ALMOST from its beginning the pattern of settlement and missions in Alta
California symbolized the growing tension between the traditional model of
mission colonization in America and the reforming Spanish authorities of the
late 18th century. The Laws of the Indies regulated the distances between
pueblos of Spaniards and reducciones of Indians. In the case of Mission
Santa Clara and Pueblo San Jose, and of Mission Santa Cruz and the Villa de
Branciforte, these laws were clearly violated. The Laws of the Indies specified
that the land and water within the radius of a league from an Indian reduccion belonged
to the Indians.1 The code provided further that grazing lands for
Spanish cattle should be distant three leagues from Indian reducciones, and
grazing lands for Spanish sheep should be distant one league.2 But
Pueblo San Jose was only three-fourths of a league from Mission Santa Clara,
while the Villa de Branciforte was but a gunshot distant from Mission Santa
Cruz.3 In both cases a stream of water separated mission and town but
this was a circumstance which did little either to alter or even weaken the
terms of the law. In each case the close proximity between mission and town was
forbidden by still further clauses of the Laws of the Indies.4
In both instances the Franciscan missionaries, through the
Guardian of the College of San Fernando, their major superior in Mexico City,
objected to this patent violation of the rights of the Indians and petitioned
that the towns be moved to a suitable distance from the missions. From the
purely legal point of view, the argument of the friars was unassailable. The law
was unquestionably on their side. On the frontier, however, the
Spanish government sometimes found it prudent, for various practical
reasons, to make exceptions to the Laws of the Indies. In Texas, for example,
Mission San Antonio de Valero was only two gunshots away from the neighboring
presidio and town.5 And so it was here. In both instances the Viceroy found it
wise to hand down a decision that opposed the interests of the missionaries and
Indians and favored those of the military and civil authority in Alta
California. In both instances, notwithstanding the Laws of the Indies and the
objection of the friars, the towns remained where military and civil authority
had established them.
The arguments employed in this dispute by the religious
authority on the one hand and the military and civil authority on the other have
been treated extensively elsewhere6 There is no need to enter upon a discussion
of them here. It is worth suggesting in this context, however, that the
viceregal government, in reaching a decision in these two cases, was probably
influenced by ulterior considerations that are given no explicit treatment in
the California documentation of the period. The point to be stressed in this
connection is that these two viceregal decisions were made at a time when some
of the people, at least, who were in authority in the government of New Spain
appear to have begun to change their views on the laws that forbade close
proximity between pueblos of Spaniards and reducciones (settlements) of
Indians. Although the Laws of the Indies opposed such proximity, some voices in
the higher echelons of Spanish government were beginning to speak out in favor
of it. Hence it seems plausible that this change of opinion was a contributing
factor in the ultimate formulation of these two viceregal decisions. It seems
preferable to consider the conclusions of the Viceroys in these two cases, not
only from the standpoint of local economic necessity, but also from the
perspective of Spanish mission policy on the northern frontier of New Spain. In
short, part of the reason why the law was set aside in each case might well have
been that the reasons for the law were questioned. The law was there, to be
sure, but there is reason to believe, as will shortly be explained, that the law
was approaching the status of a dead letter. Hence in the litigation involved in
these two cases the legal arguments of the friars were not of great value.
Instead arguments based on practical considerations and, probably, on the change
in governmental Indian policy, prevailed.
In the latter half of the sixteenth century Spain instituted
a policy of segregating the Indians from the non-Indian population of central
Mexico—the Spaniards, mestizos, blacks, mulattoes, and mixed breeds. In the
beginning of her efforts at colonization she had not done so, gathering the
Indians in close association with the Spaniards in the settlements on the island
of Hispaniola and leaving them, in New Spain, under the immediate direction of
the encomenderos. But complaints reached the Crown that encomenderos
abused the Indians, neglected their obligation of having them instructed in
religion, and imposed upon them burdens that were unreasonable
and unjust. Many of the clergy felt that the
Indians could be properly evangelized only if they were kept at a distance from
the Spanish colonists and other non-Indians. Ultimately, the Indians of central
Mexico were organized in Indian towns under their own civic officials and under
the spiritual direction of the friars. Legislation prohibiting the residence of
non-Indians in Indian towns began in 1563. The Indians, though forbidden to
reside in Spanish municipalities, were allowed to have their own districts
there.7 Some Spanish towns had Indian quarters in which the Indians were
governed by their own cabildos, e.g., Mexico City, Querétaro, and
Zacatecas.8
Racial segregation of Indians in New Spain was neither
perfect nor complete. Economic conditions required a great measure of close
association between Spaniards and Indians. The major portion of the labor force
in central Mexico was made up of Indians, who were far more numerous as laborers
in mines, in mills, and on haciendas than mestizos, blacks, mulattoes, or mixed
breeds. And in the seventeenth century, primarily for economic reasons, not a
few Spanish voices were raised in opposition to the Spanish policy of racial
segregation of Indians. But the policy held nevertheless, and Indian towns
governed by Indian civic officials continued until the end of the colonial period.9
The same policy of segregation that applied to Indian towns
in central Mexico held equally well for Indian reducciones on the
frontier. Gente de razón were forbidden to establish permanent residences
in Indian missions10 The same argument that required segregation for the Indians
of central Mexico was equally valid for the missions. The Indians, it was
thought, could not be properly evangelized unless the gente de razón were
kept at a suitable distance.
In the missions, too, however, segregation of the Indians
from the gente de razón was neither perfect nor complete. In the
Franciscan missions of Río Verde, for example, in the late seventeenth century,
owners of haciendas encroached on Indian land. The invasion of Indian property
by Spanish hacendados spread like floodwaters rolling over flat land.
Hacendado ownership spread so far, claimed the missionaries, that Indian
villages and even churches were surrounded. Some Indians were left landless. The
missionaries complained that some Indians were led away from sound moral and
religious practice by the bad example of mestizos and mulattoes employed by
hacendados. They even declared that sons and daughters of missionized
Indians were taken forcibly by gente de razón to work in Mexico City,
Puebla, or Querétaro, where they were reduced to a position of semi-servitude.
