to the American Indian but originated in Roman and medieval law. For an analysis of the rhetoric of wretchedness, see Alejandro Cañeque, The King’s Living Image: The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 186–92. 9. See Magdalena Chocano Mena, La fortaleza docta. Elite letrada y dominación social en México colonial (siglos XVI–XVII) (Barcelona: Ediciones Bellaterra, 2000), chap. 1. 10. Chocano Mena, La fortaleza docta, 69. 11. See Natalia Silva Prada, “El uso de los baños temascales en la visión de dos médicos novohispanos,” Historia Mexicana 205 (July–Sept. 2002): 5–56. 12. The most prominent representatives of this tradition were the royal historian of the Indies, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, and the humanist and Greek scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. For a study of their ideas, see Lewis Hanke, All Mankind Is One (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974), 34–45, 57–71; Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), chap. 5; David A. Brad-

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ing, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State, 1492–1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 31–44, 85–88. 13. See Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man, chaps. 4 and 6; Antony Pagden, Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990), chap. 1; Brading, The First America, 83–85. 14. Gerónimo de Mendieta, “Memorial de algunas cosas que conviene representar al rey D. Felipe, Nuestro Señor, para descargo de su real conciencia,” in Códice Mendieta. Documentos franciscanos. Siglos XVI y XVII. Tomo Segundo, ed. Joaquín García Icazbalceta, 11 (Mexico: Impr. de F. Díaz de León, 1892) (emphasis added). 15. On the Franciscan New World project, see Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans; José Antonio Maravall, Utopía y reformismo en la España de los Austrias (Madrid: Siglo Ventiuno de España, 1982), 79–110; Georges Baudot, Utopia and History in Mexico: The First Chroniclers of Mexican Civilization (1520–1569) (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993); Carlos Sempat Assadourian, “Memoriales de fray Gerónimo de Mendieta,” Historia Mexicana XXXVII:3 (1988): 357–422; Brading, The First America, 110–16. For a critique of the idea that the Franciscan project was a millenarian one, see Elsa Cecilia Frost, “A New Millenarian: Georges Baudot,” The Americas 36:4 (April 1980): 515–26. 16. See Bartolomé de las Casas, An Account, Much Abbreviated, of The Destruction of The Indies, translated by Andrew Hurley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishings, 2003), 4–8. 17. Mendieta, “Memorial,” in Códice Mendieta II, 10. 18. For an influential study that related the alleged native drunkenness to the effects of the Conquest, see Charles Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964). 19. See, for example, José de Acosta, De procuranda indorum salute (1588). Spanish version by L. Pereña et al. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1984), 545, 559, 561. On the ritual and social function of drinking in the indigenous communities, see William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979), chap. 2. 20. See, for instance, Agustín de Vetancurt, “Manifiesto del celo de un religioso ministro de los naturales, acerca de el estado de la república de los indios con el pulque que beben y la perdición que tienen,” included in his Teatro mexicano. Descripción breve de los sucesos ejemplares, históricos, políticos, militares y religiosos del Nuevo Mundo Occidental de las Indias (1698) (Mexico, Editorial Porrúa, 1971), 95–100. On pulquerías as places of sociability, see Sonia Corcuera de Mancera, Del amor al temor. Borrachez, catequesis y control en la Nueva España (1555–1771) (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1994), 210–20; R. Douglas Cope, The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 34–35. 21. Juan de Solórzano Pereira, Política indiana (1647), ed. M. A. Ochoa Brun (Madrid: Atlas, 1972), lib II, cap. VI, núm. 32. 22. Gerónimo de Mendieta, “Consideraciones cerca de los indios de la Nueva España,” in Códice Mendieta II, 28–36. 23. See Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man, 104–6. 24. In any case, by the mid 1600s, the Franciscan utopian project in the New World was a thing of the past. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Spanish Crown launched a vigorous effort to assert their authority in the New World,

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and, despite the resistance offered by the friars, by the end of the century, the independent power of the Franciscans had been greatly diminished. 25. Brading, The First America, 233, 251. 26. Most of what we know about the pre-Hispanic civilizations of central Mexico is based on the information contained in works written in the first decades of the sixteenth century by members of the mendicant orders such as Bernardino de Sahagún, who wrote, with the help of many native informants, the massive General history of the things of New Spain: Florentine Codex, 13 vols. (Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research; Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah, 1950–1982) or Diego Durán, the author of The History of the Indies of New Spain (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994). 27. Benjamin Keen, The Aztec Image in Western Thought (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1971), 180. 28. Vetancurt, Teatro mexicano. 29. Keen, The Aztec Image in Western Thought, 187–89. See also Brading, The First America, chap. 17. 30. See In defense of the Indians: the defense of the Most Reverend Lord, Don Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, of the Order of Preachers, late Bishop of Chiapa, against the persecutors and slanderers of the peoples of the New World discovered across the seas (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974); José de Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002). 31. See Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, ed., Tratado de las idolatrías, supersticiones, dioses, ritos, hechicerías y otras costumbres gentílicas de las razas aborígenes de México (México: Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 1953). One of these works written by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón has been translated into English as Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629 (Norman; London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984). 32. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, “Exhortatoria a los curas y beneficiados de La Puebla de los Angeles,” in Tratados mejicanos I, ed. F. Sánchez-Castañer (Madrid: Atlas, 1968), 75 (my translation). 33. See Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 23, 31, 150. 34. Solórzano, Política indiana, libro IV, capítulo I, números 1–3. 35. For the tenacious defense of episcopal authority by Mexican bishops in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries against the encroachment of royal officials, see Cañeque, The King’s Living Image, chap. 3. 36. Brading, The First America, 234–36, 241. 37. Palafox presented these ideas with complete clarity in a letter he wrote to the pope in 1645. See “Carta Primera a Inocencio X, Pontífice Máximo,” in Tratados mejicanos I, 16–30. 38. Solange Alberro, “El ‘indigenismo’ de Palafox (o de cómo un obispo intransigente supo granjearse el amor duradero de los naturales),” in Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. Imagen y discurso de la cultura novohispana, ed. José Pascual Buxó (Mexico: UNAM, 2002), 48–49. 39. James S. Cummins, “Palafox, China and the Chinese Rites Controversy,” Revista de Historia de América 52 (December 1961): 395–427. 40. Palafox disliked plays so much that he even wrote a pastoral letter against them. See “De la carta pastoral sobre los espectáculos,” in Tratados mejicanos II, 451–61.

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41. Palafox, “Exhortatoria a los curas y beneficiados de La Puebla,” 96–97. 42. See Alberro, “El ‘indigenismo’ de Palafox,” 37–63. 43. The “Tartars” were, in fact, the Manchus from northeast China, who had captured Beijing in 1644 and established the new ruling Qing dynasty. Palafox’s history was printed for the first time in 1670 in a French translation—it would appear in Spanish the following year. According to the Spanish editor, the French translation was inaccurate and of poor quality. It would be reprinted in Spanish in 1762 as part of Obras del ilustrissimo, excelentissimo y venerable siervo de Dios, don Juan Palafox y Mendoza, in the same volume (vol. X) that contained Virtues of the Indian. It was also translated into English for the first time in 1671 with the title of The history of the conquest of China by the Tartars. Together with an account of several remarkable things concerning the religion, manners, and customes of both nations, but especially the latter. First writ in Spanish by Señor Palafox . . . and now rendred English (London: Printed by W. Godbid and sold by M. Pitt, 1671). 44. Cummins, “Palafox, China and the Chinese Rites Controversy,” 407–11. See also Brading, The First America, 248–49. 45. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 87–88. 46. For a description of how the repartimiento functioned, see Gibson, The Aztecs, 220–31; Rik Hoekstra, Two Worlds Merging: The Transformation of Society in the Valley of Puebla, 1570–1640 (Amsterdam, 1993), 126–41; Rebecca Horn, Postconquest Coyoacan: Nahua-Spanish Relations in Central Mexico, 1519–1650 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 100–104. 47. Gibson, The Aztecs, 231–33; Horn, Postconquest Coyoacan, 104–8. On the epidemics that decimated the indigenous population, see Hanns J. Prem, “Disease Outbreaks in Central Mexico during the Sixteenth Century,” in“Secret Judgments of God”: Old World Disease in Colonial Spanish America, ed. N. D. Cook and W. G. Lovell (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 20–48; N. D. Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 120–22, 137–39. 48. See Gibson, The Aztecs, 235–56; Hoekstra, Two Worlds Merging, 141; Fuentes para la historia del trabajo en Nueva España. 8 vols., ed. Silvio Zavala and María Castelo (Mexico: Centro de Estudios Históricos del Movimiento Obrero Mexicano, 1980), vol. VIII, x–xi. For the debates regarding the legality of forced labor and its relation to the civilizing mission of the Spanish empire, see Cañeque, The King’s Living Image, 201–12. 49. Solórzano, Política indiana, lib. II, cap. VII, núm. 1. For the Jesuit view, see Acosta, De procuranda, chap. XVII; “Parecer de los PP. Antonio Rubio y Pedro de Hortigosa, S.J., acerca del repartimiento de los indios,” in Documentos inéditos del siglo XVI, 478–81. 50. Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 89–92. 51. For an analysis of the last years of Palafox in Spain, see the Epilogue in Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform. 52. The two political works are Manual de estados y profesiones and Juicio interior y secreto de la monarquía para mí solo. For a discussion of these two works, see Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 281–88.

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(OBRAS X: 444) DE LA NATURALEZA DEL INDIO. AL REY NUESTRO SEÑOR POR DON JUAN DE PALAFOX Y MENDOZA, OBISPO DE LA PUEBLA DE LOS ANGELES, DEL CONSEJO DE SU MAGESTAD, & C. SEÑOR. POCOS Ministros han ido a la Nueva-España, ni vuelto de ella, mas obligados que yo, al ampáro de los Indios, y á solicitar su alivio; porque quando me olvidàra de las obligaciones de Sacerdote, de cuya profesion es tan propio el (Obras X: 445) compadecerse de los miserables, y afligidos, no podia olvidarme de la de Pastór, y Padre de tantas almas, como estàn à mi cargo en aquellos Reynos, en la dilatada Diocesi de los Angeles, que sin duda, quando no en la latitud, y extension, en el numero de Indios, llega à tener casi la quarta parte de todo el distrito de aquella Real Audiencia de Megico. Y claro està que no hay Padre tan duro de corazon, que vea, y oíga llorar, y lamentarse á sus hijos, y mas siendo pobrecitos, è inocentes, al qual no se le conmuevan las entrañas, y se aflija, y lastime, y entre à la parte de su pena; pues aun el cuerpo (tanto antes difunto) de Rachèl, yá reducido a polvo, lloró sin consuelo, con lagrimas vivas, la muerte de sus perseguidos hijos inocentes, por inocentes, por hijos, y perseguidos.(a) A esto se añade la confianza que V. M. ha sido servido de hacer de mi, para que le desempeñasse del ardiente deseo que ocupa siempre el

(a) Matth. 2. v. 18.

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(OBRAS X: 444) ON THE NATURE OF THE INDIAN. TO THE KING OUR LORD BY DON JUAN DE PALAFOX Y MENDOZA, BISHOP OF PUEBLA DE LOS ANGELES, COUNCILOR OF HIS MAJESTY, ETC. MY LORD SIRE, Few ministers have gone to New Spain, nor returned from her, more committed than I to the protection of the Indians and the pursuit of their relief. While my obligations as a Priest, a profession so suited (Obras X: 445) to the condolence of the miserable and afflicted, might slip my mind, I could not forget my role as Pastor and Father of the many souls that are under my charge in those realms. The extensive Diocese of the Angels, while not in latitude and expanse but in number of Indians, without doubt comprises nearly a quarter of all the district of the Royal High Court of Mexico.1 And surely there is no Father so hard-hearted who, upon seeing and hearing his children cry and lament, is not moved in his core, distressed, and hurt, and who does not share in their pain, and this all the more due to the children being poor and innocent. Even the body (so long ago defunct) of Rachel, now returned to dust, cried inconsolably with copious, living tears at the death of her persecuted, innocent children for their being innocent, children, and persecuted.(a)2 To this one may add the trust that Your Majesty has placed in me so that I may release you from and fulfill the ardent desire, always present in the (a) Matthew, chapter 2, verse 18.

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Real corazon, y piedad de V. M. al consolar y amparar á estos pobrecitos, habiendome honrado con la Plaza de Fiscal de Indias mas há de veinte años, cuyo oficio principal, es ser Protector de los Indios; y con la de Consejero del mismo Consejo, que todo se emplea en su amparo, y en uno, y otro oficio se jura el favorecerlos; y despues con el cargo de Visitador General de aquellos Tribunales de la Nueva-España, cuyas primeras instrucciones se enderezan à aliviar, y consolar á aquellos desamparados, y (Obras X: 446) fidelissimos vasallos; y con el de Virrey, y Gobernador, que en sus principales instrucciones se le pone ley precisa á su defensa, y conservacion; y el de Juez de las Residencias de tres Virreyes, y electo Metropolitano de Megico, que todos son vinculos eficacissimos para obligarme V. M. á que ciudasse de un punto tan importante, y de tanto servicio de Dios, y de V. M. y que assi al Consejo, como á todos sus Ministros, con Decretos, Cedulas, y Ordenes apretadas nos manda, solicíta, y exhorta, que assistamos á este debido ciudado. Y quando tantas obligaciones no me pusieran en la ansia de su alivio, y conservacion, me ocupára todo en ella, la experiencia, y conocimiento práctico de las fatigas, y descomodidades de estos pobres. Porque assi como cada oficio de estos no bastarà á conocer las tribulaciones, y penas que padecen; pero todos juntos han hecho evidencia, y conclusion en mi, lo que en otros no tan experimentados puede quedar en terminos de duda. Porque los Virreyes, por muy despiertos que sean en el cuidado de su ocupacion, no pueden llegar á comprehender lo que padecen los Indios; pues en la superioridad de su puesto llenos de felicidad, sin poderse acercar á los heridos, y afligidos, que penan, derramados, y acosados por todas aquellas Provincias, tarde, y muy templadas llegan à sus oídos las quejas. Y como se halla acompañada aquella gran Dignidad, frequentemente de los instrumentos, y sujetos que se (Obras X: 447) las causan, y de los que disfrutan sus utilidades à los Indios; no solo impiden el oír los gemidos, y ver las lagrimas de los oprimidos, y miserables, sino que les ponen en concepto de culpados, siendo verdaderamente inocentes, y sobre consumirlos con penas, se hallan tambien mal acreditados de culpas. Y assi, para averiguar estas verdades es mejor oficio el de Visitador general del Reyno. Pero ni este solo bastará, respecto de que la humana naturaleza, y malicia en todos generalmente, como se vió en la primera culpa de Adan, aun dentro del Paraíso, en andandole à los alcances luego se arma, y viste de disculpas:(b) y valiendose unas veces de la fuerza, otras

(b) Genes. v. 12.

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Royal heart and mercy of Your Majesty, to console and protect these poor souls. More than twenty years ago you honored me with these posts: Crown Attorney of the Indies, the principal role of which is to be Protector of the Indians; Councilor of that same Council of the Indies, which is entirely directed toward their protection and, like the office of the Crown Attorney, requires pledges to favor them; Inspector General of the Tribunals of New Spain, the primary objective of which is to address the relief and consolation of those forsaken (Obras X: 446) and most loyal vassals; Viceroy and Governor, which in its principal instructions obliges him specifically to the Indians’ defense and preservation;3 Judicial Examiner of the Offices of three viceroys; and Archbishop elect of Mexico.4 All of these are honors with which Your Majesty has obliged me most effectively to the pursuit of such an important end, and one of such service to God and Your Majesty.5 Thus Your Majesty, with Decrees, Letters, and strict Orders, directs, solicits, and exhorts us, the Council of the Indies and all your Ministers, so we may assist in this just cause. And when all of these obligations did not make me anguish for the Indians’ relief and preservation, the experience and practical knowledge of the hardships and discomforts of these poor souls, with which I occupied myself completely, did. Perhaps each of these offices separately will not suffice to know the tribulations and pains the Indians suffer; however, all of them put together have made evident and conclusive to me what to others not so experienced could be left uncertain. Because the Viceroys, as attentive as they are to the care of their occupation, cannot come to understand what the Indians suffer. The elevated status of their post, full of good fortune, does not enable them to draw near to the wounded and afflicted who suffer, scattered and harassed, through all these Provinces. Complaints arrive late and very softened to their ears. And as the great Dignity of this office is frequently in consultation with the agents and subjects that (Obras X: 447) cause these complaints and by those who make use of the skills and labors of the Indians, not only is the viceroy prevented from hearing the moans and seeing the tears of the oppressed and miserable, but the Indians are made to appear guilty, despite their being truly innocent. And so, in addition to being consumed with suffering, the Indians find themselves wrongly accredited with blame. To witness these realities, the best office is that of Visitor-General of the Kingdom. But not even this alone will suffice, given human nature and the malice in all generally, as was seen in the first sin of Adam, even within paradise. Walking within its reaches, he came to arm and dress himself in apology and shame.(b)6 Emboldening themselves at times with force, other (b) Genesis, verse 12.

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de la calumnia, y otras del poder, procura que falten los medios á la pesquisa del Visitador; y unas amenazando á los testigos, y otras á las partes, y otras al Juez, y otras interponiendo dilaciones, diferencias, y competencias entre las jurisdiciones, é informando siniestramente al Consejo, no solo se suelen librar del suplicio, y pena que merecian sus excesos; sino que turban, y obscurecen las probanzas del delito, y echan todos los cuidados sobre qualquiera Juez, y Ministro zeloso que trata de reformarlos, y que no quiere componerse con ellos. Por esto es mas á proposito para conocer estos daños (aunque no para castigarlos) el oficio de Prelado, y Pastór, el qual como por su (Obras X: 448) ocupacion se egercita en apacentar sus Ovejas, verlas, y reconocerlas, llamarlas, enseñarlas, y buscarlas por los Pueblos, y los montes, y de quien no se recatan los interesados, ni los lastimados tanto, como del Juez, ó Visitador, porque siempre hablan al Prelado con la confianza de padre; habiendo yá visitado tan dilatados terminos de aquel Reyno con entrambas calidades, y jurisdiciones, es cierto que aquello que de los unos oficios se ocultó á mi noticia, vine á comprehender, y reconocer facilmente con los otros: con que este conocimiento, y el que tengo de la piedad de V. M. y quan grato servicio le harèmos sus Ministros, y Prelados en darle motivos á hacer las leyes mas eficaces en su egecucion, siendo en su decision santissimas; me ha obligado á tomar la pluma, y ofreceré á V. M. lo mas sucintamente que he podido, los motivos que están solicitando á la clemencia de V. M. y santo zelo de sus Ministros, à que animen estas leyes, y las vivifiquen con su misma observancia, usando de aquellos medios que mas se proporcionen con la materia, y el intento, pues no serán dificultosos de hallar. Porque las leyes sin observancia, Señor, no son mas que cuerpos muertos, arrojados en las calles, y plazas, que solo sirven de escandalo de los Reynos, y Ciudades, y en que tropiezan los Vasallos y Ministros, con la transgresion, quando habian de fructificar observadas, y vivas toda su conservacion, alegria, y tranquilidad. (Obras X: 449) Para esto me ha parecido, que era buen medio proponer á V. M. las calidades, virtudes, y propiedades de aquellos utilissimos, y fidelissimos Vasallos de las Indias, y describir su condicion sucintamente, y referir sus meritos, porque todo esto hace en ellos mas justificada su causa, y en V. M. mas heroyca, y noble la razon de su ampáro: y despues de haber referido sus virtudes, y alegrado con ellas el animo Real de V. M. describir en otro breve tratado sus trabajos para solicitarle, y promoverle su remedio; y en el tercero, con la misma precision ofreceré los medios, y remedios que pueden aplicarse á estos daños: no poniendo aqui cosa que no haya visto

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times with calumny, and others times with power, they endeavor to see that the Visitor-General’s means of inquiry are lacking.7 Some threaten the witnesses, some the parties, and some the Judge while others impose delays, differences, and competitions between the jurisdictions and report to the Council in wicked ways. It is their custom not only to avoid the torment and penalty that their excesses merit but also to disturb and obscure the investigations into the crime and cast all the blame upon8 whichever zealous Judge and Minister tries to reform them and does not wish to reconcile with them.9 For this reason, the more relevant office to perceive these damages (although not so as to punish them), is that of Prelate and Pastor (Obras X: 448), an occupation performed through the grazing of sheep, through seeing and recognizing them, summoning them, teaching them, and searching for them in towns and in the mountains. Of him neither the interested parties nor the injured ones are as cautious as they are of the Judge or Visitor, as they always speak to the Prelate with the trust they would bestow on a father. Having visited such expanses and ends of the aforesaid Kingdom with both these qualifications and jurisdictions, it is certain that the operations of those offices that escaped my notice or were concealed from me, I came to comprehend and recognize easily through the other offices. With this knowledge and that which I have of Your Majesty’s mercy, and knowing how welcome the service will be that we, your Ministers and Prelates, will perform in giving you motives to make the laws—being most holy in your care—more effective in their execution, I am obliged to take pen in hand. I will offer to Your Majesty as succinctly as I am able, the motives which appeal to the clemency of Your Majesty and the holy zeal of your Ministers to activate and revitalize these laws through the very observance of them, using those means which are best suited to this subject and intent. They will not be difficult to find. Because laws without enforcement, Sire, are nothing more than dead bodies, cast into the streets and squares, which serve only as scandals in Kingdoms and Cities, and over which Subjects and Ministers stumble into transgression. When observed and vital, however, they ought to bear preservation, happiness, and tranquility.10 (Obras X: 449) To this end, it has seemed to me that this letter was a good means to present to Your Majesty the qualities, virtues, and characteristics of these most useful and loyal Vassals of the Indies and to describe their condition succinctly and relate their merits because all this renders their cause more justified and the reason for Your Majesty’s protection more noble and heroic.11 After having related their virtues and therein enlivened the Royal spirit of Your Majesty, I will describe in another brief treatise their hardships, in order to appeal to you and to promote the cause of their relief. In the third part, with the same specificity, I will offer means and remedies that can be applied to redress these misfortunes. I will not include here things that I have not seen

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yo mismo, y tocado con las manos, y aun estas mismas por diversas relaciones son por mayor notorias al Consejo de V. M. y tampoco acumularé á este discurso erudicion alguna, sino que propondré á la excelente Religion, y Piedad de V. M. la sencilla relacion de lo que conduce al intento. Suponiendo, Señor, que háblo primero, y principalmente de los Indios, y Provincias de la Nueva España, donde Yo he servido estas ocupaciones que he referido, y no de otras, sí bien las del Pirù son en muchas cosas muy semejantes à ellas, aunque con alguna diferencia en la condicion de los naturales. Porque estas dos partes del mundo, Septentrional, y Meridional, que componen la America, parece que las crió Dios, y manifestó de un parto para la Iglesia, (Obras X: 450) quanto á la Fè, y para la Corona Catolica de España, quanto al dominio, como dos hermanos gemelos, que nacieron de un vientre, y en un mismo tiempo, y hora; y assi aun en la naturaleza conservan el parecerse entre sí en innumerables cosas, como hermanos.

(OBRAS X: 451) CAPITULO PRIMERO. QUAN DIGNOS SON LOS INDIOS DEL AMPARO REAL DE V. M. POR LA SUAVIDAD CON QUE RECIBIERON LA LEY DE CHRISTO SEÑOR NUESTRO CON EL CALOR DE SUS CATOLICAS VANDERAS. Para V. M. y su Religion escarecida, el mayor motivo es el de la Fé; porque en la Corona, y Augustissima Casa Austriaca, mas que en todas las del mundo ha resplandecido esta excelente virtud con dichosissimos incrementos de ella por todo el Orbe universal: siendo cierto que el zelo de los Señores Reyes Catolicos, en cuyo tiempo se descubrieron las Indias; y el de los Serenissimos Reyes, Emperador Carlos V. y su Madre, la Señora Reyna Doña Juana, en el qual se conquistó la Nueva España; y de los tres piisissimos, y Catolicissimos Filipos, sus hijos, y sucesores, en el qual se ha propagado, no se ha movido á descubrir y conservar aquel dilatado mundo, sino solo por hacer mas estendida la Fé, y mas gloriosa, y triunfante la Iglesia Catolica. 2. Todas las Naciones de Asia, Europa, y Africa han recibido, Señor, la Fé Catolica: no hay duda, porque hasta los ultimos terminos del Orbe, se oyó la voz Evangelica por los Apostoles Santos, sus primeros propagadores, publicada.(a) Pero tambien por los Anales Eclesiasticos, y los Martirologios

(a) In omnem terram exivit sonus corum. Ad. Rom. 10. v. 18 & Psal. 18. v. 5.

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myself or touched with my own hands or even the very things that by diverse means are summarily evident to the Council of Your Majesty. Nor will I accumulate in this discourse any erudition but I will present to the excellent Religion and Mercy of Your Majesty the simple relation of that which is conducive to my intent. Let us assume, Sire, that I speak first and principally of the Indians and Provinces of New Spain, where I have served in these occupations to which I have referred, and not of others, though those of Peru are in many ways similar to them, even with some difference in the condition of the natives. Because these two parts of the world, Northern and Southern, which comprise America, seem as if God created and delivered them in one birth unto the Church (Obras X: 450) in relation to the Faith and to the Catholic Crown of Spain in relation to dominion. They are like twins, born of one womb and at the same time and hour.12 Thus, even in their nature, this resemblance between them, like that of brothers, is manifest in innumerable things.13

(OBRAS X: 451) CHAPTER I. ON THE WORTHINESS OF THE INDIANS OF THE ROYAL PROTECTION OF YOUR MAJESTY DUE TO THE EASE WITH WHICH THEY RECEIVED THE LAW OF CHRIST OUR LORD WITH THE COMFORT OF HIS CATHOLIC BANNERS. For Your Majesty and your illustrious Religion, the greatest cause is that of Faith; because under the Crown and most August House of Austria, more than any other in the world, this excellent virtue has been resplendent through most glorious increments of it throughout the Globe. It is certain that the zeal of the Catholic Monarchs, in whose time the Indies were discovered; and the zeal of the most Serene Kings, Emperor Charles V and his Mother, the Queen Lady Juana, during whose reign New Spain was conquered; and the zeal of the three most pious and Catholic Philips, their sons and successors, in whose time the Faith was spread, was not inspired solely to discover and preserve this expanded world but to make Faith more farreaching and the Catholic Church more glorious and triumphant. 2. All the Nations of Asia, Europe, and Africa, Sire, have received the Catholic Faith. Of this there is no doubt, because, as is written,(a) the Evangelical voice of the Apostolic Saints, the first disseminators of the Faith, was

(a) “Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth: and their words unto the ends of the world.” The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans chapter 10, verse 5 (Douay-Rheims 1989 edition), 180-181, and Psalm 18, verse 5 (Douay-Rheims 1989 edition), 589.

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de la Iglesia, y por las lecciones mismas de las Canonicas Horas, y por la celebracion de las festividades, se manifiesta quanta sangre de Martires costó el establecerla, y quanta despues al conservarla. Porque mas de trescientos años se defendió la Idolatria de la Religion (Obras X: 452) Christiana, y con la espada en la mano, con infinita sangre conservó acreditada, y falsamente adorada su errada creencia y culto. No assi, Señor, en la America, en donde como unas ovejas mansissimas á pocos años, y aun meses, como entró en ella la Fé, se fueron todos sus naturales reduciendo á ella, haciendo Templos de Dios, y deshaciendo, y derribando los de Belial; entrando en sus casas, y corazones las Imagenes, y pisando, y enterrando ellos mismo con sus mismas manos su Gentilidad, vencida, y postrada por el santo zelo de la Catolica Corona de V. M. Este, Señor, es un merito excelente, y muy digno de ponderacion, y de que la esclarecida, y ardiente fé de V. M. le reciba, le estime, y que assi en su Real piedad, como en toda la Iglesia, hallen el premio que merecen estos naturales, por tan grande suavidad, docilidad, y sencillez con que recibieron nuestra santa Fé. 3. Assimismo es constante por todos los Anales, y Coronicas Eclesiasticas, y Padres de la Iglesia, que apenas la Religion Catolica desterró la Idolatria de todas las Naciones, de Africa, Asia, y Europa, despues de haberse defendido tan obstinadamente, quando nacieron luego monstruos horribles de Heresiarcas, y Heregias, que molestaron, y persiguieron la Iglesia, no menos poderosa, y desapiadadamente que la misma Idolatria. Pues vemos que en tiempo del mismo Constantino Magno, padre, y amparo de la Catolica Religion, yá Arrio, y poco despues Eutiques, y Macedonio, y otros envenenaron las puras aguas de la christiana, y verdadera doctrina, y llevaron con perniciosos errores inumerables almas tras sí, y hasta el dia de hoy poseen sus discipulos, y beben, y viven sus nefandissimos hijos, y sucesores de aquella abominable enseñanza, y poseen con ella infamada muy gran parte de Europa, y casi toda la Asia, y Africa. No assi esta quarta parte, y la mayor del mundo, la America: la qual virgen fecundissima, y constantissima no solamente recibió la Fé Christiana con docilidad, y la Romana Religion, con pureza, sino que hoy la conserva sin mancha alguna de errores, ó heregias: y no solo ninguno de sus naturales, otra cosa ha enseñado, que la Catolica Religion, pero ni creído, ni imaginado; de suerte, que puede decirse, que en esta parte del mundo se representa la vestidura inconsutil, y nunca rompida de Christo nuestro Señor, que no permitió su Divina Magestad fuesse (Obras X: 453) dividida en partes, sino que toda se conserva, y guarda entera para Dios, y para vuestra Magestad. Circunstancia muy digna de que los dos Brazos Espiritual, y Temporal, el

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heard as far as the ultimate ends of the World.14 But also the Ecclesiastical Annals, the Martyrologies of the Church, the very lessons of the Canonical Hours, and the celebration of the festivities, manifest the amount of blood spent by the Martyrs to establish the Faith and subsequently that spent to preserve it. Because for more than three hundred years Idolatry defended itself against the Christian Religion. (Obras X: 452) With sword in hand and the spilling of infinite blood, it preserved and accredited false adoration and erroneous belief and worship.15 Not so, Sire, in America, where, as Faith entered into her, her natives, like the meekest sheep, in a few years and even months, were all converted to it, making Temples of God, and taking down and demolishing those of Belial.16 The Christian Images entered into their homes and hearts, and they tread upon and buried with their own hands their Paganism, conquered and overcome by the holy zeal of the Catholic Crown of Your Majesty. This, Sire, is an excellent merit and one very worthy of consideration and the embrace and esteem of the prominent and ardent faith of Your Majesty. Through your Royal mercy, these natives, as in the Church everywhere, may find the reward that they merit, for the great ease, docility, and simplicity with which they received our holy Faith. 3. Also, it is a constant in all the Annals and Ecclesiastical Chronicles and Fathers of the Church that no sooner had the Catholic Religion banished Idolatry in all the Nations of Africa, Asia, and Europe, after having defended itself so obstinately than horrible monsters of Heresiarchs and Heresies were born that disturbed and persecuted the Church, and no less powerfully and unmercifully than the very same Idolatry. Then we see that in the very time of Constantine the Great, father and protector of the Catholic Religion, already Arius, and shortly after Eutyches and Macedonius and others, poisoned the pure waters and true doctrine of Christianity and through pernicious errors took innumerable souls with them.17 To this day they possess disciples, and their most nefarious children and successors drink in and live that abominable and infamous teaching, which counts as its own a large part of Europe, and well-nigh all of Asia and Africa. It is not so in this fourth and largest part of the world, America. This most fecund and constant virgin not only received the Christian Faith with docility and the Roman Catholic Religion with innocent purity, but also today preserves it without a single stain of errors or heresies. And not only have none of her natives shown themselves to practice anything other than the Catholic Religion, they have not believed or imagined anything other. So, it can be said, that in this part of the world is represented the seamless and never torn vestment of Christ our Lord, which his Divine Majesty did not permit to be (Obras X: 453) divided into parts but which is entirely preserved and guarded as a whole by God and by your Majesty. This is a circumstance that greatly merits the two Arms of the Church—the Spiritual and Temporal, the

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Pontifice Sumo, y Vuestra Magestad concurran al bien, amparo, y favor de tan benemeritas Provincias, y Christianas, como de la America.

CAPITULO II. DE LO QUE MERECEN LOS INDIOS EL AMPARO REAL DE V. M. POR EL FERVOR GRANDE CON QUE SE EGERCITAN EN LA RELIGION CHRISTIANA. A lo referido se llega el promover esta Fé, y conservarla los Indios con muy hondas raíces de creencia, y excelentes frutos de devocion, y caridad. Porque sino es que en alguna parte por falta de doctrina, y de Ministros haya alguna supersticion, es cierto que en todas las demás de este Nuevo Orbe, son increíbles, Señor, las demonstraciones que los Indios hacen de muy servorosos Christianos, como se vé en las cosas siguientes, que yo mismo he mirado, y tocado con las manos. Lo primero, en las procesiones públicas, son penitentissimos, y castigan sus culpas con increíble fervor, y esto con una sencillez tan sin vanidad, que sobre no llevar cosa sobre sí, que cause ostentacion, ó estimacion, ván vestidos disciplinandose duramente, con incomportables silicios todo el cuerpo, y el rostro, y descalzos, mirando una Imagen de Christo Señor nuestro crucificado en las manos: y tal vez para mayor confusion llevan descubierta la cara, y esto con una natural sencillez, y verdad, que á quien lo viere, y ponderare, causa grandissima devocion, y aun confusion. Los demás ván en las públicas procesiones todos hombres, y mugeres con Imagenes de nuestro Señor Jesu Christo crucificado en las manos, mirando al suelo, ó á la Imagen con grande, y singular humildad, y devocion. 2. No hay casa por pobre que sea, que no tenga su Oratorio, que ellos llaman Santo Cali, que es aposento de Dios, y de los Santos, y alli tienen compuestas sus Imagenes; y quanto pueden ahorrar de su trabajo, y sudor, lo gastan (Obras X: 454) en estas santas, y utiles alhajas, y aquel aposento está reservado para orar en él, y retirarse, quando comulgan, con grandissima reverencia, y silencio. Un dia antes que comulguen, señaladamente las Indias, ayunan rigorosamente; y deseando, que á la pureza del alma corresponda la del cuerpo, se ponen ropa limpia, y se laban los pies, porque han de entrar descalzos en la Iglesia: y quando vuelven de estar en ella perfuman los Santos de su casa, en señal de reverencia; y aquel dia, ó se encierran á rezar delante de ellos, ó se están todo él en las Iglesias, ó visitan los Templos de la Ciudad, ó Lugar donde se hallan, y todo esto con tan grande humildad, y devocion, que nos dá que aprender á los Ministros de Dios. En las

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Supreme Pontiff and Your Majesty—concurring for the good, protection, and favor of such deserving Provinces and Christians, as those of America.

CHAPTER II. ON HOW THE INDIANS MERIT THE ROYAL PROTECTION OF YOUR MAJESTY FOR THE GREAT FERVOR WITH WHICH THEY PRACTICE THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. It is incumbent upon the above-mentioned powers to promote this Faith and to the Indians to maintain it through deeply-rooted belief and cultivate it through bearing excellent fruits of devotion and charity.18 If this does not occur, it is because in some part, for lack of doctrinal teaching and Ministers, there is some superstition. It is certain that in all the other parts of this New World, Sire, the demonstrations the Indians make as very fervent Christians, are incredible, as can be seen in the following things which I myself have seen and touched with my hands. First, in public processions they are most penitent and castigate their sins with incredible fervor. This is done with a simplicity so utterly lacking in vanity. In order not to display anything which could result in ostentation or inappropriate esteem, they go barefoot and fully dressed while scourging themselves harshly, with unbearable hair shirts over their entire bodies and faces and while looking at an image held in their hands of Christ our Lord crucified.19 Perhaps for greater humiliation, they bare their faces with a natural simplicity and truthfulness that in those who see and ponder them causes great devotion and even shame. The others go in public processions, all men and women carrying images in their hands of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified, bowing their heads and looking at the ground or the Image with great and singular humility and devotion. 2. There is no home, no matter how poor it may be, which does not have its Chapel, which they call Santo Cali, a place where they pray to God and the Saints.20 There they have arranged their Images. All that they can save from their work and toil, they spend (Obras X: 454) on these holy and useful treasures.21 This room is reserved for prayer and quiet contemplation when they receive communion, which they do with the greatest reverence and silence.22 A day before they take Communion they fast strictly, especially the women. Desiring that the purity of the soul correspond to that of the body, they put on clean clothes and wash their feet as they are to enter the Church barefoot. When they return home from the Church, they perfume the Saints in their houses as a sign of reverence. That day either they seclude themselves in their houses and pray in front of the Saints, or they spend the entire day in the Churches, or they visit the Sanctuaries of the City or Village where they find themselves. All this is done with such great humility and devotion that it gives us Ministers of God cause to wonder.23 In their

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ofrendas á la Iglesias son muy largos; porque nunca ellos reparan enmedio de sus trabajos de sembrar para sus Templos, y quanto grangean es para ellos, y alli ponen su tesoro, donde está su corazon. Finalmente en habiendo pagado su tributo, todo lo demás lo emplean liberalmente en el divino Culto, y en sus Cofradías, Imagenes de Santos, Pendones, Misas, cera, y quanto promueve el servicio de nuestro Señor, sin que por ellos se haga, comunmente hablando, resistencia á esto; particularmente quando vén que sus Ministros tratan solo de aumentar las cosas Divinas en su Doctrina, y no de grangear utilidades con ella. Y en el sustento de los Ministros de la Iglesia, Religiones, y sus Ofrendas, son assimismo muy liberales, porque ellos son, Señor, fuera de lo que vuestra Magestad dá de sus cajas, los que en toda la Nueva España sustentan los Sacerdotes, y Religiones: ellos dan racion á los Maestros de la Fé, que de entrambas profesiones los doctrinan: ellos les hacen frequentes ofrendas: ellos les ofrecen los derechos de las Missas: ellos son los que fabrican las Iglesias, y esto lo hacen en quanto ellos alcanzan, y pueden con mucha alegria, suavidad, y liberalidad: y digo en quanto ellos alcanzan, porque tal vez se les pide lo que no pueden, y entonces no hay que admirar porque no pueden, no quieran, ó lo hagan con disgusto, y pesadumbre. 3. La humildad, y respeto, Señor con que tratan á sus Ministros, y Prelados, creciendo este en el afecto, y demonstraciones, quanto ellos crecen en la Dignidad, es admirable, besandoles las manos con grande reverencia, estando arrodillados, ó en pie en su presencia aguardando sus ordenes, allanandoles los (Obras X: 455) caminos, quando ván á sus visitas, previniondoles comida, jacales, y enramadas para su descanso, y procurando agradarles en todo con una solicitud, y ansia atentissima. La devocion, y puntualidad en el rezar, y decir la doctrina en voz alta, es notable, y al irse á cantar á la Misa, y a la division con que están en las Iglesias, apartados los hombres de las mugeres, asistiendo con admirable reverencia en los Templos, los ojos bajos, el silencio profundissimo, las humiliaciones, genuflexiones concertadas, las postraciones tan uniformes, y la orden tan grande, que dudo mucho que haya Religion tan perfecta, y observante, que este exterior culto con mayor humildad le egercite, y ofrezca. 4. La piedad en el Culto Divino, en que se explica la viva Fé, que en los Indios vasallos de vuestra Magestad está ardiendo, es grandissima. Y pocos meses antes que me partiesse de aquellas Provincias, vino de mas de quarenta leguas, y por asperissimos caminos un Cacique, llamado Don Luis de Santiago, Gobernador de Quautotola, Doctrina de Xuxupango, á quien yo conocia desde quando fuí á visitar aquella Provincia, el qual era hombre de ochenta años de edad, y que parece imposible que tuviesse fuerzas para tan largo viage; persona sumamente venerable, y que habia sido el padre, y amparo de aquella tierra, y temblandole yá todo el cuerpo, y las manos de vegéz, me dijo: Padre, bien sabes que

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offerings to the Church, they are very generous as they never pause in the midst of their labors of sowing for their Sanctuaries. All that they reap is for these Sanctuaries, where their hearts lie, and there they put their treasure.24 Finally, after having paid their tribute, all that is remaining they apply liberally to Divine Worship and to their Confraternities, Images of Saints, Banners, Masses, wax and whatever else promotes the service of our Lord. This they do without, generally speaking, any resistance, particularly when they see that their Ministers try only to augment the Divine within their Parishes and not to win profits through them. And in the sustenance of the Ministers of the Church and the Orders and their Offerings, they are equally very generous as they, outside of what your Majesty gives from his coffers, are those who in all of New Spain sustain the Priests and Orders: they give a prebend to the Teachers of the Faith, who, in both professions, instruct them; they give them frequent offerings; they offer them dues for Masses; they are the ones who build the Churches and this they do as much as they can manage and they are able to do so with much happiness, ease, and generosity. I say as much as they can manage because sometimes they are asked to do things they cannot.25 Then one must not be surprised because what they cannot do they do not wish to do or they do with displeasure and grief. 3. The humility and respect, Sire, with which they treat their Ministers and Prelates, is admirable and becomes all the more affectionate and demonstrative as their Dignity increases.26 They kiss their Ministers’ and Prelates’ hands with great reverence, kneel or stand in their presence awaiting their orders, pave (Obras X: 455) the way when these priests go on visits, prepare them food, huts, and arbors so they may rest, and endeavor to please them in all with a most attentive diligence and eagerness. Their devotion and punctuality in prayer, in saying the doctrine aloud, and in going to sing at Mass27 are remarkable. They divide themselves in the Churches, separating men from women, and attend the Sanctuaries with wondrous reverence, heads bowed, a most profound silence, humiliations, genuflections in concert, prostrations so uniform and the order so great that I doubt very much that there is a Religious Order as perfect and observant which practices and offers this public worship with greater humility.28 4. Their piety in Divine Worship, through which is demonstrated the living Faith, ardent in the Indian vassals of your Majesty, is enormous. And a few months before I left these Provinces, a Cacique named Don Luis de Santiago, Governor of Quautotola, Parish of Xuxupango,29 whom I had known since the time I went to visit that Province, came from a distance of more than forty leagues and by way of a most harsh road. This man was eighty years of age, and it seems impossible that he would have the strength for such a long journey.30 He was an exceedingly venerable person who had been the father and protector of that land. His hands and even his whole body trembling from old age, he said to me: Father, you know well that

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quanto he tenido lo he gastado en la Iglesia de mi lugar (y era assi todo lo que decia) y en la defensa de aquellos pobres Indios, para que los contassen, y no les llevassen mas tributos de los que debian. Ahora viendo que me he de morir muy presto, hallandome con ciento y cinquenta pesos, queria antes gastarlos en hacer un ornamento para mi Iglesia del color que te pareciere: ruegote que hagas que assi se egecute, y que me dés la bendicion para volverme á mi tierra á morir: y alabandole yo su piedad, dí orden que luego se egecutasse quanto ordenaba, y conseguido esto, volvió muy contento á morir à su casa, con haber hecho á Dios este servicio. De este genero de afectos pios de estos pobrecitos podia referir otros á vuestra Magestad que confirmen su Real, generosissimo, y piissimo ánimo para su mas seguro amparo, y proteccion.

