Mary of Agreda and the Southwest United States

Abstract

IN 1630 FRAY ALONSO DE BENAVIDES, the former superior of the Franciscan missions in New Mexico, returned to Spain and wrote for Philip IV a report on the activities of the missionaries of his custodia. In this report is found one of the most interesting accounts in the whole history of the missionary Church in America. It is the strange story of the miraculous conversion of the Jumano Indians and of other tribes in the Southwest of the United States by a Spanish nun, Sor María de Jesús de Agreda. In 1622 Fray Alonso de Benavides had come to the missions of New Mexico with a large group of Franciscans. Being their superior, he assigned them to various missions. One of the group, Fray Juan de Salas, he sent to work among the Indians of Isleta near present-day Albuquerque.