Benavides and Church Music in New Mexico in the Early 17th Century

Abstract

AT THE BEGINNING of the I7th century New Mexico was the northernmost province of New Spain. Its first Spanish settlement dates from 15982 and its first permanent capital, Santa Fe, from the spring of 161o.3 By the time Fray Alonso de Benavides arrived there in January, I6264 to take over his duties as custodian5 of New Mexico, the missionary zeal of the Franciscans had already launched the province on an era of Christianizing the Pueblo Indians and of building many mission churches. A few of these earliest mission churches are still intact, though most are either in ruins or have disappeared. The mission church at Pecos, for example, now only an impressive ruin, was built a few years before Benavides's coming, and was, at the time, one of the major missions. Benavides mentions that he established ten such missions himself.' The missionary zeal