(OBRAS X: 456) CAPITULO III. DE LO QUE MERECEN EL AMPARO REAL DE V. M. LOS INDIOS, POR LA SUAVIDAD CON QUE HAN ENTRADO EN SU REAL CORONA, Y SU FIDELIDAD CONSTANTISSIMA. Assi como estos fidelissimos vasallos de V. M. son dignos de su Real ampáro, por la facilidad, y constancia con que recibieron, y conservan la Fé, y el afecto, y devocion con que la egercitan, con excelentes actos de piedad; no lo merecen poco por la grande facilidad, y prontitud con que se sujetaron al Real dominio de V. M. y entraron á serle subditos y vasallos, en que han excedido á quantas Naciones se han sujetado á otro Principe en el mundo. 2. Porque como quiera que en sus principios no entraron en la Corona Real por herencia, ú otro de los comunes derechos, sino por eleccion de ellos mismos, que voluntariamente se sujetaron al Señor Emperador Carlos V. y por la aplicacion de la Apostolica Sede á la Corona de V. M. por santissimos motivos, y una justa conquista, y juridica accion, para introducir estas almas en la Iglesia, y apartarlos de muchas Idolatrías, y sacrificios humanos, y otras barbaridades que les enseñaba el Demonio á quien servian; y como quien para sacarlos de aquella durissima esclavitud, los trahía al suave dominio de V. M. y de hijos de ira, y de indignacion, por este medio los reducian sus Catolicas Armas á la libertad de hijos de la Iglesia, y á gozar del honor de ser vasallos de su Catolica, y Religiosissima Corona, y de una excelsissima, y devotissima Casa, como la de Austria; claro està que es muy loable, y ponderable, y que pone en grande obligacion á V. M. el haber hallado á estos naturales tan faciles, y dociles á este bien, y tan suaves á inclinar la cabeza al yugo de la Real Dignidad, y Jurisdicion.

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whatever I have had I have spent on the Church of my Village (and it was so all that he said) and in the defense of those poor Indians, so that they would be considered and so that they would not bring more tribute than that which they owe. Now seeing that I am to die very soon and finding myself with one hundred and fifty pesos, I wanted to spend this money before I die on an ornament for my Church of the color which you think best: I pray you that you see that this is done and that you give me your blessing so I may return to my land to die. And praising his piety, I gave the order that what he had requested would be done. Having attained this, he returned home very content to die there, having made this service to God. I am able to recount to your Majesty other demonstrations of this kind of pious love by these poor souls, that affirm the desire of your Royal, most generous, and pious heart for their most secure shelter and protection.

(OBRAS X: 456) CHAPTER III. ON HOW THE INDIANS MERIT THE ROYAL PROTECTION OF YOUR MAJESTY FOR THE EASE WITH WHICH THEY HAVE ENTERED INTO YOUR ROYAL CROWN AND FOR THEIR MOST CONSTANT FIDELITY. Just as these most loyal vassals of your Majesty are worthy of your Royal protection due to the ease and constancy with which they received and preserved the Faith and for the affection and devotion with which they practice it through superior acts of piety, so do they deserve that same protection in no small measure for the great facility and promptness with which they submitted to the Royal dominion of Your Majesty and entered into it becoming your subjects and vassals. In this they have surpassed so many Nations that have submitted to another Prince in the world. 2. In the beginning they did not enter the Royal Kingdom by inheritance or other communal laws, but of their own accord, as they voluntarily subjected themselves to Emperor Charles V.31 Through the application of the Apostolic See to the Crown of Your Majesty for the holiest motives and a just conquest and juridical action, the Indians were brought into Your Majesty’s merciful dominion to introduce their souls to the Church and to dispel the many Idolatries and human sacrifices and other barbarities which the Devil, whom they served, showed them, and to release them from this most oppressive slavery, and from being children of wrath and indignation. By this means, your Catholic Arms were employed toward the liberty of the children of the Church, and to allow them to rejoice in the honor of being vassals of your Catholic and most Religious Crown, and of a most sublime and devoted House as that of the Hapsburgs.32 Clearly it is very laudable and praiseworthy and obliges Your Majesty greatly that these natives were found to be so docile and easily subject to this benefit and so tranquil in bowing to the yoke of Royal Dignity and Jurisdiction.

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3. Porque assi como Hernando Cortés le dijo á Motezuma, Rey universal de la mayor parte de la Nueva-España, que le enviaba un gran Principe, y Emperador, llamado Carlos V (Obras X: 457) á aquellas partes, para que no idolatrassen en ellas, ni comiessen carne humana, y ni él, ni sus vasallos cometiessen otras fealdades, y vicios, y que le convenia ponerse debajo del ampáro de aquel Gran Rey, y servirle, y tributarle; se redujo este Grande y poderoso Principe á juntar Consejo, y convocar sus Sabios, y reconocer los libros de sus errores, y tradiciones antiguas, y hallando que les habian profetizado en ellas sus Idolos, que de donde nace el Sol, que es la Vera-Cruz, por donde vinieron de España los nuestros, les habian de venir unas Naciones á quien habian de servir; se dispusieron luego, Motezuma, y sus Reynos á ofrecer obediencia al invictissimo Emperador Carlos Quinto, y pagarle tributo, y juntaron tesoro para remitirsele; y despues que por diversas causas, mas los vasallos de Motezuma, que no él, quisieron apartarse de esta primera obediencia, yá segunda vez conquistados, y sujetos, no han intentado mas apartarse de la Corona de V.M. sino que le obedecen, y sirven con rendidissima obediencia, y lealtad. Circunstancia de singular merito, y que puede inclinar á su grandeza á honrar, favorecer, y amparar á estos naturales, y fidelissimos vasallos. 4. Reconozcanse, Señor, las historias, y coronicas de todos los Reynos, y Provincias de Europa, que no se hallará ninguna en la qual, por fidelissimos que sean sus moradores, no hayan padecido muchas enfermedades politicas, frequentes á los cuerpos públicos de las Naciones, despertandose, y levantandose guerras con sus Reyes, ó Gobernadores, unas veces sobre privilegios, otras sobre tributos, otras sobre derechos, ó inteligencias de Principes confinantes, y poderosos: humores que revuelven los de los Reynos, los quales sobre la sangre que costaron al conquistarlos, le hacen á la Corona derramar mucha al gobernarlos, y conservarlos. 5. Y esta nobilissima parte del mundo, sobre haber costado á la de V.M. y á España poquissima sangre, respecto de su grandeza al sujetarse; no ha costado, ni gastado copia considerable al conservarse, y mucho mas la de la Nueva-España, que entre todas las de este Nuevo Mundo ha sido pacifica, y leal.

(OBRAS X: 458) CAPITULO IV. DEL VALOR, Y ESFUERZO DE LOS INDIOS, Y QUE SU LEALTAD, Y RENDIMIENTO À LA CORONA DE V. M. NO PRECEDE DE BAJEZA DE ANIMO, SI NO DE VIRTUD. Y porque es muy ordinario, Señor, á las excelentes virtudes, deslucirlas con el nombre de los vicios, é imperfecciones mas vecinas, y llamar á la Paciencia cobardia; y al Valor,

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3. Because as soon as Hernán Cortés said to Moctezuma, universal King of the principal part of New Spain, that he had sent him a great Prince and Emperor, named Charles V, (Obras X: 457) so that the people of these parts would no longer idolize or cannibalize, and so that neither he nor his vassals would commit other horrors or vices and that it was in his best interest to put himself under the protection of that Great King and serve and give him tribute, this Great and powerful Prince resolved to congregate his Council and convoke a meeting of his Sages and reconcile their record books and ancient traditions with their errors.33 Finding that their Idols had prophesied in these ancient traditions that from the place where the sun rises, which is Veracruz, from whence our men arrived from Spain, would come a Nation that they must serve, Moctezuma and his Kingdoms prepared themselves to offer their obedience and pay tribute to the most unvanquished Emperor Charles V, and they gathered treasure to submit to him.34 And afterwards, for various reasons, the subjects of Moctezuma more than he himself wanted to withdraw from this first act of obedience. After being conquered and subjected a second time, they have not tried again to withdraw from the Crown of Your Majesty but instead obey and serve him with the most yielding obedience and loyalty. This is a circumstance of singular merit and one that may incline your greatness to honor, favor, and protect these natives and most faithful subjects. 4. Let us acknowledge, Sire, that in the histories and chronicles of all the Kingdoms and Provinces of Europe, one will not find a single province, regardless of the great loyalty of its inhabitants, that has not suffered many political infirmities.35 These frequent the public bodies of Nations, stir them, and bring on wars with their Kings or Governors, sometimes over privileges, other times over tributes, and others over the rights or machinations of neighboring and powerful Princes. These humors, that agitate the inhabitants of the Kingdoms, cause the Crown to spill much blood in order to govern and maintain them, over and above that spent to conquer them.36 5. And this most noble part of the world, regarding its having cost your Majesty and Spain very little blood in its subjugation with respect to its greatness, has neither cost nor spent a fraction of its maintenance. This is especially true of New Spain, which among all the parts of the New World has been peaceful and loyal.

(OBRAS X: 458) CHAPTER IV. ON THE VALOR AND STRENGTH OF THE INDIANS AND HOW THEIR LOYALTY AND SUBMISSION TO THE CROWN OF YOUR MAJESTY DOES NOT PROCEED FROM THEIR BEING DISPIRITED BUT FROM THEIR VIRTUE. It is very common, Sire, to tarnish excellent virtues with the name of vices and most similar imperfections and to call Patience cowardice, and Valor

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crueldad; y á la libiandad, galantería; y al Zelo santo inquietud, y ambicion: y á esta docilidad de los Indios, la suelen llamar credulidad, y facilidad, por dejarse sujetar á la Real Jurisdicion, y Corona de V. M., y aún la llaman vileza, y bajeza de animo, y poco entendimiento, y discrecion; Debe advertirse, que en esto no obraron estas Naciones solo por temor, ni son, ni han sido tan pusilanimes, ni desentendidos, como han pretendido publicarlo por el mundo. 2. Porque de la manera que estando Fernando Cortès, no solo con trescientos soldados, y diez y siete caballos, como á los principios estuvo quando entró en la Nueva-España; sino con mil y trescientos soldados, y doscientos caballos que se le agregaron, con los que trajo Pánfilo de Narvaéz, no solo le echaron de Megico los de aquella Ciudad, y sus circunvecinos, que respecto de lo restante de la Nueva España eran muy pocos; sino que le mataron ochocientos hombres, y á él, y á todos los demás los hirieron, y obligaron á volver rotos, y deshechos á Tlaxcala. Es certissimo, que si á los principios no los recibieran como á huespedes, y a hombres admirables, y como á Dioses, ó Teules, venidos de Provincias no conocidas; y llenos de admiracion, y espanto de ver hombres con barbas, y á caballo, en animales que nunca habian visto; y á los caballos, y perros tan feroces, que los veían como racionales acometer con orden unos, y otros mirando tan bien unidos, y trabados los hombres con los caballos, que creían que eran de una pieza, y medio hombres, y medio fieras, viendolos embestir con tanta ferocidad; (Obras X: 459) y reparando assimismo en lo que sus Dioses les tenian dicho, de que habian de venir á mandarlos Naciones hijas del Sol, por donde él nace; espantados juntamente de las escopetas, ó mosquetes, que resonando tanto, y viendo que con ellas mataban las gentes, sin ver con qué los mataban, por ignorar aquel secreto, y oculta fuerza, que arrojaba tan lejos aquellos pedazos de plomo, con que ellos pensaban que aquellos Estrangeros eran Dioses, ó Teules, que fulminaban rayos, y mataban quando querian, y como querian. 3. Si á los principios, pues, Señor, y luego que entraron los Españoles, no les ocupára la admiracion, y curiosidad á los Indios, sino que todos se juntáran contra los nuestros, ó tuvieran iguales armas, ó caballos, ó se hubieran unido, y conformado, y no andubieran divididos, y en guerras sangrientas entre sí los Tlaxcaltecas, de quien se valió Hernando Cortés, con los Megicanos, y los Totonacos, con otras Naciones; no puede negarse que el valor de los naturales fuera grandissimo, y su resistencia hiciera en este caso muy peligrosa, y dificultosa su conquista. 4. Porque sin embargo de ser la ventaja de las armas de los nuestros tan grande, que los Indios peleaban con palos, y piedras, y los otros con espadas,

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cruelty, and gallantry lasciviousness, and holy Zeal disquiet and ambition.37 This docility of the Indians is customarily called credulity and easiness due to their allowing themselves to become subject to the Royal Jurisdiction and the Crown of Your Majesty. It is even called vileness, dispiritedness, and lack of mind or discretion. It must be observed that these Nations do not work only out of dread, nor are they nor have they been as pusillanimous or ignorant as some have endeavored to proclaim across the globe.38 2. Although in the beginning Fernando Cortés entered New Spain with only three hundred soldiers and seventeen horses, later he was joined by one thousand three hundred soldiers and two hundred horses brought by Pánfilo de Narvaéz. Despite this, the inhabitants of Mexico and its surroundings, who numbered very few with respect to all the rest of the Indians of New Spain, not only expelled him from that city but also killed eight hundred men.39 They obliged him and all the others who were wounded to return broken and undone to Tlaxcala. It is most certain, that in the beginning things might have been different had the Indians not received the Spaniards as guests and admirable men and as Gods,40 or Teules, coming from unknown Provinces; and had they not been full of wonder and fright at seeing men with beards and mounted on horses, animals which they had never seen before; and had they not seen horses and dogs so ferocious that they appeared to them as rational beings, attacking in such an orderly, unified fashion. And seeing the men strapped on their horses, they believed that they were of a piece—half men and half beasts attacking with such ferocity.41 (Obras X: 459) And they also reflected upon what they believed their Gods had told them—that Nations, daughters of the Sun, coming from whence the Sun rises, would be sent to rule them. They were frightened both by the strangers’ shotguns or muskets, which resounded so, and by seeing that with these objects they killed people, without seeing how it was that they killed them. Being ignorant of that secret and occult force that hurled pieces of lead so far, they thought that those Strangers were Gods, or Teules, that cast about thunderbolts and killed whenever and however they wished. 3. If, in the beginning, then, Sire, and after the Spaniards entered, they had not engaged the admiration and curiosity of the Indians, but instead all the Indians had coalesced against our men or had had equal arms or horses, or had been unified and in agreement and not divided,42 and had the Tlaxcaltecans, of whom Hernán Cortés availed himself, not been in the midst of bloody wars against the Mexicans and the Totonacans against other Nations, their resistance in this case would have made the conquest very dangerous and most difficult, as it cannot be denied that the valor of these natives was enormous.43 4. Because without a doubt the advantage of our arms was ever so great. The Indians fought with sticks and stones and the Spaniards with swords

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y arcabuces; y los unos á pie, y algunos de los otros á caballo; embestian los Indios con grandissimo valor, y se juntaban, y conjuraban quatro, y seis Indios desarmados à coger un caballo, y detenerle en su carrera, estando armado el soldado sobre él, y le solian derrivar, y llevarsele: y huvo Indio que de una cuchillada con una espada de madera le derribó del todo la cabeza á un caballo, y otro que habiendole atravesado con una lanza el cuerpo, fue caminando por ella misma clavado hasta llegar al soldado que la tenia empuñada, y herido, y muriendo se la quitó de las manos: y en Megico se defendieron tres meses, yá muy desamparados de los suyos, con grandissimo valor, y haciendo sus asechanzas, y emboscados, y engañando en ellas á soldados tan experimentados, y valerosos, como Hernando Cortés, y los suyos, y padecieron increíble hambre, y trabajos con grandissima fortaleza de animo: y el ultimo Rey llamado Guatemuz con ser de edad de veinte y quatro años, despues de haber defendido la Ciudad con increíble constancia, y fortaleza, quando vió que yá (Obras X: 460) no tenia gente, luego que retirandose le cogieron, y llevaron á Hernando Cortés, y perdída del todo su Corona, tendido delante de él se veía cautivo, le dijo: Toma este puñal (sacandole de su lado) y matame: como quien dice, que sin Imperio, y libertad, yá le sobrava la vida. 5. De suerte, que no hay que minorar el valor de los Conquistadores de Nueva-España, pues tan pocos con tan grande peligro, y constancia sujetaron estas Naciones á la Corona de V. M. ni el de los Conquistados, y naturales Indios de aquellas Provincias, que admirados de ver gente tan nueva, y nunca imaginada, como aquella, obraban espantados, y asombrados, divididos entre sí, y discordes, y como secretamente conducidos, y guiados interiormente á entrar en la Iglesia por la Fé, y en la Corona de V. M. para su bien. Porque á la verdad era para ellos ver hombres á caballo, y animales que embestian á los hombres, y tan asidos y travados con los mismos hombres, que creían que eran de una pieza, el caballo, y Caballero, lo mismo, que si á Europa viniessen Naciones estrañas y nunca vistas, ni imaginadas, que peleassen desde el ayre, y esquadrones volantes de pájaros ferocissimos, contra quien no valiessen nuestras armas, y arcabuces, que claro está que creeriamos los Européos, que aquellos eran Demonios, como creyeron los Indios que los Españoles eran Teules. Ni tampoco debe causar admiracion, ni tener por menos á los Indios; porque una cosa tan impensada les admirasse, pues esto es comun á nuestra naturaleza, y se halla en muchas Historias, no solo en Naciones tan remotas de la comun policia, como estas de America, tan tarde descubiertas, y enseñadas; sino en otras muy politicas, las quales antes de estar cultivadas, y entendidas de las cosas, y los casos, é ilustradas con la Fé, han creído facilmente cosas ligerissimas, y vanissimas.

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and harquebuses; the former fought on foot and a few of the latter on horseback. The Indians attacked with great courage. Four or six unarmed Indians would band together and conspire to catch and halt a horse, bearing an armed soldier, in its course. They generally dismounted the soldier and carried him off. And there were instances of an Indian who with one slash of a wooden sword decapitated a horse. Another, his body having been pierced by a lance, went walking directly toward that same spear until he reached the soldier grasping it. Wounded and dying, he took it out of his hands. Mexico, by then very much forsaken by its own, defended itself for three months with the greatest valor, making traps and ambushes, which deceived soldiers as experienced and valiant as Hernán Cortés and his men, and suffered incredible hunger and hardships with great fortitude of spirit. The ultimate King, Guatemuz, at twenty-four years of age, after having defended the city with incredible constancy and strength, withdrew when he saw that (Obras X: 460) he no longer had men.44 They caught him and took him to Hernán Cortés. His Crown entirely lost and brought before Cortés, he found himself captive. He said to Cortés: Take this dagger (taking it out of his side) and kill me, as if to say that without Sovereignty and liberty, he no longer wished to live. 5. And so, one must not diminish the valor of the Conquistadors of New Spain, who with so few men facing such great danger, with perseverance subjected these Nations to the Crown of Your Majesty. Nor must one minimize the valor of the Conquered and native Indians of those Provinces, who, wondrous upon seeing people so new and unimaginable as the former, became terrified and astonished, divided amongst themselves and disagreeing, as if secretly driven and internally guided to enter into the Church through Faith and into the Crown of Your Majesty for their good. Because, in truth, for them to see men on horseback and their own men being charged by animals that were so tied and joined to their riders that they believed that they were of a piece, the horse and the horseman one and the same, was as if to Europe were to come strange Nations, never before seen nor imagined, that fought from the air, and flying squadrons of most ferocious birds against which our arms or harquebuses were useless. Clearly, we Europeans would believe that these were Demons, just as the Indians believed that the Spaniards were Teules.45 Neither should this cause surprise nor reduce esteem for the Indians as a thing so unthinkable, naturally, would astound them. This is common to our nature and can be found in many Histories, not only in Nations so removed from common civility46 as these of America, discovered and indoctrinated so late, but also in other very politic ones which before being cultivated, able to understand things and events, and enlightened by Faith, easily believed the most superficial and vain things.

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6. Los Españoles, Señor, que son tan despiertos, y entendidos, y Nacion tan belicosa, y valerosa, que con ella conquistó Anibal á Italia, y sin ella ápenas se ha obrado cosa grande en Europa, pues Julio Cesar, y Teodosio, que fueron los mas excelentes Emperadores, el uno de los Romanos, y el otro de los Griegos, se sirvieron siempre de ella; y la primera, á la qual comenzó á conquistar el Imperio Romano, y la ultima que acabó de conquistar fue España. Con todo esso viniendose (Obras X: 461) huyendo Quinto Sertorio de Roma, un hombre fugitivo, como este, desde una cueva adonde estaba escondido, haciendo creer á los Pueblos desatinos, como que le hablaba una cierba al oído (á quien él habia enseñado á que comiesse en sus orejas, poniendole en ellas el alimento) salió de alli, y nos engañó, y sujetó, y se hizo Capitan General, y Superior á esta Nacion, y con ella hizo bien peligrosa guerra á todo el Imperio Romano: (a) que si ahora viniera quando yá nuestra Nacion está del todo politica, es cierto que el primer Alcalde de Aldéa con quien topára en Castilla, y á quien quisiera persuadir esta maraña, le castigára por engañador, y se acabára Sertorio. 7. Y assi no es desdichado egemplar el de los Arabes, y Asiaticos, y Européos, engañados con los embustes de Mahomet, que con ficciones sujetó, é infamó á aquellas Naciones acostumbradas á mayor policia, inteligencia, y perspicacia, que no los Indios, á los quales cosas tan extrahordinarias, como las que veían, y luego otras proporcionadas á la razon, y prudencia, y policia, como las que les decian del Señor Emperador, y de los Christianos, y de su santa Ley, y de sus Catolicas verdades, y la secreta fuerza que Dios en todo ponia, para que aquellas dilatadas Naciones se salvassen; pudo sin nota de credulidad, ni bajeza de animo traherlos á la verdadera Fé, y dominio de la Catolica Corona de V. M., lo qual ellos mismos escogieron, votaron, y recibieron: servicio, y merito, digno de los favores, y honras de V. M. por las razones siguientes. 8. La primera: porque entraron en su dominio con poquissima, ó ninguna costa de plata, y tesoros de la Corona de V. M. por lo que toca á la Nueva-España, cosa que no ha sucedido en otras Naciones conquistadas, ni aun heredadas. La segunda: porque sobre no haber costado plata, gastaron poquissima sangre de sus vasallos, respecto del numero grande de Naciones de Indios que se sujetaron á la Real Corona tan presto, y con tan pocos Conquistadores. La tercera: porque desde que entraron en ella no se ha visto sedicion, ni rebelion, ni aun desobediencia considerable de Indios en mas de ciento y treinta años; y

(a) Mariana, tom. I. Hist. de España cap. 12. pag. 95. Plutarc. in Sertor. Pag. 196. litt. B. & seq.

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6. The Spaniards, Sire, are so sharp and experienced, and Spain a Nation so bellicose and valorous that, with it, Hannibal conquered Italy and without it, scarcely a great thing has been completed in Europe. Julius Caesar and Theodosius, who were the most excellent Emperors, one of the Romans and the other of the Greeks, always made use of her. The first Nation with which the conquest of the Roman Empire began and the last to be completely conquered was Spain. In spite of all this, (Obras X: 461) Quintus Sertorius of Rome, a fugitive man who came to Spain fleeing from a cave where he was hiding, made the people believe absurdities such as that of a doe (which he had taught to eat from his ears by putting food in them) speaking into his ear. He came out of the cave and deceived and subjected us. He made himself Captain General and Leader of this Nation and with it waged a very dangerous war with the entire Roman Empire.(a)47 If he were to come now when our Nation is entirely politic, it is certain that the first Village Magistrate whom he came upon in Castile and whom he wished to persuade of his plot, would punish him as a deceiver and that would be the end of Sertorius. 7. Thus, it is not unsuitable to use the example of the Arabs, Asians, and Europeans, deceived by the tricks of Mohammed, who with fictions subjected and defamed those nations accustomed to greater civility, intelligence, and perspicacity. This was not so for the Indians. Through the wholly extraordinary things they witnessed and others later apportioned by reason, and prudence, and civility, like those things told to them about the Holy Roman Emperor and the Christians, their holy Law, their Catholic truths, and the secret force that God puts in all, these vast nations were able to save themselves. It was possible, without a note of credulity nor dispiritedness, to bring them to the true Faith and dominion of the Catholic Crown of Your Majesty, which they themselves chose, vowed to, and received. This is a service and merit worthy of the favors and honors of Your Majesty for the following reasons: 8. First, because, for that which pertains to New Spain, they entered into your dominion with so little or no cost in silver or treasures to Your Majesty’s Crown, something which has not happened in other conquered or even inherited Nations. Second, because of their little or no cost in silver, very little blood of your vassals was spent, with respect to the great number of Nations of Indians who submitted to the Royal Crown so quickly and with so few Conquerors. Third, because since they entered into her, neither sedition nor rebellion, nor even considerable disobedience of Indians have been seen in more than one hundred and thirty years and

(a) Mariana, tom. 1 Hist. de España, cap. 12, pag. 95. Plutarc. in Sertor. pag. 196. litt. B. & seq.

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lo que es mas, rarissimas resistencias á la Justicia, ni à Ministros, y esto, ni aun afligidos tal vez, y acosados de ellos. La quarta: (Obras X: 462) porque en demostracion de esta verdad, sucede quedarse, y habitar un Alcalde Mayor con dos Españoles en una Provincia de veinte mil Indios, y un Beneficiado, ó Religioso solos entre diez y doce mil Indios muchos dias, y noches, y esto sin armas, y descuidados, y mandandoles diversas cosas, y algunas duras, y trabajosas, y obedecen solo por el nombre Real de V. M. en virtud del qual los gobiernan con la misma facilidad, sujecion, y suavidad, á dos mil leguas de V. M. que pudiera un Indio á diez mil Españoles. La quinta: porque el amor que tienen, no solo al servicio de V. M. sino á su Real persona, es grandissimo, y esto lo he experimentado diversas veces; y poco antes que saliesse de mi Iglesia para esta Corte, habiendo llegado nuevas de que en algunos Reynos habia vasallos rebeldes á la Corona de V. M. me escribió un Indio Cacique llamado Don Domingo de la Cruz, vecino de Zacatlan una carta de grande pena, significando el cuidado con que estaba, por haberle dicho que habia quien huviesse perdido el respeto á V. M. y yo le respondí, assegurandole, que se iban castigando los malos, y que todos estaban yá á los Reales pies de V. M. pidiendo que los perdonasse. Y quien conoce la cortedad de los Indios, y el respeto que tienen á un Prelado, conocerá quan grande es el amor que á V. M. tienen, pues rompe por el embarazo, y encogimiento con que ellos suelen obrar. 9. Lo qual, Señor, todo está diciendo quan mansas ovejas son á la Fé, y quan suaves, y finos vasallos á la Corona, y quan dignos estos Indios del ampáro Real que siempre han hallado en la piedad de V. M. y de los serenissimos Reyes, Señores nuestros, y suyos, y en el de su Real Consejo, y Ministros Superiores.

(OBRAS X: 463) CAPITULO V. QUAN DIGNOS SON LOS INDIOS DE LA PROTECCION REAL, POR LAS UTILIDADES QUE HAN CAUSADO À LA CORONA DE ESPAÑA. Assi como los Indios son vasallos que menos han costado á la Corona; no son los que menos la han enriquecido, y aumentado. Porque no puede dudarse, que muchos de los demás Reynos de V. M. y de otras Coronas que hay en el mundo, aunque se consideren juntas, no igualan, ni llegan á la menor parte de los tesoros que en tan breve tiempo ha fructificado la Nueva-España, en las minas del Potosí, Zacatecas, el Parral Pachuca, Guanaxuato, y otras, y en los tributos, alcavalas, tercios de oficios, y diversos generos de rentas, y esto sin hacer consideracion de lo que mira al Pirú.

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what is more, acts of resistance to either Justice or Ministers have been most rare, and this, not even from the afflicted, perhaps, and harassed among them. Fourth, (Obras X: 462) because in demonstration of this truth, it occurs that a District Magistrate48 stays and resides with two Spaniards in a province of twenty thousand Indians, and a Beneficiary or Religious is alone among ten and twelve thousand Indians for many days and nights, and this without arms or concern for their safety and while giving orders for diverse things, some difficult and laborious. They obey in the Royal name alone of Your Majesty, by virtue of which they are governed, two thousand leagues from Your Majesty, with the same facility, subjection, and ease as if there were only one Indian to ten thousand Spaniards.49 Fifth, because the great love they have, not only for the service of Your Majesty, but also for his Royal person is enormous and this I have experienced various times. Shortly before I left my Church for this Court, news having arrived that in some Kingdoms there had been subjects rebellious against the Crown of Your Majesty, an Indian Cacique, named Don Domingo de la Cruz, resident of Zacatlán,50 wrote me a letter of great sorrow, signifying the concern he felt that there were some who had lost respect for Your Majesty. I responded to him assuring him that they were punishing the offenders and that all were now at the Royal feet of Your Majesty, pleading that he forgive them. And he who knows the timidity of the Indians and the respect that they have for a Prelate, will know how great is the love they have for Your Majesty, that he would cast off the embarrassment and awkwardness with which they customarily comport themselves. 9. All this, Sire, is to say how many meek sheep of the Faith there are among these Indians, and how many gentle and fine subjects of the Crown, and how worthy they are of the Royal protection which they have always found in the mercy of Your Majesty and the most serene Kings, our Lords and theirs, and in your Royal Council and Superior Ministers.

(OBRAS X: 463) CHAPTER V. ON HOW WORTHY THE INDIANS ARE OF ROYAL PROTECTION FOR THE PROFITS THEY HAVE PRODUCED FOR THE CROWN OF SPAIN. Though the Indians are vassals who have least cost the Crown, they are not the ones who have least enriched and augmented it. It cannot be doubted that many of the other Kingdoms of Your Majesty and other Crowns in the world, even if put together, are not equal in nor do they approximate the production of treasures which in such a brief time New Spain has yielded through the mines of Potosí, Zacatecas, Parral Pachuca, Guanajuato, and others and through the tributes, sales tax, thirds, and diverse types of rents to the Crown.51 This is without considering that which pertains to Peru.

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2. Y aunque este excelente merito, y servicio á la Corona de V. M. quieren algunos extenuarlo, con decir, que por las Indias se ha despoblado España, y se ha llenado de cosas superfluas; se puede responder facilmente, que no cuesta mucho á un Reyno otro, quando le pide alguna gente, y recibe hijos terceros, ó quartos para formar Colonias, y sujetarse á ellos, y dejarse por ellos gobernar; enriqueciendo de paso sus vecinos, y haciendo al Reyno poblador poderoso, tantos, y tan frequentes envios como se remiten á España, no solo de las rentas de V. M. sino de sus vasallos Españoles de las Indias, á otros deudos, amigos, y confidentes que dejaron en su Patria. 3. Antes es muy loable, y de gran merito, que quando muchos Reynos, como los Países Bajos, y otros de esta calidad, no han tributado renta considerable á la Corona, y ella les ha tributado gente, riquezas, y sangre, y costado tantas guerras; hayan los de las Indias, sin costarle sangre, ni plata, ni oro, ofrecido quanto la tierra ocultaba dentro de sus entrañas, y veneros. Y es muy cierto, que si España no tuviera para consumir estos tesoros tantas guerras en Europa, estuviera abundando en riquezas; las quales, aunque son la perdicion de las costumbres, (Obras X: 464) y aun de los Reynos, si de ellas se abusare; pero siempre que con moderacion, y prudencia se usare de ellas, son el nervio de la guerra, la seguridad de la paz, y el respeto, y reputacion de los Reynos, y Coronas; pues con las riquezas se mantiene en autoridad la Dignidad Real, se pagan los soldados, se fomenta el comercio, se ocupan los vasallos, se conservan los presidios, se defiende la Iglesia, y á nadie condenan las riquezas, sino el abuso, y mal empleo de ellas, porque no son mas que un indiferente instrumento de nuestra salvacion, ó perdicion: de nuestra perdicion, si las gastamos en vicios; y de nuestra salvacion, si las damos honesto, santo, y christiano empleo. 4. Y assi las Indias, sus Provincias, y Reynos, sobre merecer la merced que V. Magestad les hace por no haber costado mucho á la Corona, la merecen por haberla enriquecido con tan copiosos tesoros, quales nunca se vieron en el mundo, siendo suyo solo el darlos, y de los Ministros el lograrlos. Y es sin duda, que para las continuas guerras del Señor Emperador Carlos V. y Serenissimos Felipe Segundo, y Tercero, su Hijo, y Nieto, y las frequentes, y pesadas que V. M. ha tenido para defender la Iglesia, y la Fé, y su dignissima Corona, y Casa, han importado tanto los socorros de las Indias, quanto se puede facilmente reconocer de los que han venido desde el año de 1523. hasta ahora, y de los que han faltado, quando por algun accidente no han llegado, que ha causado dañosissimos efectos.

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2. And even this excellent merit and service to the Crown of Your Majesty some would like to diminish, by saying, that due to the Indies, Spain has been depopulated and filled with superfluous things. To this one can easily respond that one Kingdom does not cost another much when it asks for some residents and receives third or fourth children to form Colonies and when it submits to and leaves its governance to them. Its residents enrich themselves over time and render the settler Kingdom powerful. This can be seen in the many and frequent remittances submitted to Spain, not only as rent to Your Majesty but also from your Spanish subjects in the Indies to other kin, friends, and confidants they left behind in their Homeland. 3. Many Kingdoms, like the Low Countries, and others of this kind, have cost the Crown so many wars and not paid it considerable rent while it has granted them people, riches, and blood. It is very praiseworthy and of great merit, then, that the Indies, without costing the Crown blood or silver or gold, offered as much as the earth concealed within its bowels and veins. And it is very certain, that if Spain were not having to consume these treasures on so many wars in Europe, it would abound in riches, which, notwithstanding, are the ruin of customs and manners (Obras X: 464) and even of Kingdoms if abused. But if they are employed always with moderation and prudence, they are the sinew of war, the security of peace, and the respect and reputation of Kingdoms and Crowns. Riches maintain the authority of the Royal Dignity, pay soldiers, promote commerce, employ vassals, maintain the garrisons, and defend the Church. No one condemns riches, only the abuse and poor use of them, because they are no more than an indifferent instrument of our salvation or perdition: of our perdition, if we spend them on vices and of our salvation, if we put them to honest, holy, and Christian use.52 4. And so, the Indies, its Provinces, and Kingdoms, merit the favor of Your Majesty for not having cost the Crown much. They merit this grace for having enriched the Crown with such copious treasures, as never before seen in the world, which the Indies alone can offer and the Ministers are obliged to obtain. And it is without doubt, that in the continuous wars of Sire Emperor Charles V and the Most Serene Philip II and III, his Son and Grandson, and the frequent and wearisome wars that Your Majesty has had to defend the Church and the Faith and your most dignified Crown and House, the succor of the Indies has been so important. This can be easily recognized from those treasures that have come from the Indies from the year of 1523 until the present day and also from those that have gone missing when by some accident they have not arrived, which has caused most harmful effects.53

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(OBRAS X: 465) CAPITULO VI. DE LA INOCENCIA DE LOS INDIOS, Y QUE SE HALLAN COMUNMENTE ESENTOS DE LOS VICIOS DE SOBERBIA, AMBICION, CODICIA, AVARACIA, IRA, Y ENVIDIA, JUEGOS, BLASFEMIAS, JURAMENTOS, Y MURMURACIONES. La inocencia es una privacion de vicios, y pasiones consentidas, que en su raíz hace á los hombres admirables, y por sus efectos, y pureza de vivir, amables, y dignos de proteccion con los Reyes, y Superiores. Y suponiendo que los Indios son hombres, y sujetos á las comunes miserias, y pasiones de los hombres, es certissimo, que respecto de otros naturales, y costumbres, se pueden llamar inocentissimos; porque ninguno los habrá tratado con atencion, y mirado con afecto pio, y christiano, que no reconozca con evidencia moral, que están libres, en quanto cabe en la humana fragilidad, de quatro vicios muy capitales, y otros que en el mundo suelen ser vehementissimos, y los que mas guerras, y divisiones, y discordias, y pecados han causado. El primero es codicia, que no la conocen los Indios comunmente, y rarissimos se hallarán que amen al dinero, ni que busquen la plata, ni la tengan mas que para un moderado uso, y sustento, ni juntan unas casas á otras, ni unas heredades á otras; sino que con parsimonia moderadissima vive cada uno contento en su estado. 2. Lo segundo, están libres de la ambicion, que es tan natural en los hombres; porque son poquissimos los Indios que aspiren con vehemencia á los puestos de Gobernadores, y Alcaldes que les tocan, antes hacen con mucha paz las elecciones: y si hay algunos que las revuelven, son Mestizos, que yá salen de su nacion, y con esso de aquella sencillez, y natural humildad; ó concitados de los Doctrineros, ó Alcaldes mayores, que por conveniencias suyas, deseando que sea mas uno que otro Gobernador, los suelen poner en algunas diferencias, con que acuden á los Virreyes en las elecciones. Pero lo comun (si á ellos (Obras X: 466) los dejan) es elegir al mas merecedor del puesto, ó porque sabe leer, y escribir, ó por ser noble: y algunas veces por la presencia, eligiendo Indios de buen aspecto, y ostentacion; y solia yo decir, que en algunas partes donde los dejaban obrar su gusto, hacian los Gobernadores, y Alcaldes por la cintura, porque al mas grueso, y corpulento (por tener mejor aspecto, y presencia) hacian, y elegian para estos puestos. Con tanta sinceridad, y tan sin ambicion obran en las elecciones. 3. Lo tercero, no conocen soberbia, sino que son la misma humildad, y los mas presumidos de ellos en poniendosele delante el Español, y aun el Mulato, y el Mestizo, ó el Negro, como corderos mansissimos se humillan, ó se sujetan, y hacen lo que les mandan; y no hay Nacion en el mundo que assi

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(OBRAS X: 465) CHAPTER VI. ON THE INNOCENCE OF THE INDIANS AND HOW THEY ARE COMMONLY FREE OF THE VICES OF PRIDE, AMBITION, GREED, AVARICE, WRATH AND ENVY, GAMBLING, BLASPHEMY, CURSING, AND GOSSIP.54 Innocence is a privation of vices and ruinous passions, which at its root makes men admirable. Through its effects, they live purely and it renders them kind and worthy of protection by Kings and Superiors. And assuming that the Indians are men, and subject to the common miseries and passions of men, it is most certain that, with respect to other natives and customs, they can be considered most innocent. Because no one who has treated them with consideration and looked upon them with pious and Christian affection does not recognize the moral evidence that, as much as is possible given human fragility, they are free of four very capital vices and others that tend to be the most impetuous in the world and those that have caused the most wars, divisions, discord, and sins. The first is greed, which the Indians do not commonly know. Very rarely will be found those who love money or seek silver. Nor do they have more silver than is required for a moderate sustenance. Nor do they join one house to another, nor one estate to another, but live with most tempered parsimony, each one content with his condition. 2. Second, they are free of the ambition that is so natural in men. There are very few Indians who keenly aspire to the gubernatorial or mayoral posts which pertain to them and for which they conduct elections with much peace.55 And if there are some who stir up the elections, they are Mestizos, who have already left their nation and with it that simplicity and natural humility, or those agitated by the Parish Priests or District Magistrates,56 who for their own convenience and desiring that one be elected Governor more than another, are wont to incite disagreement over the elections, causing the Indians to turn to the Viceroys to settle the disputes. But the norm (if elections are left up to them), (Obras X: 466) is for them to elect the most deserving of the post or because he knows how to read and write or because he is noble and sometimes for his bearing, wherein Indians elect Indians of pleasing appearance and ostentation. I used to say that in some parts where they were allowed to express their taste, they selected Governors and Mayors for their waistlines because they elected the stoutest and most corpulent (due to their having a better appearance and bearing) to these posts. With such sincerity and so wholly without ambition, they conduct elections. 3. Third, they do not know pride, but are humility itself.57 The most presumptuous of them, in coming before a Spaniard, or even a Mulatto,58 Mestizo, or Negro, like the meekest sheep humble or submit themselves and do what they are told. There is no Nation in the world that in this manner

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cumpla el precepto de San Pablo á la letra: Subditi stote omni humanae creaturae.(a) Sujetaos á toda criatura, como estos pobrecitos Indios, cuya humildad, subordinacion, y resignacion, antes ha de causar lástima, y amor, y deseo de su bien, descanso, y alivio, que hacerles mas duro, é intolerable el poder. Lo quarto, apenas conocen ira, porque son templadissimos en sus disgustos; y no solo tienen inimitable paciencia, y silencio en sus trabajos, y es menester exhortarles á que vayan á quejarse á los Superiores de muy terribles agravios, sino que con qualquiera cosa se quietan, y tienen por su alivio el callar, y padecer. 4. Estando en mi casa dos Indios, que hice traher de la Misteca, para vér cómo labraban unas piedras, y poderlo informar á V. M. conforme á cierto orden que me dió sobre esto, fueron un dia á la plaza en tiempo que se levantaban dos compañias en la Ciudad, y unos soldados, sin mas jurisdicion, que la de su profesion, les quitaron las tilmas, que son sus capas por fuerza, y se quedaron con ellos, y ellos se volvieron á casa desnudos; y preguntandoles por las tilmas, respondieron, que se las habian quitado, y sin pedirlas, ni quejarse, se estaban los pobrecitos desnudos, porque no trahen mas que la tilma, y unos calzoncillos de algodon, y hasta que las rescataron se estuvieron con un profundo silencio, y paciencia, sin hablar palabra sobre ello; y á este respeto obran los pobres en sus trabajos, sino es quando los alientan para que pidan justicia, que rarissimas veces lo hacen, sino introducidos de afectos agenos, que les aníman á ello. (Obras X: 467) 5. Lo quinto, ellos no conocen la envidia, porque no conocen la felicidad, ni hacen caso de ella, ni aspiran mas que á vivir, y que se olviden de ellos. Y como quiera que su ambicion es ninguna, no puede ser alguna su envidia, ni los deseos los inquietan á tener mas de aquello que les dán: ni les afligen, ó entristecen agenas dichas, porque no llegan á prenderlas, ni procurarlas. Están remotissimos de juramentos, blasfemias, murmuraciones, juegos, y prodigalidad; vicios tan frequentes en otras Naciones, porque los de este genero no se hallan sino en muy raros de los que habitan aquellas dilatadas Provincias. Mande vuestra Magestad, le suplíco, vér si Nacion que está por la mayor parte esenta de vicios tan capitales, y tan vehementes, como Soberbia, Codicia, Avaricia, Ambicion, Envidia, é Ira, juegos, blasfemias, y juramentos, puede llamarse mas inocente, que las otras, y digna del amparo de su Rey, y Señor, y mas tan Catolico, y pio, como vuestra Magestad.

