On Solid Rock
The Church in New Spain in the Sixteenth Century
W. Dale Weeks
HIST 454
Dr. Perri
Spring 2008
When Hernan Cortes and his army of Spaniards landed on the coasts of Mexico in 1519,
they faced a new world of people entirely different than any they had known in Spain. Armed
with the most modern weapons, a zeal for glory, and a fervent love for the God of their Catholic
Faith the conquistadors methodically conquered the tribes and villages of the New World
culminating in the conquest of the might Aztec Empire in Tenochtitlan. With every victory
Cortes gave notice to the Indians that the God of heaven and the Kings of Spain had sent him to
offer salvation in return for their submission. He planted crosses and erected Marian shrines
along the way laying the foundation for the Christian Faith in Mexico. His intentions, no doubt
were to build a strong foundation for the new Church much as a carpenter seeks to build a
house on solid rock. The many people who come to New Spain in the ensuing years to assist in
this missionary endeavor will face many obstacles. There will also be many victorious
celebrations as the Church in New Spain becomes a reality.
In 1493, Pope Alexander VI formally donated almost all the lands of the newly
discovered Indies to the Spanish crown, as long as they sought diligently to Christianize the
inhabitants.1 In letters to King Charles V, Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of New Spain,
requested assistance in the evangelization of the many Indians now belonging to the king’s
dominion. Pedro de Gante, a Franciscan friar who arrived in New Spain in 1523, wrote his own
letter to Charles V, claiming, “after all, it is the struggle for their salvation that justifies their
discovery.”2 By 1524, a group of twelve other Franciscans, headed by Martin de Valencia, set
ashore on the coast of New Spain, ready to start the process of evangelization. With great
1
2
Inter Caetera May 4, 1493
Mills, Taylor, and Graham 106
Page | 2
eagerness they made their way to Mexico City where they were welcomed with deep reverence
by Cortes and the other Spaniards. As the work progressed the friars were faced with various
challenges that required the religious to adapt. For example, they set out to build a church,
with no church buildings so they met in ancient Aztec assembly halls for the first few months.
Performing the sacraments was difficult in a land filled with idolatry and catechism was almost
impossible when language barriers were present. In the face of all the obstacles in their path
the Catholic Church in New Spain, founded by the Franciscans, would be well established by
mid-century. Two Franciscan monks, Toribio de Benavente and Bernardino de Sahagun, would
both diligently serve the Indians of New Spain by helping to establish the Catholic Faith, but
within two decades, they would have opposing opinion as to the health of the new church and
the condition of the foundation on which it was built.
Toribio de Benavente arrived in New Spain in 1524 along with Fray Martin de Valencia
and the rest of the twelve Franciscans. Due to his obvious poverty and charity, the Indians
were drawn to the thin, barefooted monk in the tattered clothes. While the twelve were
passing through Tlaxcala on their way to Mexico City he overheard the Indians whispering the
word “Motolinia.” Upon learning that it meant “poor little one” in Nahuatl, the language of the
Aztec, Benavente adopted it as his own name, forever to be known as Motolinia. On his arrival,
Motolinia was appalled at the spiritual conditions he saw among the Indians. “This land was a
copy of hell,” he reported, and then added, “it was pitiable to see men created in the image of
God become worse than brute beasts.”3 He describes in detail the horrific manner in which the
native priests perform human sacrifices, allowing the victim’s heart to fall “to the ground and
3
Motolinia 45
Page | 3
lay there awhile throbbing.”4 In 1568, over four decades after arriving, Motolinia would die as
the last surviving member of the Twelve, and one of the most beloved religious in all of New
Spain. He is best known today for his History of the Indians of New Spain, which was finished in
1540 and has become a valuable tool for historians to learn of life in New Spain following the
conquest. The book tells of the establishment of the Church and the struggle the friars faced in
dealing with the Indians and their traditional pantheon.