As a result of all these abuses, said the missionaries, the missionized Indians
were on the point of revolt. Therefore the missionaries, with the help of
attorneys, had recourse to the royal audiencia for redress of grievances,
specifically for the recovery of Indian property.11 Conditions were much the same
in the Franciscan missions of Tampico. In some of the missions
of Tampico missionized Indians were forcibly compelled by the gente de
razón to work as ranch hands for hacendados, even though their
own maize fields suffered from neglect in consequence12
Here, too, the missionaries found it necessary to appeal to the royal
audiencia for justice. In Sonora and Nueva Vizcaya, in accordance with the
law, missionized Indians were sent as tapisques to work on haciendas and
in mines. Not infrequently, however, these Indians, in violation of the law,
were kept away from their missions for far too long. Sometimes they were absent
from their missions for years.13
The first break with this Spanish policy of segregation in
the frontier missions occurred with the experience of José de Escandón in the
Sierra Gorda. Escandón's rise to prominence and success in the Sierra Gorda was
little short of spectacular. Stationed as a lieutenant at Querétaro in 1721, he
became sergeant major in 1727 and, in the next year, distinguished himself in
the wars he waged against rebellious and hostile Indians in the rough,
mountainous terrain of the Sierra Gorda. In 1734 he put down a revolt of ten
thousand Indians. Though ruthless with active rebels, he was kind and generous
with the vanquished. He was as thorough in correcting abuses in local Spanish
administration as he was in dealing with the recalcitrant natives. He did not
tyrannize over the Indians himself nor did he allow others to do so. He won for
himself the esteem of the Spanish government, the respect of the Spanish
colonists, and the love and gratitude of the Indians. In 1740 he was made
Lieutenant General of the Sierra Gorda; in 1741 he became Count of the Sierra
Gorda. When the Spanish Crown decided to colonize the region known as Nuevo
Santander, Escandón was chosen, in preference to others, to lead the
expedition.14
In a letter he wrote to the Viceroy on October 28, 1747,
Escandón explained what he had learned from his experience in the Sierra Gorda
and outlined briefly a general policy to be followed in the establishment of the
new Spanish settlements in Nuevo Santander. He rejected entirely the
presidio-mission system he had encountered in the Sierra Gorda. Instead of
founding a chain of missions defended by strategically located presidios,
Escandón preferred to build a series of Spanish towns whose inhabitants would be
taken from frontier settlements—people habituated to the demands of frontier
life. Generally speaking, he said, people of this kind, civilians though they
were, made good soldiers. If any fighting had to be done with the Indians of
Nuevo Santander, these frontier townsmen could be depended upon to give a good
account of themselves. Why? Because they would have adequate incentive. With
their wives and families dependent upon them, and with land of their own to
defend, they would have good reason to stand firm in a crisis. This was what he
had learned in the Sierra Gorda. The Villa of Jaumave, refounded by Escandón in
1743, had been a case in point. The townsmen had confronted and overcome dangers
and difficulties, the town had flourished, and there was now a growing Indian
mission in connection with the town.
On the other hand, said Escandón, presidial soldiers were
concerned mainly about their salaries, had no lands or crops to tie them to the
soil, had no personal interest in developing the country, and made no effort to
attract families of settlers to the frontier for this purpose. Without either
settlers or trade to promote a colony, the necessity of maintaining the
presidial soldiers became greater and, in consequence, the entire project became
more expensive.
Furthermore, the great leader went on, there was an
additional advantage in the plan of establishing towns rather than presidios.
The townsmen would naturally be inclined to make friends with the Indians, give
them gifts, and induce them to help with the work in the fields. The result
would be that the Indians would become more easily familiarized with the Spanish
way of life-Spanish work, food, and clothing—and would learn to live like
Spaniards. In the beginning some soldiers would be necessary but not many.15
Apparently, Escandón was opposed, not only to the presidio
aspect of Indian reducciones, but to the mission aspect as well. It seems
he wanted the Indians to live in towns with the settlers. The one who insisted
on the establishment of missions near the towns, and on Indian dwellings and
lands separate from those of the Spanish settlers, was Father Simón del Yerro,
one of the Franciscans from the Missionary College of Zacatecas. These were the
priests who had been assigned by the government as missionaries for the Escandón
project in Nuevo Santander. Escandón did not oppose Father Simón or refuse his
demands. Hence it was, according to Father Simón, that missions were established
alongside the towns or a short distance away from them.16
From the foregoing it is evident that, if the Indians were to
live in close association with the Spanish settlers, as Escandón had planned,
then the missions would normally have to be located in close proximity to the
towns. On this one point, then, the new method of colonization came into
conflict with the Laws of the Indies. With the implementation of Escandón's
method of colonization, the policy of segregation would have to be abandoned and
one of integration put in its place. With the approval of the Viceroy, Escandón
went ahead with his project. By December 2, 1748, his contingent of soldiers and
settlers was ready for the march from Querétaro to Nuevo Santander.17 Later, after
the colony had been founded and had begun to develop, the King, in a royal
cédula dated March 29, 1763, authorized the distribution of land to both
Indians and settlers and granted the relaxation of Spanish law necessary for the
success of the venture.18
Nuevo Santander was situated along the eastern coast of New
Spain between the Pánuco River and the Bay of Espiritu Santo at the mouth of the
San Antonio River, a distance of about 120 leagues. It extended inland for about
sixty leagues. Escandón divided his forces into nine contingents,
each under a different captain. The great colonizer himself
marched from Querétaro, three other expeditions from the south in the
neighborhood of Tampico, and the rest from Nuevo León to the west of Nuevo
Santander. Each group was destined to establish different settlements. By May,
1749, a dozen settlements had been made. By 1755 there were twenty-four towns in
Nuevo Santander with a total population of 1500 families of settlers—8,989
persons. Chosen from frontier communities, the settlers included many mestizos,
mulattoes, and mixed breeds. Very many of the settlers were Indians from
secularized missions. In close association with the towns
were fifteen missions with 3,443 Indians.19
In some instances the missions were established very close to
the towns, in others not. In Palmillas the Indians were described as living a
short distance from the town.20 In Mier, where there was no mission as yet, the
Indians were said to be living on the fringe of town.21 In Camargo the mission
was 500 paces distant from the town.22 In Santa Barbara, Horcasitas, and San
Fernando the mission was one fourth of a league away.23 In Llera and Hoyos the
mission was two gunshots away.24 In Güemes the mission was distant one league;
in Aguayo two leagues; in the town of Nuevo Santander, three.25
The ideas of José de Escandón on colonization of Indian
territory seem to have attracted considerable attention in government circles.