(a) Ad Rom. 13. v. 5 & 1. Petr. 2. v. 13.

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fulfills the precept of Saint Paul to the letter: Be ye subject therefore to every human creature [for God’s sake].(a)59 Be ye subject to every human creature like these poor Indians, whose humility, subordination, and resignation ought to occasion pity and love and desire for their well-being, rest, and relief rather than making authority harsher and more intolerant with them. Fourth, they scarcely know wrath, because they are most temperate in their annoyances. And not only do they have inimitable patience and maintain silence [silencio] in their labors and hardships but it is necessary to exhort them to go to their Superiors to complain of very terrible offenses; if not, they calm themselves however they may and have for their relief only silence and suffering. 4. There were in my house two Indians, whom I ordered brought from the Mixteca, to see how they would work some stones and so as to be able to inform Your Majesty about this, in accordance with a certain order which you gave me. They went to the main square one day at a time when two military companies in the City were enlisting. One soldier, without any more jurisdiction than that of his profession, forced them to remove their tilmas, which are their cloaks, and kept them. They returned home naked. When asked about the tilmas, they responded that they had been taken from them. Neither asking for them back nor complaining, the poor things were naked because they do not wear more than the tilma and some underwear of cotton. Until they recovered the tilmas, they were profoundly silent and patient, without speaking a word about it. And in this way, the poor souls conduct themselves in the face of their hardships, except when they are encouraged to seek justice, which they very rarely do, unless introduced to alien inclinations that inspire them to do so. (Obras X: 467) 5. Fifth, they do not know envy because they do not know happiness nor do they pay any mind to it or aspire to anything more than to live and be left alone. And inasmuch as they have no ambition, they cannot be envious nor are they disturbed by desires to have more than that which is given them. Nor are they afflicted or saddened by the joys of others not of their kind because they do not come close to apprehending or procuring them. They are most removed from cursing, blasphemy, gossip, gambling, and prodigality, vices so frequent in other Nations, because vices of this kind are found only in the rarest of those who inhabit these expansive Provinces. Demand, Your Majesty, I beg you, to see if there exists a Nation like these Indies, for the most part absent of vices so capital and vehement as Pride, Greed, Avarice, Ambition, Envy and Wrath, gambling, blasphemy, and cursing, and one which can be called more innocent than the others, more worthy of the protection of its King and Lord, and more Catholic and pious as is your Majesty. (a) Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, chapter 13, verse 5 and The First Epistle of St. Peter the Apostle, chapter 2, verse 13.

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CAPITULO VII. DE OTROS TRES VICIOS DE SENSUALIDAD, GULA, Y PEREZA, EN QUE SUELEN INCURRIR LOS INDIOS. En los otros tres vicios en que no pueden llamarse tan inocentes los Indios, no puede negarse que son mas templados, que otras muchas Naciones, con quien no deseo hacer comparacion, ni es necesario; porque solo es mi fin explicar los meritos del Indio, tan remoto vasallo de vuestra Magestad, y que tan crecidos favores ha merecido siempre de su piedad, para que los continúe, y honre con hacerlos eficaces con la egecucion de sus Reales Cedulas, y Leyes, sin notar Naciones algunas, en todas las quales es fuerza que haya inclinaciones buenas, y otras reprobadas. Porque lo primero, son muy templados en la sensualidad quando no se hallan ocupados los sentidos, y embriagados con unas bebidas fuertes, que acostumbran de Pulque, Tepache, Vingui, y otras de este genero. Y aunque tienen entonces algunas flaquezas grandes, y al vicio de la (Obras X: 468) sensualidad no hace menos grave el de la embriaguéz; pero mal podiamos condenar comparativamente á estos miserables Indios que pecassen, é hiciessen (ocupados, y embarazados sus sentidos) lo que hombres muy habiles, y despiertos, y politicos pecan con todos sus cinco sentidos desocupados. 2. Y assi este primero vicio de sensualidad se reduce en los Indios fragiles al primero de Gula, en el qual dejan de incurrir todos los Indios quanto al comer, porque son templadissimos. Y quanto al beber tambien es certissimo que se enmendarian facilmente, si todos los Pastores de sus almas, y los Alcaldes mayores, pusiessen en ello cuidado especial para reformarlos, como lo hacen algunos; porque en los Indios no hay mas resistencia que un niño de quatro años, quando se le quita el veneno de la mano, y se le pone otra cosa en ella. Y quanto à la pereza, que es muy propia en ellos, por ser tan remiso, y blando su natural, no hay que cuidar de exhortarlos á la diligencia, y trabajo corporal; porque para este vicio están llenos de Medicos espirituales, y temporales Doctrineros, y Alcaldes mayores que los curan con grandissima frequencia, ocupandolos en diversas grangerias, hilados, tegidos, y todo genero de artes, y utilidades, en que consiste el fruto de los oficios: con que en los que no son naturalmente diligentes se halla este vicio del todo desterrado. 3. Y de aqui se deduce, Señor, una manifestacion evidente de la virtud de los Indios, pues de siete vicios capitales que trahen al mundo perdído, se halla su natural, comunmente hablando, muy esento, y moderado, y rarissimos incurren a los cinco, que son Codicia, ó Avaricia, Soberbia, Ira, Ambicion, ó Envidia. Y quanto á la Pereza tiene tantos Maestros para hacerlos diligentes, que se hallan del todo convalecidos: y la sensualidad solo se reduce en ellos al tiempo que están ocupados los sentidos con la Gula: y este vicio

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CHAPTER VII. ON THE OTHER THREE VICES OF LUST, GLUTTONY, AND SLOTH, TO WHICH THE INDIANS CUSTOMARILY SUCCUMB. Of the other three vices of which the Indians cannot be considered so innocent, it cannot be doubted that they are more temperate than many other Nations, with which I do not wish to make comparison. Nor is this necessary because my end is only to explain the merits of the Indian, a vassal so distant from your Majesty who has always merited such increasing graces of your mercy, so that you may continue and honor these favors by making them effective with the execution of your Royal Decrees and Laws. This I do without noting any specific Nations, all of which share the strongpoint of having both good and depraved inclinations. Because first, they are very temperate in their lust when their senses are not engaged and intoxicated by strong drinks, customarily Pulque, Tepache, Vingui, and others of this kind.60 And even though they have some great weaknesses, and the vice of lust (Obras X: 468) is not made less grave by that of drunkenness, wrongly should we condemn these miserable Indians who comparatively sin or do (their senses engaged and hindered) that which men more able and alert and politic do with all their five senses disengaged. 2. And thus this primary vice of lust is limited to those Indians susceptible to the primary vice of Gluttony, which all Indians fail to commit because they are most temperate when eating. And with regard to drinking, it is also most certain that they would mend their ways easily, if all the Pastors of their souls and the District Magistrates would make special efforts to reform them, as some do.61 Because in the Indians there is no more resistance than that of a four-year-old child when one removes poison from the child’s hand and replaces it with another thing.62 And regarding sloth, which is very typical in them, due to their being so slack and pliant in nature, one need not concern oneself with exhorting them to be diligent and do physical work63 because for this vice their lives are full of spiritual and temporal Doctors, the Parish Priests, and District Magistrates who cure them with the greatest frequency, occupying them in diverse gainful activities, spinning, weaving, and all types of arts and utilities, which are the fruit of the trades. With this guidance and employment, one finds this vice entirely banished in those that are not naturally diligent.64 3. And hence one can present, Sire, an evident demonstration of the virtue of the Indians. Of the seven capital vices that lead to the ruination of the world, their nature, generally speaking, is found to be very free and temperate. Very few err in the five vices that are Greed or Avarice, Pride, Wrath, Ambition, or Envy. And as they have many Teachers to make them diligent, they find themselves entirely recovered from Sloth. And lust is confined in them during the times their senses are occupied with Gluttony. This vice is

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no le egercitan en el comer, sino en el beber ciertas bebidas de raíces de hierbas que causan estos efectos: con que vienen á hallarse libres de seis vicios capitales en quanto sufre nuestra fragil naturaleza; y del que les queda, en aquellos que lo incurren solo son flacos en la media parte de este vicio, que es el beber, esentos del todo en la otra, por ser tan parcos en el comer, que parece que puede decirse, que de siete vicios, cabezas de todos los demás, solo incurren (Obras X: 469) en el medio vicio, quando á los demás tanto nos afligen todos siete. 4. Comparense, pues, estos Indios con las demás Naciones del mundo, en las quales es tan poderosa la ira, que hay algunas donde han durado los vandos, y guerras interiores entre linages, y Naciones quatrocientos, y seiscientos años, como Guelfos, y Gibelinos, y Narros, y Cadeles. (a) Y en otras es tan poderosa la gula, que apenas salen de los banquetes: y en otras la sensualidad, tan disoluta, que apenas perdonan lo mas reservado, y sagrado: y en otras la ambicion, que ha despertado inumerables guerras: y en otras la envidia, y la soberbia tan terrible, que han querido sujetar todas las Naciones circunvecinas, y destruir por estos dos vicios las Casas, y Coronas mas Catolicas. En otras son tan frequentes las murmuraciones, blasfemias, y juramentos, que apenas se oyen otras palabras en gran numero de gente. Y se verá, que respecto de los muchos vicios que afligen en el mundo á las Naciones, vienen á ser los Indios virtuosos, é inocentes, y dignos por su virtud del amparo Real de V. M.

CAPITULO VIII. DE LA POBREZA DEL INDIO. Aunque la pobreza de los Indios fuera totalmente necesaria, eran dignos de lástima, y compasion; y ni aun de esta manera desmerecian la proteccion Real de V. M. y el mandar que se aviven con su observancia las santas Leyes que V. M. ha establecido en su favor. Pero siendo esta pobreza en muchissimos de ellos voluntaria, y elegida por un modesto parco, y christiano modo de vivir, sin codicia, ni ambicion, aún deben ser mas amparados de V. M. 2. Entre los Indios hay Caciques, Gobernadores, Alcaldes, Fiscales, que tienen muchas tierras que heredaron de sus pasados: y generalmente todos como son tan mañosos, y frutuosos, pueden recoger, y acaudalar plata, frutos, alhajas, y otras cosas

(a) Naucler, volum. 2. gen. 38. pag. 827. & gen. 42. pag. 933.

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not exercised through eating but in drinking certain drinks of herbal roots which cause these effects. As a consequence, they find themselves free of six capital vices from which our fragile nature suffers. And of the one that remains, those who fall prey to it are only weak with regard to half of this vice, which is drinking, being wholly exempt from succumbing to the other half due to their being so sparing in eating. It seems that one can say, then, that of the seven deadly vices, the capital ones of all the others, they only fall prey (Obras X: 469) to half a vice, while the rest of us are so afflicted by all seven. 4. Let us compare, then, these Indians with the rest of the Nations of the world, in which wrath is so powerful that there are some where factions and internal wars between lineages and Nations, like the Guelphs, and Ghibelines and Nyerros and Cadells,(a) have endured four hundred and six hundred years.65 And in others gluttony is so powerful, that they scarcely leave banquets; and in others lust is so dissolute, that they hardly spare the most reserved and sacred; and in others there is ambition, which has stirred innumerable wars; and in others envy and hubris so terrible that they have wished to subject all the surrounding Nations and destroy, through these two vices, the most Catholic Houses and Crowns. In others gossip, blasphemy, and cursing are so frequent that one scarcely hears other words from a great number of people. And it will be seen, that with respect to the many vices that afflict the Nations of the world, the Indians turn out to be virtuous, and innocent—and worthy, because of their virtue, of the Royal protection of Your Majesty.

CHAPTER VIII. ON THE POVERTY OF THE INDIAN. Even if the poverty of the Indians were totally necessary, they would be worthy of pity and compassion; and not even in this way would they be unworthy of the Royal protection of Your Majesty and the mandate that the holy Laws which Your Majesty has established in their favor be revived through their observance. But despite this poverty being in very many of them voluntary and elected through a modest, sparing, and Christian mode of living without greed or ambition, they still must be more protected by Your Majesty. 2. Among the Indians there are Chiefs, Governors, Magistrates, Crown Attorneys, who have many lands that they inherited from their ancestors. Generally, all of them, as they are so skillful and enterprising, can reap and accumulate silver, fruits of the land, gems, and other things, the possession

(a) Naucler, volum. 2. gen. 38. pag. 827, gen. 42. pag. 933.

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que alegran, y ocupan el corazon humano con su posesion; (Obras X: 470) y todavia son tan parcos que su vestido por la mayor parte es una tilma, que les sirve de capa, una tunica, ó camisa de algodon, y unos calzones de los mismo; y assi á tres alhajas reducen comunmente quanto trahen sobre sí, y son muy raros, y han de ser de los mas nobles para traher sombreros, y zapatos, porque ordinariamente andan descalzos, y descubiertos. Contentanse con un pobre jacál por casa, y en sus tierras donde no hay sino Indios, no tienen mas cerradura en sus puertas, que la que basta á defenderla de las fieras, porque entre ellos no hay ladrones, ni qué hurtar, y viven en una santa Ley sencilla, y como era la de la naturaleza. Todas sus alhajas, exceptuando el Santo Cali, donde tienen Imagenes de Santos de papel, se reducen á un petate, ó estera de la tierra, sobre que duermen, que aun no es tabla, y un madero que les sirve de almohada, y un canto que se llama metate, donde muelen un puñado de maíz, de que hacen tortillas, que los sustentan, y estas suelen ser en estos pobrecitos las de una dilatadissima, y numerosissima familia. 3. Con este genero de alhajas, y pobreza viven tan contentos, y mas que el poderoso, y rico con las suyas; y no hay Indio que teniendo esto se juzgue pobre, ni pida limosna, ni se queje de la fortuna, ni envidie, ni pretenda, ni desee: y si los conserváran en esta honesta pobreza, y egercicio, se tendrian por felices, y sin duda alguna en mi estimacion lo fueran. He oído decir á algunos Religiosos de la Serafica Orden de San Francisco, graves, y espirituales, mirando con pio afecto á estos Indios, que se aquel Serafico Fundador, tan excelente Amador de la pobreza Evangelica, huviera visto á los Indios, de ellos parece que huviera tomado alguna parte del uso de la pobreza, para dejarla á sus Religiosos por mayorazgo, para que sirviesse á la Evangelica, que escogió. Porque el mas rígido Religioso, ó Hermitaño vive en casas fuertes de cal, piedra, y madera, porque assi es conveniente para sus santos egercicios; pero estos viven en jacales de paja, ó de hojas de arboles. 4. Y el mas pobre tiene una celda, un refitorio, coro, capitulo, claustros, huerta, porque assi conviene á su profesion, y á su espiritual consuelo, y santos egercicios; pero el Indio no tiene mas dilatacion en su casa, que los terminos de los palos que la componen, y reciben sobre sí el heno, ó paja, ú hojas de arboles que les forman las paredes, que son doce, ó catorce pies (Obras X: 471) de suelo; y si tienen mas tierra es para trabajar, padecer, y sudar sobre ella: y el mas pobre tiene una tabla en que dormir, y por almohada un pedazo de sayal; pero el Indio duerme sobre el mismo suelo, y un petate, ó estera grosera, y un pedazo de palo por cabecera. Y el mas pobre suele llevar unos zapatos

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of which pleases and engages the human heart. (Obras X: 470) Still, they are so sparing, that their clothing for the most part consists of a tilma, which serves them as a cloak, a tunic or shirt of cotton, and some trousers of the same. And as such these three furnishings commonly amount to what they wear. They are very few and have to be among the most noble to wear hats and shoes because ordinarily they walk barefoot and with their heads uncovered. They are content with a poor shack for a house and in their lands where there are only Indians, they have no more of a lock on their doors than that which suffices to keep out wild beasts, because among them there are no thieves nor anything to steal. They live by a simple, holy Law, as was the law of nature. All of their household furnishings, except the Santo Cali, where they have Images of Saints on paper, are limited to a petate, or sleeping mat or hemp carpet on the dirt, upon which they sleep, and which is not even a flat board;66 a piece of wood which serves them as a pillow; and a stone block which is called metate, where they grind a handful of corn, from which they make tortillas, which sustain them. These tortillas are customarily, for these poor souls, food for a most extended and numerous family. 3. With this poverty and these kinds of furnishings, they live so very content and more so even than the powerful and rich do with theirs. And there is no Indian who, having these things, considers himself poor, begs for alms or complains of his fortune, nor envies, nor seeks, nor desires other. And if they would be kept in this honest poverty and practice, they would be happy and in my estimation, without any doubt, they were. I have heard it said by some Religious of the Seraphic Order of San Francisco, grave and spiritual folk who regard these Indians with pious affection, that if that Seraphic Founder, so profoundly and nobly devoted to Evangelic poverty, were to have seen the Indians, it appears that he would have adopted some part of their practice of poverty in order to leave it to his Religious as an inheritance and so that it would serve the Evangelical path which he chose.67 While the most stringent Religious or Hermit lives in strong houses of lime, stone, and wood, as this is suitable for his holy worship, the Indians live in huts of straw or tree leaves. 4. And the poorest Religious has a cell, a refectory, choir, chapel, cloisters, and large orchard because this is suitable to his profession and his spiritual consolation and holy worship. But the Indian has no more expanse in his house than the ends of the sticks of which it is comprised and which support the hay, or straw, or tree leaves which form the walls, which enclose twelve or fourteen feet (Obras X: 471) of ground. If they have more land it is so that they may work, suffer, and sweat over it. The poorest Religious has a board on which to sleep and for a pillow a piece of sackcloth but the Indian sleeps on the dirt itself and a mat or coarse rug with a piece of a stick for a headboard. And the poorest Religious is accustomed to wearing shoes

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de madera, ó sandalias, aunque otros andan descalzos; pero el Indio siempre anda descalzo de pie, y de pierna. Y el mas pobre tiene capilla con que cubrir la cabeza á las inclemencias del Cielo; pero el Indio no trahe cosa en la cabeza, aunque llueva, y nieve, y apedreé. Y el mas pobre come dos, ó tres potages de pescado, ó legumbres; el Indio unas tortillas de maiz, y si añade un poco de chile con agua caliente, esse es todo su regalo. 5. Y si bien es verdad, que los trabajos del Religioso perfecto los hace de inestimable valor, y superiores á todo por el alto fin con que los padece, que es el de servir á Dios, y seguir la perfeccion Evangelica, y esto se prefiere á lo demás, y excede un trabajo moderado por estos padecido à muchissimos mejores, sin este santo merito; pero no por esso deja de ser amable, y admirable, y aun loable la pobreza de los Indios, pues sobre ser Christianos, con que muchos aplicaràn á Dios su pobreza (aunque no en tan esclarecida profesion como la Regular) viven con esta frugalidad, y modestia, pudiendo no pocos, dilatarse mucho mas; y siguen tan á la letra el consejo de San Pablo y lo que el Santo quiso para sí, quando dijo: Habentes, alimenta, et quibus tegamur his contenti sumus.(a) En teniendo con que cubrir nuestros cuerpos, y con que sustentarnos, todo lo demás nos sobra, que es á la letra lo que observan estos pobres naturales. 6. Y assi refiere el Padre Reverendissimo Gonzaga, General de la Serafica Orden de San Francisco, Ilustrissimo Arzobispo de Mantua, que en Taguacan, un Pueblo del Obispado que yo sirvo, se aparecieron á un santo Religioso de su Orden de San Francisco, y Santa Clara, y le digeron entre otras cosas: Indi paupertatem, et obedientiam, et pacientiam, quam vos professi estis exercent: Los Indios egercitan la pobreza, obediencia, y paciencia, que vosotros profesais: como quien acreditaba, y honraba la pobreza natural de los Indios, con referirla á la Evangelica, (Obras X: 472) Santa, y Serafica de los Religiosos, y se compadecia de aquella miseria material, deseando que la imitassen los Indios en la aplicacion espiritual, con que estan los hijos de tan excelente familia, para que les pareciessen en el merito. 7. Y lo que es mas admirable en mi sentimiento, Señor, es que siendo tan pobres en su uso, y afecto estos naturales Indios, y tan desnudos, son los que visten, y enriquecen el mundo, y en las Indias todo lo Eclesiastico, y Secular. Porque su desnudéz, y pobreza, y trabajo, sustenta, y edifica las Iglesias, hace mayores sus rentas, socorren, y enriquecen las Religiones, y á ellos se les debe gran parte de la conservacion de lo Eclesiastico. Y quanto á lo Secular, su trabajo

(a) I. ad Timoth. 6. v. 8.

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of wood or sandals, although some go barefoot, but the Indian always goes barefoot and bare-legged. And the poorest Religious has a hood with which to cover his head to protect him from the inclemencies of the Heavens but the Indian does not wear anything on his head, even if it rains, and snows, and hails. And the poorest Religious eats two or three stews of fish or vegetables. The Indian eats some corn tortillas and if is added a little chile with hot water, this is a luxury. 5. And it is true, that the hardships of the perfect Religious are rendered of inestimable valor and superior to all due to the high end for which he suffers them, which is to serve God and follow the path of Evangelical perfection. This is preferable to the rest. A modest hardship exceeds those suffered for many betterments without this holy merit. Despite the lack of this holy merit, the poverty of the Indians does not cease to be gracious and admirable and even praiseworthy. Being Christians, many Indians will devote themselves to God through their poverty (while not in such an illustrious profession as that of the Regular Clergy) and live with this frugality and modesty, even though not just few of them could relieve and console themselves much more.68 They follow the counsel of Saint Paul so much to the letter and what the Saint wanted for himself when he said: But having food, and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content.(a)69 In having that with which to cover our bodies and sustain ourselves, we have more than plenty which is to the letter what these poor natives observe. 6. And to this referred the most Reverend Father Gonzaga, General of the Seraphic Order of San Francisco and most Illustrious Archbishop of Mantua when he recounted that in Taguacan, a village in the Bishopric which I serve, St. Francis and St. Clare appeared before a holy Religious of his Order and they said to him, among other things: Indi paupertatem, et obedientiam, et pacientiam, quam vos professi estis exercent: The Indians practice the poverty, obedience, and patience, which you all profess.70 With these words, he accredited and honored the natural poverty of the Indians, by relating it to the Evangelical, (Obras X: 472) Holy, and Seraphic poverty of the Religious.71 And he pitied that material misery, desiring that the Indians imitate, in their spiritual diligence, the children of such a distinguished family, so as to resemble them in merit. 7. And that which is most astonishing in my estimation, Sire, is that being so materially impoverished and afflicted, these native Indians, so naked, are those who clothe and enrich the world and in the Indies all things Ecclesiastical and Secular. This is because their nakedness, poverty, and work sustain and build the Churches, increase their income, and assist and enrich the Religious Orders, and to the Indians is owed a large part of the maintenance of the Ecclesiastic realm.72 And with regard to the Secular, their work (a) I. ad Timoth. 6. v. 8.

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fecunda, y hace utiles las minas, cultiva los campos, egercitan los oficios, y artes de la República, hace poderosos los de Justicia, paga los tributos, causa las alcavalas, descansa, y alivia los Magistrados públicos, sirve á los Superiores, ayuda á los inferiores, sin que haya cosa alguna desde lo alto, hasta lo bajo, en que no sean los Indios las manos, y los pies de aquellas dilatadas Provincias, y si se acabassen los Indios, se acabarian del todo las Indias; porque ellos son los que las conservan á ellas, y como abejas sólicitas labran el panal de miel, para que otros se lo coman: y como ovejas mansissimas ofrecen la lana para cubrir agenas necesidades: y como pacientissimos bueyes, cultivan la tierra, para ageno sustento: y ellos, Señor, y yo, y todos quantos bien los queremos, y solicitamos su alivio, nos contentarémos con que padezcan, y trabajen, y fructifiquen, como sea con un moderado, y tolerable trabajo, y pena, y solo représento sus meritos, y virtudes, para que V. M. se sirva de ampararlos en el padecer intolerable. (Obras X: 473)

CAPITULO IX. DE LA PACIENCIA DEL INDIO. Entre las virtudes del Indio, mas admirables, y raras, es la de la paciencia, por dos razones principales. La primera, porque cae sobre grandissimos trabajos, y pobreza. La segunda, porque es profundissima, é intensissima, sin que se le oíga tal vez, ni aun el suspiro, ni el gemido, ni la queja. Cae sobre grandes trabajos, pues quando su comun vivir interior, es tan pobre, y miserable, yá se vé qual será la sobrecarga del padecer exterior. Porque sobre el descanso, es tolerable la fatiga; pero sobre la misma fatiga, otra fatiga; sobre un trabajo, otro trabajo; sobre un azote, otro azote; es padecer de suprema magnitud. 2. No refiero á V. M. lo que padecen en este discurso donde háblo de sus virtudes, por no mezclar con ellas agenos vicios, y porque sería preciso mortificar en él á los que con bien poca razon los mortifican á ellos, y mi intento solo es favorecer los Indios, si pudiere, sin tocar, ni desconsolar á los que á ellos lastiman, y desconsuelan. Solo puedo assegurar á V. M. con verdad, que egemplo mas vivo en el padecer, quanto á lo exterior, que el de estos naturales, de los Santos Martires, y Confesores, y de aquellos que por Dios padecen tribulaciones, y penas, no me parece que se puede ofrecer á la consideracion, y que yo los he deseado imitar, y los miro, y considero, como espejo de una invictissima paciencia. Pues por muchos, y grandes que sean sus agravios, rarissimas veces tienen ira, ni furor para vengarse, ni satisfacerse, ni aun se comueven á ir á quejarse á los Superiores, sino es que alguna vez lo hagan influídos, ó

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makes the mines fertile and productive, cultivates the fields, puts into practice the manufacturing trades and arts of the Republic, renders powerful the Judicial offices, pays tribute to the Crown, generates sales tax, gives rest to and helps the public Magistrates, serves their Superiors, and assists their inferiors. There is nothing significant or insignificant in which the Indians do not participate, as they are the hands and feet of these vast Provinces.73 If the Indians were to perish, so would the entirety of the Indies as it is the Indians who maintain them. Like solicitous bees, they labor over the honeycomb so that others may eat it. Like the meekest sheep, they offer wool to meet the needs of others. Like the most patient oxen, they cultivate the soil for the sustenance of others. And they, Sire, and I, and all of us who love them fully and solicit their relief, will be content with what they suffer and labor and bring to bear as Christians, as long as they endure only a moderate and tolerable amount of work and pain. I only represent their merits and virtues so that Your Majesty may serve to shelter them from this intolerable suffering.74 (Obras X: 473)

CHAPTER IX. ON THE PATIENCE OF THE INDIAN. Among the most admirable and rare virtues of the Indian is that of patience, for two principal reasons. First, because it endures despite their suffering the greatest of hardships and poverty. Second, as their patience is most profound and intense, one hears perhaps not even a sigh, nor a moan or complaint from them. Their patience is augmented by great hardships. When their common interior living conditions are so poor and miserable, one can only imagine the additional burden of their exterior suffering and toil. Upon rest, fatigue is tolerable but fatigue upon fatigue, labor upon labor, beating upon beating is suffering of supreme magnitude. 2. I do not relate to Your Majesty what the Indians suffer in this discourse wherein I speak of their virtues so as to not combine these virtues with the vices of others because then it would be necessary to torment those who with very little reason torment the Indians.75 My intent is only to help the Indians, if I am able, without touching upon or distressing those who injure and distress them. I can only assure Your Majesty verily that it does not seem to me that one can offer for consideration an example more vivid in suffering, particularly with regard to the physical, than that of these natives, the Holy Martyrs and Confessors, and those that suffer tribulations and hardships for the sake of God. I have desired to imitate them and I regard and consider them as a mirror of the most invincible patience. For as many and as great are the offenses against them, very rarely do they exhibit wrath nor fury to avenge themselves or take revenge. Nor even are they stirred to go to complain to their Superiors except occasionally when influenced or

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alentados de Españoles, ó Clerigos, ó Religiosos, ó de otros de agena condicion, que yá lastimados de lo que padecen, yá por el zelo de la razon, yá por el servicio de V. M. y su conservacion de ellos, yá por sus mismas utilidades, ó pasiones les persuaden que se vayan á quejar. Porque lo ordinario es padecer, y callar, y pasar, y quando mucho ausentarse de unas tierras à otras, y seguir el consejo del Señor, quando dijo: si en una Ciudad os persiguen, huid á otra.(a) (Obras X: 474) 3. Ni ellos buscan armas para vengarse, ni ellos vocean, ni se inquietan, ni se enojan, ni se alteran; sino que consumen dentro de su resignacion, y paciencia, todo su trabajo. Si á ellos llega el Superior, y les manda que hilen, hilan: si les manda que tejan, tejen; si les manda que tomen quatro, ó seis arrobas de carga sobre sí, y las lleven sesenta leguas, las llevan: si á ellos les dan una carta, y seis tortillas, y algunas veces la carta sin ellas, y que la lleven cien leguas, la llevan: ni ellos piden su trabajo, ni se atreven á pedirlo: si se lo dan, lo toman: si no se lo dan, lo callan. Si le dice á un Indio un negro que vá cargado, que tome aquella carga que él lleva, y se la lleve, y sobre esso les dá golpes, y le aflige de injurias, toma la carga, y los golpes, y los lleva con paciencia. Finalmente, ellos son en mi sentimiento (por lo menos en este material) los humildes, y pobres de corazon, sujetos á todo el mundo, pacientes, sufridos, pácificos, sosegados, y dignos de grandissimo amor, y compassion.

CAPITULO X. DE LA LIBERALIDAD DEL INDIO. No parece, Señor, que siendo tan pobres puedan ser liberales los Indios, y despues de esso, es constante que son liberalissimos, como si fueran muy ricos. Porque como quiera que esta virtud no la hace mayor la materia, sino el deseo, y en un Principe suele ser menos dar una Ciudad, que un pobre quatro reales; y por esso Jesu-Christo Señor nuestro á la viegecita que ofreció al Templo dos blancas, alabó mas que á otros que con menos afecto dieron muy grandes limosnas: (*) assi los Indios, aunque cada uno no puede fructificar copiosamente; pero todos juntos, es certissimo que lo dan todo, y que obran con gran liberalidad; porque estos pobrecitos, como no conocen, ni codicia, ni ambicion, son partidissimos, y si tienen dos puñados de maiz, con gran gusto dan el uno á quien le pide.

(a) Matth. 10. v. 23. (*) Luc. 21. v. 2.

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encouraged by Spaniards or Clerics or Religious or others not of their kind. Whether due to pity over what they suffer, for the zeal of just cause, for the service to Your Majesty and his preservation of them, or for their own benefits or passions, they persuade them to go complain. Because typically, the Indians suffer, keep silent, and go on. At best, leaving one land for another they follow the counsel of the Lord when he said: if in one City, you are persecuted, flee to another.(a)76 (Obras X: 474) 3. They do not seek arms to avenge themselves, nor do they shout or become anxious, angry, or upset but swallow, through their resignation and patience, all their work and miseries. If their Superior comes to them and orders them to spin, they spin. If he orders them to weave, they weave. If he orders them to carry on their backs one hundred or one hundred fifty pounds of cargo for sixty leagues, they carry it.77 If they are given a letter to be carried one hundred leagues and six tortillas to eat, and sometimes the letter without the tortillas, they carry it. Neither do they request work, nor dare to request it. If they are given it, they take it. If they are not given it, they keep quiet. If a negro carrying a load tells an Indian to take that load he is carrying and the Indian carries it and in the course of this he is bumped and suffers injuries, he takes the load and the bumps and carries them with patience. Finally, they are, in my sentiment (at least in this material), the humble and poor in spirit—subject to everyone, patient, longsuffering, peaceful, calm, and worthy of the greatest love and compassion.78

CHAPTER X. ON THE GENEROSITY OF THE INDIAN. It does not seem possible, Sire, that being so poor these Indians could be generous and yet, in spite of this poverty, it is certain that they are most generous, as if they were very rich. It is true that this virtue is not made greater by material wealth but by the desire to give. For a Prince to give a City tends to be a lesser gift than for a poor person to give four reales. For this reason, Jesus Christ, our Lord, praised more highly the old woman who offered two copper halfpennies to the sanctuary than others, who with less sincere devotion gave very large alms.(*)79 Thus the Indians, while each one cannot reap copiously, together, it is most certain, give all and act with great generosity because these poor souls, who do not know greed or ambition, are most willing to share.80 If they have two handfuls of corn, with great pleasure they will give one to whoever asks.

(a) The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew, chapter 10, verse 23. (*) The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St. Luke, chapter 21, verse 2.

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2. A todas horas estan abiertas sus casas para hospedar, y (Obras X: 475) ayudar á quien los ha menester, como no los atemoricen, ó vean alguna violencia, que entonces, sino pueden defenderlas, suelen dejarlas, y desampararlas, é irse huyendo por los montes. Al culto divino, yá hemos dicho que ellos son quien le sustenta: las ofrendas, y los derechos de los Curas, Doctrineros, y todos los emolumentos, ellos son los que los causan. Jamás van á ver á sus Superiores de qualquier calidad que sean, yá Eclesiasticos, ó Seculares, que no les lleven gallinas, fruta, huevos, pescado; y quando no pueden mas, les llevan flores, y quedan consolados si las reciben, y afligidos si no admiten sus presentes. Andará un pobre Indio cincuenta leguas cargado de fruta, ó miel, ó pescado, ó huevos, ó pavos, que llaman gallinas de la tierra, ú otros frutos de ella, solo para que se lo reciban, y pedir alguna cosa que pesa, y vale menos que lo mismo que él ofrece, y que de derecho se le debia rogar con lo que pide, quanto mas darselo pidiendo aquello que se le debe. 3. En prestar quanto tienen, no reparan, y no solo lo que tienen, sino á ellos mismos se prestan, y como sea con buen modo, á qualquiera Indio que se encuentre en la calle, si se le manda que lleve alguna carga, ó que barra, ó sirva en alguna casa, y se esté sirviendo en ella uno, ó dos dias, dandole de comer, suele prestar su trabajo sin desconsuelo, con qualquiera motivo que para ello se le ofrezca. Finalmente, sobre no tener los Indios codicia, ni avaricia, ni ambicion, bien se vé quan facilmente serán liberales, como hombres, que ni desean, ni adquieren, ni guardan, ni pretenden, ni grangean.

CAPITULO XI. DE LA HONESTIDAD DEL INDIO. Los Indios, generalmente son honestos, y sino es que la turbacion de los sentidos por las bebidas de raíces, á que son inclinados, los arrebate, en las demás ocasiones proceden con grande modestia, y circuspeccion. Y siendo assi, que no se entran Religiosas las mugeres por su miseria, ni pueden por su pobreza, y por no tener dote para ello, con todo esso se entran á los Conventos con gran gusto las Indias á servir voluntariamente, (Obras X: 476) y alli viven con grandissima virtud entre las Religiosas. Los viejos es cosa muy assentada, que en llegando á cincuenta años raras veces conocen muger, aunque sea á la propia, porque tienen por liviandad el uso de las mugeres en la edad anciana. Y en Cholula hay hoy una India principal, llamada Juana de Motolina, que no solo es doncella muy acreditada, sino que cria en su casa á su costa otras doncellas Indias, y vive con grandissima virtud.

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2. At all hours their houses are open to lodge and (Obras X: 475) aid whoever is in need, as long as they are not frightened nor see any violence. In this case, then, if they are not able to defend their houses, they usually leave and forsake them and flee to the mountains. Of divine worship we have already said that they are the ones who sustain it: the offerings and the duties of the Priests, Parish Priests and all the emoluments—the Indians are the ones who produce them. Never do they go to see their Superiors, regardless of their rank or whether they are Ecclesiastics or Seculars, when they do not bring them hens, fruit, eggs, fish. When they cannot bring more, they bring them flowers and are consoled if they are received and afflicted if their presents are not accepted. A poor Indian will walk fifty leagues carrying fruit or honey or fish or eggs or turkeys, which they call the hens of the land, or other fruits of the land only so that his Superiors will receive him. He will then request something that weighs and is valued less than the very thing he offers. By law, he is obliged to make requests offering that which he requests, thereby giving all the more when requesting that which he is due. 3. They lend as much as they have but do not take note of it. They lend not only what they have but also their very own selves. If one orders, in a polite manner, any Indian one encounters in the street to carry a load or to sweep or to serve in a house, and he serves in it one or two days while being given food, he customarily offers his labor without affliction, regardless of the reason he is offered it. Finally, regarding the Indians not having greed, or avarice, or ambition, one sees clearly how readily they will be generous as they are men that neither desire, nor acquire, hoard, solicit, or seek gains.

CHAPTER XI. ON THE HONESTY OF THE INDIAN. The Indians generally are honest and if not for the perturbation of the senses from root drinks, to which they are inclined and which captivate them, on all other occasions they behave with great modesty and circumspection. Being as such, women do not enter the convents to become nuns due to their wretchedness nor can they because of their poverty and not having a dowry for it. Despite all this, the Indian women enter Convents with great pleasure to serve voluntarily (Obras X: 476) and live there with the greatest of virtue among the Nuns.81 It is a very established thing that old Indian men, upon reaching fifty years, rarely know82 a woman, even if she is his own wife, because they consider it unchaste to have such relations with women in their old age. In Cholula83 today there is a prominent Indian woman named Juana de Motolina, who not only is a maiden of very estimable reputation but who also has raised in her home at her expense other maiden Indians and she lives with the greatest virtue.84

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2. Quando hacen en algunas Provincias sus tratados de casamientos, es con mucha modestia, y circunspeccion, sin que se hallen presentes los novios; y quando vienen estos al Tribunal Eclesiastico à presentarse para las informaciones, ó á la Iglesia á casarse, y velarse, assisten los ojos bajos con sumo silencio, y grandissima modestia. El modo con que se explican los mancebos en su pretension al casarse, es modestissimo, y honestissimo. Porque el Indio mancebo que pretende casarse con alguna doncella India, sin decirle cosa alguna, ni á sus deudos, se levanta muy de mañana, y le barre la puerta de su casa, y en saliendo la doncella con sus padres, entra en ella, limpia todo el patio, y otras mañanas les lleva leña, otras la agua, y sin que nadie le pueda ver se la pone á la puerta, y de esta fuerte vá explicando su amor, y mereciendo, descubriendose cada dia mas, en adivinar el gusto de los suegros, obrandolo aun antes que ellos le manden cosa alguna, y esto sin hablar palabra á la doncella, ni concurrir en parte alguna en su compañia, ni aún osar mirarla al rostro, ni ella á él, hasta que á los parientes les parece que ha pasado bastante tiempo, y que tiene meritos, y perseverancia para tratar de que se case con ella, y entonces sin que él háble en ello lo disponen, y con esta sencillez y virtud obran con diversidad de ceremonias, en esta material, segun las Provincias donde se hacen los tratados.

(OBRAS X: 477) CAPITULO XII. DE LA PARSIMONIA DEL INDIO EN SU COMIDA. El sustento ordinario del Indio (siendo assi que usan raras veces del extrahordinario) es un poco de maíz, reducido á tortillas, y en una olla echan una poca de agua, y chile, y la ponen en una hortera de barro, ó madera, y mojando la tortilla en el agua, y chile, con esta comida se sustentan. Al comer assisten con grandissima modestia, y silencio, y grande orden, y con mucho espacio, porque si son veinte de mesa, no se verá que dos pongan á un tiempo la mano en el plato, y cada uno humedece su corteza, con mucho comedimiento, y con una templanza admirable prosiguen despacio con su comida. 2. Si alguna vez comen mas que chile, y tortilas [Note: “Tortillas” was probably meant. —Ed.], son cosas muy naturales, assadas, y algunos guisados de la tierra; y entonces, mas lo hacen por hacer fiesta á algun Superior, yá sea Secular, yá Eclesiastico, como Alcalde mayor, ó Doctrinero, que no por regarlarse á ellos mismos. Y en otras ocasiones, con ser distintas, los he visto comer con grandissimo espacio, silencio, y modestia, de suerte, que se conoce, que la paciencia con que lo toleran todo los tiene habituados á tenerla tambien en la comida, y no se dejan arrebatar de la hambre, ni ansia de satisfacerla.