The written record Motolinia left describes a glorious time for the religious in New Spain
and reveals his opinion of the condition of the new Church. With great zeal the Indians begin
coming to the Catholic Faith and at first the Franciscans are overwhelmed. “They are so eager
to learn, and there were so many of them, that they were fairly piled up in the courtyards of the
churches.” He would add later that “the friars…gave thanks to God with great joy at the sight of
such a good beginning and of so many who should be saved.”5 There were, in fact, so many
wishing to be saved; the Franciscans had to develop ways to baptize them all in their primitive
setting. Motolinia describes a process of lining all the candidates in rows with the children in
front, speaking to all of them simultaneously, doing the sign of the cross with a few of them,
and then baptizing all the children individually. This process would then be repeated with the
adults.6 According to Motolinia, this process would need to be repeated many times over. He
would write, “many came to be baptized, not only on Sundays and on the days indicated for
baptism, but every day, children and adults, the sick and the well, from all districts.”7 He
4
Motolinia 63
Motolinia 52 & 126
6
Motolinia 135ff
7
Motolinia 131
5
Page | 4
records the claim of entire towns coming for baptism, many through harsh conditions.8 “When
they come to be baptized some beg for it,” he wrote, “others insist, others ask for it kneeling,
others raising and clasping their hands, moaning and crouching, others demand and receive it
weeping and sighing.”9 With great passion, the Indians of New Spain come to the Catholic
Faith. The first fifteen years after the conquest, (1521-1536) Motolinia estimates as many as
nine million baptisms.10
Although controversial, it is doubtful that Motolinia’s estimates are exaggerated when
certain evidence is considered. Brading calls the numbers credible based on Motolinia’s
admission of having personally assisted another friar in baptizing over fourteen thousand in a
span of five days.11 An indigenous account from Texcoco records as many as twenty thousand
natives desired baptism on the same day.12 As new religious arrived, there arose such debate
over the manner in which so many Indians received the sacrament that formal complaints
found their way back to Spain. The Council of the Indies convened to discuss the matter with
the Archbishop of Seville, but was unable to arrive at a solution. They agreed to allow the
process to remain as it was while the matter could be referred to the pope.13 On June 1, 1537,
Pope Paul III issued the bull, Altitudo Divini Consilii, which abdicated the Twelve Franciscans
from any wrongdoing in regard to the process used to baptize the natives in New Spain. The
document also contained instructions for the priests to give the full sacrament to each
candidate individually, whenever possible, unless the situation was to be deemed urgent. The
8
Motolinia 130
Motolinia 131
10
Motolinia 133
11
Brading 106
12
Leon-Portilla 60
13
Motolinia 136
9
Page | 5
bishops in New Spain deliberated to discuss how best to implement the changes. It is clear that
the Franciscans baptized many Indians, no doubt millions of them. The Catholic Faith had been
birthed in New Spain rather rapidly as Indians came to be baptized in astounding numbers. The
Christianization of the inhabitants of the New World was ahead of schedule and Motolinia was
right there to see it develop.
As the Church seemingly gained solid footing in new Spain, more religious made the
voyage across the sea to join the missionary efforts. In 1526, twelve Dominicans arrived, and
by 1533 a group of six Augustinian monks would be on the continent. A smattering of other
friars would land from time to time, among these was a Franciscan named Bernardino de
Sahagun, who arrived in 1529. Sahagun, reportedly spent his first few years in new Spain in the
convent at Tlalmanalco under the custodial tutelage of one Martin de Valencia, the leader of
the Twelve. It is here that Sahagun begins to develop the opinion that so differs from what
Motolinia believed about the new Church. Having learned a few Nahuatl words and phrases
from some Indians who shared the voyage from Spain, Sahagun had a slight head start on the
language by the time he arrived in the New World.14 His ability to become fluent in the
language gave Sahagun an insight into the people of the newly conquered civilization. In his
eyes, they were no longer “brute beasts,” but men and women with dreams and needs and
fears and also a history that no one had as of yet taken the time to discover.
In 1547, Sahagun set out to record the history of the indigenous people of Mexico. For
two decades religious had battled to rid the towns, homes, and minds of any shadow of preCatholic memory, destroying temples, relics, and any sacred writing they found while
14
Sahagun Book I 3-4
Page | 6
attempting to indoctrinate the presumably empty lives of the Indians with the God of Spain.
Sahagun gathered the old and the wise from the towns he visited in his role as a special
commissioner from the bishopric in Mexico City, conducted interviews with some of his more
knowledgeable students, and with the help of four student assistants, launched his efforts to
record the Nahuatl history. From these local historians, he gleaned traditions, myths,
prophecies, and records that included tales of the world’s genesis and its impending demise, a
list of the pantheon and rituals used in their worship, and even an amazing explanation of the
Mesoamerican calendar system. Perhaps his most famous record reveals the Aztec perspective
of the conquest of Mexico, complete with the story of Moctezuma and the city of Tenochtitlan
as they awaited the intruders from the sea, told with an apparent flavoring of post-conquest
hindsight. These writings, organized into twelve books, or chapters, faced heavy scrutiny by
church officials in the New World, but even more so in Spain. A final copy would not be
decided on for years and after at least ten separate translations, and or revisions and, much to
Sahagun’s chagrin, the chosen version was more tempered than he preferred.
