5

At an early period the friars of New Spain appear to have displayed much of the indifference to laws and independence of action which was assumed by the colonists. Quickly amassing wealth, many of them returned to Spain without permission, while others, attracted by the comforts and ease offered by a residence in the larger cities of the New World, took up their abode in them, and failed to proceed to their destination. Nor did they refrain from intruding upon the occupations of classes outside their own profession. They bought and sold and opened shops; they dealt in cattle, and made the natives toil for them without payment; private individuals acquired property, and monastic communities, in common with the secular clergy, possessed themselves of estates bequeathed to them by persons whose unbiassed action was interfered with to the detriment of their own heirs. Moreover, in their zeal for self-aggrandizement, they encroached upon the prerogatives of the govern

8

bull suppressing all that were not occupied by eight resident friars. Guat., Col. de Cédulas Reales; Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 355. According to Torquemada, iii. 381-2, in 1612 the Franciscans possessed about 172 monasteries and religious houses, divided into the five provincias of Mexico, Michoacan, Zacatecas, Nueva Galicia, and Yucatan; the Augustinians had about 90 monasteries in two provinces, that of Mexico and that comprising Michoacan and Jalisco; and the Dominicans 69 monasteries in the provincias of Mexico and Oajaca.

5 Laws were passed in 1558 and 1566 prohibiting friars returning to Spain from bringing with them more gold or silver than was sufficient to meet the expenses of their passage. Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 33; Morelli, Nov. Orb., 200. Great restrictions were laid upon their returning to Spain. Recop. de Ind., i. 93, 107-8, 127-8. The rules on this matter were frequently broken, as is evident from the repeated repetition of them.

Id., i. 125, 129.

In 1568 a law was passed ordering that the papal brief forbidding individual friars to hold private property should be observed. Id., i. 117; Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 229. The practice of making Indians work without paying them was forbidden in 1594, Recop. de Ind., i. 125, but in 1716 the same practice prevailed, the friars going so far as to impress upon the natives, who worked for them, that they were exempt from paying the royal tribute. In November of the above named year a cédula was issued ordering such abuses to cease. Guat., Col. Reales Céd.

In 1754 the king expressly forbade any member of a religious order to interfere in the drawing-up of last wills and testaments, Castro, Diario, 55, and in 1775 a cédula was passed prohibiting confessors or their convents from being heirs or legatees. Reales Cédulas, MS., i. 194-6. In 1796, however, a decree was passed allowing friars to inherit estates. Rescriptos Reales, Ecles., MS., 28-56, 99–151, 177.

WITHDRAWAL OF PRIVILEGES.

705

ment by meddling in secular affairs, and were frequently engaged in disputes with the state and civil authorities.

But it was with the church that the regular orders were most hotly engaged, and the struggle between them and the secular clergy, of which mention has already been made, lasted with more or less bitterness on both sides down to the time of the independence. As the Catholic church in New Spain extended her operations, and was able to appoint parish priests in towns more and more remote, she felt herself competent to administer her holy rites in those places without further aid of the friars, and was unwilling longer to divide alike authority and spoils with allies whose usefulness had become limited. But though she wished to reassume absolutely her own prerogatives, and removed friars from doctrinas, she met with firm opposition from the orders, who were extremely jealous in maintaining the privileges which had been conferred upon them. The regulars, therefore, refused submission to the bishops whenever they considered their rights invaded, and disputes with parish priests expanded into a contest with ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 10

But the church was powerful; many privileges were annulled, orders were issued enjoining the obe

Medina, Chron. de S. Diego Mex., 189; Recop. de Ind., i. 121, 130.