At any rate, one finds an enthusiastic reference to them in the report of José
Rafael Rodriguez Gallardo, Inspector General of Sinaloa and Sonora in 1750. In
the long document he wrote to the Viceroy, he strongly recommended that
Spaniards be introduced into the missions to improve the reducciones of
Indians. He complained about those passages in the Laws of the Indies that
required segregation. He pointed out that in the parts of New Spain closest to
the higher tribunals themselves Spaniards lived and worked among Indians. In
Mexico City itself, notwithstanding the bad example given by so many Spaniards
in such a large community, numerous Indians led lives of virtue. There was even
a convent of Indian nuns. And many Indians had become priests. A high percentage
of the population of Tlaxcala was Spanish, and the Indians, generally speaking,
were very close to the Spanish way of life. Rodriguez Gallardo praised the
French in Canada, who lived among the Indians and intermarried with them. He
underlined the point that where there was close association between the French
and Indians there was no discord between the two. This fact contrasted painfully
with the readiness of missionized Indians in Sonora to revolt against Spanish
rule. And, finally, the Inspector General praised José de Escandón and his new
method of colonization, expressing the hope that similar methods would be
employed on the Pacific coast. In the missions of Sinaloa and Sonora, he felt,
badly behaved Spaniards could be controlled by Spanish justices just as they
were in the more populous centers of New Spain. And, finally, he ended his
account of the missions by explaining that Jesuit missionaries
disagreed with one another on whether or not Spaniards should
be allowed to make their homes in or near Indian reducciones. Some, he
said, invited Spaniards to do so. But missionaries were changed from mission to
mission. Some missionaries opposed the idea because of the old saying that the
shadow of the Spaniard meant the death of the Indian. And Spaniards hesitated to
accept the invitation of one missionary to stay when they might be ordered by
his successor, in due time, to leave.26
In 1772 Luis Antonio Minchaca, commander of the Presidio of
San Antonio de Bejar in Texas, recommended very strongly, in a report to Viceroy
Bucareli, that towns of Spaniards and gente de razón be established in the
immediate environs of the missions. The Spanish would then be an object lesson
to the Indians in social, civil, agricultural, and industrial life.27
In 1776 the Commandancy General of the Internal Provinces was
established. Shortly thereafter, in an unsigned and undated document entitled
Instrucción para el Ministro de la Misión de la Purísima Concepción de la
Provincia de Texas, one reads: "Dealing and communications between the
Indians and the Spaniards are not only allowed but are commanded by the
Commandant General."28
From these two documents on Texas it is evident that the
principle of integration advocated by José de Escandón was looked upon with
favor in the higher echelons of frontier government. A few years later one finds
it formally approved by the Viceroy Revilla Gigedo. In 1793 Revilla Gigedo wrote
to Pedro de Acuña a lengthy report on all the missions of northern New Spain
from Alta California to Nuevo Santander. His paragraphs on Nuevo Santander's
missions and the way they had developed were not altogether encouraging.
Escandón's new method of colonization had not been entirely successful in
attracting Indians to Christianity and the Spanish way of life. Only eight of
the missions had a resident community of Indians. Three had attached to them
groups of friendly Indians, but the natives lived dispersed in the mountains,
not confined to the missions. Some had Indians who offered to become missionized
but did not fulfill their promises and came and went with the seasons. Others
had no Indians at all. Four of the Indian nations were described as faithful and
had evidently been converted. Many of the pagan Indians in Nuevo Santander still
resisted efforts at Hispanization or were even hostile and warlike. Some
Indians, when hungry and in need, would stay at the missions for a while or even
live with the townspeople in their homes. But, when the help of the Spaniards
was no longer required, they would return to the forests and mountains.
Altogether, in 1793, there were 3,791 Indians included, in one way or another,
among the missions of Nuevo Santander. Generally speaking, Revilla Gigedo
described the towns that had been founded by Escandón as sunk in a state of
decadence. They had not been successful in developing either agriculture or
mineral wealth. The Indians, said the Viceroy, needed a better example from a
better class of people.
Notwithstanding the limited success of the mission venture in
Nuevo Santander, Revilla Gigedo, at the end of his long report, recommended
that, provided they be industrious, honest, and well behaved, families of
gente de razón be introduced into every mission to help, by their example
and by other means, in the instruction of the Indians.29
Revilla Gigedo was succeeded as Viceroy on July 12, 1794, by
the Marqués de Branciforte. On October 14 of the same year Miguel Costansó, a
military engineer who had participated in the Sacred Expeditions to Alta
California in 1769 and had had wide experience in this province, wrote the
Marqués de Branciforte a letter in which he explained the importance of
introducing families of gente de razón into the missions of the northern
frontier of New Spain. There were missions, he said, that had existed for over a
hundred years with no inhabitants other than the missionized Indians themselves.
These Indians, he declared, were still tended by missionaries, still watched by
a military guard, and still restless and inconstant. In other words, the Indians
were not much closer to adopting a European way of life than they had been when
the missions began. To solve this problem, to civilize the Indians, and to make
them useful vassals of the Crown, the thing to do, said Costansó, was to
introduce into the missions, even at the very beginning, some well-behaved and
hard-working families of gente de razón to serve as object lessons in
Spanish civilization. Costansó emphasized this point very strongly: "This is the
plan on which the progress of those vast regions depends. For this the
governors, missionaries, and presidial captains of New Spain clamor and have
clamored, most especially those of Baja and Alta California." Colonel Pedro
Fages, then resident in Mexico City, was mentioned as one who had promoted this
useful project by obtaining families of artisans for San Diego and Monterey.30
When Miguel Costansó spoke of missions that had existed for
over a hundred years but had Indians who were still restless and inconstant and,
in consequence, ill prepared for absorption into the Spanish way of life, he did
not mention any one mission chain. But if one is to accept at face value the
reports written in 1772 by the Queretaran Franciscans who had taken over some of
the ex-Jesuit missions in Sonora, these missions can be said to indicate some
idea of what Costansó meant. Most of these reports are neither impressive nor
encouraging. In most of these missions the Indians recited their doctrina
faithfully by heart,31 but, as if they were so many parakeets, they had no clear
understanding of what it meant. Many of the Indians had a reasonably good
command of spoken Spanish, but they never used the language among themselves,
had no understanding of the elementary teachings of Catholicism, and in many
respects, were still attached to their pagan customs and practices. Many of the
Indians farmed, to some extent, in the Spanish fashion, but irrigation was a
problem for them and, not infrequently, they had recourse to hunting or to
gathering food in the forest. Among these Indians, one must
remember, missionization had been going on for well over a hundred
years. Father Francisco Roch, in a letter in which he spoke of these missions in
general terms, recommended two measures for the spiritual improvement of the
Indians: first, a schoolmaster at each mission to teach the Indians Spanish,
especially the children; and, secondly, the use of more gente de razón to
serve as examples to the Indians. Some gente de razón had already taken up
their residence at the missions. More were needed. It must be remembered, of
course, that these reports dealt with missions that had not as yet been
secularized. One of the principal points made in these reports was that these
missions, incapable of supporting a priest, were not yet ready for
secularization. Other Jesuit missions in Sonora had been secularized. The
reports do not deal with them or refer to them. It must be confessed, however,
that these reports could have done nothing to bolster the confidence of the
viceregal government in the old presidio-mission system as practised by the
Jesuit missionaries.32
Further testimony on the question concerning racial
integration between missionized Indians and gente de razón comes from the
Franciscan missionaries of the Province of Santiago de Xalisco, who had ten
missions in the Province of Nayarit. According to the report on the condition of
these missions in 1807, the central government had repeatedly commanded that
gente de razón make their homes in the missions for more effective
acculturation of the Indians.33 Quite evidently, the Viceroys were not only
interested in the policy of racial integration in these missions but were intent
upon carrying it out.
