Memoria Mea in generationes saeculorum. “My memory is unto everlasting generations” (Ecclus. 24:28). These words of the Wise Man come to mind as we are assembled at this Academic Session which is to signalize the Fourth Centenary of the Death of Don Fray Juan de Zumárraga, O.F.M., the first Bishop of Mexico City.

Our Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure, who followed closely in the footsteps of that Giant among the Fathers of the Church, the “Doctor Gratiae,” St. Augustine, assigns to the human Memory a place of exalted dignity and excelling power. Ranking it with the Intellect and the Will, the Celestial Patron of the Franciscan School traces this trinity of faculties of the human soul, by his ingenious method of exemplarism, to the image of the Triune God. “Eo est mens imago,” writes the illustrious Bishop of Hippo, “quo potest esse capax et particeps Deo.” In other words, the human mind is God’s image to the extent that it can grasp, and have a share with, God. “But,” continues the Seraphic Doctor, “God cannot be fully grasped by the soul unless He be loved; nor can He be loved unless He be known; nor again can He be known unless He be present to the soul. The first is achieved by the will; the second by the intellect; the third by the memory.” In this wise, Bonaventure argues, the will is appropriated to the Holy Spirit; the intellect to the Divine Son; the memory to the Eternal Father (cf. I Sent. Ill, II, I, I. Op. Omnia, Vol. 1, pp. 80–81).

To Understand the conquest of Mexico, one must recognize the various human factors and the variety of motives that entered into the titanic struggle for mastery of the land. In the letters of Cortés to the Emperor Charles V, the whole gamut of ambitions—personal, national, grossly material and highly spiritual—are revealed. There can be no doubt that Cortés and the Spaniards with him were moved in the first place by a spirit of personal adventure and a desire to better their fortunes. As the panorama of the Aztec Empire opened itself before his eyes, the dream of expanding the Spanish domains came to Cortés as a justifying cause for his forward movement, so that escape or retreat appeared as treachery to his King. At the same time, as a product of the Spanish crusading era, he beheld himself in the rôle of a spiritual hero bringing the doctrine of Christian Redemption to heathen tribes sunk in idolatry and human sacrifice.

The Commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Juan de Zumárraga signifies more than the pious recollection of the contributions to New World culture of this great Franciscan, great Spaniard and great American. For the study and contemplation of his works plunges us once again into the heat and conflict of the Spanish conquest of America, even though Columbus first landed over four hundred and fifty years ago. No one who attempts to study and to interpret this extraordinary event can ignore the life of Zumárraga, nor can he fail to confront the pressing problem which this energetic and able bishop confronted and attempted to solve—how could the Indians be saved?

The Figure of Fray Juan de Zumárraga, the first Bishop and Archbishop of Mexico and one of the first prelates of Spanish America, is outstanding for the great zeal he displayed in the defense of the natives of New Spain. It is our purpose here to study, in the light of the documents that are extant, the part^played by the great Archbishop as protector and defender of the helpless natives. With this purpose in view, we shall treat: firstly, of the origin and extent of the powers granted in general to the Protectors of the Indians; secondly, of the first powers that were given to Zumárraga as Protector of Indians, of the manner in which he exercised them, as also of the subsequent limitation of these powers; and thirdly, of the definite recall of these powers. We shall conclude with an appreciation of the work of the first Archbishop of Mexico as Protector of the Indians.

The Full Realization that the brave Admiral of the Ocean Sea had discovered not a new route to India and the fabled wealth of Cipango and Cathay but an otro mundo, another world, soon became inescapable. Here was another world, with all the implications of the term, inhabited by human beings gathered in various groupings, with varying degrees of development, yet none beyond the stone and precious metals stage, none with a fully integrated system of writing, none beyond the stage of human sacrifices in their religious practices. On what grounds had the crown of Spain a right to disturb the existing conditions? The problem presented was new to a Christian world just awakening from the long and troubled slumber of the Middle Ages. The norms developed by Western Europe in its relations with Islam and the Near East did not seem to apply to the peoples of the otro mundo, or New World.

The Subject of this Study lends itself to a threefold interpretation: it can refer to the books which Zumárraga himself wrote, or to the books which he edited and published, or to those which made up his library, in all probability the first library that existed in New Spain. However it be taken, a study of “The Books of Zumárraga” will give us a glimpse of one of the objects of the invincible zeal that inspired him in his broad vision of his duties as bishop and missionary, as the guide of souls and the father of his flock, occupied with all the necessities of the natives that dwelt within the immense territories comprised in his diocese.

In fact, the constitutive elements of his diocese were two: the conquerors and the conquered. The former, as was to be expected, had their full share of the spiritual defects which the lower nature of any army on active service seems all too prone to exhibit. These faults became even worse among the conquistadores of Mexico when their active service was done and they began to lead a soft, idle life that in many cases incited all their concupiscences.

In the History of the Central American hierarchy there is no personality so highly praised and so little disputed as that of Don Francisco Marroquín, the first Bishop of Guatemala. His good sense, activity and zeal for the conversion of the natives, and his interest in the culture, moral welfare and progress of the incipient province rest upon solid bases in the reports and eulogies of documents and historians, although, strangely enough, he has never been the subject of a full-length biography.

No less praiseworthy was his moderate position as to the very serious problem which confronted Spain, and which she herself posed for consideration and decision, from the very beginnings of the colonization and pacification of the New World—namely, the problem of what treatment should be accorded to the natives.