10 A prominent cause of dispute was the jurisdiction exercised by the bishops over the doctrinas. In 1643 the bishop of Yucatan excommunicated certain Franciscan doctrineros for disobeying his orders relative to the payments made to them by Indians. Cogolledo, Hist. Yuc., 662-73. In 1669 a quarrel between Archbishop Rivera and the orders gave rise to un disturbio que se temió fatalidad," the former having appointed canonical ministers to 16 doctrinas, the presentations to which were claimed by the provincial of the Augustinians. Robles, Diario, ii. 83-4. I have in my collection the original of a report made by Fray Antonio Ayetta, the representative at Madrid of the provincia de Santo Evangelio. The document bears date of March 9, 1688, and sets forth the difficulties Ayetta had encountered, arising from the hostility of the bishop of Guadalajara. Informe, in Prov. de Sta Evang., MS., 273-91. The same father in a memorial to the king argues against the claim of said bishop that the causes for changes in ministros doctrineros should be laid before him, the king having decreed that this should be done only to the viceroy as vice-patrono. Ayetta, Represent. por los Franciscanos, 15.

HIST. MEX., VOL. III. 45

dience of the regulars to the bishops, and laws passed affecting their jurisdiction and internal administration, and regulating the appointment to doctrinas of those duly qualified." The outcry was loud and long, and much scandal ensued, but the king and pope conjointly had raised up a great power in the land, and the objections of the frairs to royal cédulas and the commands of the bishops were so persistently urged, and their own claim to privileges so ably argued, that modifications of the restrictions were obtained.

While the regular orders were thus united in their opposition to church and state, it was otherwise among themselves. Dissensions between different orders and discord among the members of individual institutions were incessant. In the internal government of the orders the two prominent causes of disagreement were the election of provincials and other officers, and the interminable quarrels between Spanish and creole members.12 Spanish friars who had taken the habit in Europe displayed an ungenerous rivalry toward members of orders who, though of their own race, had been born in America, and would have excluded them from the right to hold office. Such views were indignantly opposed by the creoles, who denied that they were in any way inferior to the Europeans, while the latter refused to admit them on terms of equality.13 In order to adjust differences which led to actual animosity between the two classes, the system of alternation in office was established by

11 The restrictions were principally confined to the administration of the sacraments, hearing confession, and preaching. Recop. de Ind., i. 66-7, 84, 117, 124-5, 487; Medina, Chron. de S. Diego, Mex., 194; Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 383-4, 386–7, 394–5; Montemayor, Svmario, 24-6, 37-48; Ordenes de la Corona, MS., ii. 157-8. For a number of laws bearing upon friars as doctrineros see Recop. de Ind., i. 131, 133-6, 138–40. With respect to irregularities prevailing in the doctrinas and the action of Bishop Palafox see this vel. pp. 100-1. A principal cause of grievance was the transferring the doc trinas from the orders to the secular clergy by the bishops.

12 These quarrels in the Dominican order became so violent that in 1627 the visitador of the society ordered that no more habits should be given to creoles. The king disapproved of such injustice. Disturbios de Frailes, i. no. 4: Cédulario Nuevo, i. 390.

13 Mancera, Instruc., in Doc. Inéd., xxi. 479-85.

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CREOLES.

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papal bulls and royal decrees. Some of the orders at once complied with this regulation. The arrangement had, however, its exact counterpart in many cases, entire communities being composed wholly of creoles and others wholly of Spaniards.14

Although the alternation system, repeatedly insisted upon by the crown, secured to creoles the right to official appointments, it was not faithfully carried out, and frequent were their complaints of partiality to Spaniards and injustice to themselves.15 It utterly failed to produce harmony. Criminations and recriminations prevailed down to the nineteenth century, and instances are not wanting of these teachers of peace and humility proceeding to acts of personal violence among themselves.16

In the zealous assertion of their privileges the action of friars was not unfrequently marked by turbulency and opposition to the civil authorities,17 and

14 The decrees sent from Rome and Spain ordered alternation every three or four years. For the reason that for some time no natives of Old Spain applied for admission into the order of the Hermitaños de San Agustin of Mexico, the prelates of that society finally admitted only creoles. A royal cédula dated November 28, 1667, ordered the viceroy to investigate and reform the irregularity. Id. The convent of the Carmelites and the apostolic colleges of San Fernando, Cruz de Querétaro, and others were composed entirely of Spaniards; the communities of Guadalupe de Zacatecas, and those of San Juan de Dios and San Hipólito of the hospitallers, were creole. Alaman, Hist. Méj., i. 13, 70. Pope Urbano VII. defined, by brief of November 12, 1625, the observances to be used by the Franciscans in the distribution of offices among the three different classes of which their order was composed, namely, the 'criollos,' the 'hijos de provincia,' and the 'capuchines, who are thus respectively defined. The first were those who were born in the country of Spanish parents and had taken the habit; the second were Spaniards who took the habit in New Spain, and the third were Spaniards who entered the order in Europe. Vrbano VIII., in Disturbios de Frailes, i. 146 et seq.

