Retrograde Franciscans in New Mexico, 1625-52

Paul Kraemer

The Franciscan Order is almost eight hundred years old. In the entire history of the order, their efforts in seventeenth century New Mexico are historically unique. Never before or since has the Order enjoyed such a complete monopoly of their own brand of Christianity. And, after a brilliant beginning, never before or since has the Order suffered such a definitive repudiation and slaughter of its ministers as occurred at the end of the century.1 While the causes of the Pueblo Revolt are complex, most historians concur that the revolt was basically a religious one. As Marc Simmons put it,“the underlying cause can be found in the religious attitudes brought to New Mexico by the Franciscans and colonists.” However, as Simmons also pointed out, problems did not really become evident until about 1650, that is, after about half a century of almost spectacular success.2 Did the religious attitudes of the Franciscans then change or what? Jake Ivey’s work on the Franciscan tolerance of kivas being built in the churchconventos after 1620, and the subsequent back-filling of these kivas after 1640, appears to be a clear demonstration of change in the religious attitudes of the Franciscans during the early pre-revolt period.3

The focus of this chapter concerns another aspect of the Franciscan attitudes during this early period. We call this aspect the retrograde Franciscans because a small group of friars did innovative outreach programs toward the south, instead of continuing the generally northward movement of the frontier of New Spain.

The Oñate expedition into New Mexico in 1598 crossed the frontier of the middle corridor near Santa Barbara, and the settlement of New Mexico left an uncontrolled gap of some eight hundred miles.4 The gap was not only military and governmental, but also reflected Franciscan organization. In 1604, the entire northern frontier except New Mexico came under the jurisdiction of the independent Franciscan Province of Zacatecas.5 These friars of the Zacatecas Province were relatively few in number, and they could make little progress in filling the gap.6 By 1630 the frontier of New Spain had only advanced a few miles, to be stalled at Parral.7 By contrast, the friars of New Mexico remained under the jurisdiction of the Holy Gospel Province headquartered in Mexico City. By 1630 they had established missions and churches in some thirty pueblos.8 They had recently received a new contingent of thirty friars and were soon budgeted for a total of sixty-six friars.9 Their famous publicist, Fray Alonso Benavides, who served as their custodian from 1626-1629, made their efforts famous throughout the Catholic world.10 It seemed that they were poised to achieve even more challenging conversions.

Their outreach program was basically inspired by Benavides and continued by their next custodian, Fray Estevan Perea. The program was extremely ambitious and involved a very large area that was about six hundred miles wide. The program was directed at the numerous non-Pueblo Na