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2. When they make their marriage agreements in some Provinces, it is with much modesty and circumspection and without the betrothed being present. When the betrothed come to the Ecclesiastical Tribunal to present themselves for inquiries or to the Church to marry and be veiled during the Nuptial mass, they attend, eyes lowered, with supreme silence and the greatest modesty. The manner with which the bachelors express their aspiration to marry is most modest and honest. The Indian youth who wishes to marry an Indian maiden, without saying anything to her or her kinsfolk, rises early in the morning and sweeps the doorway of her house.85 Once the maiden has gone out with her parents, he enters the house and cleans the entire patio. Other mornings he brings them firewood and others water and without anyone being able to see him he puts them at the door. In this way, he expresses and merits love, discovering each day more of how to predict the pleasure of his in-laws, and acting upon this even before they ask anything of him. This he does without speaking a word to the maiden or keeping company with her somewhere, or even daring to look at her face, nor she at his, until to her relatives it appears that enough time has passed and that he has merits and perseverance to pursue her in marriage.86 Then, without his speaking about it, they arrange it. With this simplicity and virtue, they perform a diverse number of ceremonies regarding this matter, according to the Provinces where they make these agreements.87

(OBRAS X: 477) CHAPTER XII. ON THE ABSTEMIOUSNESS OF THE INDIANS WITH FOOD. The ordinary sustenance of the Indian (being that they very seldom consume an extraordinary amount) is a little corn, made into tortillas. In a pan they put a little water and chile and then they put this in a bowl of mud or wood. They dip the tortilla into the water and chile and with this food they sustain themselves. They attend to eating with the greatest modesty and silence and great order and with much slow deliberation because if they are twenty at table, one will not see two put their hands on the plate at the same time. Each one moistens his crust with much civility and, with an admirable temperance, they proceed slowly with their meal. 2. If at times they eat more than chile and tortillas, they are very natural things—roasted foods, and some stews of the land. They do this more to celebrate a certain Superior, whether Secular or Ecclesiastic, like a District Magistrate or Parish Priest, than to reward themselves. And on other occasions, despite their being distinct, I have seen them eat with the greatest slowness, silence and modesty, so that one knows that the patience with which they tolerate everything also habituates them to be patient with food. They do not let themselves get carried away by hunger or the anxiety to satisfy

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Y de esta parsimonia en el comer, resulta que son grandes sufridores de trabajos: porque á un Indio, para andar todo un dia le bastan seis tortillas con la agua que hallan en los caminos, que viene á ser menos en el precio, y gasto de su comida, de tres quartos Castellanos, de suerte, que con menos de doce maravedis de gasto andan diez, y doce leguas en un dia.

(OBRAS X: 478) CAPITULO XIII. DE LA OBEDIENCIA. Aunque en todas las virtudes son admirables los Indios, en ninguna mas que en la obediencia; porque como esta es hija de la humildad, y ellos son tan humildes, y mansos de corazon, son obedientissimos á sus Superiores. Lo primero: en ciento y treinta años que ha que se entraron ellos mismos con mucha humildad, y resignacion en la Corona Real de V. M. no se les ha visto un primero movimiento de contradicion á las Ordenes Reales, ni falta de respeto á su Real nombre, ni deslealtad, ni sedicion, ni sombra, ni imaginacion de semejante exceso. Lo segundo: tampoco se les ha visto desobediencia á las Justicias, quando ellas les han mandado, no solo lo justo, sino lo penoso injusto, como haya sido en alguna manera tolerable. Lo tercero: aun en lo injusto, é intolerable les obedecen, si no hay quien promueva sus quejas, y los apadrinan, y alimentan, para que pidan, y se quejen en los Tribunales. Lo quarto: no han reclamado por sí mismos jamás á tributos que se les hayan impuesto, ni á cosa alguna que se les haya mandado de orden de V. M. Lo quinto: ellos vivian por montes esparcidos, y se formó la Cedula de las Congregaciones, y se redujeron á los Pueblos, y se vinieron á ellos, dejando su amada soledad, y los montes donde se habian criado: despues reconociendo grave daño de esto, les ordenaron en algunas Provincias habitar en chozas, y jacales por los montes, y se volvieron de los pueblos á los montes, dejandose llevar un numero infinito de hombres, mugeres, y niños de Naciones diferentes de los montes al poblado, y del poblado á los montes, como manadas de mansissimas ovejas. Lo sexto, á ellos los llevan al desague, y calzadas, y minas, y otras obras públicas, y los reparten; y como unos corderos dejan sus casas, y sus mugeres, é hijos, y van á servir adonde les mandan, y tal vez mueren alli, ó en el camino, y no se les oye una queja, ni un suspiro, insensibles, no al conocimiento de la pena, ni dolor, que bien lo conocen, y ponderan, sino á su manifestacion, ira, furor, ó impaciencia. (Obras X: 479) 2. De esta obediencia podia referir á V. M. infinitos egemplos, sino fuera manifiesta á los Ministros de V. M. y á su Consejo, en donde jamás se les ha oído á tantos agravios una queja, y si el

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it. This abstemiousness in eating results in their having great endurance in their hardships. To walk all day, an Indian is sufficiently sustained by six tortillas and the water he finds along the trail, food which ends up being less in price and expense than three Castilian quartos.88 So with a cost of less than twelve maravedis, the Indians walk ten and twelve leagues in one day.

(OBRAS X: 478) CHAPTER XIII. ON OBEDIENCE.89 While in all virtues the Indians are admirable, in none more than obedience. As this is the daughter of humility and they are so humble and meek of heart, they are most obedient to their Superiors. First, in the one hundred and thirty years since they willingly entered the Royal Crown of Your Majesty with much humility and resignation, an initial motion toward contradiction of Royal Orders has not been seen from them nor a lack of respect for your Royal name nor disloyalty, nor sedition, nor umbrage nor an imagining of a similar excess. Second, neither has been seen disobedience to the Magistrates, when they have ordered not only just things but also painful, unjust things, if they were in some way tolerable. Third, even in the context of the unjust and intolerable they obey, unless there is someone promoting their complaints and sponsoring and encouraging them to make requests and complaints in the Tribunals.90 Fourth, they, by themselves, have never complained about tributes that have been imposed upon them nor anything that has been demanded of them by order of Your Majesty. Fifth, they were living on scattered mountains and the Decree on Congregations was issued and they came and confined themselves to the villages, leaving their beloved solitude and the mountains where they had been raised. After the grave harm of this was recognized, they were ordered in some Provinces to return to the mountains from the villages to live in huts and shacks. An infinite number of men, women, and children of different Nations allowed themselves to be transported from the mountains to the villages and from the villages to the mountains, as if they were herds of the meekest sheep. Sixth, they take them to work on drainage, causeways, mines and other public works and they distribute them.91 Like lambs, they leave their houses and women and children and go to serve where they are ordered and sometimes they die there or on the road and one hears not even a complaint or a sigh from them. Unacquainted they are not with sorrow and pain, which they know well and ponder, but they do not know their manifestation—wrath, furor, or impatience. (Obras X: 479) 2. I could recount to Your Majesty infinite examples of this obedience, if it were not manifest to the Ministers of Your Majesty and to his Council, where never has a complaint been heard regarding so many offenses. If the

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zelo de los Virreyes, y Obispos, ú otros Ministros, con las Ordenes que para esto tienen de V. M. no los defienden, y amparan, no hay que pensar que en ellos hay discurso en la obediencia, ni aliento à la repugnancia.

CAPITULO XIV. DE LA DISCRECION Y ELEGANCIA DEL INDIO. Qualquiera que leyere este discurso, Señor, y no conociere la naturaleza de estos pobrecitos Indios, le parecerá que esta paciencia, tolerancia, obediencia, pobreza, y otras heroycas virtudes, proceden de una demision, y bageza de ánimo grande, ú de torpeza de entendimiento, siendo cierto lo contrario. Porque no les falta entendimiento, antes le tienen muy despierto, y no solo para lo práctico, sino para lo especulativo, y Moral, y Teologico. He visto yo naturales de los Indios muy vivos, y muy buenos estudiantes: y ha sustentado con grande eminencia en Megico públicas conclusiones, un Sacerdote, que hoy vive, llamado Don Fernando, Indio, hijo, y nieto de Caciques. 2. Son despiertos al discurrir, y muy elegantes en el hablar. Y cierto, Señor, que andando por la Nueva España visitando, he llegado á algunos lugares donde los Indios me han dado la bien venida, con unas platicas, no solo tan bien concertadas, sino tan elegantes, y persuasivas, y bien concertadas razones, que me dejaban admirado. Y en un lugar que se llama Zacatlan un Gobernador Indio, dijo tantas razones, tan eloquentes, y con tales comparaciones, y tan ajustadas, ponderando la alegria que sentian de que su Padre, y Pastór los fuesse á visitar, y consolar, y el sentimiento con que se hallaban de lo que habria padecido en la aspereza de los caminos, y diciendo, que como el Sol alumbra la tierra, assi iba á alumbrar sus almas: y que como él no se cansa de hacer bien, ni su Prelado se cansaba de cuidarlos, (Obras X: 480) y ayudarlos: y que las flores, y los campos se alegraban de la venida de su Padre, y Sacerdote: y comunmente casi todos hablan con mucha elegancia. Y esta lengua sola de quantas yo he penetrado, y oído, habiendo corrido la Europa, aunque entre la Griega, y la Latina, tiene silabas reverenciales, y de cortesia, y que poniendolas significan sumision, y quitandolas, igualdad: como para decir, Tadre, se significa con la voz Tatl, y para decirlo con reverencia se dice, Tatzin: y Sacerdote se dice Teopixque, y con reverencia se dicen, Teopixcatzin; y de esta fuerte en las mismas palabras manifiestan la cortesia, y reverencia con que hablan. Quando tal vez vienen á hablar á sus Superiores en qualquiera materia que sea, ó declamatoria quejandose, ó laudatoria, dandole gracias, dicen muy ajustadas, y no superfluas razones, y muy vivas, y son muy

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zeal of the Viceroys and Bishops or other Ministers, with the Orders they have from Your Majesty, does not serve to defend and protect the Indians, there is no need to think that among them there is discourse on obedience or encouragement to repugnance.

CHAPTER XIV. ON THE DISCRETION AND GRACE OF THE INDIAN. To whomever reads this discourse, Sire, and does not know the nature of these poor Indians, it will seem that this patience, tolerance, obedience, poverty, and other heroic virtues proceed from a submissiveness and great lowliness of spirit or a torpor of mind, the complete opposite being true. Because they do not lack understanding; rather, they are very quick and not only with regard to the practical but also the speculative, Moral, and Theological. I have seen native Indians who are very sharp and good students. A priest alive today, named Don Fernando, Indian, son and grandson of Caciques, has passed his public university exams in Mexico with great distinction.92 2. They are sharp in their reasoning and very elegant in their speech. It is certain, Sire, that walking through New Spain on pastoral visits I have come upon some places where the Indians have welcomed me with conversations that were not only very well orchestrated but also so elegant and persuasive and with such intelligently arranged arguments, that they left me wondrous.93 And in a place called Zacatlán, an Indian Governor spoke of so many arguments so eloquently and with such fitting comparisons when pondering the happiness they felt that their Father and Pastor had been to visit and console them.94 They found themselves wondering what he would have suffered due to the harshness of the roads and saying that like the Sun lights the earth, so would he illuminate their souls and how, like the sun, he did not tire of doing good, nor did their Prelate tire of caring for and (Obras X: 480) helping them and that the flowers and fields rejoiced in the coming of their Father and Priest. Generally well-nigh all speak with much elegance. This language is the only one of many, among them even Greek and Latin, that I, having crossed Europe, have fathomed and heard that has reverential and respectful syllables. If one attaches syllables to a word, they signify submission and if one removes them, equality. For example, to say Padre95 one uses the word Tatl and to say it with reverence one says Tatzin. For Priest one says Teopixque and with reverence Teopixcatzin. Through this feature, the very words themselves manifest the respect and reverence with which the Indians speak. When they go to speak to their Superiors on any subject, be it a declamatory protestation or a panegyric giving thanks, they present very fitting and vital reasons that are not superfluous. They are very

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prontos en sus respuestas, y tan despiertos, que muchas veces convencen á las Naciones que andan entre ellos, y esto con grandissima presteza. 3. Fundiòse una campana en la Catedrál de los Angeles [Note: This is mistakenly printed as “Angles” in the Obras edition. —Ed.], que pesaba ciento y cinquenta quintales, y salió algo torpe al principio en el sonido; y afligióse un Prebendado, porque habia sido Comisario de la obra, y dijole un Indio oficial, que la ayudó á hacer: No te aflijas Padre, que luego que naciste, no supiste hablar, y despues con el uso hablaste bien; assi esta campana ahora está recien nacida, en meneando muchas veces la lengua, con el uso hablará claro. Y fue assi, que quebrantado el metal con el egercicio de la lengua, salió de excelente voz. En otra occasion estaba un Indio toreando, á que son ellos aficionadissimos, y habiendole prestado un Español cierta cantidad de maíz, que el Indio habia assegurado con fiadores, y viendo el acreedor al deudor muy frequentemente en los cuernos del toro, haciale señas que se apartasse, como quien tenia lástima de su peligro; y entendiendo bien el Indio de donde nacia aquel cuidado, se fue hácia donde estaba su acreedor, y le dijo: Què quieres? qué me persigues? Dejame holgar. No te he dado fiadores? 4. Yo les he oído hablar muchissimas veces, y nunca les he oído decir desatino, ni desconcierto, ni desproposito, ni necesidad alguna, ni por descuido, sino siempre siguiendo muy igualmente el discurso. Y siendo ellos tan humildes, y mirando con tanta reverencia á sus Superiores, yá sean Eclesiasticos, yá Seculares, no ha venido jamás Indio ha hablarme en diez años que (Obras X: 481) se haya turbado, ni equivocadose, ni acortadose; cosa que sucede tan comunmente á todas las Naciones, quando hablan con personas de respeto; sino que juntamente con la reverencia conservan una advertencia, y atencion de lo que hablan, obran, y responden, como si fueran hombres muy egercitados en negocios graves.

CAPITULO XV. DE LA AGUDEZA, Y PRONTITUD DEL INDIO. Quando ellos defienden su razon, la representan con discursos vivissimos, y la dan á entender de manera que convencen, de lo qual propondré aqui á V. M. un caso bien raro. Caminando un Indio, y otro vecino Español, entrambos á caballo, acertaron á encontrarse en un paramo, ó soledad, y el rocin del vecino era muy malo, y viejo, y el del Indio muy bueno. Pidióle aquel hombre al Indio que se le trocasse; y él lo reusó, por lo que perdia en ello: pero como el uno trahía armas, y el otro no las trahía, con la razon del poder, y con la jurisdicion de la fuerza, le quitó el caballo al Indio, y pasando su silla á él, fue caminando, dejandole en su lugar al pobre Indio el mal caballo. El Indio volvió siguiendo al

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prompt in their responses and so persuasive that frequently they convince the Nations and groups in their midst and with the greatest haste.96 3. A bell in the Cathedral of the Angels weighing fifteen thousand pounds was cast. Initially a certain dullness in its sound could be heard.97 This made a Prebendary grievous, as he had been Commissary of the work. An Indian official who helped make the bell said to him: Do not be distressed Father, because when you were born you did not know how to speak and with practice, you spoke well; so will this bell, recently made, with the practice of having its tongue swung many times, speak clearly.98 And so it was that distressing the metal by exercising the bell’s tongue resulted in an excellent sound. On another occasion, an Indian was bullfighting, of which they are most fond. A Spaniard had leant him a certain quantity of maize that the Indian had insured with guarantors. The creditor, imagining the debtor very frequently in the horns of the bull, made signals to him to withdraw, feeling concern for his danger. Understanding well the source of this concern the Indian moved toward his creditor and said to him: What do you want? Why do you pursue me? Let me amuse myself. Have I not given you insurance? 4. I have heard them speak very many times, and never have I heard them make blunders, say anything confusing, or speak nonsense or any foolishness, not even inadvertently. They always follow the discourse equally well. Being so humble and addressing their Superiors, be they Ecclesiastics or Seculars, with such reverence, an Indian has never come to speak to me in ten years that (Obras X: 481) was troubled, or mistaken, or timid, something that happens so commonly in all Nations, when subjects speak with persons of stature. Coincidental with their reverence, however, is the caution and attention the Indians maintain when speaking, doing and responding, as if they were men well-exercised in serious matters.

CHAPTER XV. ON THE WITS AND PROMPTNESS OF THE INDIAN. When they defend their arguments, they represent their reasoning with most ingenious discourses and insinuate in a way that convinces. I will herein propose to your Majesty a very odd case of this. An Indian was traveling and a Spanish resident too, both on horseback. They chanced upon one another in a barren, deserted plain. The horse of the resident was very sick and old and the horse of the Indian excellent. The man asked the Indian to exchange horses and the Indian refused because of what he would lose. However, as one man carried arms and the other did not, with the argument of power and the jurisdiction of force, he took the horse from the Indian. Passing his saddle to him, he resumed his journey, leaving the poor Indian behind with the bad horse. The Indian continued on, following the

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Español, y pidiendole que le diesse su caballo, y el hombre negava que se le huviesse quitado. 2. Llegaron con esta queja, y pendencia al lugar, en donde el Alcalde mayor llamó á aquel hombre á instancia del Indio, y haciendole traher alli el caballo, le preguntó por qué se le habia quitado al Indio? Respondió, y juró que no se le habia quitado, y que era falso quanto decia aquel Indio; porque aquel caballo era suyo, y él le habia criado en su casa desde que nació. El pobre Indio juró tambien que se le habia quitado, y como no habia mas testigos, ni probanzas, que el juramento encontrado de las partes, y el uno poseía el caballo, y el otro le pedia, dijo el Alcalde mayor al Indio, que tuviesse paciencia, porque no constava que aquel hombre le huviesse quitado el caballo. El Indio viendose sin recurso alguno dijo al Juez: Yo (Obras X: 482) probarè que este caballo es mio, y no de este hombre: dijole, que lo probasse, y luego quitandose el Indio la tilma que trahía, que es la que á ellos sirve de capa, cubrió la cabeza á su caballo que el otro le habia quitado, y dijo al Juez: Dile á este hombre, que pues él dice, que ha criado este caballo, diga luego, de qual de los dos ojos es tuerto? el hombre turbado con la subita pregunta en duda respondió: Del derecho, entonces el Indio descubriendo la cabeza del caballo, dijo: Pues no es tuerto, y pareció ser assi, y se le volvió su caballo. 3. Bien parece, Señor, que en una duda como esta, y falta de probanza, no se pudo hacer prueba mas aguda, ajustada, y delgada, y que se parece harto á la que hizo Salomon con las dos mugeres que pedian el hijo, y faltandoles probanzas para fundar cada una su derecho, pidió la espada que hirió al amor de la verdadera madre, y sacó en limpio la verdad del juicio, y él quedó acreditado de sabio.(a)

CAPITULO XVI. DE LA INDUSTRIA DEL INDIO, SEÑALADAMENTE EN LAS ARTES MECÁNICAS. Y quanto á lo práctico, y Artes mecanicas son habilissimos, como en los oficios de Pintores, Doradores, Carpinteros, Albañiles, y otros de Canteria, y Arquitectura: y no solo buenos oficiales, sino Maestros. Tienen grandissima facilidad para aprender los oficios, porque en viendo pintar, á muy poco tiempo pintan, y en viendo labrar, labran; y con increíble brevedad aprenden quatro y seis oficios, y los egercitan segun los tiempos, y sus calidades.

(a) 3. Reg. 3. v. 25. & 27.

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Spaniard and requesting that he return his horse to him, and the man denied that he had taken it from him. 2. They arrived with this complaint and quarrel to the whereabouts of the District Magistrate, who called to the man, at the request of the Indian, made him bring forth the horse, and asked him why he had taken it from the Indian. He responded and swore that he had not taken it from him and that all that Indian said was false because the horse was his and he had raised it from birth in his home. The poor Indian too swore that the man had taken it from him. As there were no more witnesses or proofs than the oaths sworn by the two parties and one possessed the horse and the other was asking for it, the District Magistrate told the Indian to be patient because it was not evident that that man had taken his horse from him. The Indian, finding himself without any recourse, said to the Judge: I (Obras X: 482) will prove that this horse is mine and not that man’s. He told him to prove it. After removing the tilma, which serves them as a cloak, that he was wearing, he covered the head of the horse that the other had taken from him and said to the Judge: Tell this man, since he says he has raised this horse, to say then which of the horse’s two eyes is blind. The man, discomfited by the sudden question, responded doubtfully: The right one. Then the Indian, uncovering the head of the horse, said: Well, it is not blind. It seemed to be so and his horse was returned to him.99 3. It seems clear, Sire, that in a case of doubt like this one, lacking in proof, it would not have been possible to devise a keener, more fitting, and ingenious test. It seems as complete a trial as the one that Solomon devised for the two women who claimed the same child. As each one lacked proof on which to base their right, Solomon asked for the sword that would wound the beloved of the true mother.100 He clearly extracted the truth of the matter and was accredited as a sage.(a)

CHAPTER XVI. ON THE INGENUITY OF THE INDIAN, ESPECIALLY IN THE MECHANICAL ARTS. With regard to the practical and the mechanical arts, as in the trades of Painters, Gilders, Carpenters, Masons and those of Stone working or Architecture, the Indians are most able. They are not only good officials but also Masters. They have the greatest facility to apprehend these crafts as upon seeing the act of painting within a very short time they paint and upon seeing carving, they carve.101 With incredible brevity they learn four or six crafts, and exercise them according to the occasions, and their capacities. An

(a) The Third Book of Kings, chapter 3, verses 25 and 27.

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En la obra de la Catedral trabajaba un Indio que le llamaban, siete oficios, porque todos los sabia con eminencia. La comprehension, y facilidad para entender qualquiera cosa por dificultosa que sea, es rarissima, y en esto yo no dudo que aventagen á todas las Naciones, y en hacer ellos cosas que los demás no las hacen, ni saben hacer con tal brevedad, y sutileza. (Obras X: 483) 2. A Megico vino un Indio de Nacion Tarasco, que son muy habiles, y los que hacen Imagenes de plumas, á aprender á hacer organos, y llegó al artifice, y le dijo que le enseñasse, y se lo pagaria: el Español quiso hacer escritura de lo que habia de darle, y por algunos accidentes dejó de hacerla seis dias, teniendo entretanto en casa al Indio. En este tiempo compuso el Maestro un organo de que tenia hechas las flautas, y solo con verlas el Indio poner, y disponer, y tocar, y todo lo que mira al interior artificio de este instrumento; viniendo á hacer la escritura, dijo el Indio, que yá no habia menester que le enseñasse, que yá sabia hacer organos: y se fue á su tierra, é hizo uno con las flautas de madera, y con tan excelentes voces, que ha sido de los raros que ha habido en aquella Provincia, y luego hizo otros estremados de diferentes metales, y fue eminente en su oficio. 3. A Atrisco, una de las Villas del Obispado de la Puebla de los Angeles, llegaron un Español, y un Indio á aprehender musica de canto de organo con el Maestro de Capilla de aquella Parroquia; y el Español en mas de dos meses no pudo cantar la musica de un papel, ni entenderla, y el Indio en menos de quince dias le cantava diestramente. Hay entre ellos muy diestros musicos, aunque no tienen muy buenas voces: y los instrumentos de harpa, chirimías, cornetas, vajones, sacabuches, los tocan muy bien, y tienen libros de musica en sus Capillas, y sus Maestros de ella en todas las Parroquias, cosa que comunmente solo se halla en Europa en las Catedrales, ó Colegiales. 4. La destreza que tienen en labrar piedras, y la sutileza con que las lucen, puede causar admiracion, como consta á V. M. por algunas que le he remitido, y son verdaderamente piedras preciosas, y de excelente color, y virtud, de que tienen grande conocimiento; y de otras cosas naturales, como de las plantas, raíces, y hierbas, de que hacen remedios á diversas enfermedades con singular acierto. Por no gastar, como son tan pobres, se valen de las mismas piedras para hacer de ellas las navajas, y lancetas para sangrar, y hacenlas con notable facilidad, brevedad, y sutileza; y de ellas usan con la misma expedicion que nosotros con las mas sutiles, y bien labradas de acero.

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Indian who was working on the Cathedral was called “Seven Crafts” because he knew all of them eminently well.102 Their comprehension and facility to understand whatever thing no matter how very difficult it may be, is most rare. And in this I do not doubt that they surpass all Nations and in making things that others do not make or know how to make with such brevity and subtlety. (Obras X: 483) 2. An Indian of the Tarascan Nation, who are extremely able people and make Images from feathers, came to Mexico to learn how to make organs.103 The Indian approached an artisan and asked him to teach him and told him he would pay him. The Spaniard wanted to draft a bill of what he would owe him and by accident failed to do so for six days, during which time he had the Indian in his house. In this time, the Master repaired an organ in which the flutes were complete. Only through seeing the flutes, the Indian was able to set, arrange, and play them and do all that pertains to the interior artifice of this instrument.104 When the Spaniard came to draft the bill, the Indian said that it was no longer necessary that he teach him as he already knew how to make organs. He returned to his land and made one with wooden flutes with such excellent sound that it has been one of the most extraordinary ever in that Province. After he made other organs, employing different metals for the first time, and was eminent in his craft.105 3. A Spaniard and an Indian came to Atrisco, one of the towns in the Bishopric of Puebla de los Angeles, in order to study organ song music with the Chapel Master of that Parish.106 The Spaniard in more than two months could not sing the music of one sheet nor understand it and the Indian in less than fifteen days was singing deftly. There are among the Indians very skilled musicians, though they do not have very good voices.107 Harps, chirimias, cornets, bassoons, and sackbuts they play very well.108 They have music books in their Chapels and music Masters in all the Parishes, something that generally is found only in Europe in the Cathedrals or Collegiate Churches. 4. The dexterity they have in working stone and the subtlety with which they shine them can inspire wonder, as is evident to Your Majesty in those that I have sent to you. They are truly precious stones, and of excellent color, and virtue. The Indians have great knowledge of these and other natural things such as plants, roots, and herbs, with which they make remedies for diverse maladies with singular ability.109 In order not to spend, as they are so poor, they use the same stones to make blades and lancets for bleeding. They make these with notable facility, brevity, and subtlety and use them with the same dispatch as we do with the sharpest and most skillfully forged ones of steel.

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(OBRAS X: 484) CAPITULO XVII. DE LA JUSTICIA DEL INDIO. Tambien en los pleytos que tienen entre sí, son muy rectos, y discurren muy bien en sus Cabildos, y con una muy natural agudeza. En el Obispado de la Puebla, á la parte que cae la costa del mar del Sur, habia un Mulato tuerto de malissimas costumbres, que andaba entre ellos como lobo entre las ovejas, haciendoles grandissimas vejaciones, y molestias; porque á mas de hurtarles quanto podia de su pobreza, les molestava, y violava las hijas, y las mugeres, y cometia otros delitos, é insultos. 2. A este Mulato debian de amparar algunos vecinos, y habiendole hecho cierta informacion, ó proceso los Alcaldes Indios, y probado estos delitos, le espiaron, y tuvieron forma para cogerle, y en un monte le maniataron, y alli le tomaron la confesion, y él confesó todo lo hecho, con que trataron luego de su castigo entre todos los Indios que habia presentes, clamando el Mulato, que le dejassen primero confesar. Decian algunos, que era bueno ahorcarle luego, porque si venia el Padre (assi llaman al Doctrinero) á confesarle se le quitaria, y desterraria, y luego volveria á hacer otros insultos, y á inquietar aquellos Pueblos. 3. Otros Indios decian, que no era bien que muriesse sin confesion, porque no se condenasse, y que assi se llamasse al Padre, para que le confesasse. A esto repugnaron otros, porque creían que le habian de quitar: con que oído todo juzgaron los Alcaldes: Que atento á que lo que le hacia daño, y destruía á aquel Mulato tuerto para hacer tantas maldades, era su propia vista, porque con ella codiciava las mugeres, y hurtava quanto veía, se le sacasse el otro ojo, y que ciego no haria mal, y podria confesarse muy despacio, y era menos que ahorcarle. Y luego trageron un poco de cal viva, y le pusieron la vista, y se la quitaron del otro ojo que le quedaba, y dejaron libre al Mulato, y que se fuesse á confesar, y despues andaba entre ellos, ciego, pidiendo limosna, y se la daban, y sustentaban por Dios, sin ningun genero de ira, como si no les huviera hecho agravio alguno.

(OBRAS X: 485) CAPITULO XVIII. DE LA VALENTIA DEL INDIO. Del valor de los Indios, se há tratado arriba, y referido como son muy activos, guerreros, fuertes y animosos quando pelean; y hoy no se han podido domar, en la Nueva-España,

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(OBRAS X: 484) CHAPTER XVII. ON THE JUSTICE OF THE INDIAN. Even in plights between them, they are very upright and speak well in their Councils and with very natural insight and wit. In the bishopric of Puebla, in the part that falls upon the southern coast, there was a Mulatto who was blind in one eye and had most evil habits. He lived among the residents like a wolf among sheep causing them the greatest vexations and molestations. Beyond stealing as much as he could from their misery, he molested them, violated daughters and women, and committed other crimes and affronts. 2. A few residents probably gave shelter to this Mulatto. The Indian Magistrates having completed a certain inquiry and case against him and proven these crimes, the Indians spied on him and organized a means to catch him. On a mountain they manacled him and there they took his confession. He admitted to all he had done, material that was later considered in the discussion of his punishment among the Indians that had been present. He beseeched them to let him confess first. Some were saying that it would be good to hang him immediately because if the Father (as they called the Parish Priest) came to hear his confession, he would take him away and banish him, and he would later return to commit other offenses and trouble those villages.110 3. Other Indians were saying that it was not right for him to die without a confession as without it he would be condemned and that they ought to summon the Father so he could confess. Still others strongly protested to this idea because they believed that they had to be rid of him. Having heard all of this, the Magistrates made this judgment: In view of the fact that the thing that damaged and destroyed this one-eyed Mulato and enabled him to do so much evil was his own vision, as with it he coveted women and stole whatever he saw, they ought to take out his other eye as blind, he would do no evil. He could confess very slowly and it would be less than hanging him. Later they brought a little quicklime and put it in his seeing eye and thereby took out the vision he had remaining. They set the Mulatto free so that he could go to confess. Afterwards, he walked among them, blind and begging for alms. Sustained by God, they gave him alms without any kind of wrath, as if he had not committed any offense against them.111

(OBRAS X: 485) CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE COURAGE OF THE INDIAN. The valor of the Indians has been discussed above and references made as to how very active, warlike, strong, and animated they are when they fight. At the present time in New Spain, it has not been possible to overcome the

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por fuerza las Naciones Chichimecas, Salineros, Tepeguanes, Tobosos, y otras: y quando tal vez ha prorumpido en alguna parte (que son rarissimas) la desesperacion por los agravios que padecian, en demonstracion de ira han obrado con grande valor, y fortaleza. En qualquiera cosa que les encomiendan son constantes, y aun valerosos, y mañosos, y no reconocen miedo, señaladamente contra animales ponzoñosos á los quales cogen, y siendo vehementissima la ponzoña, porque al que hierre le mata en muy pocas horas, los toman los Indios con las propias manos, y tienen aliento para sacudir las vivoras sobre las piedras, y hacerles despedir de sí el veneno de la boca á golpes, y despues las llevan consigo vivas, y se rodean con ellas el cuerpo, y el rostro: y á los animales feroces, como Tigres, y Leones, los sujetan, y cogen en lazos, y de otras muchas maneras. 2. Rara cosa es, Señor, ver vencer, y sujetar un Indio desnudo, y nadando, á un Cayman que suele tener tres varas de largo, animal ferocissimo, y atreverse en el agua, elemento de esta vestia á ponersele á caballo el Indio, y aguardar que abra la boca, y con grande presteza, y sutileza entrarle una estaca, ó palo de media vara dentro de ella, con que cerrando el animal la boca se atraviesa, y con un cordelillo le saca de la mar á la tierra el Indio, como si fuera un pedazo de corcho, cosa de grande arte, y resolucion: porque yo he visto muchos de estos Caymanes, ó Cocodrillos, y verdaderamente solo el verlos causa espanto. 3. Su valor, resolucion, y maña explica bien un caso que sucedió junto Zacatecas, en donde habia un vandolero, hombre de grandes fuerzas, y valentia, á quien deseaba coger el Corregidor, y no habia podido conseguirlo, porque iba con tres, ó quatro bocas de fuego, y en buenos caballos, y por (Obras X: 486) recelo de su gran valor no habia quien se atreviese á embestirle. Habiendo un Indio oído quejarse á un Alcalde de la Hermandad, de que no podia prender á este hombre, le dijo el Indio: que si queria que se le trajesse maniatado, ó vivo, ó muerto; el Alcalde admirado le dijo, que se lo pagaria bien si se le trahía vivo. Y el Indio partiendose de alli tomó un palo recio, y proporcionado al intento, y se le puso debajo de su tilma, ó capa, y tomando sobres sus hombros un cacastle, que es como una grande cesta, en que suelen llevar gallinas, puso en él media docena de ellas, y se fue cargado caminando, y luego que llegó á dos leguas del poblado, salió á caballo el vandolero, y le preguntó, qué adonde iba? El Indio le respondió, que el Padre (que assi llaman á sus Doctrineros) le enviaba con aquellas gallinas á una estancia; y el vandolero apeandose del caballo, y haciendo descargar al Indio, se bajó para sacar algunas, y llevarselas consigo.

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Chichimec,112 Salineros, Tepehuanes,113 Tobosos, and other Indian Nations by means of force.114 When perhaps in some part (which are very few in number) desperation has unleashed a demonstration of wrath due to the injustices they have suffered, they have behaved with great valor and fortitude. In any thing they are charged with doing, they are constant and even brave and skillful. They do not recognize fear, especially when facing venomous animals that they catch. The Indians take the animals, their venom being most virulent as he who is stricken with it dies within very few hours, in their very hands and are courageous enough to beat the vipers against the rocks and make them release the venom from their mouths by way of blows. Afterwards they carry them with them alive and wrap them around their bodies and faces. Ferocious animals, like Tigers and Lions, they subdue and catch in traps and by many other means. 2. A rare, curious thing it is, Sire, to see an Indian, while naked and swimming, conquer and subdue a Caiman, a most fearsome animal customarily nine feet in length.115 He ventures out into the water, this beast’s element, to mount the Caiman as if it were a horse. He waits for the animal to open its mouth and when it does, with great skill and subtlety, he places a stake or a stick half a yard in length in it. As the animal goes about closing its mouth, the stick becomes lodged there, impeding this motion. With a small cord, the Indian pulls the animal from the sea to land as if it were a piece of cork.116 This is a thing of great art and resolve because I have seen many of these Caimans or Crocodiles and, truly, merely seeing them provokes terror. 3. Their valor, determination, and skill are illustrated well by an event that occurred near Zacatecas, where there lived a highwayman, a man of great strength and boldness. The Chief Town Magistrate wanted to catch him and had not been able to accomplish this as the highwayman traveled with three or four firearms and on good horses. For (Obras X: 486) fear of his great bravery, no one dared attack him. An Indian having heard a Magistrate of the Holy Hermandad complain that he could not catch this man, the Indian asked the official whether he would like him to bring him manacled or alive or dead.117 Wondrous, the militia Mayor told him that he would pay him well if he were to bring him alive. Upon his departure from there, the Indian took a thick stick, fit for his purpose, and put it underneath his tilma, or cloak. Over his shoulders he placed a cacastle, which is like a great basket in which they customarily carry hens, and put a half dozen of them in it. Loaded up, he went walking. Later, when he was within two leagues of the town, the highwayman came forth on horseback and asked him where he was going. The Indian responded to him that the Father (as they call their Parish Priests) sent him with those hens to a farm. The highwayman, dismounting his horse and making the Indian discharge the load, lowered himself to take out a few hens and carry them with him.

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Pero el Indio quando le vió bajo, y divertido en escoger las gallinas, sacó el palo que trahía oculto consigo, y le dió tan fuerte golpe en el molledo del brazo que le derribó en el suelo, y luego con increíble presteza, segundó con otro golpe en el otro brazo, y le valdó, y arrojandose sobre él, le ató las dos manos con un cordel que trahía prevenido y luego los pies, y le arrojó sobre su propio caballo, y dentro de pocas horas entró por el lugar con el vandolero, y le entregó a la justicia: y casos de estos de maña, resolucion, y valor, podian referirse no pocos a V. M. 4. Tambien tienen muy grande animo para ponerse en qualesquiera peligros que se ofrezcan en los oficios que sirven, y en esto grandissima maña y habilidad: y cierto que en la fabrica de la Catedral era cosa de admiracion la presteza con que subian á andamios altissimos, y se ponian sobre la punta de un madero de treinta, ó quarenta varas, y muy despacio ataban los cordeles, que ellos llaman mecates, para poner otros pies derechos, hallandose tan en sí, como si se pasearan por una sala. Y sucedió, que estando uno de estos Indios Albañiles trabajando con este riesgo sobre la punta de un palo, viendo á bajo un corrillo de hombres, les voceó, y dijo, que se apartassen de alli, que podia él caer sobre ellos, y matarlos, y ellos se apartaron admirados de ver que en tan gran peligro les advirtiesse del ageno daño, y que recelasse mas el que podia causar (Obras X: 487) que el que muriendo podia padecer, si cayera de aquel puesto, que era altissimo. 5. De todo lo qual se colige, Señor, que las virtudes que yo he referido de esta Nacion, que miran á la paciencia, fidelidad, obediencia, y reverencia á sus Superiores, no nacen tanto de bageza de animo, quanto de una docilidad, y suavidad de condicion, que debe de corresponder al clima de la misma tierra, que es muy templado, y suave; y por merced que Dios les hizo en criarles tan buenos, y dignos de la proteccion Real de V. M. por sus meritos, y virtudes.

CAPITULO XIX. DE LA HUMILDAD, CORTESIA, SILENCIO, Y MAÑA DEL INDIO. De su humildad he manifestado largamente á V. M. donde he tratado de la devocion, y paciencia del Indio; pero puedo volver á assegurar á V. M. que si hay en el mundo (háblo de los efectos de la naturaleza, y no tratando de los de la gracia) mansos, y humildes de corazon, son los Indios, y que estos naturalmente parecen los que aprenden del Señor, quando dijo: Que aprendamos de su Divina Magestad á ser mansos, y humildes de

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However, the Indian, when he saw him lowered and diverted in selecting hens, took out the stick that he had carried concealed upon his person and gave the highwayman such a strong blow on the fleshy part of his arm that he fell to the ground. After, with incredible skill, he seconded this with a blow to the other arm and disabled him. Throwing himself upon him, he tied the highwayman’s two hands with a cord he had readied before and then his feet and cast him upon his own horse. Within a few hours he arrived with the highwayman at the place where he started and he surrendered him to justice. One could refer Your Majesty to not just a few cases like this of cleverness, determination, and valor. 4. They also exhibit extraordinary spirit in facing whatever perils are posed by the crafts that they perform, in which they demonstrate the greatest cleverness and ability. It is certain that in the building of the Cathedral the promptness with which they climbed to the highest points on the scaffolding was a thing of wonder. They stationed themselves at the tip of a wooden beam about thirty or forty yards long and very slowly tied the cords, which they call mecates, so as to put other supports straight, being so much at ease while doing this it was as if they were merely passing through a room.118 It occurred that one of these Indian Carpenters, working at this risk at a plank’s edge, saw below him a group of men, cried out to them, and told them to move away from there as he could fall upon them and kill them. They hastened away, wondrous to see that at such great risk himself he notified them of their unseen danger, and that he feared more the harm he could bring to others (Obras X: 487) than what he, in dying, would suffer if he were to fall from that place, which was extremely high.119 5. From all of this one concludes, Sire, that the virtues of this Nation to which I have referred regarding patience, loyalty, obedience, and reverence to Superiors are not born of lowliness of spirit as much as a quality of docility and gentleness. This must correspond to the climate of this very land which is very moderate and gentle and to the grace of God who, in creating them, made them so good and worthy of the Royal protection of Your Majesty due to their merits and virtues.

CHAPTER XIX. ON THE HUMILITY, COURTESY, SILENCE, AND ASTUTENESS OF THE INDIAN. Where I have dealt with the devotion and patience of the Indian, I have demonstrated to Your Majesty at length their humility.120 However, I can assure Your Majesty again that if there are in the world (I speak of the effects of nature and not those of grace) meek folk and those humble of heart, they are the Indians. They naturally resemble those who learn from the Lord, when he said: May we learn from his Divine Majesty to be meek and humble of

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corazon. (a) Porque estos angelitos, ni tienen, como se ha dicho, ambicion, ni codicia, ni soberbia, ni envidia, y no es mas humilde que ellos el suelo que pisamos. 2. A trabajo alguno no hacen resistencia considerable; si les riñen, callan: si les mandan, obedecen: si los sustentan, lo reciben: si no los sustentan, no lo piden. Quando llamé á dos Indios de la Misteca, para ver como labraban las piedras, que he referido, ordené á un criado se les diesse cada dia á cada uno dos reales, y de comer, y se cuidasse mucho de ellos, y assi lo hacia; pero un dia con otras ocupaciones se olvidó el criado de llevarles la comida al aposento donde estaban trabajando. Llegaron las quatro horas de la tarde, y no se habia acordado que tales (Obras X: 488) Indios habia en el mundo, y entonces reparando el criado en ello, fue á llevarles de comer, y los halló trabajando con la misma alegria, que si les huviesse proveído convenientemente; y diciendoles el Repostero, que por qué no habian salido del aposento á pedir comida, pues estaba abierto, y podian andar por toda la casa libremente, se rieron, diciendo, que no importaba, y con esta paz, humildad, y resignacion obran comunmente estos naturales. La cortesia, es grandissima, porque todos ellos son muy observantes en las ceremonias de reverencia, y veneracion á los Superiores, y no se verá ninguno que deje de estar atentissimo en este cuidado. 3. En llegando adonde está el Superior se arrodillan. Siempre vienen á sus negocios diez, ó doce, y en diciendoles que se levanten, lo hacen, y bajan los ojos los que acompañan al que ha de hablar, y este solo propone la causa, y hace su razonamiento, y los demás callan, como si fuessen novicios. Nunca se van sin besar la mano, y si se la niegan, se desconsuelan mucho, pero lo disimulan, y callan, y al salir es con grandissimas sumisiones, y humildades. Entre sí nunca se hacen descortesia, sino que con una llaneza muy fraternal se tratan, y respetan unos á otros, conociendose las diferencias de los puestos, y calidades. El silencio es admirable, porque si estan dos horas, y mas, aguardando á entrar á hablar á algun Superior, aunque se hallen viente, ó treinta Indios juntos, como ordinariamente sucede, todos callan, y se estan en pie, ó sentados, con un profundo silencio: y si hablan alguna cosa, es tan bajo, que solo se oyen los unos á los otros, y no otros circunstantes. Y assi no les he oído jamás vocear, sino que solo usan de la voz, conforme lo pide la necesidad. Rarissimas veces chancéan, ni se burlan unos con otros, y el reirse señaladamente entre Españoles, es tarde, ó nunca; ni el manifestar vana alegria,

(a) Discite à me, quia mitis sum, et humilis corde. Matth. 11. v. 29.