An interesting omission from the final text was discovered many years later in an earlier
copy of Sahagun’s writing. A prologue to Book IV of his history shockingly describes the
impotence of the Church in New Spain a mere three decades after its founding. In his
interviews with the natives, Sahagun learned of the impressions the Indians had of the
Franciscans and their Catholic Faith, and their response to the Spaniard’s call for conversion.
No doubt church officials would hesitate letting the world have access to this prologue, seeking
to curtail a public relations nightmare.
Page | 7
In this prologue, Sahagun claims to have received a surprising orientation into the work
of evangelization in New Spain, given by the Twelve Franciscans upon the arrival of other
religious. The instructions he received were in accordance with Motolinia’s opinion of the
condition of the Church. According to Sahagun all newly arriving religious were told by the
Twelve, “this people had come to the faith so sincerely…that there was no need to preach
against idolatry because they had abandoned it so truly.” The Twelve’s claim of the miraculous
conversion of the Indians appeared to be supported, at least in Sahagun’s mind, by the
incredible number of Indians who had come for baptism with “little preaching and without any
miracles.” This proclamation would prove to be invalid based on information obtained in the
indigenous interviews conducted by Sahagun for his history. What he discovered was startling.
He learned that the Indians had duped the initial Franciscans with a “sly humility (with which)
they quickly offered themselves to receive the faith.” By deceitfully patronizing the
Franciscans, the Indians were able to retain much of their spiritual identity. Motolinia did not
understand this but Sahagun believed it to be a fact that contributed to the Church’s condition,
a condition he called, “damaged and ruined.”15
In Motolinia’s history, he acknowledges this pantheistic acceptance of Christianity,
evidently blinded to the reality of the situation by a utopian mindset. “The Indians no longer
called upon or served their idols except in distant and secret places.”16 With its monotheism,
Christianity does not have room for the natives’ traditional idolatry, even if in private practice,
yet somehow the Franciscans were convinced that the conversion of the Indians was total and
authentic. Motolinia’s confession reveals the condition of the foundation on which the Church
15
16
Penyak & Petry 57
Motolinia 51
Page | 8
in New Spain had been built, a foundation Sahagun simply calls, “false.”17 In a 1556 letter to
the Council of the Indies, Alonso de Montufar, the second archbishop of Mexico, describes his
observances of the church in this manner; “If the gospel consisted only of holy baptism, we
might believe in the salvation of the majority of the people.”18 He would add, “it would require
some new theology to believe and say that some of these adults are saved.”19 Apparently, the
majority, perhaps the vast majority of the nine million baptisms performed in the first fifteen
years in New Spain were of questionable authenticity. If Montufar’s opinion is credible the
foundation of the church was very shaky.
Sahagun’s prologue supports the archbishop’s interpretation by claiming, “they were
baptized not like perfect believers but as fictitious ones.”20 These false conversions were not
evident to the Franciscans at first, yet Sahagun suggests the Twelve were somewhat
responsible for the Indians receiving “that faith without leaving the false one they had.” 21 The
prologue identifies three main reasons for the church being built on a sandy foundation; the
indigenous culture of assimilation, a native conspiracy, and the millennial mindset of the
Franciscans.
The custom of pre-conquest Mexico was to adopt the god of a new neighbor,
assimilating the deity into an already existing pantheistic society. This tradition would make it
more acceptable for the Indians to adopt the God of Spain, simply by adding Him to the long list
of gods to whom they already paid homage. While this practice seemed natural to the natives,
the Franciscans preached the monotheism of Christianity. In order to maintain their tradition
17
Penyak & Petry 57
Braden 248
19
Braden 248
20
Penyak & Petry 57
21
Penyak & Petry 57
18
Page | 9
of assimilation, the Indians would have to hide their rituals and festivals from the religious.
Motolinia offers a shocking confession when he admits the Indians were hiding their idols at the
foot of the crosses or placing them under the stones in the steps so they could worship their
own traditional gods while appearing to worship at the foot of the Christian cross.22 In
Sahagun’s prologue he describes the way the Indians claimed to have “disowned all the other
gods they had adored.”23 In his opinion, the Indians were deceitful in that they hid the fact they
continued to worship their former gods.
The natives were also involved in what Sahagun called a conspiracy against the first
evangelists. This conspiracy was propagated by the native leaders, both the caciques, whom
Sahagun calls the “principals,” and the priests. Early evidence of this arises just before Cortes’
second trip into Tenochtitlan during the height of the conquest. While the Spaniards were
regrouping at Texcoco, the leaders of that town came to Cortes desiring baptism. After
pressing hard for permission to convert, the cacique received baptism along with many others.