A letter from Fray Antonio de San Miguel, the Bishop of
Valladolid in Michoacán, to the Viceroy, in 1805, shows that interest in racial
integration between Indians and gente de razón was not confined to the
missions on the frontier. Speaking of the Indians of his own diocese, the bishop
declared that the policy of isolating Indians in towns of their own under Indian
civic officials had harmed rather than helped them. It had harmed them
spiritually because the more completely the Indians were separated from
Spaniards the more they tended to preserve their heathen customs and practices.
It had harmed them culturally and economically because the favors, privileges,
and protection provided for them by the Spanish Crown had only deprived them of
an opportunity to learn to shift for themselves in the Spanish world, to stand
on their own feet in their relationship with the gente de razón, to grow
and prosper on the same plane as non-Indians. The bishop favored absolute civil
equality for Spaniards and Indians and the abolition of racial segregation.34
The winds of change were blowing not only on the frontier but even in central Mexico itself.
Let us now consider the patterns of colonization in Alta
California in the light of the experience, the ideas, and the methods of José de
Escandón in Nuevo Santander, treating in order the missions, the presidios, and
the towns. The patterns of colonization drawn up by Spanish
authorities for Alta California may not have originated in, or even been
directly influenced by, the precedents established by Escandón, but a comparison
between the two provinces will be illuminating nevertheless.
According to the Echeveste Regulation and the Instruction of
Viceroy Bucareli, both issued in 1773, the missions in Alta California were to
be based on the principle of racial integration between gente de razón
and missionized Indians and were to form mixed nuclei of future centers of
urbanization. In the beginning there were to be four to six gente de
razón at each mission to serve as object lessons for the Indians in the Spanish
way of life. Land was to be distributed both to settlers and to Indians.
Ultimately, each mission, as it developed, was to be erected into a formally
established Spanish town in accordance with the requirements of the Laws of the
Indies.35 In Nuevo Santander the Indians were to be evangelized and urbanized in
pueblo-missions; in Alta California the same purpose was to be accomplished in
mission-pueblos. In the way they were originally conceived, the missions of
Alta California were a project almost as novel as that of Escandón himself. As
institutions, they were not planned as a mere extension or prolongation of the
older type of mission to the south. But the plan did not succeed. Settlers did
not come and establish permanent residence at the missions with the purpose of
building nuclei of Spanish towns. Or rather, it would be fair to say that
Governor Felipe de Neve did not give the new plan very much of an opportunity to
succeed. Intent upon reforming the Echeveste Regulation and in search of some
immediate means of securing economic support of the presidios, he had other
ideas. Instead of waiting for the Bucareli plan for the missions to develop, he
decided upon the establishment of formally erected Spanish towns consisting of
gente de razón obtained from the settlements of northwestern New Spain.36
In a letter to Bucareli in 1778, and in another to Teodoro de
Croix in the same year, Junípero Serra opposed Neve's plans to establish towns
in Alta California. He wanted to keep to the original plan explained in
Bucareli's Instruction of 1773, and he thought the missions capable of providing
the presidios with whatever foodstuffs they needed. Neve prevailed, and the
towns of San Jose and Nuestra Señora de los Angeles were established, the former
in 1777 (the year in which Neve arrived in Alta California), the latter in 1781.37
With respect to the missions themselves, Neve had in mind a
plan quite different from Bucareli's, a plan equally novel, even equally daring,
but in a different way. He wanted no mission temporalities, no reducciones
properly so called. The Indians were to be free to come and go as they
wished. Except for missions adjacent to presidios, there was to be only one
missionary at each mission. In missions next to presidios the second missionary
was intended for the spiritual care of the presidial troops and their families.38
As has been mentioned, the missionaries contested the establishment
of Pueblo San Jose on legal grounds. During the controversy
Serra did not raise the question of racial integration or of moral contamination
of missionized Indians by badly behaved townsmen. Yet these considerations were
at the basis of the laws that had been made, isolating Indian pueblos from free
communication with non-Indians. Later on, Francisco Palóu, writing in 1786, and
Fr. Alonso Salazar, writing in 1796, complained about the scandalous conduct of
the townsmen in Alta California as a source of spiritual detriment to both pagan
and Christian Indians.39
The same objections the missionaries expressed about the
townsmen they had voiced earlier about the soldiers. During the administrations
of Serra and Lasuén (1769-1803) the missionaries had more than one occasion to
complain about the spiritual harm the missionized Indians suffered from the
presidial troops.40 When the California settlements were first established, the
missionaries were willing enough to have gente de razón settle at the
missions to form nuclei for future towns. As soon as social contacts began to
develop between the missionized Indians and the gente de razón at the
towns and presidios, however, the missionaries tried to shield the Indians from
fraternization with the non-Indian population. In other words, they followed the
same policy as had their Franciscan predecessors of the sixteenth century, and
for much the same reasons. Meanwhile the central government evidently wished to
change the old presidio-mission system and to lead the Indians into the Spanish
way of life as quickly and efficiently as possible by means of integration with
the gente de razón. In a sense, there was a measure of conflict inherent
in the twofold purposes of christianizing and civilizing the Indians, the
missionaries stressing the former, the government more intent upon the latter.