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heart.(a)121 Because these little angels, as has been said, do not have ambition nor greed, pride, or envy and the ground on which we tread is not more humble than they. 2. They do not express considerable resistance to any work. If they are reprimanded, they keep quiet. If they are ordered to do something, they obey. If they are given sustenance, they receive it. If they are not given sustenance, they do not ask for it. When I summoned two Mixtec Indians to see how they were working stones, to which I have referred, I ordered a servant to give each of them each day two reales and something to eat and to care for them well and so he did.122 However, one day, due to other pursuits, the servant forgot to take food to them in the room where they were working. It came to be four o’clock in the afternoon, and he had not remembered that these same (Obras X: 488) Indians were in the world. Then, taking notice of and correcting his mistake, he went to take them food. He found them working with the same happiness as if he had provided for them in a more timely manner. The butler asked them why they had not left their room to ask for food as it was open and they could walk through the house freely. They laughed, saying that it was not important. These natives commonly work with this peace, humility, and resignation. Their courtesy is very great because all of them are very observant in ceremonies of reverence and veneration of their Superiors. One will not see an Indian who fails to be most attentive in this respect. 3. In coming to their Superiors, they kneel. Ten or twelve always come to attend to their affairs and in being told to rise, they do so. Those who accompany the one who must speak lower their eyes. Only he who presents the case and makes the arguments speaks, and the rest remain quiet, as if they were novices. They never leave without kissing the hand of their Superior.123 If they are denied this, they are very distressed but conceal this distress and remain quiet, and when they leave, it is with great submissiveness and humility. Among themselves, they are never discourteous but treat one another with a very fraternal familiarity. They respect one another, recognizing the differences in their posts and rank. Their silence is admirable. If they wait two hours or more to enter to speak with a Superior, even if there are twenty or thirty Indians together, as ordinarily occurs, all remain quiet and stand or sit with a profound silence. If they speak about something, it is so softly that only those that are speaking one to another are able to hear and not other bystanders. Thus, I have never heard them shout. They only use their voices in accordance with what the occasion requires. Very rarely do they jest or mock one another, and laughter, especially in the presence of Spaniards, and the manifestation of profane rejoicing occurs seldom if (a) Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart. The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew, chapter 11, verse 29.

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sino que siempre obran con severidad, y veras, y atentos à lo que se les ordena, sí bien quando les hacen algun bien no dejan de descubrir muy decentes señales, y afectos de alegria. 4. No conocen jactancia, ni vanagloria, sino que aunque hagan excelentemente una cosa, y con destreza, brevedad, y curiosidad, no hacen mas cuenta, ni estimacion, que sino huvieran obrado cosa alguna, ó la huviera hecho un vecino. Entre ellos, el hablar es preeminencia tan grande, que es señal de (Obras X: 489) superioridad, como lo es de subordinacion, y de obediencia el callar, y por esto delante de los Superiores, assi Españoles, como Indios, callan siempre los inferiores, sino son preguntados, en tanto grado, que para decir á uno, Principe, y Mayor, y Cabeza de los otros Indios, ó Españoles, le llaman Tlatoani, que quiere decir, el que habla, porque Tlatoa, quiere decir hablar, como quien dice, el que solo tiene jurisdicion de hablar, y tan grande como esto es su silencio. 5. Tienen mucha reverencia los plebeyos á los nobles entre sí, y los mozos á los viejos, y estos son muy templados, y se precian de saber, y enseñar á los demás, y ordinariamente enseñan á los niños, y niñas a rezar, y no se desprecian de ello, por nobles que sean. Muchos de estos viejos nobles son amigos de saber sucesos, y acaecimientos públicos. Y yo fuy á un lugar que se llama Zongolica, que está entre unas tierras, y montañas muy asperas, donde habia un viejo de ochenta años, y que tenia traducidos en su lengua algunos pedazos de Fray Luis de Granada, y muchos apuntamientos de historias. Y habiendo predicado un Predicador cierto egemplo, y dicho en el sermon que habia sucedido en Alemania, se llegó á él este viejo venerable, despues de haber predicado, y le dijo, Padre, aquel caso que referiste en el sermon, dime en qué Alemania sucedió, en la Baja, ó en la Alta? De suerte, que allá en aquel cabo del mundo, donde ni tienen libros, ni noticias, ni letras, sino eternal servidumbre, y soledad, sabía el viejo que habia dos Alemanias. 6. En todo lo que son cosas mecanicas se hallan notablemente mañosos, y diligentes; y en obrar lo mismo á menos costa, y con mayor brevedad, hacen gran ventaja á quantos yo he conocido. Visitando mi Diocesi, huve de detenerme, por ser yá Semana Santa, en un lugar de menos de quarenta Indios, que se llamaba Olintla en medio de unas sierras muy altas de una Provincia que llaman la Totonacapa; y habiendo de consagrar el Santo Oleo, y Crisma en su Iglesia, y hacer los demás Oficios, y los comunes de aquel santo tiempo, fue necesario que se hiciesse Monumento, y tablado para la consagracion, y que despues todo se desocupasse para los Oficios del Viernes Santo, y las ordenes que celebré el Sabado Santo; y alegres los Indios de haber de participar, y assistir á aquellos santos ministerios,

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ever. Instead, they always behave seriously and earnestly and are attentive to what they are ordered to do, though when something good is done for them, they do not cease to find very honest, respectable means of expressing happiness and affection. 4. They know neither boasting nor conceit. Rather, even when they do something exceptionally well and with skill, brevity, and diligence, they do not reckon or esteem it more than if they were to have done a regular thing or if a neighbor were to have done it. Among them, the art of speech is of such great preeminence that it is a sign of (Obras X: 489) superiority, as is that of subordination and obedience in maintaining silence among inferiors. As a result, when in front of Superiors, be they Spaniards or Indians, Indian inferiors are always silent, except if they are asked something. This is true to such a degree that when referring to a Prince, Elder, or Leader of other Indians or Spaniards, they call him Tlatoani, which means he who speaks. As Tlatoa means to speak, addressing one as Tlatoani is as if to say he who alone has jurisdiction to speak and as great as this power is his silence.124 5. The common people greatly revere the nobles among them, as do the youth their elders, who are very temperate and value knowledge and teach others. Ordinarily they teach boys and girls to say prayers and do not disparage doing so, regardless how noble they may be.125 Many of these elderly nobles are given to learning about public occurrences and events. I went to a place called Zongolica,126 which is in the middle of very rugged lands and mountains, where there lived an old man of eighty years who had translated into his language a few pieces of Fray Luis de Granada and many historical notes.127 After a Preacher had lectured on a certain example and declared in the sermon that this had happened in Germany, this venerable old man came to the Preacher and said to him, Father, that case to which you referred in the sermon, tell me in which Germany it occurred, Lower or Upper? So, there at that end of the earth, where they have neither books nor news nor letters but only eternal servitude and solitude, the old man knew there were two Germanys.128 6. In all things mechanical they are notably skilled and diligent. And in doing the same work at less cost and with greater brevity, they have a great advantage over all those I have known. While visiting my Diocese, I had to stay, it being already Holy Week, in a place where there lived fewer than forty Indians. It was called Olintla and was in the middle of a very high sierra in a province that they called Totonacapa.129 Having to consecrate the Holy Oil and Chrism in the Church and perform the other Services and practices of that holy time, it was necessary that a Monument and platform be made for the consecration. Then, all had to be put aside to attend to the Services of Good Friday and the sacraments which I celebrated Holy Saturday. Happy to participate and assist in these holy ministries, the Indians

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obraron con tanta facilidad, expedicion, y brevedad, quanto (Obras X: 490) fue necesario al intento, y con tan buena inteligencia en todo, que nos quedamos admirados. Porque hicieron un Monumento muy alto con muchas gradas, por donde pude subir á colocar el Santissimo, sin clavar tabla ninguna, ni tener hierro, ni hachas, ni azuelas, ni clavos, ni tachuelas, ni instrumento alguno de los comunes de carpinteria, y ataban unas tablas á otras, y á los pies de madera sin cordeles, valiendose de vejucos, y otras cosas naturales, y con tan buena, y segura disposicion, que hicieron con igual seguridad los tablados, y los deshicieron, y volvieron á hacer otros en ocho, ó diez horas, como en la Catedral los Españoles, con diez doblada costa, tardandose seis, ú ocho dias.

CAPITULO XX. DE LA LIMPEZA DEL INDIO Y DE SU PAZ Pues sobre ser industriosos, son notablemente limpios, y aliñados, y en aquella pobreza con que viven, no se les ve cosa desaliñada: porque como quiera que andan descalzos, y comunmente no trahen mas que tres alhajas sobre sí, que son la tilma, la camisa, ó tunica, y unos calzones de algodon: con todo esso aquello mismo lo trahen limpio, y se laban muchas veces los pies, y quando han de entrar en la Iglesia, ó en alguna casa, procuran labarselos primero, y en las manos, rostro, y cuerpo, siempre andan limpios, y tienen sus vaños para esto, que llaman temascales, y con este cuidado, y limpieza crian á todos sus hijos. Luego que nacen los hijuelos lo llevan al rio á labar, y aun las madres apenas los han echado de sus entrañas, quando ellas tambien se van á labar con ellos. 2. Quando van á la Iglesia, es mucho mayor su limpieza; y sucedia venir aquellos pobres Indios con sus mugeres à oír Misa, habiendo andado dos y tres leguas por partes humedas lloviendo, y con muchos lodos, y al entrar en la Iglesia iban tan limpios, y aseados, que causaba admiracion. Tambien entre sí es su trato comun muy llano, y apacible, y pacifico, y (Obras X: 491) raras veces tienen pendencias, y si tienen algunas, luego se quietan, y se pacifican, y en las montañas, y tierras que estan muy apartadas de nosotros, viven con mayor quietud, porque no hay quien siembre rencillas, ni divisiones entre ellos. Y finalmente, sino es por grande violencia, ó vehemente persuasion de Estrangeros, y gente agena de su Nacion, raras veces se mueven á discordias, pleytos, ni diferencias, aun quando les hacen agravios mas que comunes, por ser su condicion sufridissima, y pacientissima, y ellos muy humildes, y mansos de corazon.

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worked with such facility, expedition, and brevity, as much as was required for this end, (Obras X: 490) and with such great comprehension of all things, that we were left in astonishment. They made a very tall Monument with many steps I could climb in order to place the Holy Sacrament, without nailing a single plank or having iron or axes or adzes or nails or studs or any common implement of carpentry. They tied planks to one another and to the base of timbers without cords, securing them with rattan and other natural materials and with such a good and secure arrangement that they assembled and disassembled the platforms with equal security. They later returned to make others in eight or ten hours, while in the Cathedral the Spaniards, at ten-fold cost, took six or eight days.

CHAPTER XX. ON THE CLEANLINESS OF THE INDIAN AND HIS PEACE. Besides being industrious, they are notably clean and neat. Despite the poverty they live with, one never sees anything in disarray. Inasmuch as they walk barefoot and commonly do not wear more than three furnishings upon themselves, which are a cloak, a shirt or tunic, and some cotton breeches. All the same these things are worn clean. They wash their feet many times, and when they have to enter into a Church or a house, they endeavor to wash them first. They always go about with clean hands, faces, and bodies and have their baths for this, which they call temascales.130 With this care and cleanliness, they raise all their children. After young children are born, they are taken to the river to be washed. No sooner have they born the children of their entrails, when even mothers go to wash with them.131 2. When they go to Church, their cleanliness is much greater still. Those poor Indians, having walked two or three leagues through damp areas and much mud while it was raining, used to come with their wives to hear Mass and upon entering the Church, they were so clean and neat that it was cause for wonder.132 In addition, their exchanges with each other are customarily very unaffected, gentle, and peaceful. (Obras X: 491) Rarely do they have quarrels and if they do, quickly they calm themselves and make peace with one another. In the mountains and lands that are very removed from us, they live with greater quietude as there is no one who sows arguments or divisions between them. Finally, unless it is due to great violence or the vehement persuasion of Strangers and people foreign to their Nation, rarely are they moved toward discord, petty disputes, or differences, even when extraordinary offenses are committed against them. For their disposition is most long-suffering and patient, and they themselves very humble and meek of heart.

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CAPITULO XXI. RESPONDESE A ALGUNAS OBJECCIONES QUE SE PUEDEN OPONER. Bien sé que algunos podrán decir, que tambien hay algunos Indios mandoncillos, rigurosos, codiciosos, y altivos, iracundos, y sensuales, y con otros vicios. A que satisfago, que yo no refiero en este discurso los naturales de cada individuo, y persona, sino de toda la Nacion en comun, y hablando generalmente, à la qual, y á su dulce, y suave natural, no debe desacreditar que entre ellos haya algunos hombres, que como hombres se desvien del comun. De la manera que no se desacredita una Religion entera con el descuido de particulares Religiosos, ni el Estado Eclesiastico, con las imperfecciones de quatro, ni seis Clerigos. 2. Lo que puedo assegurar á V. M. es que comunmente los Indios son de estos naturales, y que con mediano cuidado, y doctrina, concurriendo la Gracia de Dios, que nunca falta, y mas á los pobrecitos, se les puede conservar en estas inclinaciones, y que sino es el vicio de sus bebidas compuestas de algunas raíces de hierbas, á que son muy inclinados, que es vicio Nacional: como en Europa en unos Reynos el ser soberbios, y colericos, y en otros faciles, y ligeros: en otros pusilanimes, y mendigos: en otros, dados á la sensualidad: y en otros á ira, y vandos: y en otros á latrocinios: y en otros á la gula. Es certissimo que los Indios estan mas lejos de lo principal, y peor de que (Obras X: 492) se compone todo lo malo del mundo, que es soberbia, codicia, envidia, ambicion, sensualidad, ira, gula en el comer, pereza (por accidente de los que cuidan de que trabajen) de juramentos, juegos, blasfemias, y finalmente de todos los vicios, sino es el de estas bebidas, que frequentemente los turban, y ocupan los sentidos, que no las demás Naciones. Porque en todos esos vicios que he referido, se hallan, sino del todo contenidos, muy libres, y de manera que apenas puede decirse que entre ellos hay codiciosos, ambiciosos, ni crueles ni blasfemos, ni juradores, ni pródigos, ni avaros, ni los demás vicios, que hacen rigurosa guerra á la virtud. 3. Y tambien puedo assegurar dos cosas. La primera: que si entre ellos hay algunos ladrones, son los que se han criado, y viven con los que no son Indios, sino entre nosotros, y otras Naciones de Europa; y raras veces hurtan los Indios, que no los guien, encubran, y promueban, y guarden las espaldas otros de otras Naciones, y lo mismo digo quando incurren en los demás vicios. La segunda: que quanto mira á estas bebidas, que es su mayor fealdad, las dejarán facilmente los Indios, si muchos Superiores á quien toca, cuidáran la tercia parte de quitarles este vicio, que otros cuidan de promoverlos á él. Pero como sobre el Pulque, Vingui, Tepache, y otras bebidas impuras, ha puesto la codicia su

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CHAPTER XXI. RESPONSE TO SOME OBJECTIONS WHICH COULD BE POSED. I know well that some will say that there are also some Indians who are imperious, harsh, greedy, arrogant, wrathful, lustful, and who have other vices. To this I reply that I do not refer in this discourse to the nature of each individual and person but to that of the Nation as a whole. I speak generally about them and their sweet and gentle nature, which must not be discredited because among them there are some men, as men do, that deviate from the norm. In the same way, one does not discredit an entire Religion due to the carelessness of particular Religious nor the Ecclesiastical Estate due to the imperfections of four or six Clergymen. 2. What I can assure Your Majesty is that generally the Indians are of this gentle nature. With moderate care and spiritual instruction, and with the Grace of God, which is never lacking especially for these poor souls, these inclinations can be preserved in them. It is only the vice of their drinks composed of some herbal roots, to which they are very inclined, that is a National vice just as in certain kingdoms of Europe it is being arrogant and choleric; in others loose and inconstant; in others pusillanimous and given to begging; in others given to lust; in others to wrath and factionalism; in others to robbery; and in others to gluttony. It is most certain that the Indians are furthest from the principal and worst (Obras X: 492) vices of which all the evil in the world is composed which are pride, greed, envy, ambition, lust, wrath, gluttony in eating, sloth (by chance due to those who see to the fact that they work), cursing, gambling, and blasphemy and finally of all the vices, except that of these drinks which frequently disturb them and occupy their senses. This is not so of the rest of the Nations. Because they are, if not wholly restrained, very free of all of these vices to which I have referred, and in such a way that scarcely can one say that among them there are greedy or ambitious or cruel or blasphemous ones, or gamblers, or wasteful or miserly ones, nor ones afflicted by the rest of the vices that wage unyielding war with virtue. 3. I also can assure two things. First: if among them there are a few thieves, they are ones that have been raised by and live with those who are not Indians, but rather among us and those of other European Nations. Rarely do the Indians steal except when others, from Nations other than their own, guide, conceal, promote, and back them. The same is true when they commit the other vices. Second, with regard to these drinks, their primary, unseemly weakness, the Indians would easily leave them, if many Superiors to whom it falls to release them from this vice would make a third of the effort which others take care to promote in them. However, as over Pulque, Vingui, Tepache, and other impure drinks, greed has imposed its

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tributo, y la bebida del Indio es la comida del Juez, crece en el miserable la relajacion, al paso que en el rico la codicia. 4. Sin que pueda dudarse, Señor, que de la manera que debe la America á la Corona, y Catolicas Armas de V. M. y á su esclarecida piedad, y de sus gloriosos antecesores, el haber desterrado de ella la Idolatría, y el comer carne humana, y otros abominables, y nefandos vicios, que frequentemente acompañan á la ciega Gentilidad; le deberia tambien, si quisiessen los Ministros inferiores, el desterrar de los Indios este vicio, el qual, respecto de los otros, es ligero, y mucho menos vehemente para defenderse en él, por suplirse el beber estas bebidas ilicitas los Indios, con otras mucho mas sabrosas, que son licitas: con que este defecto en una naturaleza, como la humana, tan llena de imperfecciones, no hace que los Indios desmerezcan la gracia y amparo Real de V. M. y su conmiseracion, y del mandar que se egecuten eficazmente sus santas, y religiosas (Obras X: 493) Leyes, y el gran numero de Ordenes, y Decretos que tiene dados para la conservacion de tan leales, y humildes vasallos, y de la Real, y Catolica Corona de V. M. Ni se admirára, que Vasallo, Ministro, y Sacerdote tan obligado á Dios, y al servicio de V. M. como yo, y Padre Espiritual de tantos hijos de esta Nacion, como tengo en aquellas Provincias, aya procurado, y procúre esforzar la razon, y alivio de estos sus pobrecitos, y miserables vasallos de V. M. y solicíte ahora su conservacion, y consuelo, y mas quando me consta quan grato servicio haga en esto á Dios, y á Vuestra Magestad. El Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles.

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tribute and the drink of the Indian is the food of the Magistrate, laxity grows in the wretched while greed grows in the rich.133 4. It is without doubt, Sire, that in the way that America is indebted to the Crown and Catholic Arms of Your Majesty and his illustrious piety and that of your glorious predecessors, for having banished from her Idolatry, the consumption of human flesh, and other abominable and heinous vices that frequently accompany blind Heathenism, she in turn should be due, if the inferior Ministers wish it, the banishment and release of the Indians from this vice. With respect to the others, this vice is weak and much less difficult to defend against because the Indians can replace the drinking of these illicit drinks with others much more savory that are licit. This defect in their nature, like that of all humans, so full of imperfections, does not render the Indians undeserving of the grace and Royal protection of Your Majesty, your sympathy, the command that your holy and religious (Obras X: 493) Laws be executed effectively, and the great number of Orders and Decrees that you have conferred for the preservation of such loyal and humble vassals and the Royal and Catholic Crown of Your Majesty. Nor will one be surprised that a Vassal, Minister, and Priest so bound to God and to the service of Your Majesty as am I, and Spiritual Father to so many children of this Nation as I have in these Provinces, there endeavored and endeavor to promote the rights and relief of these impoverished and miserable vassals of Your Majesty. I presently appeal for their preservation and consolation and all the more when it is evident to me what a pleasing service this is to God and Your Majesty. The Bishop of Puebla de los Angeles

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NOTES 1. It has been estimated that by 1640 between ten and twelve thousand Indians lived in Puebla. Palafox calculated that there were approximately two hundred and fifty thousand Indians living in his diocese (Palafox, Carta al Rey Felipe IV, BN, Madrid, MS 3048, folio 14). 2. Here Palafox referred to a passage in The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew, chapter 2, verses 16–18 (The Holy Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate (Douay-Rheims version) [Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books, 1989], 5). (Hereafter, all references to the Bible will be to this specific edition, abbreviated as “Douay-Rheims”). According to this account, Herod, perceiving himself to have been deluded by the wise men about the birth of Christ, was enraged and ordered that all male children in Bethlehem two years of age and younger be killed. At this, “a voice in Rama was heard”—believed to be that of Rachel. She was disconsolate, bewailing her children, and expressing “lamentation and great mourning.” 3. Woodrow Borah has documented several cases wherein Palafox, as visitorgeneral or viceroy, attempted to act in support of Indian wages, material comfort, and/or well-being (Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-Real [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983], 154, 174, 176, 178, 228, 234, 263, 284, 315). 4. Residencia loosely translated means “judicial review.” Palafox claimed he refused the offer to be archbishop of Mexico because of his dedication to Puebla. To Palafox, a bishop’s diocesan loyalty was an essential pillar in the moral governance of a Catholic nation. He wrote, “A bishop should live and die in his first diocese just as a husband must live with his lawful wife, and in the same way as it is adultery when a husband leaves his wife and lives with another woman, so it is spiritual adultery when a bishop leaves his first see for another, except when he is transferred by the hand of God, that is by the Pope” (Obras del Ilustrissimo, Excelentissimo y Venerable Siervo de Dios, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, de los Supremos Consejos de Indias, y Aragón, Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles y de Osma, Arzobishop electo de Megico, Virrey y Capitan General de Nueva España, 13 vols. [Madrid: Don Gabriel Ramirez, 1762], 3, part 1: 418–19). As bishop of Puebla, Palafox had an income double that of the archbishop of Mexico (David A. Brading, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State 1492–1867 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], 229–32). Defending himself against the charge of ambition in this choice, Palafox wrote, “And while the Church of Puebla is wealthier than that of Mexico and they may believe it is desire for the wealth of the hacienda estate which motivates me to remain there, he who knows Palafox well realizes that if he guards himself against ambition, God will guard him against greed” (Palafox as cited by Cristina de la Cruz de Arteaga y Falguera, Una mitra sobre dos mundos: la de don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo de Puebla de los Angeles y de Osma [Mexico: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1992], 163. The English translation is mine. 5. Favor in this context seemed to imply decisions taken and notions conceived in the best interest of the Americas and their inhabitants. Favores could also be issued in the form of mercedes, royal grants of land or natural resources such as water to subjects due to merit or in response to a subject(s)’ request. (Norma Angélica Castillo Palma, Cholula: sociedad mestiza en ciudad india, un análisis de las consecuen-

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cias demográficas, económicas y sociales del mestizaje en una ciudad novohispana, 1649–1796 [Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropólitana, Unidad Iztapalapa, Plaza y Valdés, 2001], 504–5). 6. Here Palafox referred to chapter 3, verses 7 through 10 of Genesis (DouayRheims, 7), “After eating fruit of the forbidden tree their eyes were opened, they perceived themselves to be naked; they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves aprons. And when they heard the voice of Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise.” With this reference Palafox suggested that, if even Adam could be deceitful and corrupted within paradise, then the temptation toward evil and malice in regular mortals was not to be underestimated. 7. As Palafox claimed, the position of visitor-general afforded a privileged view into the workings of the viceroyalty as well as an opportunity to enhance royal control. By definition, the visitor-general wielded great secular power. His interrogations were not limited by time nor was secrecy forbidden within his administration. The viceroy, though exempt from inspection himself, was required by law to cooperate with the visitor-general (Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform in Spain and Viceregal Mexico: The Life and Thought of Juan de Palafox, 1600–1659 [New York: Oxford University Press, 2004], 51–53). Though he did not name names, Palafox made it clear in this passage that several officials obstructed his efforts to fulfill the responsibilities of the post. Some of these individuals were Inquisitors who were allied with the Audiencia, or Royal High Court of Mexico. Inquisitor Juan Saenz de Mañozca’s November 1642 letter to the king treated some of these issues (Richard Greenleaf, “The Great Visitas of the Mexican Holy Office, 1645–1669,” The Americas 44, no. 4 [April 1988]: 403–10). For more on Palafox’s relationship with the viceroys appointed during his tenure in New Spain, see the Biographical Essay, 17–21, 25–27, 45–46. 8. I struggled with the interpretation of the phrase “echan todos los cuidados sobre” and arrived at the translation above at Alejandro Cañeque’s suggestion. Other interpretations such as “dismiss all the appeals/charges of whichever Judge” would have rendered the judges more proactive. One could also consider “cuidados” as pertaining to those Palafox suggested were obstructing justice, though this seems less likely. In this case, one could translate the phrase this way: “cast all their concerns/responsibilities upon whichever Judge. . . .” 9. Nowhere in this text did Palafox refer by name to the General Indian Court, established in 1592 at the instigation of viceroy Luis de Velasco II with the intent of providing inexpensive and effective justice for the Indians of New Spain. Funded through annual contributions of a half-real by Indian tributaries and meant to supplement local tribunals and the Audiencia, the General Indian Court provided the Indians with a somewhat sympathetic forum and an opportunity for “defense, redress, and even offense,” which Borah has suggested they used to their advantage. Lacunae in the archival documents make it impossible to know how the court actually functioned over time, what percentage of Indians turned to the court with their grievances, and whether it summarily addressed their concerns or consistently enforced justice (Borah, Justice by Insurance, 226, 308). Perhaps the court’s special relationship with the viceroy accounts for its omission by name in this text.

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In this passage, Palafox claimed that the viceroy, because of the nature of his position more than a character flaw or inattention, was unable to sympathize with the Indians and comprehend the exigencies of their lives. Here Palafox employed a less personal and inflammatory tone than on other occasions in order to urge the king to consider the limitations of the viceregal office and the ongoing inherent risk of Indian exploitation and neglect, whether rooted in conflicts of interest, unchecked corruption and greed, and/or bureaucratic power imbalances. 10. In his “Manual de Estados y profesiones,” Palafox claimed that in the past there had been provinces and republics with overabundant laws. “Living” laws were considered honest and exemplary customs followed by governors. Written laws no longer in practice were termed “dead” laws. Palafox postulated that the reform of the world required each person to uphold the laws of his state whereas its ruin and damnation lay in their utter disregard (Obras 5: 341–42). As David Brading has noted, Palafox interpreted his duties as bishop through the eyes of a canonist, as this had been his academic training in Salamanca. Palafox claimed that three chief obligations of a bishop were “first, to exercise and defend his jurisdiction; second, to impart spiritual doctrine; and third, to provide material assistance. With the first, he defends and corrects them; with the second, he enlightens and educates them; with the third, he aids and sustains them” (“Diversos Dictamenes Espirituales, Morales y Políticos,” in Obras 10: 27; Brading, The First America, 234). 11. On the Spanish rationalization for conquest and colonization and the Patronato Real, see the General Introduction, 1–2. 12. In his article “Les sources ecrites de la cosmogonie andine,” George Kubler cited this statement by Palafox as prophetic with regard to Mexican and Andean archaeology and ethnohistory (Artibus et Historiae 5, no. 9 [1984]:19–21). 13. For a brief discussion of this passage of the translation, see Alejandro Cañeque, “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” in Virtues of the Indian by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, ed. and trans. Nancy H. Fee; intro. by Alejandro Cañeque (Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 78. 14. The title of chapter 10 of The Epistle of Paul to the Romans is “The end of the law is faith in Christ: which the Jews refusing to submit to, cannot be justified” (Douay-Rheims, 180–81). In this chapter of Virtues, Palafox praised the Indians for the speed, totality, and ease with which they embraced Catholicism. He referred to Paul to substantiate his assessment of their conversion as one less costly in human lives and suffering than those of other nations and continents. Fray Juan de Torquemada (1557–1664) built a chapter around this citation of St. Paul in his Monarquía Indiana in which he explored some of its contemporaneous historiography and relation to evangelism in the New World (ed. Miguel León-Portilla [Mexico: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1975], book 15, ch. 47, 187–98). Torquemada was a Franciscan friar who came to New Spain as a child around 1554, was ordained in 1579, and served as guardian of the convents of Zacatlán and Tlaxcala, an Indian community fundamental to the Spaniards in their conquest of the Aztecs. Torquemada interviewed Indian elders about their ancestry and rituals as part of his composition of a three-volume chronicle of the history of pre-Columbian and sixteenth-century Mexico. Palafox would have known Torquemada’s Monarchia Indiana, published in Seville in 1615, and one of very few treatises of its kind available for review at that time.

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15. Palafox referred here to the persecution of Christians and continuation of paganism within the Roman Empire for three hundred years following Christ’s death. Like many of his contemporaries, Palafox kept a watchful eye for signs of surviving and clandestine idolatrous practices, as this was considered an indication that Christianity had not been fully embraced by New Spain’s Indians. He considered idolatry largely eliminated and exposed by his time. He warned priests, however, that, like a “venomous, fugitive serpent,” it could be found hiding in caves and mountainous areas. He advised them to attend to its destruction with vigilant care (“Epístola II. Exhortatoria a los Curas y Beneficiados de la Puebla,” (from 1646) Obras 3, part 1, 172). For further discussion of devil worship and idolatry, see the Biographical Essay, 47, and note 20 below. 16. “Belial” is a Hebrew word that occurs several times in the Old Testament and only once in the New Testament. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, Belial was referred to as the leader of the Sons of Darkness. Beginning in medieval times, Belial was described as a kind of king of hell and has been used as a synonym for Satan and as a contrasting figure to Christ. Generally, Belial seems to have been associated with the devil, darkness, wickedness, and destruction. Impious men were referred to as sons of Belial (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. Elizabeth Livingstone [New York: Oxford University Press, 1977], 57). 17. Arius (ca. 250–336 AD) was a priest in Alexandria whose subordinationist teaching about Christ led him to be excommunicated. None of his writings survive, so firmly establishing his philosophy about Christ, deemed heretical and condemned by Councils in 325 and 381, is difficult. Most controversial, however, seemed to be Arius’s proposition that there had been a time when Christ, a being created by God but of a different essence, had not existed. Arianism, the heretical theology authored by Arius, “maintained that the Son of God was not eternal but was created by the Father from nothing as an instrument for the creation of the world, and that therefore was not God by nature but a changeable creature.” This teaching so stirred Christians that Constantine called a General Council in 325 at Nicaea. The Council “defined the Catholic faith in the coeternity and coequality of the Father and the Son—the term “homoousios” was used to express this concept. Arianism continued in some sectors and sites of Christianity hundreds of years after the death of Arius. Eutyches (ca. 380–456 AD), presbyter and archimandrite at Constantinople and also an exiled heresiarch, claimed that Christ had only one nature and that his manhood was not consubstantial with that of humanity, making redemption through Christ impossible. Macedonius (d. after 360), a Greek bishop of Constantinople, adhered to some of Arius’s theology and was instrumental in the formation of the Macedonians, a sect later suppressed as heretical (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 32–34, 182, 315; The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture, ed. Peter and Linda Murray [New York: Oxford University Press, 1996], 31). These views were obviously heretical to Palafox who believed strongly in Christ as the son of God and the path to resurrection and redemption. 18. By “referent,” Palafox presumably was referring to the two arms of the church—those of the pope and the king of Spain—though he could have been referring exclusively to the Spanish monarch.

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19. Palafox practiced self-mortification regularly and advocated it for Spaniards as a means of purification and to free the body from the tyranny of vice. Ana María Dolores Huerta Jaramillo and Jesus Joel Peña Espinosa have argued that Palafox’s insistence in Virtues on the extreme corporal penitence of the Indians was an attempt to suggest that this form of self-sacrifice was not the ideal path to virtue for the Indians as they were already so adherent to church rituals, so devoted to God, and forced to submit themselves daily to punishing physical labor. These scholars have proposed Palafox believed that bodily cleansing and ritual rebirthing through water was the Indians’ only necessary means of purification (“El Indígena en la Época de Palafox y Mendoza: Entre la Salud Espiritual y la Salud Corporal” in La Pluma y el Báculo: Juan de Palafox y el mundo hispano del seiscientos, coord. Montserrat Galí Boadella [Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004], 241). Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590), a Spanish-born Franciscan who went to New Spain in 1529, compiled an ethnographic treatise based on his observations of and interviews with Indians about Native American practices. He wrote that Indians practiced penance in the form of drawing blood through maguey spines or fasting for different occasions (General History of the Things of New Spain: Florentine Codex, 13 vols. [Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research; Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah, 1950–1982], 4: 25, 7: 4, 8: 64, 81; 10: 77). See note 131 below for further discussion of ritual bathing. 20. The term Santo Cali, which joins the Spanish “santo” (saint) and the Nahuatl “calli” (house), can be translated literally as “saint-house.” Both Nahuatl men and women kept and passed on religious imagery of Mary, Joseph, Christ, or saints to which they were particularly devoted. According to Gerónimo de Mendieta (1525–1604), a Franciscan friar, Indians made religious images and figures—be they for their homes, churches, or processions—with singular devotion and brought them to parish priests so they might sanction their use (Historia Eclesiástica Indiana [Mexico: F. Díaz de Leon y S. White, Antigua Librería, Portal de Agustinos, 1870], book 4, ch. 18, 427). Mendieta’s text, written in the last part of the sixteenth century, was not published in full until 1870 due to royal prohibition of it. However, Palafox would have known of the treatise through his experience on the Council of the Indies and because many parts of it were included in Fray Juan de Torquemada’s Monarquía Indiana, first published in Seville in 1615. Diego Duran and other early Spanish chroniclers related these religious objects to pre-Hispanic idolatry and ritual practice (Stephanie Wood, “Matters of Life at Death: Nahuatl Testaments of Rural Women, 1589–1801” in Indian Women of Early Mexico, ed. Stephanie Wood, Susan Shroeder, and Robert Haskett [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997], 176–78). In contrast to Palafox’s praise for the care of these home altars and the Indian piety implied therein, Hernando Ruíz de Alarcón, seventeenth-century priest and ecclesiastical judge, described them as sites of persistent and concealed idolatry, which cast doubts on the depth and breadth of the Indians’ conversion. He personally sought to exterminate all manifestations of idolatry (Treatise on the heathen superstitions that today live among the Indians native to this New Spain, 1629, trans. and ed. by J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig [Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1984], 50–51, 60–61). Citing Ruíz de Alarcón, Asunción Lavrin stated that the “small body of writings on Indian piety was a critical coun-

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terbalance to Spanish perceptions of the persistence of ‘idolatrous’ practices and their doubts about the reliability of Indians’ conversion to Christianity” (“Indian Brides of Christ: Creating New Spaces for Indigenous Women in New Spain,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 15, no. 2 [Summer 1999]: 232). 21. The factors contributing to the economic misery of New Spain’s Indians are too extensive to outline here though this is touched on briefly in the Biographical Essay, 33 and 36, and in Cañeque, “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 80, 84–86, 95. The Indians’ required payment of tribute and forced purchase of Spanish goods at inflated prices were but two aspects of the colonial system that kept them in a state of indebtedness, often crippling them financially. 22. Palafox aimed to ensure the observance of Pope Paul III’s 1537 declaration and the 1585 III Mexican Tridentine Council mandate that Indians had full rights to receive the sacraments (José Eduardo Castro Ramírez, Palafox: su pontificado en Puebla, 1640–1649 [Puebla: Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Arzobispado de Puebla, 2000], 105–6). He wrote that there were many Indians, men and women alike, of sufficient intelligence to comprehend the mysteries of the faith and therefore take Communion. He noted that “there are very few who take communion, this sacrament being the only and true sustenance of souls, their doctor and medicine, and it is made all the more compelling due to the sincerity and innocence of the Indian” (“Epístola II,” 180). Palafox, having observed Indians taking Communion, could credibly document their worthiness for participation in this ritual; however, he recognized that prior accounts on the nature of their Christian worship would substantiate his portrayal. Torquemada too narrated the great devotion exhibited by many Indians taking Communion as well as the reverence with which they attended Mass. Torquemada cited a manifestation of this by quoting from a treatise written by Fray Toribio de Benavente or Motolinía (1482–1569?). Motolinía was one of the first Franciscan friars to go to New Spain, one of Puebla’s Franciscan founders, and the guardian of Gerónimo de Mendieta. His treatise was partly a rebuttal to the criticisms and apology of Bartolomé de las Casas (Torquemada, Monarquía, book 16, ch. 21, 281–84 and Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, ed. Claudio Esteva Fabregat [Madrid: Dastin, 2001]). Though they shared views on the treatment of the Indians, Las Casas and Motolinía parted ways on the subject of baptism—a source of great tension between them (Lewis Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World [London: Hollis and Carter], 21–22). 23. Palafox referred on other occasions to the neatness and surprising whiteness of the clothing of Indian women, to the cleanliness of their houses, and to the reverence with which they cared for their oratories. He wrote that nearly all women fasted the day before taking Communion, an act not required by the church. He commented that these practices reflected their piety, devotion, and understanding of the “purity and cleanliness” with which their “innocent and simple souls must receive the Lord.” He claimed that Indian women “scarcely knew vices” (“Epístola II,” 182–83). Asunción Lavrin has written that the development of hagiography, in which Indian women in particular played a central role in the process of purification and the discovery of the true path to God, was a “key element in the spirituality of the seventeenth century and in the evolution of the concept of Indian nuns” (Indian Brides, 255).

