The Clergy of New Spain and the Congregations of Indians: from the Initial Evangelization to the Third Mexican Provincial Council of 1585

Abstract

In this paper we study the discussions among the friars and clergy of New Spain and their proposals regarding the problem of the territorial dispersion of the indigenous population. These responded to two competing projects of evangelization: the friars’ and the bishops’. Each sector had its own ecclesiastical concept of what the congregations and the goals to be achieved with them should be. In the only decree destined by the bishops to the congregations, in the third Mexican Provincial Council of 1585, any recognition of the work of the friars in previous decades was omitted; on the contrary, the diocesan Church officials protested to the viceroys about the lack of compliance with the royal patents of reductions. In the end, however, the model practiced by the friars of the congregations in the mid sixteenth century prevailed.