With respect to integration between Indians and gente de
razón, the missionaries of the College of San Fernando, the Fernandinos, as
they were called, differed from their fellow friars in Nuevo Santander. There
the Franciscans of the Colleges of Zacatecas and Pachuca and the Provinces of
the Holy Gospel and Michoacán, whatever their personal misgivings may have been,
allowed the Indians, both pagan and Christian, to associate freely with the
gente de razón in accordance with the precedents established by José de
Escandón.41 There seems also to have been a relatively close association between
the Indians and gente de razón in the Franciscan missions of Río Verde
and Tampico.42 In Nayarit such intercommunication was required by the government.
The Fernandinos, instead of being typical of Franciscan missionaries elsewhere
in New Spain, were, in this respect at least, exceptional.
It is noteworthy that, except for the ever-present presidial
guard, very few gente de razón resided at the missions of Alta
California. In the census for 1805-1806, for example, San Luis Rey is listed as
having eleven Spaniards, San Juan Capistrano as having five, and San Gabriel
twenty-seven. But none of the other missions is mentioned as having any at all.43
One wonders why the viceregal government gave repeated
commands that more gente de razón live in the missions of Nayarit but did
not issue the same orders for the missions of Alta California. There is no
documentation that gives a direct answer to this question; one can only
speculate. It must be remembered, first of all, that the Spanish population in
Alta California was numerically weak, so there was a strong emphasis on the
practical need for building up the towns. This would do something to explain the
absence of gente de razón at so many of the missions. Secondly, it was
notorious that the friars opposed social contacts between the Indians and the
gente de razón. Since they had been so difficult over the bitterly disputed
question of whether or not there should be only one missionary at each mission
instead of two (1784-1797), they might prove even more so over the possibility
of badly behaved gente de razón living at the missions. Thirdly, Revilla
Gigedo's report on the missions of New Spain in 1793, already cited, shows that
the government was well pleased with the economic progress of the missions of
Alta California.44 Perhaps the viceregal government thought it prudent to leave
well enough alone. It is clear from Costansó's letter to the Marqués de
Branciforte, however, that one reason for the presence of the artisans at the
California missions was to bring about a closer relationship between missionized
Indians and gente de razón. When it became evident that the artisans
would have to reside at the presidios instead of the missions, Governor Diego de
Borica insisted not only that Indian apprentices be sent to the presidios to
learn their trades but also that the artisans have Indians as servants in their
homes. Lasuén's objections were overriden.45 It is significant that the artisans
were obtained, in the first place, at the request of Pedro Fages, not at that of
Lasuén. It is also significant that, on his arrival in California, Governor
Diego de Borica received complaints about the loose and immoral conduct of the
artisans.46
The Mission of San Gabriel
From a contemporary woodcut |
The Fernandinos differed from their Franciscan colleagues in
one other important respect. Originally, when planning his expedition into Nuevo
Santander in 1748, Escandón had invited the Franciscans of the College of San
Fernando to participate as missionaries, but the Fernandinos declined his offer.
Their principal reason for doing so was that, in Nuevo Santander, each town was
to have only one missionary to take care of the Indians, whereas the Fernandinos
wanted two. The reasons they gave for insisting on two missionaries at each
mission were much the same as those that Fr. Francisco Palóu, speaking for the
College of San Fernando, presented later when Governor Neve, in Alta California,
wrote the Regulation of 1781, which provided for only one friar at each mission
except where a second would be needed to care for the troops in a neighboring
presidio.47 Actually, a list of the Franciscan missions in the Internal
Provinces for 1753 shows that in New Mexico, Tampico, Nueva Vizcaya, Nuevo León,
Coahuila, and Nuevo Santander the great majority of the missions were attended
by only one religious. Most of the missions in Río Verde also had
only one friar in charge. In Nayarit half the missions had
only one missionary, the other half two. In Texas most of the missions had two
missionaries.48 In this respect, too, then, the Fernandinos were not typical of
the Franciscan missionaries in northern New Spain. One wonders what the policies
of the Franciscans in Alta California might have been if another college had
been assigned to the province. In that case the history of the missions in Alta
California might well have been different in more than one way, particularly if
Neve's plan of missionization, so similar to Escandón's original plan in Nuevo
Santander, had been implemented by the friars instead of opposed. It will be
remembered that Neve wanted no mission temporalities, no reduccion
properly so called, and he wanted the Indians left to come and go as they
wished. He was not the first Spaniard to conceive such an idea. Fr. Joseph Soler
at Mission San Francisco del Ati in Sonora, in 1772, wrote that it would be
preferable to let the Indians roam in the wilderness than to compel them to live
in a mission.49 As a matter of fact, Neve, in his Regulation of 1781, was probably
not asking for anything in the way of mission organization that had not already
been developed on the Spanish frontier. In three towns of Nuevo
Santander—Reynosa, Camargo, and Mier—the Indians attached to the local missions
are described, in one source, as dispersed in the mountains, and,
in another, as working on near-by ranchos and estancias. Mission
Concepción at Mier had 160 such Indians; Mission Santa Ana at Camargo, 349; and
Mission San Joaquín at Reynosa, 820. At Mier, thirty of the Indians were
baptized; at Camargo, 179; at Reynosa, 128. In Revilla Gigedo's report these
three missions are singled out as different from the other missions of the
province in one important respect: the Indians were dispersed throughout the
surrounding area. It would seem, then, that these Indians were free to come and
go as they wished, and there was only one missionary at each mission.50 In Alta
California, however, the Fernandinos were horrified at Neve's concept of what
the missions should be like. In comparison with some of the other Franciscan
missionaries, then the Fernandinos seem to have been somewhat cautious and
conservative. They tended to be traditionalists, to follow what they regarded as
the beaten track, to keep to what they considered the safer path, to shy away
from novelty and experimentation. It is worth noting that the great majority of
the Fernandinos were peninsular Spaniards, whereas in the College of Zacatecas,
the friars who first went to Nuevo Santander, a high percentage were from within
New Spain.51 The great majority of the friars of the Province of the Holy Gospel
were also from within New Spain.52 The same was probably true of the Provinces of
Jalisco and Michoacán. It seems likely that the friars from within New Spain
might well have had a better understanding of the gente de razón, a
better rapport with them, more confidence in them, more patience with their
shortcomings. It also seems reasonable to assume that they would have been more
open to new methods of colonization.