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24. In this passage on Indian piety and generosity, Palafox referred to The Gospel According to Luke 12, verse 34, which reads, “For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also” (Douay-Rheims, 85). Perhaps because of the familiarity of this biblical passage, Thévenot included it in his extract and translation of Virtues (Melchisédek Thévenot, Relations de divers voyages curieux qui n’ont point este publie’es . . ., vol. 4 of 4 [Paris: Chez Andre Cramoisy, 1672], 4). In this chapter of Luke, Jesus instructed his disciples to dispel concerns about their sustenance, clothing, and other material belongings and turn their hearts and minds entirely to God, who, he said, would provide for them if they had faith in him. Citing this same passage from Luke, Palafox wrote in a pastoral letter from 1658, “My birthplace is not my homeland, nor where I was raised, nor where I am, nor where I serve, nor where I sustain myself; instead, my home must be where my heart is, which is where my treasure resides.” In this letter, Palafox admonished his fellow curates to pursue the divine and disengage from worldly ambitions and affiliations in the same way he argued was second nature to the Indians of New Spain in this chapter of The Virtues. Inevitably feeling politically at sea in Osma and defeated by his Mexican enemies, Palafox, in selecting this passage to quote, was also renouncing the terrestrial and political realms that had been such shaping forces in his Novohispanic career. The “patria” of the Indians, to which he referred in this pastoral letter, had been irrevocably transfigured through the congregaciones (see note 91) and by Spanish settlement at large. Through his narration of their practices and this reference to Luke, Palafox rendered the Indians all the more virtuous by arguing that their Christian devotion was their true home and center—their spiritual “patria” (“Carta Pastoral IX: Trompeta de Ezequiel,” Obras 3: part 2, 84). 25. Mendieta too wrote that, while the Indians did not know how to decline a demand made of them and were obedient in all things, they did not do certain things on rare occasion because they were not suited to them (Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 21, 441). 26. It is difficult to ascertain in this phrase whether Palafox was saying simply that the Indians’ expression of respect to prelates and ministers was commensurate with the rank of the latter’s office or whether he was also suggesting that more dignified and just comportment by these authorities elicited increasing respect from the Indians. 27. The common contemporary meaning for the expression “cantar misa” (translated here as “to sing at Mass”) is a newly ordained priests’ first singing or saying of Mass and “ir a misa” to go to Mass. Palafox presumably used the words “irse a cantar a la Misa” here to register the presence of music and song within Novohispanic churches and cathedrals as a medium for conversion in the early years of Spanish settlement and subsequently as a means to deepen Christian faith. In 1569, Fray Alonso de Peraleja completed a long description of the ways in which Mass in Guadalajara was sung each day with polyphonic music and accompanied by chirimias and flutes. This was considered part of the exercise of Christian indoctrination (as cited in Robert M. Stevenson, Music in Inca and Aztec Territory [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976], 162). Motolinía described how an older friar in his third year in New Spain—whom Mendieta and Torquemada later identified as Juan Caro, working in congress with Fray Pedro de Gante—first taught the Indians to sing, giving them instruction only in Spanish as he did not yet know their native

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language. It was apparently a wonder to him that the Indians’ cleverness and excellent memories enabled them to learn rapidly. Thereafter, friars giving instruction in Nahuatl taught the Indians to sing Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and other hymns as a means to augment their religious devotion. Motolinía wrote that the Indians put music to the prayers and recitations they were taught in Nahuatl, and then proceeded to sing them with great fervor both during and outside of Mass, especially on holy days—a phenomenon that Mendieta too recorded. Mendieta claimed there was no village of one hundred residents or more that did not have singers who officiated over the organ song of Mass or Vespers. Motolinía cited an example of an Indian from Tlaxcala who had completed an entire Mass, brilliantly orchestrated. It was apparently admired by Castilian singers who had seen it as a composition (Motolinía, Historia, trat. 1, ch. 4, 84 and ch. 13, 122; trat. 3 ch. 12, 260–61; Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica, book 3, ch. 19, 225 and ch. 22, 230 and book 4, ch. 14, 412; and Torquemada, Monarquía, book 15, ch. 36, 158 and book 17, ch. 3, 319–21). Palafox was a patron of music as well as art and architecture. His time in Puebla coincided with that of the illustrious composer Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, born in Málaga in 1590 and chapel master of the Puebla cathedral from 1629 until his death in 1664. Beginning his Puebla career as a singer, Padilla composed several sacred motets in Latin for double choir. Perhaps this was why, from 1628, Sunday and feast day masses were celebrated polyphonically. Gutiérrez de Padilla orchestrated all the music, both sacred and secular, for the two weeks of festivities surrounding the Puebla cathedral consecration. Puebla cathedral and notarial documents suggest that he supervised organ, harp, and string bass instrumentalists and that he sold ecclesiastical instruments made in his own home. Training the Puebla choir, composed of twelve adults and fourteen boys in 1651, was also among Padilla’s responsibilities as chapel master. By 1592, it was declared that choir boys were meant to have Spanish parents. Though the official musicians in the Puebla cathedral may have been primarily of Spanish descent, Indians too would have taken part in any musical celebration of Mass, particularly in a cathedral with a music budget that reached fourteen thousand pesos in the cathedral consecration year of 1649—more than twice that spent on the Mexico City cathedral in 1647—though it was later reduced after Palafox’s return to Spain (Lester D. Brothers, “A New-World Hexachord Mass by Francisco Lopez Capillas” in Anuario Interamericano de Investigacion Musical 9 [1973]: 6; Alice Ray Catalyne, “Music of the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries in the Cathedral of Puebla, Mexico” in Anuario 2 [1966]: 75, 83; Robert Stevenson, “The ‘Distinguished Maestro’ of New Spain: Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla” in HAHR 35, no. 3 [Aug. 1955]: 365–66, 368–69). In summary, Palafox most likely used the expression “irse a cantar a la Misa” to indicate that sacred music was part of the Indians’ experience in Mass. He sought to remind his reader that Native Americans were active participants in liturgical and choral song. In contemporary Catholic churches, parts of the Mass, including sections of the Eucharist liturgy and Communion, are often sung by parishioners. 28. By “culto exterior,” Palafox could also have meant “overseas” or “foreign” or he could have been referring to worship practiced in churches and sanctuaries, namely areas other than the Indians’ home chapels or aposentos. 29. Doctrina could refer to Christian dogma that Indians were taught and expected to memorize or to a parish of Indians, often newly converted, to whom

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regular clergy would administer Christian indoctrination and education. Doctrineros, priests responsible for this indoctrination, were obliged to attend to their local Indian parishes as well as the residents of dispersed villages or pueblos de visita within the jurisdiction of their particular doctrinas. Each doctrina had a seat in the major town of the area (Andrews and Hassig, Treatise, 5). 30. A Cacique was a hereditary Indian leader. It was a term used generically by Spaniards to indicate a local ruler of an Indian polity (Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History, ed. Kenneth Mills, William Taylor, and Sandra Lauderdale Graham [Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2002], 406). 31. Palafox discoursed that “in monarchies and kingdoms, the good vassal was born not in his ‘patria’ but in the heart of his King, to whom he must manifest all his love and devotion” (“Dictamenes espirituales, morales, y politicos,” Obras 10: 7–8). It is somewhat difficult to determine from this phrase but it seems as if Palafox was implying that the onus of the generation of subject fidelity to the ruler fell to the ruler himself, almost like a parent teaching a child to show love and respect by presenting a worthy example. In Virtues, Palafox reiterated the monarchical loyalty of the Indians in passages such as this one as a means to inspire the king to act on their behalf, thereby fulfilling his responsibility in a relationship that Palafox, working from an Aragonese model, imagined as mutually beneficial and ideally consensual. As discussed in the Biographical Essay, Palafox argued that empires were more cohesive and stable when nations, as opposed to being taken by force, voluntarily submitted to the rule of a particular monarch (44). 32. Departing from Las Casas, Palafox here expressed his view of the conquest and colonization of New Spain as a just means toward the goal of evangelization. This use of the Spanish term “honor” to describe the privilege of being subject to the Spanish Crown is the only time the term was employed in the text. For further comparison of the views of Las Casas and Palafox, see “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 84–86, 88–90, 92. 33. In the margin of the corresponding section of his translation of Virtues, Thévenot noted that Palafox used the term “books” here but in fact it was more “images” that the Aztecs consulted. This marginalia reflected Thévenot’s attempt to provide a clearer sense of the pictographic nature of Aztec codices and disseminate what he felt was an expanded knowledge of Aztec culture (Thévenot, Relations, 5). 34. According to historian Jacques Lafaye, around 1675 the Creole literati Sigüenza y Góngora became interested in writing a synthesis of the ideas then circulating throughout the Americas on the topic of St. Thomas Aquinas as a New World evangelizer, a controversy initiated by theologians in New Spain in the late sixteenth century. This theological debate had a syncretic aspect in Mexico, as Indians linked the saint with the pre-Hispanic Native American deity Quetzalcóatl, the plumed serpent. The equation of the two figures, Aquinas and Quetzalcóatl, was a narrative used by some to rationalize the Spaniards’ entry into Mexico. The literature on this subject, expanded in recent years, is too extensive to list here but for more on the relationship certain theologians tried to establish between Aquinas and Quetzalcoatl, see Sahagún, Florentine Codex, book 8, chapter 7, 21–22; Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1513–1813, trans. Benjamin Keen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 187–89, 200, and especially chapters 9 and 10; Anthony Pagden, Spanish Imperial-

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ism and the Political Imagination: Studies in European and Spanish-American Social and Political Theory, 1518–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 10, 102–3; Anthony Pagden, “Identity Formation in Spanish America,” in Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Canny and Anthony Pagden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 68–75; Kathleen Ross, The Baroque Narrative of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora: A New World Paradise (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 34; and Enrique Florescano, Memory, Myth and Time in Mexico: From the Aztecs to Independence, trans. Albert G. Bork with the assistance of Kathryn R. Bork (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 188–89. 35. On page 457 of the Obras edition of Virtues that I consulted for this translation, the word “coronicas” was printed after “las historias, y.” I have chosen to translate it as “cronicas,” though “coronas” would have made some sense in this context too. 36. In this passage Palafox referred indirectly to the changed European political landscape as a result of the Thirty Years’ War and the revolts of Catalonia and Portugal. See also the Biographical Essay, 19, 36. 37. In the third comparison in this passage, the order of vices and virtues seemed inverted so I have reversed it in translation for the sake of fluidity and clarity. 38. For a brief discussion of the Indians’ alleged pusillanimity, see Cañeque, “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 79–80. 39. Palafox was probably referring to the battle event of July 1, 1520, named “Noche Triste” or “Night of Sorrows” by Spaniards. Having little food, water, or cannon gunpowder and warned by the astrologer Botello of great danger if they remained in the palace of Axayacatl, Cortés and his men fled Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital city, at midnight in order to elude Indian attackers. They carried portable wooden bridges to cross the canals. When crossing the Tlacopan causeway (presentday Tacuba), the Spaniards were discovered by the Indian residents who issued a battle cry, rallied together, and mounted a deadly attack. There were Aztec casualties in the fighting, including the son of Moctezuma. Accounts of the number of Spaniards that died that night vary between 400 and 1170 but most claim Cortés lost about two-thirds of his entourage. Hugh Thomas has estimated the Aztecs killed approximately 600 Spaniards along with several thousand Tlaxcalans, the Indians who had allied themselves with the Spanish captain (Diccionario de Historia de España, ed. Germán Bleiberg [Madrid: Ediciones de la Revista de Occidente, 1969], vol. 3, 49; Miguel León-Portilla, ed., The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico [Boston: Beacon, 1992], 83–90; Bernal Díaz de Castillo, Historia verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España, ed. Miguel León-Portilla [Madrid: Dastin, 2000], vol. 2, ch. 145, 37; Hugh Thomas, The Conquest of Mexico [London: Hutchinson, 1993], 407–12). 40. According to Motolinía, some Indians continued to use the word teul (god) to refer to the Spaniards for three years following their arrival in Mexico. After that time, he wrote, the Franciscans explained to them that there was only one god and that the Spaniards, much to the consternation of some, should be called Christians (Historia, Trat. 3, ch. 1, 193). Mendieta also explained that the Indians’ “naïve nature” and “praiseworthy simpleness” allowed them to conceive of the Spaniards initially as gods. This virtue, he warned, left them susceptible to deceit and immoral trickery practiced by many profit-seeking Spaniards lacking in conscience. Tailoring

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the text ever so slightly to reflect his tenure and perspective on New Spain, Torquemada published Mendieta’s account in his own (Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica, trat. 4, ch. 21, 439 and Torquemada, Monarquía, book 17, ch. 10, 346–47). 41. Motolinía too sympathized with the Indians in imagining what was to them the initial terrifying and astonishing vision of the Spaniards: coming from the water, mounted on horses—animals the Indians had never seen—and in their strange costumes, the men with their animals appeared each as “one person” (Historia, trat. 2, ch. 10, 193). Mendieta, in turn, reiterated his guardian’s reference to horseman and horse seeming to be one entity to exemplify the danger of one of the three virtues—simplicity in this case, which made the Indians so receptive to Christianity. Mendieta warned of how the Indians’ trusting nature and naiveté could leave them susceptible to Spanish deceit (Historia Eclesiástica, trat. 4, ch. 21, 439). Torquemada, drawing directly from Mendieta, paraphrased the interpretations of his Franciscan predecessors in his own text (Monarquía, book 17, ch. 10, 346–47). Though he would have had other contemporary sources to help him conjure images of monstrous/god-like man-beasts, Palafox probably formulated his account after consulting Torquemada’s text and/or those of Motolinía and Mendieta. Other sources may have included Ambroise Paré’s late-sixteenth century illustrated book in French on monsters (Des monstres et prodiges, ed. Jean Céard [Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1971]; On Monsters and Marvels, trans. Janis L. Pallister [Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982]). On monsters and beasts, see Rudolf Wittkower, “Marvels of the East: A Study in the History of Monsters,” Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 159–97; and Katharine Park and Lorraine J. Daston, “Unnatural Conceptions: The Study of Monsters in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England and France,” Past and Present 92 (1981): 20–54. 42. As Cañeque notes, few of Palafox’s contemporaries were ready to acknowledge the advantage granted the Spaniards by the divisions among different Indian ethnic groups in the central valley of Mexico (“Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 80–81). 43. Though Palafox did not make the claim here that the Conquest could not have come to pass had the armament and troop playing fields been more level, he did propose that the outcome of the battle might have been different. He also declared that the Conquest would have been far more difficult. While he never considered the Conquest illegitimate or morally wrong, he showed support for the Indians by praising their valor and fighting stamina. His use of the third person to describe the Spanish soldiers was logical in that he was referring to a historical moment a century prior to his own; however, somehow he managed to distinguish himself from the Conquistadors by referring to them here as “they.” 44. Guatemuz was a Spanish name for Cuauhtémoc (“Eagle descended” in Nahuátl), son of Ahuitzotl and successor to Moctezuma after Cuitlahuac. Cuauhtémoc assumed power in 1521 only to endure the virtual destruction of his city, Tenochtitlan, by Cortés and his army, as well as the decimation of his people through disease, starvation, and war. In his account of the conquest battles of New Spain, Bernal Díaz de Castillo described how Cuauhtémoc, taken hostage by Cortés, was tortured into revealing the location of treasure before being executed in 1525. Palafox may have drawn his dialogue from Díaz del Castillo’s account, published in Madrid in 1632. Díaz de Castillo quoted Cuauhtémoc as saying to Cortés in the

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presence of La Malinche, his Indian mistress and sometimes translator: “Lord Malinche, I have already done that required of me in the defense of my city and subjects and I can bear no more. As I come before your person and power by force and under arrest, take, then, this dagger which you carry in your belt and kill me with it” (Bernal Díaz de Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España, ed. Miguel León-Portilla [Madrid: Dastin, 2000], vol. 2, 110; translation mine). Díaz claimed Cuauhtémoc, joined by several consorts, cried many tears as he spoke. In his 1672 extract of Palafox’s text, Thévenot translated Cuauhtémoc’s request as “Take it [the dagger] and kill me as without empire and liberty, I can no longer live” (L’Indien ou Portrait, 5; translation mine). Cuauhtemoc’s legendary stoicism while subjected to horrific torture inspired the writing of a Spanish drama in the nineteenth century and continues to inspire composers, literary figures, and Mexican nationalists to this day (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 49–50, 60; Malena Kuss, “Round Table II: Contributions of the New World to the Music of the Old World” in Acta Musicologica 63, fasc. 1 [Jan. 1991]: 8). See also Jorge Gurría Lacroix, “Historiografía sobre la muerte de Cuauhtémoc,” in Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Cuadernos Serie Histórica 16 (Mexico 1976): 7–69. 45. This is the first reference to Europeans as “we” in a long passage where Palafox referred to Spaniards as “they.” Sympathizing with the Indians and promoting their valor, he attempted to present a more nuanced view than that of a simple conquest of inferior subjects who were greater in number than their conquerors. 46. Alejandro Cañeque defined policía as “the good government and ‘civilized’ life made possible by the laws and ordinances of a well-ordered community; the civic order; civility, urbanity, refinement, manners” (The King’s Living Image: The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico [New York: Routledge, 2004], 195–96, 253). See also Richard L. Kagan, Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493–1793 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 26–28. 47. On Sertorius, Palafox cited Plutarch and Padre Juan de Mariana (1535–1624), a Spanish Jesuit priest whose Historia de España was initially printed in the early seventeenth century and subsequently augmented, translated, and reprinted repeatedly into the nineteenth century. Palafox presumably consulted the 1601 Spanish edition, published in Toledo by royal printer P. Rodríguez. I was able to review the first volume of a 1669 edition of Mariana’s text (Historia general de España compuesta, emendada y añadida por el padre Iuan de Mariana de la Compañia de Jesus y aora nuevamente añadida en esta ultima impression todo lo sucedido desde el año de 1650 hasta el de ‘69; Dedicada al eminentissimo señor Don Pasqual de Aragon . . . [Madrid: Andres Garcia de la Iglesia, 1669]). In this later edition, the volume, page, and chapter numbers on Sertorius coincide with those of Palafox’s citation (i.e., volume 1, chapter 12, page 95). Both Mariana and Plutarch outlined Sertorius’s military accomplishments, physical sturdiness, and political cunning, which Plutarch described as “threatening the Romans like a formidable cloud” (“Life of Pompey,” Plutarch’s Lives, English translation by Bernadotte Perrin, Loeb Classical Library [NY: GP Putnam’s Sons, 1917], vol. 5, 155). Plutarch described “the device of the doe” as Sertorius’s chief method for captivating and deceiving the Iberians—“Barbarians” he claimed that were “easy prey to superstition.” Apparently Sertorius tamed and trained a doe to eat out of his ear by leaving food in it. He alleged that the doe, as a gift of the goddess Diana,

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revealed secret things to him. Another tactic he used to win the favor of the local elite was the placement of noble sons into schools of Greek and Roman learning, an effort Plutarch claimed was ostensibly for the purpose of education but in actual fact became a means of taking the youth hostage. In a moment when Sertorius’s control was under siege, these very same children were killed or sold as slaves. Mariana wrote that fate blinded Sertorius, who, in abusing the benevolence of the Spaniards who had rendered him powerful, brought about his own undoing (Mariana, Historia general 1: 98). Plutarch also wrote that Sertorius himself claimed that he would have preferred to live in Rome as her meanest citizen rather than in exile from his country even if he were to be the supreme ruler of all the rest of the world (Plutarch, “Sertorius,” Plutarch’s Lives 8: 29, 61). Palafox presented the example of Sertorius in a chapter where he detailed the valor, fortitude, and monarchical loyalty of the Indians in an attempt to counter their image as easily overthrown victims of Spanish military might who bowed to royal authority by force instead of choice. In this passage, he suggested that the Spaniards too, despite their valor, were vulnerable in ancient times to political deception, subjugation, and belief in false gods. In a more indirect way, Palafox used the story of Sertorius to caution and remind King Philip that imperial delegates could be both corrupted and corrupting, putting their own interests ahead of those of the monarchy and its colonies and/or inspiring rebellion and factionalism among subjects. 48. Alcalde mayores were district governors or magistrates appointed by the Crown. 49. Palafox marveled at the Indians’ willingness to obey a royal power they had never seen. Underneath this assertion of their obedience was Palafox’s belief that the subjects of a monarchy could be fractious and their loyalty compromised without the living presence of their king. For further discussion of this issue, see the Biographical Essay note 101. 50. Zacatlán de las Manzanas is on the gulf-facing side of the Sierra Madre in the present-day state of Puebla, Mexico. Around the time of the Conquest, this area was dominated by a majority of Nahuatl speakers who were allied with the Triple Alliance—the Mexica, Tepaneca, and Acolhuaque Indians—and on poor terms with a minority of Totonac Indians and also with the Tlaxcalans, who had joined forces with the Spaniards in their defeat of the Aztecs. The Totonacs of more southerly Cempoala, however, were among the first Native Americans Cortés encountered in his march on Tenochtitlan. They joined the Tlaxcalans in aiding the Spaniard and his men in their efforts to dominate other regions (Sahagún, Florentine Codex 12: 29–30, 65–68). The Indians of Zacatlán revolted around 1525. (Zacatlán was also a site of royal resistance in the Mexican struggle for independence). A Franciscan convent basilica was completed in Zacatlán in 1567. In the early sixteenth century, Fray Juan de Torquemada served as guardian of the monastery there. Palafox may have chosen to raise this particular example of monarchical devotion because Zacatlán had been a site of resistance to Spanish rule and because, as an Indian site, it would have been familiar to the king by way of Torquemada’s text, Monarquia Indiana (Peter Gerhard, A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993], 390–91; Luis Arturo González Bonilla, “Los Totonacos,” Revista Mexi-

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cana de Sociología 4, no. 3 [third quarter 1942]: 83; John McAndrew and Manuel Toussaint, “Tecali, Zacatlán, and the Renacimiento Purista in Mexico,” Art Bulletin 24, no. 4 [Dec. 1942]: 314; and Christon I. Archer, “Insurrection—Reaction— Revolution—Fragmentation: Reconstructing the Choreography of Meltdown in New Spain during the Independence Era,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 10, no. 1 [Winter 1994]: 63–98). 51. The Spanish Crown was entitled to receive a royal fifth, or quinto, of all mining and mercantile production in New Spain. It also received tax revenues from tribute payments, tithes, and sales and excise taxes. The Crown taxed all silver produced, monopolized the production and distribution of mercury used in the refining of silver, and profited from the control of mints. This was possible because, by law, all deposits of mineral and precious metals belonged to the royal patrimony. There were silver strikes in central Mexico in the 1530s and in 1548 in Zacatecas, an area in northern Mexico where Spaniards had feared Indian attacks in the early sixteenth century. In the 1550s, a new amalgamation method of smelting silver boosted production and wealth in Zacatecas. The mines at Zacatecas accounted for forty percent of all silver production in New Spain. Though silver never amounted to less than fifty percent of Mexico’s exports to Spain, by 1626 only about one-seventh of the total silver production was in fact collected for the Crown. In general, silver production fell between 1630 and 1660 (Alan Knight, Mexico: The Colonial Era [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002], 173, 175). Palafox wrote the king that he would publish the Recopilación de Leyes, or the Laws of the Indies in Puebla (Juan de Palafox y Mendoza as cited in Miguel Zeron Zapata, La Puebla de los Angeles en el siglo XVII [Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 1945], 156–57). The Recopilación de Leyes was replete with laws directed toward the management of Indian mine labor. Robert S. Haskett has noted that one of the more significant regulations required that “only towns twenty leagues or closer to the mines were liable for mine repartimiento and that workers could not be taken from one type of climate to another, a practice thought to pose a serious health hazard” (“Our Suffering with the Taxco Tribute” in HAHR 71, no. 3 [1991]: 458). The primary Mexican mines were located far from the native population in central Mexico, forcing relocation and/or temporary shifting of a significant part of the labor force. Motolinía was outraged by what he felt was a “countless” number of Indians killed in mine labor (as cited by Hanke, Aristotle, 22). Las Casas, among others, denounced the repartimiento or royal demand of tributary service levied to exact the requisite labor. Declines in the Indian population, however, caused volunteer wageearners to outnumber scripted workers by two to one (D. A. Brading and Harry E. Cross, “Colonial Silver Mining: Mexico and Peru,” HAHR 52, no. 4 [1972]: 546, 547, 557, 560–61). By 1600, over two-thirds of the total mining labor force (around nine thousand) were hired as free wage laborers, though often bound by debt peonage (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 137–40). An alcabala was a kind of sales tax. Tercios de oficios could be defined as a tax on all offices. Alejandro Cañeque has suggested it was related to the “media annata,” a sort of tax on all royal offices, whereby royal officials were supposed to pay half their first year’s salary and a third of all other emoluments of a public office or favor (Clarence H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America [New York, Oxford University Press, 1947], 273).

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52. In 1640, the year of Palafox’s arrival in New Spain, Portugal and Catalonia rebelled against Castile. These rebellions were probably provoked by fiscal measures designed by Olivares to raise income for Spain’s activities in the Thirty Years’ War in Germany. While he did not oppose war per se, Palafox did oppose wasteful spending as he believed it precipitated the decline of the Spanish empire. 53. For a brief summary of trade and Mexican exports in the colonial period, see Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 144–49. 54. For further discussion on the seven deadly sins or capital vices in Virtues, see “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 81–82, 86–87. 55. Citing this passage as part of a larger discussion, Charles Gibson has written that the interest of seventeenth-century Indian nobility in holding office—a privilege they considered a “prelude to impoverishment”—was diminished because fewer tributaries made fulfilling the tribute quotas a near impossible challenge. Despite this, “Spaniards continued to hold Indian gobernadores responsible for collection, frequently jailing them for arrears or partial payments and sequestering their properties in the effort to make up the balances.” Palafox recognized this as a problem though he did not develop this issue in this part of the text. Palafox’s observation, typical for his period and status according to Gibson, indicated only a partial understanding of the contributing circumstances. By the late colonial period, Gibson has argued, a number of these Indian offices had been dissolved or had lost their political authority (“The Aztec Aristocracy in Colonial Mexico” in Comparative Studies in Society and History 2, no. 2 [Jan. 1960]: 193–94). 56. While Palafox may have sought to protect indigenous peoples for political reasons, he expressed concern that a medley of people of mixed race in outlying areas of New Spain could lead to insurrection. In a letter to his viceregal successor, the Conde de Salvatierra, he wrote that persons of mixed blood had “little light of reason and no shame” (“Memorial o Informe de don Juan de Palafox, Obispo de la Puebla, al Conde de Salvatierra, Virrey de Nueva España,” in Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Tratados mejicanos, ed. Francisco Sánchez-Castañer, 2 vols. [Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1968], 2: 129). This comment coupled with the one here in Virtues would suggest Palafox bore certain prejudices against mestizos (persons of mixed race). The fact that he did not elaborate, however, makes it difficult to determine the nature or extent of his views on mestizaje in New Spain. 57. Palafox wrote that in no other virtue must one “meditate and pray for more so that God may grant it to you, than in holy humility” (“Año Espiritual,” Obras 5: 326). 58. Mulato was a term used to identify people of mixed ancestry—primarily African and white—though the term was sometimes used to describe individuals of African and Indian descent. 59. The title to chapter 13 of The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, footnoted here by Palafox, is “Lessons of obedience to superiors and mutual charity” (Douay-Rheims, 183). Verse 3 of that same chapter reads: “For princes are not a terror to the good work but to the evil. Wilt thou not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good: and thou shalt have praise for the same.” The other source cited and footnoted here is book 1 of The First Epistle of St. Peter the Apostle, chapter 2, verse 13 (DouayRheims, 264), the title of which reads: “We are to lay aside all guile and go to Christ the living stone: and as being now his people, walk worthily of him, with submis-

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sion for superiors, and patience under sufferings.” In this chapter of Virtues, Palafox asserted the innocence of the Indians, claiming ambition was essentially absent in them. These references recall some of Palafox’s other writings on ambition—his own and that of others—and submission. See also the Biographical Essay, 17–18, 55. Mendieta (and subsequently Torquemada virtually quoting him) referred to this same precept of St. Peter when commending the Indians’ contentment with their poverty and their lack of material ambition—one of the three innate qualities he believed rendered the Indians so capable of embracing the Catholic faith—and while proclaiming their unfailing obedience, the subject of Palafox’s subsequent chapter (Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 21, 441; and Torquemada, Monarquía, book 17, ch. 10, 348). Unless it was commonplace for Spanish chroniclers or New Spain’s priests to cite this passage from St. Paul to further explicate or historicize their vision of Indian poverty, it seems likely Palafox would have picked this passage out of Torquemada’s or Mendieta’s text, either reissuing or repudiating their accounts in order to ground and advance his theses. 60. Pulque and tepache are fermented alcoholic drinks. Pulque is made from maguey, an agave plant, and tepache is derived from pineapple. 61. Palafox exhorted Puebla priests to treat Indian indulgence in this “vice” with compassion instead of hatred. He urged them to make every effort to eradicate Indian drinking and to ensure the habit was not perpetuated due to their own negligence, bad example, or failure to indoctrinate the Indians. He warned that those priests or bishops who failed to visit their district or attend to their duties were engaging in a most noxious, injurious form of moral intoxication far graver than the Indians’ drinking. Claiming there were no vices that could not be remedied through human or divine action, he advised priests to pray that the Indians cease to indulge in drunkenness. He recommended that those who did drink to intoxication be punished rigorously and from an early age. With regard to the teaching of doctrine to children, Palafox recommended that “from the beginning, priests inculcate great horror of the vices of lust and greed in Spanish boys and in Indians those of idolatry and drunkenness and most particularly the latter, due to its being the one to which they most often succumb.” He wrote that one way to discourage drinking among Indian men would be to encourage them to ask themselves why they were “weaker”—that is, more susceptible to drinking—than Indian women. Palafox also advised priests against denying Indians Communion—“the only and true sustenance and medicine of souls”—if they had erred a few times in this vice, especially if they seemed intent on correcting themselves and receiving the sacraments. He reminded his clergy that those who came repentant after swearing, cursing, gossiping, or indulging in the sensual vices, like many Spaniards, were not denied Communion. He proposed that, if Germans were not allowed to take Communion because of drunkenness, they would never take Communion. Asserting the transformational power of this sacrament, Palafox wrote that one author claimed that on two occasions “the Lord had gone from the Eucharistic plate to the lips and heart of the poor Indian who wished to receive him” (“Epístola II,” 144, 146, 164, 180–81, 183, 235). Through his writing, Palafox aimed to temper the hypocritical moral outrage expressed by some Spaniards over Indian drinking as well as to provide them with a sober reminder of their role—either through greed or negligence—in the Indians’

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consumption of alcohol. He claimed, “If we were to see a Spaniard living like an Indian lives who does not get drunk, of which there are many, we would consider him a Saint” (“Epístola II,” 145). William Taylor has classified Palafox’s stance on Indian drinking as one of few “outstanding exceptions to this general Spanish view of Indians and alcohol.” Taylor has outlined how this Spanish attitude reflected different cultural values about drinking as well as different concepts of doing so in moderation (William Taylor, Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970], 41–42, 191 note 93). James Lockhart has advised that the Spanish outrage was probably derived from a stereotyped notion of pre-Conquest sobriety. Knight has claimed this conception involved an exaggerated sense of abstinence, which, in addition to an exaggerated sense of post-Conquest excess consumption, was derived from the fear that alcohol fueled Indian belligerence (The Nahuas, 112, as cited by Knight, Mexico, 44 note 168, 106). Citing Lockhart and Taylor’s work, Knight has argued that the Spaniards overlooked the Indians’ ability to regulate their own drinking, either within the context of a community-building ritual or everyday life (Mexico, 106). The fact that some Spaniards profited from the sale of alcohol to natives and the Spanish government benefited from taxes on its production proved a disincentive in their attempts to reduce Indian consumption of intoxicants (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 223). The Indians’ supposed susceptibility to drink was not featured in Thévenot’s 1672 extract and translation of Virtues, suggesting this issue did not have the same resonance in scholarly and courtier circles in France and England. Writing before the Spanish rhetoric on the perils of pulque was in full bloom, Motolinía described the wine derived from boiled maguey as sweet and neat and noted that the Spaniards who drank it found it “very good, salubrious, and of much substance.” He described a medicinal version (with added roots and made in vats) that Indians used to render themselves fiercer but which, if taken in moderation, was healthful. He detailed many of the industrious ways Indians made use of maguey, which he purportedly recognized at first glance as a plant of “great virtue” (Historia, trat. 3, ch. 19, 293–96). Mendieta wrote that medicine was often administered with alcohol but claimed that, after the Conquest, Indian nobles and commoners alike began to drink to the point of drunkenness, as if the devil were trying to procure that they cease to be Christians. He attributed this change to the fact that native judges and governors no longer wielded the authority to punish drunkenness and that alcohol was no longer restricted to Indians over fifty years of age who were given it in moderation to sleep and warm themselves (Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, book 2, ch. 30, 139). Sahagún described how Aztec rulers had claimed that drunkenness led to great evils and how public drunkenness could lead to the punishment of death (Florentine Codex 1: 108, 112, and Sahagún as cited by Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of Spanish Conquest [NY: MacMillan, 1968], 156–57). Ruiz de Alarcón narrated an elaborate account of an Indian who recovered from a grave illness to find himself with healing powers. During the course of his recovery, the healer was cautioned by other Indians to “consider what happens to those who got drunk” and warned to abstain from drinking pulque (Treatise, 184–85). 62. Supported by legislation restricting Indian rights and liberties, the Spaniards conflated their view of Indians’ fondness for drink with their assessment of Native

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Americans as idle, lacking in judgment or self-control, and child-like—like “children with beards” (Taylor, Drinking, 42). Though he later claimed to have erred in his remarks about the Indians, Fray Domingo de Betanzos, in a letter to the Council of the Indies, used both the terms “children” and “beasts” in describing the Indians (Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians, 23–24). See also Cañeque, “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 87. While Palafox parted company with many of his predecessors and contemporaries on the subject of Indian drinking, in this chapter he too coupled the themes of Native American drinking and sloth. He also used the same analogy in this chapter where he likened the Indians to four-year-old children. Giving himself the title of “Pastor and Father of so many souls,” in Virtues, Palafox frequently referred to himself as a father to the Indians—“children of the church”—and urged other priests and authorities to assume such a paternal role. 63. Citing other scholars, Knight has discussed how the Indians, after being viewed in the early sixteenth century as industrious and “merry” workers, began to acquire a reputation for being lazy amongst certain Spaniards as the concept of work was “desacralized” in their communities through the imposition and assimilation of Spanish codes of conduct and precepts (Mexico, 104, 113). Elsewhere Palafox asserted that the Indians were not negligent or stubborn by nature but flexible. He argued that they only became stubborn when subjected to exceedingly unjust demands or the superfluous whims of Spaniards, when they lost esteem for their ministers due to the latter’s weakness, when a minister’s vice stripped him of his own authority, when they could no longer tolerate the Spaniards’ greed, or when they were witness to Spanish wretchedness. Challenging secular and religious ministers alike, he posed the question: “Who could respect a Minister, be he representative of God or King, who is weak and lascivious? Who could love greed, tolerate insolence?” Palafox asserted that even beasts wanted to be treated with kindness so why not these unfortunate creatures, rational beings protected by their king by royal decree. He urged that the Indians were not inflexible when governed by a moderate hand and by modest, exemplary, and virtuous ministers whom the Indians knew loved them and to whom they would easily yield and offer support and sustenance. He cautioned that those who called the Indians stubborn and evil had failed to indoctrinate them properly, having been motivated more by profits than the salvation of Indian souls (“Epístola II,” 143–44). 64. Palafox consistently emphasized the conversion and transformational power of catechism. He advised priests of Puebla that a “district without Christian teaching is like land that is not fruitful . . . life without spirit, a heart without blood” (“Epistola II,” 160). 65. Palafox here cited Memorabilium omnis aetatis et omnium gentium chronici commentarii, a chronicle of world history printed in 1516 in Tübingen and authored by Swabian noble Joannes Naucler (Nauclerus being the Latinized version of his surname) (ca. 1425–1510). Written at the recommendation of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, the chronicle drew from many sources and was known to scholars and cartographers such as Ortelius. It included a foreword by humanist Johann Reuchlin and biblical, Greek mythological, and historical accounts.

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In this chapter of Virtues where Naucler is cited and where Palafox argued for the rarity of the vices of lust, gluttony, and laziness among the Indians, he raised the historic rivalries between the Guelph and the Ghibelline families in Italy and the Nyerros and Cadells factions in Spain as a counterpoint to the more peaceable Indians whose undying Christian devotion, he suggested, was not politically motivated, partisan, or dissentious. The Guelphs, descended from noble mercantilists, and the Ghibellines, imperialists whose wealth was agriculturally based, were bands in central and northern Italy supporting, respectively, the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. After defeating the Ghibellines in 1289, the Guelphs became splintered, fighting amongst themselves. Dante, who sided with the White Guelphs, was exiled from Florence in 1302 when the Black Guelphs assumed control of the city. Cities and families continued to appropriate these names and allegiances until Holy Roman Emperor Charles V established imperial power in Italy in 1529. The roots of the conflict between the Nyerros and Cadells, noble Catalan families and their followers, have not been definitively determined, but the disputes between these coteries were as enduring and vigorous as those of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Like the latter, the Nyerros and Cadells often maintained divided loyalties within the Catholic Church—the Nyerros to the canons and the Cadells to the bishop. John H. Elliott has described how royal absenteeism in the early seventeenth century and the exclusion of Catalan nobles from offices of power in the Spanish Crown created a void for the Catalan aristocracy who, as a result, descended into feuds, banditry, and rivalries—the two primary factions being the Nyerros and Cadells (John H. Elliott, The Revolt of the Catalans: A Study in the Decline of Spain, 1598–1640 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963], 75–77). This same kind of void and other sources of political discontent and fissure precipitated the revolt of Catalonia in 1640, an event of great concern to Palafox. Besides juxtaposing the virtue of the piety, Christian naiveté, and royal loyalty of Native Americans with the wrath, partisan Christianity, and centuries-long enmity of these European coalitions, Palafox, through the example of these historic rivalries, was warning the king of the danger of leaving sectors of subjects—Indians and Creoles alike—unprotected, distant from his royal personage, and without a role in their own governance. This kind of neglect and repression, in Palafox’s mind borne out through the contingents and events he referenced here, could further destabilize the monarchy and lay the ground for rebellion. 66. Palafox implied here that, by comparison with the Indians, the Franciscans, despite their vow of poverty, did customarily sleep upon boards as opposed to the ground. 67. One of the Franciscans who made this claim was Mendieta, to whom Palafox was inevitably referring in this chapter on Indian poverty, though Fray Torquemada too published this material, taken from his predecessor’s treatise. In a passage lauding Indian poverty as a Christian state of being, Mendieta (and after him Torquemada) wrote that if St. Francis were “alive in the world and could see the Indians, he would be ashamed and confused, confessing that poverty was no longer his sister nor did he need be glad of it.” To Mendieta’s account Torquemada added that many Franciscans coming from Spain—where they seemed to be the poorest mendicants in the world—“shrugged their shoulders when they saw the Indians, recog-

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nizing them as poorer than themselves.” The fact that Palafox did not specify Torquemada’s 1615 edition of the Monarquía Indiana as the source—or one of them—for this imagined response of St. Francis to the Indians suggests he either wanted to imply Mendieta as his original source and agitate the royal officers who condemned Historia Eclesiástica Indiana or, more likely, sought to avoid identifying Mendieta because of the royal controversy around the latter’s text. Palafox, Mendieta, and Torquemada all followed this reference with an account of the material poverty of the Indians and Franciscans, though Palafox here used this opportunity to assert that the Franciscans lived with greater comfort and more amenities than their converts (Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 21, 440, and Monarquía, book 17, ch. 10, 347–48). This laid the groundwork for Palafox’s suggestion in paragraph 6, expressed through an account of Indians of Taguacan appearing before a Franciscan, that the Indians more fully and humbly practiced the poverty, obedience, and patience that the Franciscans professed. (See note below on Francesco Gonzaga). Motolinía, along with other theologians, also posited a link between the poverty of Native Americans and qualities of meekness and Christian virtue, in the tradition of St. Francis of Assisi. He wrote, “God wishes to fill his abode with these poor weak beings” (citation of Motolinía from Elsa Cecilia Frost, “The Foundation of Puebla and the Franciscan Project,” Artes de México 40 [1998]: 84). Motolinía also professed, as did Mendieta citing him, that the conquistadors and other Spaniards ought to recognize that their personal wealth and the maintenance of New Spain’s agriculture, livestock, and even its extant native population were due to the Franciscans’ labors and peaceful engagement with the Indians and their lands. Motolinía recounted an instance wherein some Indians requested Bishop Sebastián Ramírez to send them only Franciscans, pledging that these priests loved them and that they returned their love. When queried as to why they preferred Franciscans, the Indians reportedly stated it was because “they go about poor and barefoot as we do, they eat as we do, they sit with us and converse calmly with us.” Earlier in the treatise, Motolinía (and Mendieta and Torquemada to follow), in describing the modesty of the Indians’ clothing, housing, and diet like Palafox did here in Virtues, had pronounced their patience, meekness, and humble servility (Motolinía, Historia, trat. 3, ch. 4, 216–17; trat. 1, ch. 14, 128; Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica, book 3, ch. 22, 264; and Torquemada, Monarquía, book 17, ch. 10, 347–48). Through comparing and contrasting the material lives of the Indians and Franciscans in this passage, Palafox disputed Motolinía’s claim that the Franciscans, due to their humility and meekness, had a special way with the Indians. This special way could have been parlayed into the Franciscans meriting a unique claim to the Indians’ care and administration, a claim that Palafox here aimed to discredit rhetorically and legislated to terminate in actuality. 68. In imitation of Christ’s poverty, mendicants in colonial Mexico begged for their daily bread (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 181). Though it was not uncommon or highly frowned upon for the indigent or needy to beg for alms and food around churches or public buildings in New Spain, Palafox did not refer to Indians begging in this treatise. 69. The First Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, chapter 6, verse 8 (Douay-Rheims, 240). The translation from Latin is that of the Douay-Rheims edition, while the translation

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from Spanish is mine. St. Paul is said to have written this epistle in order to instruct Timothy, then bishop of Ephesus, in the duties of a bishop to himself and his charges. The title of chapter 6 is “Duties of servants. The danger of covetousness. Lessons for the rich.” Verse 10 of this same chapter reads “For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the faith and have entangled themselves in many sorrows” (Douay-Rheims, 236, 240). Palafox cited this same biblical passage in a letter written to Puebla clergy in which he argued that the Indians were stubborn only when subject to grave injustices or the demands of cruel, greedy ministers. He warned that those who identified the Indians as such were more concerned with their own profits and family benefits than the Indians’ Christian indoctrination and well-being (“Epístola II,” 144). In a chapter in which he set out to manifest three inherent qualities of Indians that he believed supported their Christianity and salvation, Mendieta cited a biblical passage parallel to the one Palafox cited here. After noting poverty as the third quality that he believed made the Indians’ souls so amenable to salvation, Mendieta quoted St. Paul as saying that he had known both abundance and want and was able to appreciate and accept the two. After this Mendieta extolled the Indians, likening them to St. Paul, for being content with a diet of maize and chile but able to enjoy an occasional meal of meat if given it (Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 21, 441). Instead of raising this epistle of St. Paul to provide a metaphor for the Indians’ freedom from greed, Torquemada paraphrased it to defend the friars’ Christian virtue and commitment to poverty, documenting their material and dietary modesty as well as strict regulations regarding their clothing, housing, and religious possessions (Monarquía, book 4, ch. 38, 162–64, and ch. 39, 166). In this Virtues chapter treating Indian poverty and referring indirectly to Mendieta and Torquemada’s works by way of citations and arguments, Palafox described how the Indians lived under greater austerity and with far fewer material comforts than the mendicants, despite the latter’s vow of poverty. Though he praised the spiritual end of the mendicants, he also suggested their practice in New Spain was not as pure and free of material ambition as it ought or pretended to be. Parenthetically but significantly, he asserted that their sacrifices did not render their profession as illustrious or fundamental as that of the secular clergy. 70. Due largely to the presence of the word “de” prior to St. Francis and St. Clare in the original text, it is difficult to ascertain whether Palafox meant to say that an apparition of St. Francis and St. Clare appeared to the Franciscan monk or whether the Indians themselves presented themselves to a member of the order of St. Francis and St. Clare (1194–1253), a follower of St. Francis who founded the Order of Poor Ladies, an order of nuns that pursued a Franciscan vision. As Thévenot translated it as the former and as I was not able to consult a copy of De Origine seraphicae (see following note), I followed Thévenot’s interpretation though with some reservation (Relations, 8). 71. It seems likely that the Gonzaga to whom Palafox referred here was Francesco Gonzaga, Franciscan Bishop of Mantua and author of De Origine seraphicae . . . (Rome: Dominici Basa, 1587), a history of the Seraphic order dedicated to St. Francis and perhaps the source for the account of the Indians of Taguacan. In her article on the patronage of Ferdinando Gonzaga (1587–1626), sixth duke of Mantua and son of Duke Vincenzo I, Pamela Askew suggested that Ferdinando’s relations with

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the artist Giovanni Battista Crespi, or “Il Cerano,” were partially facilitated by the patron’s connections with the Borromeo family in Milan and with Fra Francesco Gonzaga. Cerano’s primary patron in Milan was Federico Borromeo (1564–1631), cousin and successor as archbishop to Carlo Borromeo (St. Charles Borromeo), both of whom were influential to Palafox as Tridentine prelates and reformers. (For a discussion of Palafox and these Borromeos, see also the Biographical Essay, 52–54.) Cerano depicted Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Charles Borromeo with great frequency and intensity. Like Palafox, Francesco and Ferdinando Gonzaga were both committed to Counter-Reformation ideals. Also like Palafox, Bishop Gonzaga maintained a particular devotion to St. Charles Borromeo and sought to follow his episcopal and pastoral example (Pamela Askew, “Ferdinando Gonzaga’s Patronage of the Pictorial Arts: The Villa Favorita,” Art Bulletin 60, no. 2 [June 1978]: 282). In order to illustrate the author’s “elegant style” and the “spirit of his devotion,” Torquemada published a letter Mendieta had written to Minister General Fray Francisco Gonzaga in which Mendieta had raised the subject of conferring a confraternity (Monarquía Indiana, book 20, ch. 73, 371–72). Mendieta arrived in New Spain in 1554 and died there in 1604, having served as a Franciscan friar for over fifty-five years. His tenure in Mexico overlapped with that of Bishop Gonzaga in Italy. Correspondence with chroniclers and Franciscans such as Mendieta would have served Gonzaga as a source for the account above, as the Mantuan bishop presumably never visited New Spain. 72. As part of his reform agenda, Palafox aimed to reduce mendicant abuses of Indians and free up the Native Americans as a labor force. In keeping with principles of the Council of Trent, he lobbied to boost the authority and income of the secular clergy. This was at the expense of the Jesuits and Mendicants who were loathe to abdicate their Indian “enrichment”—power, land wealth, and income—to the episcopal authorities. The monarchy enacted legislation in 1574 meant to suppress the privilege and independence of the friars. A royal decree in 1626 called for a reduction in the number of “religious houses” in Puebla and the diocese of Tlaxcala, claiming “excessive expenses and great inconveniences . . . which were no longer necessary for the indoctrination of the Indians at this time for the great diminution existing among them” (Robert Charles Padden, “The Ordenanza del Patronazgo, 1574: An Interpretative Essay,” The Americas 12, no. 4 [April 1956]: 352–54; AGI, México 34, 1631). For further discussion of Palafox’s clashes with the mendicants and Jesuits, see the Biographical Essay, 23–27. 73. In designating the Indians as the “feet” of the body politic, Palafox used a bodily metaphor that was also applied to Spanish peasants. See Cañeque, The King’s Living Image, 205–6. 74. In his pastoral visits, Palafox posed a series of questions to Spanish authorities on the practices of their parishes. One of these questions was whether the Spaniards had used Indians to transport heavy objects without paying them what they merited and whether they had had Indians make blankets which the Spaniards then sold for their own profit (“Direcciones pastorales,” Obras 3, part 1: 58). 75. As discussed by Cañeque in “Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” Palafox suggested he would write two other treatises to deal with the subject of Indian suffering and the remedies he proposed to alleviate these hardships (78).