An indigenous account claims as many as twenty thousand wished to join him but were unable
to due to the inability of the Spaniards to accommodate such a request.24 Following the fall of
Tenochtitlan, and especially with the arrival of the Twelve Franciscans, many Indians would
come for baptism as has already been stated. But what was this conspiracy and why would the
leaders of the natives encourage such mass conversion, especially if it was not true conversion?
What was their purpose?
22
Braden 251
Penyak & Petry 57
24
Leon-Prtilla 60
23
Page | 10
An advocate for the Indians named Bartolome de Las Casas understood the conspiracy.
He wrote, “the Indians have been brought to embrace the faith…by threats of being slain or
taken into captivity.” Perhaps Sahagun’s conspiracy was initiated by the Indians in response to
an ultimatum given to them by the Spaniards. The Indians were commanded to receive
Christianity or face slavery for themselves and their family. Las Casas claims they were not
given ample time to decide whether or not to convert to the God of Spain. “They are told they
must embrace the Christian Faith immediately, without hearing any sermon preached and
without any indoctrination.”25 If the sometimes controversial Las Casas is accurate in his
interpretation, the Indians responded to this ultimatum by coming for baptism in multitudes.
As Motolinia’s history reveals, this mass proselytism thrilled the Franciscans, yet somehow
angered many secular Spaniards.26 There were at least a few Christians it seemed, who deemed
it more advantageous for the Indians to remain unconverted. Las Casas describes certain
incidents where the Indians were given no time to respond to the warning, and others to where
the warning was not given at all.27 He also tells of one occurrence where this warning was
given at night while the Indians slept and at a distance from the town where no one could
possibly hear.28
This warning was more than just a Christian courtesy, it was a document written by
royal decree, commanded to be read to the people of the Indies at first encounter. Cortes
refers to this document, called the requerimiento, in his letters to Charles V. This royal
declaration was designed to introduce the European intruders, and their intentions, to the
25
Las Casas 49
Motolinia 126
27
Las Casas 68 & 76
28
Las Casas 49
26
Page | 11
inhabitants of the newly discovered lands. It grew out of Pope Alexander VI’s bull instructing
Spain to Christianize the natives. Traveling with a royal notary, Cortes was careful to read the
requerimiento in order to maintain favor with the crown. He specifically mentions the
document by name in his account of the conquest, and related the various occasions he had to
use it. Even under attack by the people of Tlaxcala, Cortes claimed to obey the royal command
by reading the requerimiento to natives who were apparently not interested in listening. 29
Shortly after arriving on the coast, he relates how the people of Cempoala, “replied not in
words but with a shower of arrows.”30 At first the Indians rejected the offer contained within
the requerimiento, but as the conquest progressed they became more willing to evaluate other
options. In post-conquest New Spain many Indians avoided the requerimiento’s promise of
slavery by simply converting to Christianity. However simple it seems, the Indians conspired
successfully to retain much of their own spiritual identity while holding fast to much of their
freedom by flocking to Christian baptism in large numbers.
The idea of the Franciscans being oblivious to the conspiracy as it played out right under
their noses, is hard to imagine, especially when considering Motolinia’s admission of having
known about the secret idol worship. In his prologue, Sahagun places the majority of the blame
for the false conversions on the Franciscans’ “opinion…of their perfect faith.” 31 This opinion, as
Sahagun called it, stemmed from a millennial mindset the Franciscans developed shortly after
arriving in New Spain. Apparently the Twelve believed the great conversion of the heathen
masses was a sign from God that the end times, or millennium was near. Martin de Valencia,
29
Cortes 59
Cortes 21
31
Penyak 7 Petry 57
30
Page | 12
the leader of the Twelve, had seen a vision while in a monastery in Estremadura, Spain. This
vision was of “a very great multitude of heathen souls that were converted and came to the
Faith and to baptism.”32 Motolinia tells of Valencia’s strong desire to find an opportunity to go
and preach to the heathen people, bringing them to the Catholic Faith through baptism. That
opportunity came to him in New Spain. As the Indians began coming for baptism, the
Franciscans imagined the fulfillment of the prophecy contained in Valencia’s vision. Valencia
proclaimed, “now I see fulfilled what the Lord showed me in the spirit.”33 The Franciscans
believed there was a supernatural movement of God, drawing the Indians to the Faith. In the
minds of the Twelve, this movement would account for the many baptisms they performed
with so little preaching.
