After "The Year Eighty": The Demise of Franciscan Power in Spanish New Mexico (review)

Abstract

In 1680 New Mexico's Spanish rulers, after more than a century of seeming success, suffered a devastating Native American revolt; all soldiers, missionaries, and settlers were killed or expelled. In 1692 the authorities of Church and State began a campaign of reconquest, and the Franciscan friars who joined the struggle prospered somewhat, chiefly in the Pecos Valley between Albuquerque and El Paso. The troops protected them, although not every village required a garrison; several Puebloan villages accepted and supported them; they rebuilt churches and taught children, at least, religious doctrine. Many inhabitants realistically accepted baptism for the sake of Spanish protection from Comanches and Apaches. The settlement at Abiquiu, founded for genizaros, native people rescued from slavery to these warlike tribes, showed them that without their alien overlords they risked another, more terrible subjugation. The Crown helped the missions financially, and love of the Gospel animated many friars who accompanied or soon followed the army. Thus the Franciscans, Custody of the Conversion of Saint Paul, began the eighteenth century zealously, with effective secular support and with an externally submissive flock. Jim Norris's book narrates and explains the slow decline, almost to disappearance, of the friars' prestige and influence.