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76. Palafox here cited The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to St. Matthew, chapter 10, verse 23 (Douay-Rheims, 14), which reads: “And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, til the Son of Man come.” Verse 22 of this same chapter reads: “And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.” Here Palafox equated the Indians with the disciples of Christ in that they would be persecuted for their belief in him. Palafox also expressed the hope and urged the king to ensure that—like the disciples—the Indians’ faith, devotion, and sacrifice would lead to their salvation. 77. An arroba is a unit of measurement equivalent to twenty-five pounds. In a rare case from 1633 cited by Borah wherein Indians protested their mistreatment, a Veracruz district magistrate was ordered by the General Indian Court to desist using Indians for his personal as opposed to official royal use and to cease fining them in the event they resisted his commands. One of his many offenses apparently was forcing Indians to carry loads long distances without pay (Justice by Insurance, 152–53). 78. The word “material” may represent a typo as Palafox may have written “materia” or matter instead. I have translated it as if he originally wrote “material.” In his comments on a penultimate draft of my translation, Alejandro Cañeque opined that by “pobres de corazón,” Palafox probably was referring to the New Testament: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5: verse 3). 79. This chapter cited from Luke is titled “The widows mites. The signs that should forerun the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world.” Verses 2 through 4 describe how a poor widow, in an act of great faith, cast all the money she had into the temple as an offering while those of greater wealth, though also contributors, were not as generous. Palafox here upheld the generosity of the Indians, despite their being of very little means, metaphorically linking their dutiful payment of tribute to the bankrupting offering of the impoverished widow. Indirectly, he may have been reminding Philip that greed on the part of any secular and/or ecclesiastical authority must not be countenanced. Palafox exhorted that material and moral excesses and unchecked aristocratic greed would only drive Spain into further decline. In 1654, he wrote, “A real which I give as an alm during my life is worth more than the gift of all my possessions at my death” (“Carta Pastoral XI De la Paciencia en los Trabajos,” Obras 3, part 2, 216). 80. For Mendieta’s detailed treatment of Indians’ giving of alms and their contributions to the construction and maintenance of churches, see Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 17, 421–28. 81. Asunción Lavrin has written that Palafox, by focusing exclusively on economic limitations, failed to consider the racial ostracism of Indians by elites in New Spain in his explanation of the obstacles Indian women faced when wanting to profess. In her estimation, Palafox’s concern was more for the Indian virtues “that would gain the kingdom of God for the meek” than social justice. Lavrin cited José Maria Kobayashi’s arguments in asserting that the Christian education of girls in New Spain did not always align with indigenous customs. For example, Indians expected Indian women to work for their husbands. Daughters of cacique or principal Indians were not expected to work at all. This may have made some Indian families

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disinclined toward Christian education and convent life for their daughters, especially in the case of those few who were capable of paying a dowry. Mendieta wrote that efforts to maintain Indian convents and sisterhoods were terminated once the friars determined that these chaste Indian women, who had participated in convent life “since the time of idolatry,” were not capable of guiding their fellow converts in the Christian faith with the desired “perfection” (Historia eclesiástica, 418–21). Tracing changing and variable attitudes, Lavrin has noted that “the first convent for Indian nuns did not receive ecclesiastical and royal approval until 1724.” The first convent established for women in New Spain in 1550 was reserved for women of Spanish descent though two mestiza daughters of Moctezuma were admitted after their mother’s death. The 1585 Third Provincial Council’s ruling against requesting higher dowries and special ecclesiastical consent for mestiza women seeking to enter convents suggests that such a practice indeed existed (Asunción Lavrin, “Indian Brides of Christ: Creating New Spaces for Indigenous Women in New Spain,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 15 [Summer 1999]: 226, 228–29, 237). 82. Here Palafox used the term “to know” in the biblical sense, referring to sexual relations. 83. Cholula, the longest inhabited city in Mexico, is situated very near Puebla and the Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl volcanoes. It was the center of the Quetzalcoatl cult during pre-Hispanic times and the site of a massacre in the early sixteenth century. In 1519, Hernán Cortés, reportedly warned by his Indian mistress, La Malinche, of an assassination plot against him, employed his small army to kill many Cholulans. Sahagún made reference to the Cholulans being killed by the Spaniards’ treachery though he faulted the Tlaxcalans for inciting the Spaniards (Florentine Codex, 9: 21; 12:29). During the colonial period, many Christian churches were built on top of the numerous pre-Columbian pyramids and structures in Cholula. 84. Norma Angélica Castillo Palma has pointed out that the Spanish term “Principal” could be used to identify Indian nobility. By the end of the seventeenth century, she has suggested, this term was employed to classify wealthy Indians that had contributed to their communities but were not necessarily of noble lineage (Cholula: sociedad mestiza en ciudad India, un análisis de las consequencias demográficas, económicas y sociales del mestizaje en una ciudad novohispana (1649–1796) [Iztapalapa, Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2001], 505). In Cervantes’s 1612 story, “The Power of the Blood,” William M. Davis translated “hombre principal y rico” as “man of quality and wealth” (Spanish Stories/Cuentos Españoles, a Dual-Language Book [New York: Dover, 1987], 71). Principal was the Spanish equivalent of the Nahuatl term “pipiltin” or noble (Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise, 314, note 9). The term doncella indicated that Juana was a maiden—explicitly a virgin—though Palafox described her as if she were a mature woman. Her portrayal here, albeit brief, embodied some of Bernardino de Sahagún’s characterizations of women: of a maiden—“a virgin, clean, pure of heart, well-disposed”—and of a mature woman— “respected, revered, dignified, a woman of the home. She works; she never rests” (Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex Book 10: 21, 46–47, 51, as cited by J. O. Anderson, “Aztec Wives” in Indian Women of Early Mexico, ed. Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997], 85). Mendieta too wrote of Indian women who never married but who lived

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“chaste and virtuous lives,” serving as matrons in charge of younger girls (Historia eclesiástica Indiana, 90, 106). In Virtues, the Indian woman Juana’s surname is spelled Motolina. It is uncertain whether this was a typographical error or merely a different spelling for Motolinía. In an index of the years 1590–1600 from the Cholula Notarial Archive, the only Motolinía listed is Diego Motolinía, Indian resident of Tlaxcala who came to Cholula on Oct. 11, 1590, to work as a shepherd for a year for Pedro García Manuel, a Cholula resident (Cayetano Reyes García, Indice y extractos de los protocolos de la Notaría de Cholula (1590–1600) [Mexico: INAH, 1973], 23). Perhaps archival research in Cholula would shed light on the identity of Juana Motolina. 85. The courtship ritual Palafox described put the bachelor in the role of sweeper, a departure from the affiliation given it by friars Sahagún, Mendieta, and Bautista, who cast priests as sweepers in temple precincts and Mexica women as sweepers in the domestic realm. According to Angel María Garibay, the fallen straws of a woman’s broom could be collected by a man seeking to seduce her (as cited by Louise M. Burkhart, “Mexica Women on the Home Front: Housework and Religion in Aztec Mexico,” in Indian Women of Early Mexico, 33–38). It is very difficult to gauge how uniformly and frequently the ritual Palafox outlined was practiced by young Indian males in his time. However, this inversion of roles would have been a means to indicate the seriousness of the suitor’s intent and the purity of his affections. It showed his respect for the woman’s femininity and family and suggested a kind of union of gendered, sacred, and secular realms. 86. Pedro Carrasco has noted that, in pre-Spanish Mexico, Indians tended to marry within their social class. Spanish chroniclers recounted that polygyny was customary among both commoners and nobles; however, marriages between nobles were arranged by petition and celebrated publicly while women of lower social rank were taken on as second wives and virtual concubines. Indigenous women inherited nobility from their fathers only. Marriage within and across Aztec group boundaries helped bind different households and kingdoms (“Indian-Spanish Marriages in the First Century of the Colony” in Indian Women of Early Mexico, 89; Susan Shroeder, “The Mexico that Spain Encountered” in The Oxford History of Mexico, ed. Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], 70). Sahagún admonished Aztec parents to arrange for the proper marriage of their children; sons were not to pursue marriage on their own but were instructed to inform their parents of their wish to marry (Florentine Codex 6: 127–28). In a detailed account of pre-Hispanic Indian marriage, Mendieta assigned most of the choice of partners to the parents and relatives of the bride and groom (Historia Eclesiástica, book 2, ch. 25, 126–28). In these chroniclers’ accounts and in Torquemada’s, birth dates of spousal candidates were evaluated to determine an auspicious union before esteemed elders, essentially acting as marriage negotiators, communicated the wishes of the groom’s family to that of the potential bride’s. Torquemada specified that the bride-to-be would be the final person to give her consent. He also offered instances where couples seeking to marry without having gone through official channels could do so legitimately and with their parents’ blessings (Monarquía, book 13, ch. 5, 154–55). Asunción Lavrin has written that, while the seventeenth-century Catholic Church supported the free will of couples in New Spain, it did not negate the rights of par-

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ents and family to have a say in the marriage choices of next-of-kin. Freedom of choice in marriage, marriage between social equals, and parental consent in marriage were closely bound issues within seventeenth-century canonical and civil law in the New World. Once married, Indian women moved to their husband’s homes and were considered largely their spouse’s property. They were expected to obey their husbands and were advised to support them cheerfully. According to the legal code of the Siete Partidas, married Peninsular women too came under the legal jurisdiction of their husbands, as did their unmarried daughters under the age of twenty-five (Asunción Lavrin, “Introduction,” in Sexuality and Marriage in Latin America, ed. Asunción Lavrin [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989], 16–17, and Asunción Lavrin, “Women in Colonial Mexico” in The Oxford History of Mexico, 247, 256; Alonso de Zorita as cited by Arthur J. O. Anderson in “Aztec Wives,” in Indian Women of Early Mexico, 61). In this Virtues account, Palafox made clear the desires and intentions of the suitor, as well as the role of his potential parents-in-law in the marriage agreement. He presented the young woman, however, as utterly silent in the process—she voiced neither acceptance nor objection nor did she play a role in the decision making. 87. Though he did not specify the regions or ethnicity of the Indians who practiced this courtship ritual, Palafox, in this rare instance, provided details of a Native American custom leading to a Catholic sacrament. 88. A cuarto was a copper coin with the approximate value of four maravedís de vellón. 89. Elsewhere Palafox wrote that obedience, which “contained and preserved all the virtues and defended them against vice,” was the “universal badge of perfection” (“Luz a los vivos y escarmiento en los muertos,” Obras 8: 57–58). 90. The juzgado de Indias or General Indian Court was established in 1592 to hear complaints against the maltreatment of Indians or corrupt practices by officials (Knight, Mexico, 60–61). See notes 9 and 72 for further discussion. 91. Various forms of compulsory labor, goods purchase, and tribute payments required Indians in New Spain to leave their native settlements throughout the colonial period, though perhaps most particularly in the sixteenth century (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 116–17). Palafox presumably was referring here to the congregaciones—the relocation of millions of Indians for the purpose of Christian indoctrination, labor use, and land expropriation. The congregaciones were ideated by friars, supported by Crown officials, and undertaken initially between 1550 and 1563 and then again from 1576–1581, after epidemics caused steep declines in the Indian population. Generally, the Indians were moved to flatter lands and lower elevations. In the 1590s, priests and magistrates were instructed to revisit the idea of reducing the number of small and disparate Indian settlements. In 1598, thirty congregation districts were established for New Spain and new sites for Indian towns designated by Spanish officials. Indians built these new towns upon a traditional Spanish grid around a central plaza or square with a church on one side. The buildings of preexisting settlements were destroyed. Spaniards converted the built environment and natural resources of previous Indian settlements into haciendas. From 1593 to 1605, a second wave of congregation resettlement occurred to which Indians often and readily voiced their objection. Some fled their new settlements and paradoxically ended up residing in locations wilder and more remote

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than they had prior to the relocation. Some Indians returned to their ancestral homelands after being granted permission to do so in 1607. One scholar, recognizing Indian agency, has argued that some Indians made use of the congregaciones to seek better land and pursue a greater livelihood. The congregaciones permanently changed the native settlement pattern of Mexico, making it largely a landscape of concentrated urban centers and vast, uninhabited open spaces (Peter Gerhard, A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993], 27; Knight, Mexico, 89). While Palafox may have disputed the wisdom and morality of the congregaciones as his commentary suggested here, he was a proponent of an urbanized New Spain. As is discussed in the Biographical Essay, like many of his contemporaries, he equated cities with civilization, as if urban boundaries could provide a physical barrier to devil worship. 92. Dr. Juan de Merlo, an Indian, served as Palafox’s provisor and as vicar-general of the bishopric of Puebla prior to his death in December of 1642 (Genaro García, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo de Puebla y Osma, visitador y virrey de la Nueva España [Mexico: Librería de Bouret, 1918], 148). 93. In 1646, Palafox warned against European prejudice—specifically judgments based on color or nationhood—toward the intelligence of the Indians. He wrote that many Indians surpassed presumptuous non-Indians in their intelligence, comprehension, and observance of doctrine and in their capacity not only to make distinctions between good and evil but also to recognize subtle differences between good and supreme good. In this same passage, Palafox declared that the Indians had fewer vices than Europeans due to the fact that the passions of the Indians were less “vigorous” (Epístola II, 182). Lavrin has compared Palafox’s characterization of the Indians to Michel de Certeau’s “wise illiterate” archetype, describing Palafox’s portrayal of them through the term “rustic ignorant—individuals who, without much learning, achieved great learning about God and of God” (Indian Brides, 255). Though he did not treat the subject of Indian literacy in Virtues, Palafox did refer to the book learning, retention, and intellectual acuity of one Indian and in the paragraphs following this reference to their overall rhetorical power and articulation, skills he suggested were facilitated by the nature of their language. Palafox also portrayed the Indians as very pliable, a quality which he believed nurtured their religious devotion and subservience (see Virtues, chapter 19). 94. On Zacatlán, see note 50. The pole-flying ritual of the Totonacos was depicted in two pre-Hispanic codices—Codex Porfirio Díaz and Codex Fernando Leal—and described by Fray Juan de Torquemada (“Del Palo Volador, de que Hablan estos Indios, en sus Fiestas Principales,” Monarchia Indiana, chapter 38, book 10, vol. 2). Sahagún wrote that the Totonac people were beautiful, tall, and slender, that they were “skilled in song” and “able in dance,” and that theirs was a “humane, civilized life.” He described the elegance of Totonac women and commented that they were skilled in embroidery. He praised their food preparation, tortillas being their specialty (Florentine Codex, book 10, chapter 29, 184). In this passage of Virtues, Palafox called attention to the eloquence of the Zacatlán Indian but also to the piety and mutual devotion the Indian, his community, and Palafox himself shared. As some of the Indians of Zacatlán had demonstrated some resistance to Spanish mores and dominance in the sixteenth century, perhaps

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Palafox chose this example of Indian support of his pastoral visit to provide a counterbalancing view of their loyalty and conversion. Some of the Totonac Indians had also been allied with Cortés, so the joyous receiving of their bishop that Palafox recounted is plausible. The pole-flying ritual of the Voladores continues to this day in Totonaco and other indigenous communities. See Rosemary Gipson, “Los Voladores, the Flyers of Mexico” in Western Folklore 30, no. 4 (Oct. 1971): 269–78, Sabine Vendrely, “Voladores: The Flying Men of Papantla,” Native Peoples: The Arts and Lifeways 7, no. 4 (1994): 46–52, and Michael Graulich, “Miccailhuitl: The Aztec Festivals of the Deceased” in Numen 36, no. 1 (June 1989): 43–71. 95. Assuming Tadre was a typo, I have translated it as if Palafox wrote Padre. 96. Palafox promoted the study of Nahuatl among priests. This was part of his political and evangelical approach. For further discussion, see the Biographical Essay, 39. 97. The Cathedral of the Angels presumably refers to the Puebla cathedral. A quintal in Palafox’s time was a unit of weight measurement equivalent to about one hundred pounds. 98. Torquemada, after Mendieta, noted bell making as one of the first industries the Indians mastered to complete perfection. He wrote that they made bells both large and small but all with lovely timbres (Torquemada, Monarquía, book 17, ch. 2, 317; Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 13, 409). By giving him the more didactic role in this account, Palafox confirmed the Indian’s mastery and natural understanding of the bell’s mechanics and inverted the more typical hierarchy of knowledge transmission. 99. In a 1672 English review of Virtues based on Thevenót’s extract of Palafox’s text, this passage is cited and referenced as one which exemplified the good nature and innocence of the Indians—described therein as not “wanting in wit” (“Review: An Accompt of Some Books giving some account of the present undertakings, studies, and labours of the ingenious in many considerable parts of the world,” in Philosophical Transactions (1665–1678), vol. 7 (1672) [London: Printed for John Martyn, Printer to the Royal Society, 1672; New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1963], 5128). Walter Kline cited this passage in Spanish as an example of the use of the motif of the popular tale within Spanish novelistic prose in order to “strengthen the portrayal of the characters or to emphasize the didactic intent of their prose” (Walter Kline, “A Clever Tale in Early Spanish Prose,” Modern Language Notes 76, no. 1 [Jan. 1961]: 26–27). 100. In chapter 3 of 3 Kings to which Palafox referred here, two prostitutes, both having recently given birth and claiming the same child as their own, came to King Solomon. According to this account, one of the mothers, having smothered her baby by rolling onto it while sleeping, exchanged her dead child with the other mother’s living child. To resolve the dispute, Solomon suggested cutting the child in two. When the actual mother replied that the child should be spared and withdrew her claim to the child and the other mother proposed it should be killed so as to be neither woman’s, Solomon recognized the true mother and restored her child to her (Douay-Rheims, 353–55). As discussed in the Biographical Essay, in his patronage of the Puebla cathedral Palafox invoked Solomon, legendary as a wise and magnanimous ruler of Israel during a time of great prosperity (50).

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101. In this chapter, Palafox drew both on direct experience and the writings of Torquemada, Mendieta, and Motolinía (Torquemada, Monarquía, book 17, ch. 2, 316–18; Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 13, 407–10; and Motolinía, Historia, trat. 3, ch. 12, ch. 13, 262–64). Torquemada’s chapter, “How the Indians learned mechanical arts they were ignorant of and how they perfected those they practiced before” was taken directly from Mendieta, who in turn acquired much of his material from Motolinía’s chapter entitled, “On the mechanical arts that the Indians have learned from the Spaniards and on those they knew before.” Each of these chronicler’s chapters, in which the authors admired the skills the Indians employed in the creation of various objects—paintings, bells, flutes, shoes, saddles, and clothing—shared content, tone, format, and argument with this one by Palafox. Marveling at the Indians’ ease and speed of comprehension, Torquemada recounted Motolinía’s tale of Indians learning how to beat gold simply by observing the activities of a gold beater, despite the craftsman’s efforts to keep the particularities of his trade secret. Rendering the Indians’ feat that much more remarkable and their humility especially marked when contrasted with that of the Spaniard, Mendieta and Torquemada added that the Spanish gold beater required six to seven years of apprenticeship to claim mastery of his craft. Motolinía too presented the Indians as naturally facile learners. He wrote, “They learn whatever they are taught and do in a short time whatever they see with their eyes.” Torquemada’s assessment of the Indians’ skills was more measured and, at times, profoundly condescending. In a subsequent chapter, Torquemada compared the Indians to apes, saying they wanted to do whatever exercise they saw being done. He claimed that the Indians mastered their new crafts very quickly—indeed more quickly than their Spanish officials desired—and that they perfected their native crafts once they saw Spaniards at work at them (Motolinía, Historia, trat. 3, ch. 12, 259; Torquemada, Monarquía, book 17, ch. 2, 316–18). 102. Palafox ascribed to Native Americans an offsetting contribution to the cost of the construction and maintenance of the edifices and institutions of New Spain. To Palafox, cathedral patronage represented an opportunity to persuade subjects, earn honor, and win the favor of God. In these passages, Palafox expresses how he valued the Indians’ construction, mechanical, and painting skills as well as their industriousness. Departing for Spain in 1649 Palafox wrote, “One can help the impoverished every day but it is not every day one can complete a sanctuary, in which a million and a half pesos were invested and buried until the building was completed with three hundred thousand additional pesos” (Obras 11: 249). On Native American participation in guilds, see Manuel Carrera Stampa, Los gremios mexicanos, la organización gremial en Nueva España, 1521–1861 (Mexico City: EDIA PSA, 1954); Marcus Burke, Pintura y escultura en Nueva España, El Barroco (Mexico City: Grupo Azabache, 1992); and Carol Damian, “Artist and Patron in Colonial Cuzco: Workshops, Contracts and a Petition for Independence,” in Colonial Latin American Historical Review 4, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 25–53. 103. Palafox specified here that the Tarascan nation, from which the Indian who came to learn organ building hailed, was known for its feather arts. By the early sixteenth century, the Tarascans, from present-day Michoacan, and the Tlaxcalans numbered among the few peoples unconquered by Aztec armies (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 14).

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Torquemada deemed the Michoacán art of feather-working ingenious. He considered it a thing of wonder to witness such “perfection in a subtle art which was new” to Spanish eyes and proclaimed these feather images “worthy of presentation to princes, kings, and the Sovereign Pontiff” (Monarquía, book 17, ch. 1, 314). Palafox may have identified the Tarascan nation as a center for feather arts because of Torquemada’s acclaim for the Michoacan masters. 104. In this instance, Palafox used a very similar construction to one used by Motolinía on the Indians’ ingenuity, capability, and rapid comprehension, all qualities fed by their powers of observation. Whereas Palafox wrote “solo con verlas el Indio poner, y disponer, y tocar, y todo lo que mira al interior artificio de este instrumento,” Motolinía wrote, “en sólo mirarlos y verlos hacer, han quedado muchos maestros”—“by observation of their making alone, many have become masters.” As did Palafox, Motolinía then proceeded to discuss the Indians’ facility with song and musical instruments in this chapter, specifying several examples of Indians learning how to play flutes with remarkable ease and speed (Historia, trat.3, ch. 12, 259, 261). 105. Sahagún wrote a brief ethnographic description of the Tarascan peoples in which he, like Torquemada, mentioned their work with feathers as well as the fact that they were highly capable artisans, carpenters, and painters (Florentine Codex 10: 188–89). Arturo Chamorro has pointed out that Tzintzuntzan, capital of the ancient Tarascan empire, was also a city sanctioned by the Catholic Church in 1586 to fabricate and distribute trumpets and chirimías, wind instruments of Islamic origin to which Palafox referred in the passage to follow. Motolinía wrote that the Indians made chirimías but that they did not know how to give them the appropriate tone (Historia, trat. 3, ch. 12, 261). Mendieta listed flutes as the first instruments used by Native Americans, followed by chirimías, and later horns and bassoons. He declared that in no Christian kingdom was there musical instrument production equal to that of New Spain (Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 14, 412–13). Bells, trumpets, flutes, and chirimías were all produced in Pátzcuaro, also within the geographical realm of the Tarascan nation. Permission was followed by a prohibition of the proliferate production of chirimías in centers of instrument manufacture (Arturo Chamorro, “Chirimías: Sondeo Histórico de un Modelo Islámico en América Hispana,” Latin American Music Review/Revista de Música Latinoamericana 3, no. 2 [Autumn 1982]: 168, 171). The existence of these two centers in central Mexico suggests that perhaps the Tarascan Indians were especially versed in the use and production of musical instruments, a fact which Palafox presumably recognized and to which he may have been alluding here. Curiously, the chirimía was used with great frequency in ceremonies and rituals in the Puebla-Tlaxcala region. Palafox viewed music as an evangelical tool and a significant part of worship. He advised priests to “preserve music chapels in parishes and procure that there is [was] no Church without an organ and that the Indians substitute for each other in all that pertains to learning how to sing, play instruments . . . so that this good seed is never lost among them” (“Epístola II,” 198). Though the Council of Trent proffered the organ as the only instrument worthy of play within churches as part of the liturgy, Palafox recommended each parish have multiple instruments. Chirimias formed an important part of the music accompanying Corpus Christi and other processions and in open-air rituals (Chamorro, “Chirimias,” 170–72). For the inventory of

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instruments Palafox recommended for each parish, see Castro Ramírez, Palafox, 103–4. The 1672 English review of Virtues mentioned that Palafox took note of the Indians’ musicality, of their proficiency in singing and playing musical instruments, and of the presence of music books in their chapels and music masters in their parishes (Philosophical Transactions, 4129). On dance and music terms in sixteenth-century Indian-Spanish dictionaries, see Thomas Stanford, “A Linguistic Analysis of Music and Dance Terms from Three Sixteenth-Century Dictionaries of Mexican Indian languages” in Inter-American Institute for Musical Research, Yearbook 2 (1966): 101–59. 106. Atrisco, where Indians lived clustered around Franciscan monasteries after the Conquest, is in westernmost Puebla near Tlaxcala as was Val de Atlisco, a Spanish settlement of many cattlemen. Unless there was a typographical error or an earlier spelling, Palafox presumably was referring to the former. Palafox documented the pastoral visit he made to Atrisco in 1644 (Gerhard, Historical Geography, 55–58). 107. Palafox’s predecessor Motolinía noted that some Spaniards, who found the Indians’ voices weak and thin, laughed and joked when the friars, in their third year of residency in New Spain, first set out to teach the Indians to sing. He claimed that in fact their voices were neither as “smooth” or “robust” as those of the Spaniards but that this was probably a measure of the fact that they went about barefoot and with their chests poorly wrapped (Historia, trat. 3, ch. 12, 259). Mendieta, and subsequently Torquemada quoting him, repeated this interpretation of Indian versus Spanish voices but added the attribution of a sparing diet of lean foods to Motolinía’s explanation of this phenomenon. Further elaborating on the skills of Indian singers, Torquemada related that, after learning to sing, the Indians went on to compose Christmas carols, masses, and organ songs, all of which so impressed “distinguished Spanish singers that they could not believe Indians had composed them” (Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 14, 411, and Monarquía, book 17, ch. 3, 319–20). 108. These instruments were among those enumerated by Palafox as necessary for each parish (see note 105). He specified that trumpets must be used only before and after Mass and outside the church. He declared an organ to be essential, claiming that it (along with the harp or flute) could awaken a sense of mystery due to the smoothness of its tones (“Memoria de lo que ha de haber en una parroquia por pobre que sea” as cited by Castro Ramírez, Palafox, 103–4). For more on the evolution of harp playing in colonial Latin America, see John M. Schechter, The Indispensable Harp: Historical Development, Modern Roles, Configurations, and Performance Practices in Ecuador and Latin America (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1992). 109. This passage is cited in the 1672 English review of Virtues as exemplifying the skills and dexterities of the Indians (Philosophical Transactions, 5129). In his 1629 treatise, Ruiz de Alarcón set out to document and translate Nahuatl medicinal practices with the intent of manifesting heathenism and the Indian practice of idolatry. Included in this piece was mention of specific herbs and herbal remedies (Andrews and Hassig, Treatise, 29–35, 187, 199, 299, and 248–53). In contrast, Palafox’s tack in mentioning this aspect of Indian life seemed oriented toward demonstrating Indian skills and accomplishments and emphasizing their civility, resourcefulness, and utility. 110. In describing this interaction between Indians and a mulatto, Palafox presented Indians who were fair, forgiving, compassionate, and humane—more so, he seems to have been suggesting, than their Spanish and Creole counterparts would

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have been under the same circumstances. The focus of his narrative was on Indian jurisprudence. However, coupled with this presentation of Indian fairness and rationality was an assertion regarding relations between Indians and mulattos. Palafox expressed concern on more than one occasion about the mixing of races through intermarriage (see note 56). As Cañeque has noted, the bylaws of the University of Mexico, drafted by Palafox in 1645, excluded the admission of blacks, mulattos, slaves, and former slaves (“Palafox and the Virtuous Indian,” 84). This particular account in Virtues reflected a mentality in keeping with sixteenth-century legislation on relations between Indians and blacks. A royal decree of 1541 had stipulated that blacks not engage in “trade, commerce, or communication” with Indians. In 1563, the king of Spain mandated that blacks and mulattos be banned from living in Indian villages, though blacks married to Indians were allowed to reside in Indian settlements and their children were not to be separated from them. Puebla was one of several areas in which the alcaldes mayores were ordered to enforce this provision and expel blacks and mulattos, among other groups, from the Indian barrios (Edgar F. Love, “Legal Restrictions on Afro-Indian Relations in Colonial Mexico,” Journal of Negro History 55, no. 2 [April 1970]: 132–33, 135). This provision resulted in a climate of fear or suspicion. Borah has documented one legal case from 1639 wherein Indian women, recruited into service for the district magistrate of Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, paid five reales per week to be released from service so as to avoid being molested by a mulatto (Borah, Justice by Insurance, 32, 191). Black men who had purportedly had sexual relations with Indian women were punished by means of lashing for the first offense and by having their ears cut off for the second. This legislation had been introduced to protect the Indians against abuses by supervising and military blacks (be they slaves or freemen). In 1574, Viceroy Enrique Martínez had requested that the king rule that any offspring of black slaves and Indian women would be born into slavery, but the Council of the Indies never ratified this legislation, which would have constituted a reversal of a venerable Spanish legal code. Violence and even execution were visited frequently upon black freemen and slaves; their crimes were punished with greater severity by the legal system than were the crimes of Native Americans. The slave trade to Mexico was halted after 1640 and slave numbers declined. However, by the end of the seventeenth century, nearly every Spanish household and some members of the Indian elite owned slaves (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 202; Maria Elena Cortés J., “Negros amancebados con Indias. Siglo XVI” in Familia y sexualidad en la Nueva España, memoria del primer Simposio de Historia de las Mentalidades [Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982], 288–89; Knight, Mexico, 89). The literature on the casta system and the elaborate nomenclature developed to delineate the ethnic ancestry of New Spain’s increasing miscegenational population (which constituted the largest sector of urban dwellers and mining workers) has become more ample in recent years. For further discussion see Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 204–7; Magali M. Carrera, Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003); Claudio Esteva-Fabregat, Mestizaje in Ibero-America (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987); Ilona Katzew, Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004); and

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Thomas Calvo, La Nueva Galicia en los siglos XVI y XVII (Mexico: El Colegio de Jalisco, 1989). For discussion on the experience of Africans in colonial Mexico, see Patrick J. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991); Herbert S. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Colin A. Palmer, Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570–1650 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976); and Leslie B. Rout, Jr., The African Experience in Spanish America, 1502 to the Present Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 111. This account of the mulatto man is reminiscent of an allegory in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. In the second terrace of purgatory, those who had indulged in envy, one of the seven deadly sins, had their eyes sewn shut as a form of punishment and purification (see Kenneth Gross, “Infernal Metamorphoses: An Interpretation of Dante’s “Counterpass,” MLN 100, no. 1, Italian issue [Jan. 1985]: 48). Eliminating their vision—the medium through which they had sinned—forced the envious to move about hand in hand, relying blindly upon each other in the same way the mulatto was forced to depend on Indian kindness and charity after his sight was taken. Palafox used this story to demonstrate Indian justice and purity, casting the mulatto in the role of the purgatorial and repentant sinner saved from his ruinous envy. By creating narrative parallels with Dante’s widely known allegory, Palafox would have animated his arguments and rendered them more familiar and legible to his reader(s). 112. According to Mills and Taylor, Chichimec was a term of Nahuatl origin signifying “barbarous invader and looter.” Alan Knight translated it as “sons of dogs” or more probably “sonsofbitches.” He cited Cortés who claimed the Chichimecs were “very barbarous people and not so intelligent” (Mexico, 63, note 231). In Ruíz de Alarcón’s treatise, the term chichimecatal was used as a metaphor for several dangerous or harmful things (Treatise, 222). Mendieta, in his account of a murderous Chichimec attack on a parish in Jalisco in 1582, characterized these Indians as “barbarous,” “capital enemies of Christians and their very law and life,” “bestial, cruel parricides” and “infidels.” Torquemada reissued Mendieta’s narrative nearly word for word (Historia Eclesiástica, book 5 part 2, ch. 10, 765–68; Monarquía, book 21, ch. 10, 460–64). Sahagún barely described them any less harshly (Florentine Codex, book 10, chap. 29, 171–75). Generally, the term was used to describe Guachilil-speaking Spanish enemies from the Chichimeca region, “a floating zone” bounded by rainfall belts and “separating sparse, semi-nomadic groups of part-time farmers and hunter-gatherers from denser, stable farming communities to the south” (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 406). The Spaniards waged intermittent warfare with these Indians until the end of the sixteenth century. By the late seventeenth century, however, conflicts had subsided adequately to allow for a seasonal occupation of the salt works of Peñol Blanco and Santa María, located near the silver mines of Zacatecas (Gerhard, Historical Geography, 358). 113. The Tepehuanes of the western Sierra Madre of northern Mexico, decimated by the spread of epidemics in the early seventeenth century, were among the first Indians to rebel subsequent to the Jesuit colonization of the area. The Tepehuán Rebellion of 1616–1620 was spearheaded by an Indian named Quautlatas who encouraged his immediate community and the more northerly Tarahumara Indians to

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reject Christianity and the institutions of the church. Over four hundred Spaniards and one thousand Indians were killed in the fighting and hundreds of Indians were sold into slavery. Peace was not established until 1623 (Robert W. Patch, “Indian Resistance to Colonialism” in The Oxford History of Mexico, ed. Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], 195). 114. After engaging in a frontier war with northern Indian groups in the postConquest years, viceroys came to agreements with several Indian communities in northern Mexico through buying them gifts of clothing and food. Despite these agreements and Jesuit missionary efforts in the area beginning in the 1590s, many of these communities maintained more autonomy than those of other parts of Mexico (Patch, Indian Resistance, 186–87). The Salinero and Toboso Indian communities Palafox referred to were presumably those living in northern Mexico in the current state of Chihuahua. In 1631, a silver strike was made in Parral in present-day Chihuahua (to which Palafox referred in the preceding chapter V), drawing an influx of Spanish and Indian laborers. This surge of newcomers combined with drought and plague put pressure on the native population and probably fomented the revolts in which the Salineros and Tobosos participated from 1644–1652 and 1666–1680 (Knight, Mexico, 134; William B. Griffen, Indian Assimilation in the Franciscan Area of Nueva Vizcaya [Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979]). 115. A vara is a unit of length measurement equivalent to approximately a yard. 116. According to the 1672 English review of Virtues in Philosophical Transactions, through this passage Palafox commended “both the dexterity and courage of the Indians” (5129). Ruiz de Alarcón also pointed to this fearlessness. He described part of a pilgrimage wherein Indians, holding gourds for flotation, would grab the necks of caimans while they spun around in backwaters or whirlpools specifically designated for the completion of the ritual. When the animal dove underwater, the Indian would let go and float downriver until he arrived home, “without even thinking about the danger of the caiman, the darkness of the night, or the cold of the water” (Andrews and Hassig, Treatise, 58). 117. The entry in my 1994 dictionary for hermandad is “Spanish militia formed about XIIth century to maintain public order.” Burkholder and Johnson define it as “the Holy Brotherhood; a league of law officers hired by municipalities in Spain” (Colonial Latin America, 352). These protective municipal leagues began to emerge in the twelfth century. Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella established a centrally organized Holy Brotherhood and placed themselves at its head. 118. Native Americans worked with and as masons, carpenters, architects, and painters on the Puebla cathedral. For a brief discussion of their contribution to the Puebla cathedral building, see the Biographical Essay, 24, 48–49. See also Montserrat Gali Boadella, Pedro García Ferrer, Un artista aragonés del siglo XVII en la Nueva España (Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1996); Lidia E. Gomez and Celia Salazar, “Cultura Indígéna y barroco en Puebla durante el siglo XVII,” in Arte y cultura del barroco en Puebla, ed. Montserrat Galí Boadella (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2000), 115–24; and Nancy H. Fee, “The Patronage of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza: Constructing the Cathedral and Civic Image of Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2000). 119. This passage recalls an account by Mendieta and Torquemada after him in which the authors described how the Indians, having never built architectural vaults, lacked confidence in their stability and were frightened to walk beneath the

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first one they constructed (in a Franciscan chapel in Mexico City) when the scaffolding was removed. After seeing the vault remain intact, they lost their fear (Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 13, 410; Torquemada, Monarquía, book 17, ch. 3, 318). Palafox affirmed the same dexterity and freedom from fear the previous chroniclers presented. Emphasizing the Indians’ selflessness and gallantry, however, he shifted the attention to their grave concern for others’ safety, as opposed to their own. 120. Palafox wrote, “In no other virtue must you meditate nor ask God more that he may give it to you than holy Humility (“Años Espirituales,” Obras 3: part 2, 134). 121. Chapter 11 of Matthew, cited and footnoted here by Palafox, is titled “John sends his disciples to Christ, who upbraids the Jews with their incredulity and calls to him such as are sensible of their burdens” (Douay-Rheims, 14–15). Palafox presented a paradox of nature and nurture here: the Indians both naturally resemble (nature) those who learn (nurture). 122. A real was one-eighth of a silver peso or a “peso of common gold,” as it was often called in New Spain. Its value was so minimal that, to simplify calculations, sums were often expressed in terms of pesos equivalent to eight reales. Each real was divided into twelve tomines (Bernardo García Martínez, “El sistema monetario de los últimos años del período novohispano,” in Historia mexicana 17, no. 3 [Mexico: El Colegio de México, Jan.–March 1968]: 356; Borah, Justice by Insurance, xv). 123. Mendieta wrote that the Indians, closely following the word of St. Francis, always kissed the hands of priests after Mass was given, prior to paying homage to the saints. While he reported that some priests in his time refused them, due to their impatience with the great number of Indians, he and others allowed them to express their devotion (Historia Eclesiástica, book 4, ch. 18, 427–28). 124. As noted in the Biographical Essay, Palafox considered the comprehension of Indian languages a vital tool for conversion (Virve Piho, La secularización de las Parroquias en la Nueva España y su repercusión en San Andrés Calpan [Mexico: UNAM, Instituto Nacional de Historia, 1981], 128–40). He undoubtedly recognized the importance of language in Native American oral history, often passed down through performance and song (John M. Schechter, “The Inca Cantar Histórico: A Historical Elaboration on Two Cultural Themes,” Ethnomusicology 23, no. 2 [May 1979]: 191). The friars did create grammars of various Indian languages starting in the mid-sixteenth century. These included the Tarascan languages in 1558 and Náhuatl in 1571 (Juan Pimentel, “The Iberian Vision: Science and Empire in the Framework of a Universal Monarchy, 1500–1800,” Osiris, 2nd series, vol. 15 [2000]: 26). John Headley has pointed out that Giovanni Botero’s late sixteenth-century rapture over the richness, breadth, and sophistication of the language of the Michoacán Indians—which he claimed would be preferable to Latin to those acquainted with it—rhetorically called into question the superiority of the Spanish language and by extension the Spanish civilization at large. In the end, Headley has suggested, Botero esteemed the language as a “useful preparation for European political order and culture” (“Geography and Empire in the Late Renaissance: Botero’s Assignment, Western Universalism, and the Civilizing Process” in Renaissance Quarterly 53, no. 4 [Winter 2000]: 1140). Botero’s views on the Michoacán language may have stimulated Palafox’s interest in the complexity of Native American language.

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125. Mendieta wrote of old men acting as constables, escorting and guarding groups of girls who were in the process of their Christian education (Historia eclésiastica, 418–21). 126. Palafox visited Zongolica, a town located in the Sierra Madre Oriental of the state of Veracruz, during the years of 1643–1646. The Sierra Zongolica, located in the present-day states of Puebla and Veracruz, forms part of the mountain range of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca which runs northwest to southeast along the gulf coast of Mexico. Zongolica had a small Franciscan monastery that was secularized in 1561. According to Gerhard, there were several Totonac states in this area whose lords had received the Spaniards warmly and yielded fairly readily due to their being worn down by Aztec oppression (Historical Geography, 363–66). 127. Fray Luis de Granada (1505–1588), beatified in 1997, was born in Granada, Spain. His mother was a poor widow. Reportedly he was taken in by the Conde de Tendilla, who made him page to his sons, one of whom—Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1505–1575)—became a noted diplomat and literary figure. Luis de Granada entered the Dominican order in 1525. He became a celebrated preacher and cautioned against what he found to be misunderstanding of the Catholic faith and ignorance amongst Spaniards. Invited to Portugal in 1555, he assumed a role of counselor to the queen and stayed in that country until his death. A prominent religious writer and mystic admired by St. Theresa of Avila (one of Palafox’s most respected authors) among others, Luis de Granada wrote on mental prayer as a means to acquire a deeper understanding of God. He denied that such prayer would lead to the dissolution of the Catholic Church. While he referenced Greco-Roman philosophers, Catholic Church fathers, and Scripture, and wrote texts in Latin, his approach was modest. He offered practical advice in Spanish and Portuguese for daily living. In one of his more well-known sermons, he cautioned against allowing examples of human failure to discourage one from the path of virtue. His most famous writing, Guia de Peccadores (1556), an ascetic “guide to virtuous living,” attracted the attention of the Spanish Inquisition. In this work, Granada warned that those who did not read Latin, and therefore could not read the Bible directly, would need special instruction on confession and prayer. He used the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, highly formative for Palafox, in his arguments. Many editions of the Guia de Peccadores were printed, increasing the likelihood that the book made its way to New Spain. Also, the nature of its contents would have made it suitable for Indians living at a distance from the Spanish metropolis. A mystic writer himself, Palafox may have chosen to cite Granada because he concurred with the Dominican’s belief in the importance of doctrinal knowledge and the written word as a means of defending the faith. Connecting Granada’s writings on virtue and faith with an Indian residing in a remote, mountainous area such as Zongolica was a way for Palafox to reinforce his assertion that the Indians were naturally drawn to a life of virtue, despite ongoing and nearly insurmountable obstacles to this pursuit. Many specific guidelines within the Guia de Peccadores coincided with qualities Palafox attributed to the Indians in his treatise on their virtues. For example, Granada proposed that one should be silent instead of using one’s voice to praise God, as God’s voice was infinite and inaudible to the mortal ear (John A. Moore, Fray Luis de Granada [Boston: JK Hall, 1977], 23, 25, 27, 35, 37, 39–41, 43).