Having treated the missions, let us now discuss the
presidios. In his criticism of the old presidio-mission system as he had found
it in the Sierra Gorda, Escandón complained that the presidial soldiers were
concerned primarily about their salaries, had no lands or crops to tie them to
the soil, had no personal interest in developing the country, and made no effort
to attract families of settlers to the frontier for this purpose. It will be
observed at once that, right from the beginning, efforts were made in Alta
California to obviate the difficulties mentioned by Escandón as faults in the
organization of presidios. First, Bucareli required that in each presidio in
Alta California settlers be established to till the soil and produce foodstuffs
for the troops. Retired soldiers would be likely candidates for such a task.
Secondly, he provided that the active soldiers themselves should engage, in some
measure, in farming. The presidios, like the missions, were planned from the
beginning to be nuclei of future urban centers.53 In his study of Governor Felipe
de Neve, however, Edwin A. Beilharz points out that the presidio sites were not
well suited for agricultural purposes. They were deficient both in good soil and
in water for irrigation.54 In 1797 Governor Borica, anxious to develop municipal
life in Alta California, required that retired soldiers reside, not in
presidios, but in towns. If they remained at their presidio, they were to take their turn at guard duty
along with the active soldiers. This measure was calculated to induce the
soldiers to do more than make a purely military contribution to the development
of the country.55
A second defect in the old presidio-mission system that
Escandón had complained about was the enormous expense involved in maintaining
the military establishments. In Alta California this problem was compounded by
the cost of transporting freight and food from New Spain to San Diego, Monterey,
and San Francisco. To solve this problem, Governor Neve promoted the
establishment of towns, the primary purpose of which was to provide foodstuffs
for the presidial troops more cheaply than they could be shipped from San Blas.
As has been amply demonstrated, the towns made a significant contribution to the
economic support of the presidios.56
Let us now proceed to a brief consideration of the towns. In
Alta California the townsmen contributed to the development of the country in
other ways than by farming, filling granaries with the staples of the Spanish
diet, and providing homes and economic opportunities for retired soldiers. First
of all, they produced youthful recruits for the presidial companies. These
recruits were of great importance when, in 1803, the Catalonian Volunteers
returned to New Spain and left numerous gaps to be filled in the ranks of the
presidial forces. Furthermore, the towns were capable of putting into the field
contingents of auxiliary troops in the event of an emergency. As a general rule,
the emergencies consisted of punitive expeditions into the interior or a
gathering of forces to repel Indian attacks.57 Secondly, the towns engaged the
services of pagan Indians for farm labor and domestic work. According to Fr.
José Señán, the Indians performed a major share of the work in the towns,
plowing, sowing, reaping, and grinding.58 By the first decade of the nineteenth
century, however, the number of pagan Indian workers, because of conversion to
Christianity, had greatly diminished.59 Notwithstanding the complaints of the
missionaries that the townsmen were an obstacle to the conversion of pagan
Indians, the aborigines in question entered the Church eventually. Relationships
between townsmen and Indian workers, hiring, laboring, payment, lodging,
encampment of workers, etc., were carefully regulated by the comisionado
of the town—that is to say, the sergeant or corporal appointed by the governor
to supervise municipal administration for the townsmen.60
When the Villa de Branciforte was first planned, the citizens
were originally supposed to consist of retired soldiers from among the
Catalonian Volunteers together with headmen from neighboring Indian villages.
Alternating with the houses of the soldiers were to be places for the Indians to
make their dwellings?61 This concept, like that of the mission—pueblos originally
planned by Bucareli for the evangelization of the Indians of Alta California,
suggests the influence of the precedents established by Escandón in Nuevo Santander.
In conclusion, a number of observations on the patterns of
colonization in Alta California seem justified:
First, one would be well advised to employ the well-worn term
"mission system" with a certain measure of caution. The term implies that
missions in New Spain were everywhere the same. Quite evidently, however, not
all the missions in colonial Mexico conformed rigidly to the alleged model,
particularly those of the Franciscans in Nuevo Santander. Quite possibly,
further research into the history of the Franciscan missions in northeastern New
Spain might well reveal additional departures from what has hitherto been
assumed to be the general rule.
Secondly, with respect to the proximity between Mission Santa
Clara and Pueblo San Jose, and Mission Santa Cruz and the Villa de Branciforte,
one must observe that the law forbidding such proximity had not infrequently
been dispensed with in the past. In Nuevo Santander the proximity between
mission and town was not only not forbidden, it was positively encouraged. In
view of the principles and precedents established in Nuevo Santander, and in
view of the policy of the viceregal government with respect to racial
integration between Indians and gente de razón, the legal arguments
advocated by the Fernandinos in their opposition to Pueblo San Jose and the
Villa de Branciforte seem relatively unimportant.
Thirdly, in the plans made for the settlements of Alta
California, the Spanish government did not intend merely to prolong or extend
the old presidio-mission system so strongly criticized by José de Escandón and
others. The blueprint for Alta California provided for a system of settlements
significantly different from those in Baja California and Sonora. In their
original design, both presidios and missions were different from their
predecessors to the south. The plan to make the presidios agriculturally
productive did not succeed. Neither did the plan for the mission-pueblos as
racially integrated nuclei of urban centers, but the ideal of a closer
association between missionized Indians and gente de razón,
notwithstanding the opposition of the friars, was partially realized. The
Spanish government, in its approach to the problem of colonizing Alta
California, did not blindly tread the beaten track of past practices and
traditions. Willing to correct the mistakes of the past, prepared to experiment
with new ideas, ready to change, to modify, to adjust, the civil and military
authorities of New Spain and of Alta California were open-minded, flexible,
resourceful, and inventive.
There were two factors, however, which blunted the Spanish
effort to bring missionized Indians and gente de razón into closer
association, the one with the other, in Alta California: first, the caution of
the Fernandinos, and secondly, the misconduct of so many soldiers and civilians.