The twelve Franciscans believed wholeheartedly that there was no need to preach
against idolatry any longer. In their opinion, God had brought the Indians to conversion just as
He had shown Martin de Valencia in his vision. Sahagun mentions in his prologue the idea of
other religious being encouraged by the Twelve to adopt this mindset. The late comers appear
to have had no reason at the time to doubt the authenticity of the claim, based on their own
observations of the mass conversions. Over time, however the truth would reveal itself. The
Church in New Spain had been built on a rather sandy foundation and as time progressed, it
would struggle to stand against the storms that slammed into it. As the Encomienda system
turned into a system of repartimiento, the Indians would have difficulty accepting the
practicality of the Christian Faith. In his letter to Charles V, Pedro de Gante described the
average life of an Indian in the repartimiento system. While explaining to the king the
32
33
Motolinia 178
Motolinia 178
Page | 13
harshness of the treatment the Indians endured at the hands of Christians, he expressed great
sympathy for the natives in their futile efforts to benefit from salvation. “May Your Majesty
consider how this man can be a Christian.” “I believe,” Gante wrote, “that if he had been he
would turn into a Moor out of despair.”34 In a system designed to help the Indians grow in
Christianity, they were instead treated as mere slaves and driven, perhaps farther from the
Catholic Faith.
In 1545, the Church in New Spain faced other trials and troubles. An outbreak of Typhus
swept through the valley of Mexico once again devastating the indigenous population. Hanns
Prem suggests the outbreak, which lasted until 1548, may have been the “most disastrous”
pathogen attack in New Spain in the entire sixteenth century.35 A population already struggling
to recover from the wars of conquest and a simultaneous smallpox epidemic, now had to
endure Typhus. The Church in New Spain struggled to endure hardships. By 1562, a mere
thirty-eight years after the arrival of the twelve Franciscans, another Franciscan named
Jeronimo de Mendieta would express his opinion of the state of the Church in New Spain. “in
visiting the convents, one hardly finds a single monk who is content and happy…the old fervor
and enthusiasm for the salvation of souls seems to have disappeared.”36 He added, “the newly
converted Indians no longer throng the churches to hear the word.”37 The millennial spirit that
once flooded New Spain had vanished. Real life in Colonial Mexico placed a larger burden on
the masses than a “damaged and ruined” church could relieve.
34
Mills, Taylor, & Graham 108
Cook 97
36
Braden 249
37
Braden 249
35
Page | 14
While Motolinia and Sahagun experienced the foundation of the Church in New Spain
from different perspectives, it is difficult to understand how they could not see the condition of
the Church in a uniform manner. Motolinia saw a Church built on solid rock with many converts
brought to a miraculous salvation by God Himself. Sahagun saw a foundation more sandy than
solid, and a group of conversions that were more likely suspect than supernatural. To look at
the Mexico of the twenty-first century is to see a country deeply rooted in its Catholic Faith and
very loyal to the God of Heaven who has so often revealed Himself to be the Savior of all
Mexicans. No matter which opinion is the most accurate, Motolinia’s spiritual utopia or
Sahagun’s holy train wreck, the facts remain the same. The Church was planted in New Spain
and has survived many years of trouble. Motolinia and Sahagun both remain greatly beloved
advocates for the Indians of Mexico. The foundation may have been a little unstable but it did
hold. The Church in New Spain did survive and ultimately flourished, giving the people of
Mexico hope for the future amidst a country with a rather unstable past.
Page | 15
Works Cited
Braden, Charles S. Religious Aspects of the Conquest of Mexico. Durham. Duke University Press.
1930.
Brading, D. A. The First America: The Spanish monarchy, Creole patriots, and the Liberal state
1492-1867. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1991.
Cook, David Noble. Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650. Cambridge.
Cambridge University Press. 1998.
Cortes, Hernan. Letters From Mexico. Trans. Anthony Pagden. New Haven. Yale University
Press. Rev. ed. 1986.
Las Casas, Bartolome de. The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account. Trans. Herma Briffault.
Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1974.
Leon-Portilla, Miguel. The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Trans.
Lysander Kemp. Boston. Beacon. 1962.
Mills, Kenneth, William B Taylor, and Sandra Lauderdale Graham. Colonial Latin America: A
Documentary History. Lanham. Rowman & Littlefield. 2002.
Motolinia, Toribio de. History of the Indians of New Spain. Trans. Elizabeth Andros Foster.
Westport. Greenwood Press. 1977.
Penyak, Lee M. and Walter J. Petry. Religion in Latin America: A Documentary History.
Maryknoll. Orbis. 2006.
Sahagun, Fray Bernardino de. A History of Ancient Mexico. Trans. Fanny R. Bandelier. Glorieta.
Rio Grande Press. 1976.
Page | 16