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In Virtues, Palafox made repeated references to the silence of the Indians, as well as to good works and a sense of duty, loyalty, moderation, humility, gratitude, and piety, all of which Granada advocated as essential to a virtuous life. Another consideration is that, in citing Granada, Palafox may have been indirectly referring to the protestations of the Dominicans, who were particularly vocal in their condemnations of Spanish abuse of Indians (Burkholder and Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 36). Moreover, though the precise origins of Palafox’s use of Mendoza as a maternal surname are uncertain, he was a descendant of María de Mendoza, daughter of the Conde de Monteagudo (Arteaga, Una mitra, 21). If Palafox was by chance related to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, whose father took in Luis de Granada as a page, this would have given Palafox a more personal sense of connection to the Dominican and his theology. 128. The Indian was referring to the division of Germany into the first century BC ancient Roman provinces of Upper Germany, or Germania Superior, and Lower Germany, or Germania Inferior. The middle Rhine areas of present-day western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany pertained to Upper Germany, while Lower Germany was comprised of regions on the left bank of the Rhine—present-day southern and western Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, parts of northeastern France, and western Germany. Tacitus, a first-century AD Roman historian consulted by Palafox and some of his colleagues, made reference to Upper and Lower Germany in his Annals (Alvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 9, and Tacitus, “The Annals” in The Complete Works of Tacitus, trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb [New York: Random House, 1942], book 3.41: 124, book 4.73: 187, and book 13.53: 316). 129. Olintla is a municipality within the present-day state of Puebla. S. José Olintla, near Zacatlán de las Manzanas (see note 50), was the recipient of additional secular priests during the congregaciones of 1600 (see note 91). Both the neighboring parishes of Hueytlalpa and S. Miguel Xuxupango came under secular clergy control around 1567 (Gerhard, Historical Geography, 392). For more on the Totonac Indians, see notes 50 and 126. 130. Sahagún too wrote that Mexica women attended to the daily washing of hands, faces, and mouths. His advisors suggested that women born on unlucky days could sometimes improve their lot through bathing. Brides were bathed prior to their weddings. As part of their inauguration ceremony, incoming rulers were bathed at night. Rulers themselves admonished their daughters, when they reached the age of “discretion,” to arise at night for a vigil, wash their mouths, and sweep diligently (Sahagún, Florentine Codex 6:95, 130; 8:64; 4: 95; and Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica, trat. 2, ch.37, 192). Louise Burkhart has suggested that the friars associated the Mexicas’ daily sweeping and cleaning of their homes with purification and proper female conduct. Sixteenth-century Mexican friars considered the Mexicas’ homes to be predominantly the realm of women, whom they believed were more vulnerable to the temptations of the devil (“Mexica Women on the Home Front,” in Indian Women of Early Mexico, 3–54, especially 28, 33, 38, and 52). Palafox may have emphasized the cleanliness and tidiness of Indians here as a way to assert their spiritual purity, submissiveness to the tenets of Christianity, and resistance to the devil. 131. Sahagún and other Spanish chroniclers described the bathing of infants by midwives coincidental with a naming ceremony (Florentine Codex 4: 113 and book

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6: 175–76, 201–2, 205). Equating the incantations spoken by midwives with superstition, Ruíz de Alarcón wrote, “After the birth has taken place, the superstition concerning the infant begins immediately and, in order to wash it, she makes an incantation to the vessel and to the water.” However, Ruiz de Alarcón did not specifically condemn the act of washing the child as a fraudulent, faulty, or devil-inspired practice as he did so commonly regarding other acts throughout his treatise. Elsewhere, for example, he described Indian baths specifically designed to treat “love affairs,” romantic transgressions, and/or excesses of the “wretched.” He argued that the devil, through efforts to imitate the purification of baptism, deceived the treated into believing that through these “feigned baths” they could “attain cleanliness of the body and free themselves of temporal pains and harms” (Treatise, 138–39, 160). Sahagún referred to cleansing ritual bathing practices of Indian priests and merchants and to abstinence from bathing as a form of penance, endured to remember war dead or those far from home (Florentine Codex 2: 167–68, 171, 174; 3: 63–64; 5: 69; 9:9; 10: 183). The fact that some Indian women cleansed themselves in the temascal with men was considered by some to be a dangerous source of temptation, a factor Palafox did not mention (Sahagún, Florentine Codex 8:47–48; José Alcina Franch, “Procreación, amor, y sexo entre los mexicas,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 21 [1991]: 59–88). Torquemada pontificated that all pagans of antiquity—whom he frequently equated with the Indians—“were of the opinion that water was necessary for washing away the stains of sin and cleansing the soul” (Monarquía, book 13, ch. 21, 206). Huerta Jaramillo and Peña Espinosa have discussed how Palafox, in his support of the Native American practice of temascal and hygienic bathing, overlooked a contemporaneous convention of Europe, rooted in fear of the plague. This convention was based in the belief that water could penetrate skin and neutralize it as a protective barrier, rendering the body’s interior vulnerable to disease and injury. The authors have cited Palafox not necessarily on the cleaning of his body but on the regular cleaning of his clothes, as instigated early on in his life by Pedro Navarra—the shepherd who cared for Palafox in his earliest years. Huerta Jaramillo and Peña Espinosa also have considered Palafox’s use of water in ritual as a vehicle of divine power. Examining his relationship to water as it related to the circumstances of his birth and to the biblical tale of Moses, they have concluded that Palafox’s respect for the spiritual and material powers of water was based more on his immediate experience and observations than on his scientific knowledge or theological reasoning (“El Indígena en la época de Palafox y Mendoza,” 225–52). 132. When visiting parishes on his pastoral visits, Palafox summoned Spanish authorities and asked them a series of questions on their parish practices. One of the questions he posed was whether they had properly attended to the cleanliness and care of their churches and sacred images (“Direcciones pastorales,” 60). He advised that churches must always be kept clean and in good repair and that all conduct and ceremonies within them must be serious, devout, and holy. He cited St. Paul in disallowing eating, drinking, smoking, snuff, and even the eating of chocolate within sanctuaries (“Direcciones pastorales,” 60; “Epístola II,” 197; and “Carta Pastoral VIII y Dictamenes de Curas,” Obras 3: 453). 133. Palafox presumably was referring to the fact, as discussed in note 61, that corrupt magistrates could and did benefit financially from the royal tax on the production and sale of pulque.

Works Cited

WORKS BY PALAFOX Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de. Estatutos y Constituciones hechas con comission particular de su Magestad para ello: Por el Excelentisimo y Ilustrisimo Señor D. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, de gloriosa memoria del Consejo de su Magestad, Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles, Visitador General de la Nueva-España, y de dicha Real Universidad, Virrey y Capitan General que fue en ella y Presidente de su Real Audiencia de Mexico. Mexico: Viuda de Bernardo Calderon, 1668. ———. Ideas Políticas. Prologue by José Rojas Garciduenas. Mexico City: UNAM, 1946. ———. Instrumento por medio del cual Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza establece en Puebla sus colegios. ———. Obras del Ilustrissimo, Excelentissimo y Venerable Siervo de Dios, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, de los Supremos Consejos de Indias, y Aragón, Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles y de Osma, Arzobishop electo de Megico, Virrey y Capitan General de Nueva España, vol. 13. Madrid: Don Gabriel Ramirez, 1762. ———. The history of the conquest of China by the Tartars. Together with an account of several remarkable things concerning the religion, manners, and customes of both nations, but especially the latter. First writ in Spanish by Señor Palafox ... and now rendred English (London: Printed by W. Godbid and sold by M. Pitt, 1671).

SELECTED EDITIONS OF VIRTUES OF THE INDIAN Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de. De la Naturaleza y Virtudes del Indio. Puebla: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1987. ———. Libro de las virtudes del Indio. Prologue by Federico Gómez de Orozco. Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1950. 215

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———. Las Virtudes del Indio. Madrid: Impr. de T. Minuesa, 1893. ———. De la Naturaleza del Indio. Mexico: J. M. Benavente y socios, 1820.

WORKS CITED ABOUT PALAFOX Alvarez de Toledo, Cayetana. “El Proyecto Político de Palafox: Una Alternativa Constitucional en Tiempos de Crisis.” In La Pluma y el Báculo: Juan de Palafox y el mundo hispano del seiscientos, edited by Montserrat Galí Boadella, 33–56. Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004. ———. Politics and Reform in Spain and Viceregal Mexico: The Life and Thought of Juan de Palafox, 1600–1659. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Arístides Gámez, A. “La causa pro-indígena en la escuela de Salamanca de Juan de Palafox y Mendoza.” Revista Iberoamericana 61, no. 170–171 (Jan.–June 1995): 131–46. Arteaga y Falguera, Cristina de la Cruz. Una mitra sobre dos mundos: la de don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo de Puebla de los Angeles y de Osma. Mexico: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, 1992. ———. El Obispo Palafox y Mendoza. Madrid: Ateneo, 1966. Brescia, Michael M. “Material and Cultural Dimensions of Episcopal Authority: Tridentine Donation and the Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Seventeenth-Century Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico.” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 8, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 207–27. Castro Ramírez, José Eduardo. Palafox: su pontificado en Puebla, 1640–1649. Puebla: Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Arzobispado de Puebla, 2000. Chinchilla Pawling, Perla. Palafox y América. Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1992. De la Torre Villar, Ernesto. Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Pensador político. Mexico City: UNAM, 1997. Elliott, John H. “Reformismo en el Mundo Hispánico: Olivares y Palafox.” In La Pluma y el Báculo, Juan de Palafox y el mundo hispáno del seiscientos, edited by Montserrat Galí Boadella, 13–32. Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004. Fee, Nancy H. “Rey versus reino(s): Palafox y los escudos de la Catedral de Puebla.” In La Pluma y el Báculo: Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y el mundo hispano del seiscientos, edited by Montserrat Galí Boadella, 57–104. Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004. ———. “The Patronage of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza: Constructing the Cathedral and Civic Image of Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 2000. ———. “Proyecto de magnificencia trentina: Palafox y el patrocinio de la Catedral de la Puebla de los Angeles.” In La Catedral de Puebla en el Arte y en la Historia, edited by Montserrat Galí Boadella, 153–76. Puebla: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1999. Fernández Gracia, Ricardo. “Palafox and His Passion for Books.” Artes de México 68 (2003): 86–99.

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———. Iconografía de Don Juan de Palafox: imágenes para un hombre de estado y iglesia. Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2002. ———. La Inmaculada Concepción en Navarra: arte y devoción durante los siglos del Barroco: mentores, artistas e iconografía. Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 2004. García, Genaro. Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obispo de Puebla y Osma, visitador y virrey de la Nueva España. Mexico: Librería de Bouret, 1918. ———. “Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, su virreinato en la Nueva España, sus contiendas con los pp. Jesuitas, sus partidarios en Puebla, sus apariciones, sus escritos escogidos etc.” In Documentos inéditos ó muy raros para la Historia de México, vol 7. Mexico City: Librería de la viuda de C. Bouret, 1906. García Valencia, Edgar. “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Literatura y Ars Gubernandi.” In La Pluma y el Báculo: Juan de Palafox y el mundo hispano del seiscientos, edited by Montserrat Galí Boadella, 177–88. Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004. Gómez, Lidia E. “Palafox y Mendoza desde la perspectiva del indígena urbano en Puebla, siglo XVII.” In La Pluma y el Báculo, Juan de Palafox y el mundo hispano del seiscientos, edited by Montserrat Galí Boadella, 253–66. Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2004. ———. “Honor y poder a través de la obra de un obispo. La sociedad novohispana en la Puebla del siglo XVII reflejada en la obra de Palafox y Mendoza.” In La Catedral de Puebla en el Arte y en la Historia, edited by Montserrat Galí Boadella, 177–92. Puebla: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1999. González de Rosende, Antonio. “Vida de Don Juan de Palafox.” In Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Obras del Ilustrissimo, Excelentissimo y Venerable Siervo de Dios, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, de los Supremos Consejos de Indias, y Aragón, Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles y de Osma, Arzobishop electo de Megico, Virrey y Capitan General de Nueva España, vol. 13. Madrid: Don Gabriel Ramirez, 1762. Kuri Camacho, Ramón. La Companía de Jesus, imagenes e ideas: la axiología jesuita. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y otros estudios novohispanos. Puebla: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, 1996. María Carreño, Alberto. Cedulario de los siglos XVI y XVII. El Obispo Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y el Conflicto con La Companía de Jesus. Mexico: Ediciones Victoria, 1947. Palou, Pedro A. Breve Noticia Histórica de la Biblioteca Palafoxiana de su Fundador: Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y los Colegios de San Juan, San Pedro y San Pablo. Puebla: Gobierno de Estado, 1991. Pascual Buxó, José, and Artemio López Quiroz, eds. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Poesías Espirituales. Mexico City: UNAM, 1995. Rubial García, Antonio. “St. Palafox: Metaphorical Images of Disputed Sainthood.” In Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, 1500–1800, edited by Allan Greer and Jodi Bilinkoff, 193–207. New York: Routledge, 2003. Rodríguez Cruz, O. P., Agueda María. “Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, escolar salmantino.” Revista del Seminario de Estudios Americanistas 3 (University of Madrid, 1960). Sánchez Bella, Ismael. “Ordenanzas para los tribunales de Mexico del visitador Palafox.” In Derechos indianos: Estudios, volume 1, 313–57. Pamplona: Ediciones University of Navarra, 1991.

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OTHER WORKS CONSULTED Acosta, José de. Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. ———. De procuranda indorum salute (1588). Spanish version by L. Pereña et al. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1984. Alberro, Solange. “El ‘indigenismo’ de Palafox (o de cómo un obispo intransigente supo granjearse el amor duradero de los naturales).” In Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. Imagen y discurso de la cultura novohispana, edited by José Pascual Buxó, 37–56. Mexico: UNAM, 2002. Alcina Franch, José. “Procreación, amor, y sexo entre los mexicas.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 21 (1991): 59–88. Altman, Ida. Transatlantic Ties in the Spanish Empire, Brihuega, Spain and Puebla, Mexico, 1560–1620. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Anderson, J. O. “Aztec Wives.” In Indian Women of Early Mexico, edited by Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood and Robert Haskett, 55–85. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Archer, Christon I. “Insurrection—Reaction—Revolution—Fragmentation: Reconstructing the Choreography of Meltdown in New Spain during the Independence Era.” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 10, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 63–98. Askew, Pamela. “Ferdinando Gonzaga’s Patronage of the Pictorial Arts: The Villa Favorita.” Art Bulletin 60, no. 2 (June 1978): 274–96. Bacigalupo, Marvyn Helen. A Changing Perspective: Attitudes toward Creole Society in New Spain (1521–1610). London: Tamesis Books Limited, 1981. Bakewell, Peter. Review of David A. Brading’s “The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State 1492–1867.” The American Historical Review 97, no. 3 (June 1992): 966. Baudot, Georges. Utopia and History in Mexico: The First Chroniclers of Mexican Civilization (1520–1569). Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993. Bauer, Ralph. “Imperial History, Captivity, and Creole Identity in Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán’s Cautiverio feliz.” Colonial Latin American Review 7, no. 1 (June 1998): 59–82. Benjamin, Walter. “The Task of the Translator.” In Illuminations, edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt and translated by Harry Zohn, 69–82. NY: Schocken Books, 1977. Bermúdez de Castro, Diego Antonio. Theatro Angelopolitano o Historia de la ciudad de Puebla (1746). Mexico City: Museo Nacional, 1908.

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Index

Academy of Bologna, 4 Acosta, Antonio de, 89 Aguilar y Velasco, Francisco de, 26–27 Alberti, Leon Battista, 47, 72n134; De re aedificatoria, 47 alcabala (sales tax), 189n51 alcaldes mayores (district magistrates), 30, 207n110 alcaldes ordinarios (senior city council members), 30 Almiranta (ship), 18 Altman, Ida, 31 Alvarez de Toledo, Cayetana, 5–7, 19, 44 Ambrosiana, 54, 70n116 Anales de Puebla, 49 Aquinas, Thomas, 45, 71n126, 184n34, 211n127; De Regimine Principium, 45 Aragon, 39–41, 45, 50 architecture, 34, 47–48, 51, 53–54, 63n40. See also Puebla cathedral Aristotle, 44–48, 71n126, 72n136, 84, 87; Nicomachean Ethics, 48 Arius, 179n17 Arteaga, Sor Cristina de la Cruz de, 6, 73n140 ascending theory of sovereignty, 3

Askew, Pamela, 196n71 Atrisco, 206n106 Augustine, Saint, 6; Confessions, 22 Augustinians, 24 Ávila Camacho, Maximino, 58 Aztecs, 65n71, 184n33, 185n39, 192n61, 200n86, 204n103, 211n126 Bacon, Francis, 3 Bakewell, Peter, 65n71 bathing, 212n130, 213n131 Belial, 179n16 bell making, 203n98 Benedict XIII, Pope, 56 Benjamin, Walter, 13n36 Bernard, Edward, 11n14 Bernini, Gianlorenzo, 50 Betanzos, Domingo de, 193n62 Biblioteca Palafoxiana, 22, 54, 59n10, 71n126 bishops, 19 Black Legend, 3 Blancas, Gerónimo, 40–41 body, as metaphor of governance, 43–44, 70n120, 70n122, 197n73 Borah, Woodrow, 176n3, 177n9, 198n77, 207n110

233

234 Borgraf, Diego, 18, 41, 57 Borromeo, Carlo (Saint Charles), 52–54, 75n157, 197n71; Instructiones fabricae et supellectillis ecclesiásticae, 53 Borromeo, Federico, 54, 70n116, 197n71 Botello (astrologer), 185n39 Botero, Giovanni, 210n124 Boyle, Robert, 11n14 Brading, David, 73n140, 88, 178n10; The First America, 7 Braganza, Duke of, 19 Brihuega, Spain, 31 Buen Retiro, Madrid, 40–41 Burkhart, Louise, 212n130 Burkholder, Mark, 9n3, 209n117 cabildo (city council), 30 caciques (leaders), 184n30 Cadells, 194n65 caimans, 81, 209n116 Cañeque, Alejandro, 187n46, 189n51 Carlos, Baltasar, 42 Caro, Juan, 182n27 Carrasco, Pedro, 200n86 casta system, 207n110 Castiglione, Baldassare, 46 Castile, 35–37, 190n52 Castillo Palma, Norma Angélica, 199n84 Castro Morales, Efraín, 67n87 Castro Ramírez, José Eduardo, 6, 18 Catalonia, 19, 91 catechism, 39, 193n64 Cerano, Il (Giovanni Battista Crespi), 197n71 Certeau, Michel de, 202n93 Cervantes, Miguel de, “The Power of the Blood,” 199n84 Chamorro, Arturo, 205n105 Charles II, King of Spain, 70n113 Charles III, King of Spain, 6, 56 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 67n93, 98n4, 194n65 Chichimec Indians, 208n112 childbirth, 213n131

Index China, 93–94, 101n43 chirimías, 205n105 Cholula, 199n83 Christianity: government based on, 37, 44, 50; Indians and, 2, 90–92, 178n14, 181n22, 181n23, 182n24, 191n59, 198n76; persecution of, 179n15. See also evangelism Cicero, 40, 45 city council government, 30 Clare, Saint, 196n70 cleanliness, 84, 181n23, 212n130, 213n132 Clement VIII, Pope, 56 clergy: regular, 24–25, 87, 92, 197n72; secular, 5, 24–25, 29, 39, 87, 92 Codex Fernando Leal, 202n94 Codex Porfirio Díaz, 202n94 Colegio de San Juan, 21 Colegio de San Pedro, 21 Colegio de Vírgenes, 21 colonization. See Spanish colonization Communion, 181n22, 181n23, 191n61 congregaciones (relocations), 201n91 Conquest of Mexico, 79–81, 84–86, 88–89, 92, 186n43 convents, 199n81 Correa, Juan, 74n143 corregidor (mediator), 30 Cortés, Hernán, 98n4, 185n39, 186n44, 188n50, 199n83, 203n94, 208n112 Costa, Juan de, 40 Council of Indies, 87 Council of Nicaea, 179n17 Council of the Indies, 72n129, 180n20, 207n110 Council of Trent, 8, 21, 25, 51–54, 80, 92, 197n72, 205n105 Counter-Reformation, 52 courage, 80–81, 186n43, 209n116 courtship rituals, 200n85, 201n87 Covarrubias, Sebastián de, 58 crafts, 203n98, 204n101, 204n103, 205n105 Creoles: Catholic Church and, 29–30; defined, 4; discrimination against,

Index 29; identity of, 29–30, 65n71; Palafox and, 4, 7, 25, 35, 96; Peninsulars and, 20, 30, 65n67; and political revolt, 72n129; Puebla culture of, 27, 29–30; reform efforts concerning, 20; status of, 19–20, 23, 26 Crespi, Giovanni Battista (Il Cerano), 197n71 Cuauhtémoc, 186n44 Damian, Carol, 74n143 Dante Alighieri, 194n65, 208n111 David, 50 Davis, William M., 199n84 De la Torre Villar, Ernesto, 70n117 Dew, Nicholas, 10n13 Díaz de Castillo, Bernal, 186n44 Discalced Carmelites, 6, 75n167 doctrinas, 92, 95, 183n29 Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio, 5 Dominicans, 24, 212n127 Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza street, 58 drinking, 83, 86, 191n61, 192n62 Dryden, John, 3 Durán, Diego, 88, 180n20 Elliott, John, 39, 63n40, 194n65 encomienda (grants of labor/tribute), 28, 29 envy, 81, 208n111 episcopal licenses, 25–26 Epistle of Paul to the Romans, 178n14, 190n59 Escalona, Duke of, 20 Eutyches, 179n17 evangelism: catechism and, 39, 193n64; Indian language and, 39, 69n103, 69n106, 69n107, 210n124; Jesuits and, 93; mendicants and, 24; music and, 182n27, 205n105; pessimism about, 89; Spanish crown and, 1–2, 78–79, 184n32 Fabian y Fuero, Bishop, 75n167 favores, 176n5

235

feather arts, 204n103, 205n105 females: attitudes toward, 199n84; and bathing, 212n130; education of, 198n81, 211n125 and marriage, 200n86 Ferdinand, King of Castile and Aragon, 35, 209n117 Ferdinand III, King of Bohemia and Hungary, 16 Fernández de Echeverría y Veytia, Mariano, 63n41 Fernández de Oviedo, Indies Gonzalo, 98n12 Fernández Gracia, Ricardo, 6, 73n143 First Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, 195n69 First Epistle of St. Peter the Apostle, 190n59 Florencia, Francisco de, 27 Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier de, 3 Francis, Saint, 91, 194n67, 196n70, 197n71, 210n123 Franciscans: evangelism by, 24, 93, 99n24, 185n40; images of Indians held by, 85–88, 90–91, 97; and Indian labor, 95; Indians’ relationship with, 195n67; and poverty, 194n66, 194n67; power of, in New Spain, 92; and Spanish providential destiny, 78 frugality, 82 Fuertes y Biota, Antonio de, 38 Gage, Thomas, 72n129 Gámez, A. Arístides, 9n7 Gante, Pedro de, 182n27 Garcés, Julián, 27–28 García, Genaro, 6 García Ferrer, Pedro, 18, 26, 53 García Manuel, Pedro, 200n84 Garibay, Angel María, 200n85 General Indian Court, 177n9, 198n77, 201n90 generosity, 82, 198n79 Genesis, 177n6 Gerhard, Peter, 211n126

236

Index

Germany, 19, 190n52, 191n61, 212n128 Ghibellines, 194n65 Gibson, Charles, 190n55 Ginés de Sepúlveda, Juan, 98n12 gluttony, 83, 194n65 Gómez, Lidia E., 24 Gonzaga, Ferdinando, 196n71 Gonzaga, Francesco, De Origine seraphicae, 196n71 Gonzaga, Francisco, 197n71 González de Rosende, Antonio, 6, 34, 39, 47–48, 56–57 Gospel according to Luke, 182n24, 198n79 Gospel according to Matthew, 176n2, 198n76, 210n 121 Granada, Luis de, Guia de Peccadores, 211n127 greed, 82, 198n79 Guatemuz, 186n44 Guelphs, 194n65 Guijo, Gregorio, 56 Gutiérrez de Padilla, Juan, 183n27 Hapsburg emperors, 44 Haskett, Robert S., 189n51 Headley, John, 210n124 hermandad, 209n117 Holy Roman Congregation of Rites, 56 Holy School of Christ, 56 honor, 43–44, 71n124 horses, 186n41 Huerta Jaramillo, Anna María Dolores, 180n19, 213n131 humility, 47–48, 82, 91, 190n57, 210n120 Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego, 211n127 Hyde, Thomas, 11n14 idleness, 83, 86, 193n63 idolatry, 92–93, 179n15, 180n20 illegitimate children, 16 images, religious role of, 51–52, 180n20. See also idolatry Indians: attitudes toward, 84–89; as children, 87, 193n62; and

Christianity, 2, 90–92, 178n14, 181n22, 181n23, 182n24, 191n59, 198n76 (see also evangelism aimed at); cleanliness of, 84, 181n23, 212n130; courage of, 80–81, 186n43, 209n116; discrimination against, 198n81; drinking by, 83, 86, 191n61, 192n62; economic situation of, 23, 96, 181n21; essentialization of, 84–87; evangelism aimed at, 1–2, 24, 39, 69n103, 69n106, 69n107, 78–79, 89, 182n27; frugality of, 82; generosity of, 82, 198n79; humility of, 82, 91; idealization of, 85–86, 97; idleness of, 83, 86, 193n63; idolatry of, 92–93, 179n15, 180n20; innocence of, 81, 86, 181n22, 181n23, 191n59, 203n99; intellectual capacity of, 83–84, 202n93; and justice, 84, 177n9, 206n110, 208n111; labor of, 2, 24, 28, 49, 73n143, 86–87, 94–96, 98n7, 189n51, 193n63, 197n74, 198n77, 204n102, 209n118, 209n119; living in Puebla, 176n1; loyalty of, 79–80; marriage among, 200n86; mechanical arts of, 203n98, 204n101, 204n103, 205n105; medicinal practices of, 206n109; and mulatos, 206n110; and music, 182n27, 205n104, 205n105, 206n107; nobility among, 190n55, 199n84, 200n86; obedience of, 3, 79, 82, 91, 188n49; as officeholders, 190n55; Palafox’s knowledge of, 89–90; patience of, 82–83; poverty of, 91, 191n59, 194n66, 194n67, 196n69; priests’ proficiency in languages of, 39; as pusillanimous, 79–80; and rebellion, 46, 72n129, 80, 208n113; relocations of, 201n91; and seven deadly sins, 81–83; simplicity of, 185n40, 186n41; and slavery, 84; Spain’s obligations to, 78–81; Spaniards as first encountered by,

Index 186n41; Spaniards regarded as gods by, 185n40; stubbornness of, 193n63; treatment of, 1–2, 9n7, 46, 72n129, 77; virtues of, 2, 9n2, 81–86; wretchedness of, 80, 98n8 Innocent X, Pope, 21, 26 Inquisition: Mexican, 56–57; Spanish, 57 intermarriage, 30, 207n110 invention, 58 Isabel, Queen of Spain, 22, 28, 64n54 Isabella of Castile, 35, 209n117 Islam, 40, 52 Israel, Jonathan, Race, Class and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 7 Jansenism, 6 Jesuits, 5, 23–26, 56, 92–93, 95, 197n72 Jesus Christ, 179n17 Johnson, Lyman, 9n3, 71n124, 209n117 Jover Zamora, José Maria, 68n93 justice, 84, 177n9, 206n110, 208n111 Keen, Benjamin, 88 Kline, Walter, 203n99 Knight, Alan, 72n129, 192n61, 193n63, 208n112 Kobayashi, José Maria, 198n81 Kostof, Spiro, 72n136 Lafaye, Jacques, 184n34 languages, priests’ proficiency in Indian, 39, 69n103, 69n106, 69n107, 210n124 Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 4, 84–86, 88–90, 92, 181n22, 184n32, 189n51; A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, 85–86 Lavrin, Asunción, 180n20, 181n23, 198n81, 200n86, 202n93 Laws of the Indies, 45, 47 laziness. See idleness Leicht, Hugo, 73n143 The Life of St. Theresa, 22 Lipsett-Rivera, Sonya, 71n124

237

litigation, 84 Lockhart, James, 192n61 Loreto López, Rosalva, 50 Louis XIV, King of France, 3 lust, 83, 194n65 Macedonius, 179n17 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 37, 55 magnificence, 44, 46–48, 53 La Malinche, 187n44, 199n83 Mañozca y Murillo, Juan de Santo Matía Saenz de, 56 Mariana, Juan de, Historia de España, 187n47 María of Austria, 16–17 Márquez, Juan, 38; El gobernador cristiano, 70n117 marriage, 200n86. See also intermarriage Martínez, Enrique, 207n110 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, 193n65 mechanical arts. See crafts mendicants, 24–26, 78, 87, 90, 100n26, 195n68, 196n69, 197n72 Mendieta, Gerónimo de, 69n103, 69n106, 79–80, 85–87, 90, 180n20, 181n22, 182n25, 182n27, 185n40, 186n41, 191n59, 192n61, 194n67, 196n69, 197n71, 198n81, 199n84, 200n85, 200n86, 203n98, 204n101, 206n107, 208n112, 209n119, 210n123, 211n125; Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, 195n67 Mendoza, María de, 212n127 Merlo, Juan de, 202n92 mestizos/as, 29, 190n56, 199n81 Mexican Baroque architecture, 34 Mexican Inquisition, 56–57 Mexico. See New Spain Mexico City, 27–30, 32, 53, 72n134, 86, 92 Michelangelo Buonarroti, 15 Michoacan, 204n103 midwives, 213n131 Mills, Kenneth, 208n112 mining, 189n51

238

Index

missions. See evangelism Moctezuma, 98n4, 185n39, 199n81 monarchism, 37–39, 67n93, 184n31 Montañés, Juan Martinez, 49 Monteagudo, Conde de, 212n127 Moses, 38–39 Motolina, Juana, 200n84 Motolinía, Diego, 200n84, 204n101 Motolinía, Toribio de Benavente, 29, 181n22, 182n27, 185n40, 186n41, 189n51, 192n61, 195n67, 205n104, 205n105, 206n107 mulatos, 190n58, 206n110, 208n111 Muñoz, Luis, 20 music, 182n27, 205n104, 205n105, 206n107, 206n108 natural law, 45 Naucler, Joannes, Memorabilium omnis aetatis et omnium gentium chronici commentarii, 193n65 Navarra, Pedro, 15, 213n131 New Spain: discrimination in, 29; government in, 19–20; Palafox in, 16–34, 89–90; in seventeenth century, 5–6, 12n24 nobility, 45–46, 51–52, 190n55, 199n84, 200n86 Noche Triste, 185n39 nuns, 199n81 Nyerros, 194n65 obedience, 3, 79, 82, 91, 188n49, 201n89 Olintla, 212n129 Olivares, count-duke, 16, 17, 19, 37–38, 41, 43, 190n52 Order of Discalced Carmelites, 6, 75n167 Orejón, Diego de, 26–27 Ortelius, 193n65 Osma, 5, 35, 55, 96 paganism, 92, 179n15 Pagden, Anthony, 68n96 Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de: apparitions of, 56; and Aragon,

35–37, 39–41; and architecture, 34, 48–51, 53–54; beatification of, 55–56, 58; biographies of, 6; birth of, 15; as bishop, 2, 17, 18–19, 21, 23, 25–26, 33–35, 42–43, 54, 92, 176n4, 178n10; and Blancas, 40–41; and Borromeo, 52–54, 75n157; canonization of, 57–58; La Carta Pastoral VIII, 54; Carta II a los Curas, 54; chief interests of, 97; childhood of, 15; and clergy disputes, 5, 23–26, 61n26, 87, 92, 197n72; courtly duties of, 16–17, 34; and Creoles, 4, 7, 25, 35, 96; and critique of Spain, 94, 188n47; death of, 5, 35; dual commitments of, 4–5; education of, 16; and family, 16, 60n12; final years in Spain, 34–35; on government, 2–3, 10n10, 19–20, 29, 36–39, 44–46, 50, 67n93, 70n117, 70n120, 70n121, 91, 97, 178n10, 184n31; his knowledge of Indians, 89–90; Historia Real Sagrada, 42–44, 50, 91, 97; The History of the Conquest of China, 94, 101n43; and honor, 43–44; and humility, 47–48, 190n57, 210n120; Ideas Políticas, 7; Juicio Interior, 44; Las Casas compared to, 88, 184n32; library of, 22, 54, 59n10, 71n126; and magnificence, 44, 46, 48; motivations of, 5; and music, 183n27, 205n105, 206n108; name of, 212n127; and New Spain, 16–34, 89–90; and nobility, 45–46, 51–52; Obras, 6, 56, 75n167; ordination of, 16; Pastor de Noche Buena, 47; piety of, 55, 96; portraits of, 41–43, 56–58; and printing press, 22–23; and Puebla values, 27–29, 40; recall of, to Spain, 5, 33–34; Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias, 189n51; reform efforts of, 5, 6, 17, 19–21, 23–25, 55, 87, 197n72; reputation of, 4–5, 55–58, 88; scholarship on, 5–7;

Index schools founded by, 21, 61n26; and self-mortification, 180n19; and Spanish Crown, 3, 78; street named after, 58; Tratados Mejicanos, 7; travels of, 16–17; on treatment of Indians, 1–2, 9n7, 46, 72n129, 77, 176n3; as viceroy, 20; Vida Interior, 6, 16, 57; Virtues of the Indian, 1–4, 8, 35, 58, 67n87, 77–97; as visitorgeneral, 17–19, 26, 87, 176n3, 177n7; as writer, 22, 35, 54, 55, 62n34, 77 Palafox y Rebolledo, Jaime de, 15–16 Paré, Ambroise, 186n41 Partidas, 71n124 Pastrana, Roque de, 66n72 Patch, Robert W., 9n7 patience, 82–83 patria chica, 40 Patronato Real, 1–2 Paul, Saint, 178n14, 190n59, 195n69, 214n132 Paul III, Pope, 181n22 Pena Espinosa, Jesus Joel, 213n131 Peña Espinosa, J. J., 180n19 Penalosa, Raphael de, 73n143 Peninsulars: Creoles and, 20, 30; defined, 19; emigration of, 65n67; in Puebla, 28, 30 Peraleja, Alonso de, 182n27 personas miserables, 80, 98n8 Peru, 78 Peter, Saint. See First Epistle of St. Peter the Apostle Philip II, King of Spain, 36, 40, 47, 50–51, 52, 67n93 Philip III, King of Spain, 42, 50, 67n93 Philip IV, King of Spain, 1–2, 16, 17, 21, 23, 25, 26, 32–34, 36–37, 40–42, 49–51, 67n87, 67n93, 72n129, 77, 188n47 Piho, Virve, 12n24 Pius IV, Pope, 52 Plutarch, 187n47 pole flying ritual, 202n94 polygyny, 200n86 portraits of monarchs, 40–43, 70n113

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Portugal, 19, 91, 190n52 pride, 81–82 Protestantism, 51–52 Puebla: architecture in, 47–48; barrios in, 73n143; city plan of, 28; early years of, 27–31; economy of, 23–24; figures venerated in, 57; Indian population of, 176n1; name of, 64n54; Palafox and, 27–29, 40, 48, 57–58; Palafox’s entry into, 18–19; Palafox’s flight from, 26–27, 31; Spanish heritage of, 27–31; status of, 27–30. See also Puebla cathedral Puebla cathedral: as Cathedral of the Angels, 203n97; consecration of, 31–34, 183n27; expenditures on, 24, 63n41, 66n72, 73n140, 204n102; Indian labor on, 49, 73n143, 81, 97, 204n102, 209n118, 209n119; labor required to build, 48–49, 73n143, 97; music in, 183n27; Palafox and, 4–5, 31–34, 48–51, 56, 73n140; retablo in, 49–50; significance of, 32–34, 48–49 pulque (alcoholic drink), 191n60, 192n61 pulquerías (taverns), 86 Quautlatas, 208n113 Quetzalcóatl, 184n34, 199n83 race, 198n81 Ramírez, Sebastián, 195n67 Real Audiencia, 17, 28 reales, 210n122 Reconquista, 40 Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias, 80 regidores (regular council members), 30 regionalism, 38–39, 45 regular clergy, 24–25, 87, 92, 197n72 religious orders. See mendicants; regular clergy; specific orders repartimiento (labor draft), 95, 189n51 Retablo de los Reyes (Altar of Kings), 49–50

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Index

Reuchlin, Johann, 193n65 Rodríguez Kuri, Ariel, 11n15, 61n26 Rojas Garciduenas, José, 7 Ross, Kathleen, 12n24 Rubial García, Antonio, 58 Ruíz de Alarcón, Hernando, 73n137, 180n20, 192n61, 206n109, 208n112, 209n116, 213n131 Saavedra Fajardo, Diego de, 38 Sahagún, Bernardino de, 88, 90, 180n19, 192n61, 199n83, 199n84, 200n85, 200n86, 202n94, 205n105, 208n112, 212n130, 213n131; General history of the things of New Spain, 100n26 Sala Real de la Diputación, Zaragoza, 40–41, 70n113 Salinero Indians, 209n114 Salmerón, Juan de, 28 Salmerón, Pedro, 56, 66n75 Salvatierra, Conde de, 21, 26–27, 46, 190n56 Sánchez-Castañer, Francisco, 6–7, 98n2 Santo Cali, 180n20 secular clergy, 5, 24–25, 29, 39, 87, 92 self-mortification, 180n19 seminaries, 21, 61n26 Sertorius, 187n47 seven deadly sins, 81–83 Sicily, 91 Siete Partidas, 201n86 Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de, 65n71, 184n34 Silva, Juan de, 80, 98n7 silver, 189n51 slavery: black, 207n110; natural, 84 sloth, 83, 86, 194n65. See also idleness Society of Jesus. See Jesuits Solomon, 50, 203n100 Solórzano, Juan de, 86, 91, 95 Spain: and Counter-Reformation, 52; economy of, 94–95; and Jesuits, 26; obligations of, to Indians, 78–81; and politics, 19, 91, 190n52; tribute due to, 189n51

Spanish colonization: criticisms of, 3; emigration in, 65n67; evangelism and, 184n32; rationale for, 1 Spanish Inquisition, 57 sweepers, 200n85 Tacitus, 212n128 Taguacan, 196n71 Tamariz de Carmona, Antonio, 32, 34, 73n140 Tarahumara Indians, 208n113 Tarascan Indians, 204n103, 205n105 Tartars, 94, 101n43 taxes, 189n51 Taylor, William, 192n61, 208n112 temascales (public baths), 84, 213n131 Tendilla, Conde de, 211n127 Tenochtitlan, 80–81, 185n39, 186n44 tepache (alcoholic drink), 191n60 Tepehuanes, 208n113 tercios de oficios (tax on offices), 189n51 Theresa, Saint, 6, 22, 211n127 Thévenot, Melchisédek, 11n14, 184n33, 187n44, 196n70; Relations de divers voyages curieux, 3–4, 10n13, 182n24, 192n61 Third Mexican Provincial Council, 80, 199n81 III Mexican Tridentine Council, 39, 181n22 Thirty Years War, 19, 190n52 Thomas, Hugh, 185n39 tithe income, 2, 9n3, 23–24 Tlaxcalan Indians, 18, 60n18, 81, 185n39, 188n50, 199n83, 204n103 Toboso Indians, 209n114 Tomaro, John B., 53 tonsurado, 16, 59n9 Torquemada, Juan de, 69n103, 181n22, 182n27, 186n40, 186n41, 188n50, 191n59, 194n67, 197n71, 200n86, 202n94, 203n98, 204n101, 205n103, 206n107, 208n112, 209n119, 213n131; Monarquía Indiana, 88–89, 178n14, 180n20, 195n67 Torres y Rueda, Marcos de, 26

Index Totonac Indians, 188n50, 202n94, 211n126 Tridentine seminaries, 21, 61n26 Union of Arms, 38 University of Mexico, 21, 84 University of Salamanca, 16, 44, 55, 87 urbanization, 47, 73n137, 202n91 Valdaura, Cristobal de, 55 Velasco, Luis de, II, 177n9 Veracruz, 28 Vetancurt, Agustín de, 88–89 viceroys, 17, 19–21, 25–27, 29, 45–46, 53, 177n7, 178n9 Villalpando, Juan Bautista, 50 Villanueva, Tomás, 52 Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, 50, 70n113

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Virtues of the Indian (Palafox): influence of, 90; outline of, 78; purpose of, 1–4, 58, 88, 96–97; reception of, 3–4; shortcomings of, 89; on Spain’s obligations to Indians, 78–81; title of, 77; translation of, 8; on virtues, 81–84; writing of, 35, 67n87, 77, 98n2 visitor-general, 17, 177n7 Vitoria, Francisco de, 44–45, 84–85, 87 Vojtecky, Sicilia, 62n34 water, 213n131 women. See females wrath, 82–83 Zacatlán de las Manzanas, 188n50 Zacatlán Indians, 202n94 Zongolica, 211n126

About the Editor

Nancy H. Fee received her doctorate in art history at Columbia University in 2000. Her dissertation centered on Juan de Palafox y Mendoza as a paradoxical political figure and a patron of architecture and civic identity in Puebla, Mexico. An independent scholar, she has published several articles on Palafox, Mexican baroque architecture, and related topics. This is her first book.

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