15 The three classes mentioned in the preceding note were distinguished by different habits. Sierra, Dictamen, in Id., i. 347-63. A royal order dated September 11, 1766, confirming previous ones issued in 1691, 1697, and 1725, directed the admission of Indians into the religious orders. Providencias Reales, in Mex. Ordinanzas de esta N. C., MS., 178-82.

16 A notable case occurred in the city of Mexico on the 9th of July 1780 when a serious riot occurred in the convent of San Francisco, occasioned by the seizure of the 'guardian Fray Mateo Jimenez, a gachupin.' The two parties came to blows, 25 friars fled, and it required the employment of a military force to effect the release of Jimenez, his captors having twice refused to obey the summons sent by the viceroy to surrender him. Gomez, Diario, in Doc. Hist. Mex., 2da série, vii. 89, 91-2.

17A tumult was occasioned in 1664 by the rescue of a negress who was being led to execution for the attempted murder of her mistress. The friars

orders were repeatedly issued from the throne that such characters as well as vagabond friars who had been unfrocked or expelled from their convents should be sent to Spain. 18

With regard to the private life of the friars it cannot truthfully be said that it was in keeping with the simplicity and abstinence which their vows required. The contrast between them and the earlier missionaries is striking. Many indulged not only in the pleasures and luxuries of the laity, but also in their vices. Instead of abstemiousness, feasting and carousal prevailed among them, as among the secular clergy; instead of humble garb and bearing, pompous display in embroidered doublets and silken hose of bright color; instead of study and devotional exercises, dice-throwing and card-playing, over which the pious gamblers cursed and swore and drank.10 Immorality too often usurped the place of celibacy,20 and murder that of martyrdom.21 It must not, however, be concluded who attended her raised the cry of 'To the church,' whereupon a crowd of negroes, mulattoes, and others, in spite of the resistance of the guard carried her into the cathedral. Attempts of the authorities to release her failed. She was afterward conveyed to the convent of La Concepcion and escaped punishment. Guijo, Diario, 551.

18 Ordenes de la Corona, iv. 84-5; vii. 11, 84-5.

19 Gage, i. 82, tells a story of a priest who, having won a large sum, held open one of the sleeves of his habit and swept his gains into it with the other, jocularly explaining that he had taken a vow neither to touch nor keep money, but that his sleeve had permission to do so. Delaporte, x. 198-208, 307.

20 The inquisition in 1742 instituted proceedings against Fray Lázaro Jimenez del Guante, a Franciscan of Querétaro, for soliciting women-some of whom denounced him--and other immoral practices. Being found guilty he was deprived for life of the right of hearing confessions and otherwise punished. Ximenez, Fray Lázaro, Inquisidor fiscal contra, MS., fol. pp. 281.

21 In 1789 Fray Jacinto Miranda, of the order of la Merced, stabbed and killed the comendador Padre Gregorio Corte. Miranda had been placed under severe discipline by the comendador; he was tried before the archbishop for his crime. The order made strenuous efforts to save him from capital punishment, and he was probably sent to Spain. Miranda, Causa de Homicidio, in Disturbios de Frailes, MS., ii. no. i. pp. 37-128; no. 8, pp. 331-40; Bernal y Malo-Waldo, Indalecio, Alegato, 1-86. The kings of Spain were unwilling that the excesses committed by friars should become public if it could be avoided, and left their punishment, as far as possible, to the jurisdiction of the several orders. But it being discovered that such license led to abuses, instructions were issued to the archbishop and bishops, enjoining them, in case merited punishment was not meted out to delinquents by the superiors of the orders, to assume the jurisdiction with which they were invested by the council of Trent. Recop. de Ind., i. 123.