These two limitations seriously hampered Spanish efforts to apply the principle
of racial integration on the basis of which Bucareli had originally
constructed his concept of the missions. In extenuation of the cautious
and mistrustful attitude of the Fernandinos, it must be admitted that the friars
were not the only ones who complained about the misconduct of the gente de
razón. Fages himself warned his successor, Governor José Antonio Romeu, of
the importance of disciplining sailors and other Spaniards guilty of excesses.62
There were several complaints, some quite caustic, about the criminal element
among the citizens of the Villa de Branciforte.63 Governor José Joaquín de
Arrillaga explained quite clearly the reasons for friction between presidios and
missions, one of them being the misconduct of soldiers, another the lenience of
the friars in dealing with Indians. And yet, at the end of the Spanish Period,
Father Mariano Payeras still hoped that the missions might become nuclei of
Spanish towns.64
In their actual operation and performance, the missions of
Alta California probably did not differ, in any really significant way, from the
earlier missions to the south. Notwithstanding the ideals and probable influence
of Escandón, notwithstanding the wide acceptance of the principle of
integration, the Fernandinos kept social contacts between missionized Indians
and gente de razón to a minimum.
The Spanish were well aware of the defects of the missions as
institutions, but rather than abandon them, they sought to modify and improve
them. As Governor José Joaquín de Arrillaga pointed out, when one asked what
might be put in their place as a substitute, no one had an answer. So the
Spanish persevered, seeking to remedy defects, to build new types of missions,
to try new ways to solve the thorny problem of transforming the aborigines into
Spanish Catholics, into useful vassals of the Spanish Crown.
NOTES
1. Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias, ley 8, título 3, libro 6.
2. Recopilación, ley 20, título 3, libro 6.
3. Florian F. Guest, "Municipal Institutions in Spanish
California, 1769-1821" (unpublished doctoral dissertation in the Library of
the University of Southern California, 1961), pp. 298-299. Florian F. Guest,
"The Establishment of the Villa de Branciforte," California Historical
Society Quarterly, XLI (March, 1962), 41.
4. Guest, Municipal Institutions, pp. 301-304, 314-15.
5. The missionaries of the Texas missions on the San Antonio
River to Fr. Francisco Xavier Ortiz, written at the above-mentioned missions,
March 6, 1762, Biblioteca Nacional, Mexico, Archivo Franciscano (10/145).
6. Maynard J. Geiger, O.F.M., The Life and Times of Fray
Junípero Serra, O.F.M. (2 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1959), II, 191-201.
Guest, "Villa de Branciforte," pp. 41-43.
7. Richard Konetzke, América Latina: La época colonial
[Historia Universal Siglo Veintiuno, Volumen 22] (Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno
de España, 1965), pp.194-204.
8. J.I. Israel, Race, Class and Politics in Colonial
Mexico, 1610-1680 (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 46.
9. Ibid., pp. 25-59, passim.
10. The term gente de razón, as employed in this
context, means people who followed a European way of life whatever their race
or nationality may have been.
11. Los naturales de los pueblos de Santa Catarina Río
Verde, San José de Alaquines, Valle del Maíz, San Antonio de las Lagunillas,
Piniguán y San Antonio de Tula, sobre que se les enteren cinco mil varas de
tierra. Contradicción de Pedro Andrade Moctezuma y otros por los sitios
nombrados El Carrizal, Llano del Perro, Puerto del Hambre, La Rinconada,
Charcos y Salitrillo. Año de 1714. Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico,
Tierras 339, Expediente 2. This archive will be cited hereinafter as AGN.
12. Auto y pedimento de el Padre Frai Jacobo de Castro de
la regular observancia de nuestro padre señor San Francisco y Custodio de la
de el Salvador de Tampico sobre que a los yndios de aquellas missiones se le
reparten varias tierras. Año de 1749. AGN, Tierras 1595, Expediente 7.
13. Diego Gonzalez to the Viceroy, Collexio Maximo
[Mexico], August 9, 1737, AGN, Provincias Internas 87, ff. 126-141.
Tapisques were Indian laborers sent from the missions to work in mines or
on haciendas.
14. Lawrence Francis Hill, José de Escandón and the
Founding of Nuevo Santander: a Study in Spanish Colonization (Columbus,
Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1926), pp. 21-22. Carlos E. Castañeda,
Our Catholic Heritage in Texas, 1519-1936 (6 vols.; Austin, Texas: Von
Boekmann-Jones, 1936-1950), III, 137-138. Publicaciones del Archivo General
de la Nación, Tomos XIV and XV. Estado general de las fundaciones
hechas por D. José de Escandón en la Colonia del Nuevo Santander, costa del
Seno Mexicano (2 vols.; Mexico, 1929-1930), II, 303-311.
15. Joseph de Escandón to Viceroy Juan Francisco de Güemez
y Orcasitas, Querétaro, October 28, 1747, AGN, Provincias Internas 179,
Expediente 2, pp. 101-103, transcript in the Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley.
16. Diario que hizo el P. Fray Simón del Yerro en el Seno Mexicano,
Año de 1749, AGN, Historia 29, p. 272, transcript in the Bancroft Library.
17. Hill, op. cit., p. 70.
18. Superior Govierno año de 1775. Testimonio de los Autos
sobre la real cédula expedida, en veinte y nueve de henero de mil, setecientos
setenta y tres, a cerca de la causa formada en la colonia del Nuevo Santander
a el Coronel Don Josef Escandon. AGN, Provincias Internas 138, ff. 14-181. For
relevant material, refer ff. 27-33. A cédula was a royal decree.
19. Hill, op. cit., pp. 2-8. Dictamen del Señor
Auditor General de la Guerra, Mexico, March 22, 1749, AGN, Californias 60.
Relación Instructiva de todas las Misiones establecidas en el Virreynato de
Nueva España. . . Conde de Revilla Gigedo to Pedro de Acuña, Mexico, December
30, 1793. Miscelánea de Ayala, Tomo LXX, No. 2883, ff. 72-210, Biblioteca de
Palacio, Madrid. Cited hereinafter as Revilla Gigedo, Relación Instructiva.
For relevant material in this context, refer ff. 159-160.
20. Escandón, Estado General, I, 500.
21. Ibid., 407-418.
22. Ibid., 398.
23. Ibid., 18-19,206, 347.
24. Ibid., 99, 158.
25. Ibid., 74, 133,23-25.
26. Informe que el Visitador General de la Sinaloa y Sonora
hase en cumplimiento de su obligación y superior orden de Su Excellencia
comprehensivo del actual estado de aquellas tierras, yndios, simeria,
comersio, modo, y forma de govierno con las particularidades mas notables.
Mexico, August 12, 1950, Joseph Raphael Rodriguez Gallardo. AGN, Provincias
Internas 29, ff. 396-440. Refer especially ff. 410-416.
27. Luis Antonio Minchaca to Viceroy Bucareli, Presidio de
San Antonio de Bejar, November 20,1772, AGN, Provincias Internas 152, ff. 109-120.
28. Fr. Benedict Leutenegger (trans.), Guidelines for a
Texas Mission: Instructions for the Missionary of Mission Concepción in San
Antonio (ca. 1760) (San Antonio, Texas: Old Spanish Missions Historical
Research Library at San José Mission, 1976), p. 48.
29. Revilla Gigedo, Relación Instructiva, ff. 163-171, 206.
30. Miguel Costansó to the Marqués de Branciforte, Mexico,
October 17, 1794, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Papeles varios referentes a
Mexico, No. 19266.
31. Doctrina was the term employed by the Spaniards
for the catechism used by the missionaries in teaching the Indians their
Christian doctrine. It consisted of the sign of the cross, the Our Father, the
Hail Mary, the Apostle's Creed, the Hail Holy Queen, the articles of faith,
the commandments of God and the Church, the Sacraments, the spiritual and
corporal works of mercy, the theological virtues, the cardinal virtues, the
seven capital sins, the enemies of the soul, and the four last things. Refer
New Catholic Encydopedia, Vol. 5, p. 331.
32.Reports on the ex-Jesuit missions of Sonora, AGN,
Provincias Internas 81, ff. 159-179. See also Matheo Sastre to Bucareli, San
Miguel de Horcasitas, January 8, 1772, AGN, Provincias Internas 152, ff. 143-161.
33. Estado de las Misiones del Nayarit, que ocupan los
religiosos de la Provincia de Santiago de Xalisco. Fr. Vsidro Cerezo, Mision
de la Santísima Trinidad de la Mesa, February 19, 1807. AGN. Misiones 2, ff. 194-195.
34. Informe de Don Fray Antonio de San Miguel, Obispo de
Valladolid de Mechoacán, sobre reformes que debían introducirse en América.
February 8, 1805. Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, No. 18739--35.
35. Guest, Municipal Institutions, pp. 73-76.
36. Ibid.,pp. 81-88, 94.
37. Ibid., pp. 95-96.
38. Francis F. Guest, Fermím Francisco de Lasuén: a
Biography (Washington, D.C., 1973), p. 126.
39. Guest, Municipal Institutions, pp. 305-306.
40. Geiger, Life of Serra, I, 307-308, 434-435; II,
60-61. Guest, Lasuén: a Biography, pp. 242-243, 285.
41. Revilla Gigedo, Relación Instructiva.
42. Fray Andres Picazo to the Father Custodio of the
Missions of Río Verde, San Miguel el Grande, January 26, 1758, AGN, Historia
30, ff. 119-120. Fray Miguel de Santiestevan to Fray Andres Picazo, Mission
Santa Catarina del Río Verde, March 20, 1758, AGN, Historia 30, ff. 120-134.
Noticias de las Misiones de Tampico, sacadas de papeles originales existentes
en el Archivo del Convento grande de Nuestro Padre San Francisco de Mexico.
AGN, Historia 30, ff. 5-24.
43. Noticia de las misiones que ocupan los religiosos de S.
Francisco del Colegio de San Fernando de Mexico en dicha Provincia sus
progresos en los años de 1805 y 1806 numero de ministros que las sirvan:
sinodos que gozan y total de almas con distinción de clases y sexos.
Monterrey, June 15, 1807, José Joaquín de Arrillaga. AGN, Misiones2, ff. 222-223.
44. Revilla Gigedo, Relación Instructiva, ff. 85-86.
45. Guest, Lasuén: a Biography, pp. 305-306.
46. Ibid., p. 302.
47. Representación a S.M. que hizo el Colegio de S.
Fernando de Mexico, 1749. AGN, Historia 29, ff. 255-288.
48. En la propria conformidad y en virtud del Citado
Superior Decreto de Su Excelencia en que se sirve mandar que asimismo formemos
certificación de todas las misiones internas de este virreinato, numero de
religiosos de cada una, respectivos anuales sinodos, y religiones a que tocan,
y en que governaciones y provincias se hallan cada una de dichas misiones: en
su vista procedimos a formar dicha certificación con la individualidad y
circonstancias que constan en nuestros oficios y es como se sigue. AGN,
Provincias Internas 14, ff. 225-242.
49. Fr. Joseph Soler to the Father President, Mission San
Francisco del Ati, November 4, 1772, AGN, Provincias Internas 81, ff. 173-174.
50. Revilla Gigedo, Relación Instructiva, ff. 163-170. Also
refer statistics at the end of the document. Fr. Francisco Nepomuceno Barragan
to Doctor Don Andres de Llanos y Valdez, San Luis, January 19,1793, AGN,
Provincias Internas 40, ff. 39-42.
51. Sobre providencias para cubrir los huecos que resulten
en las misiones de la alta California a consecuencia de la ley de expulsión de
20 de diciembre de este año. AGN, Clero Regular y Secular 36, Expediente 2,
ff. 97-187. Refer f. 98, where it is stated that the Missionary College of
Zacatecas, at this time, had 87 native Mexican members. A high percentage of
native Mexican members in the year 1827 indicates an earlier development of
native Mexican vocations.
52. Francisco Morales, O.F.M., Ethnic and Social
Background of the Franciscan Friars in Seventeenth Century Mexico
(Washington, D.C., 1973), p. 74.
53. Guest, Municipal Institutions, pp. 88-90.
54. Edwin A. Beilharz, Felipe de Neve: First Covernor of
California (San Francisco, California: California Historical Society,
1971), pp. 42-43.
55. Guest, Municipal Institutions, pp. 231-232.
56. Ibid., pp. 247-248, 276-277.
57. Ibid., pp. 368-369.
58. Ibid., p. 344.
59. Ibid., p. 349.
60. Ibid., pp. 340-345.
6l. Ibid., p. 148.
62. Guest, Lasuén: A Biography, p. 285.
63. Guest, "Villa de Branciforte," p. 40.
64. Guest, Municipal Institutions, p. 79.
*The writing of this paper was made possible by a grant from
the American Association of Theological Schools for a trip to Mexico City and a
grant from the Del Amo Foundation of Los Angeles, California, for a journey to
Madrid. All use of materials from the Biblioteca de Palacio, Madrid, has been
expressly authorized by the Patrimonio Nacional of the Spanish Government. The
author wishes to express his gratitude to all three institutions for their generosity.
