Cecilia Prieto - Franciscan Mysticism on the Northern Frontier of New Spain

Franciscan Mysticism on the Northern Frontier of New Spain
Franciscan Mysticism on the Northern Frontier of New

Spain
Cecilia Sheridan Prieto
The [Oxford] Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World
Edited by Danna A. Levin Rojo and Cynthia Radding
Print Publication Date: Dec 2019 Subject: History, European History

Online Publication Date: Nov 2019 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199341771.013.13
Abstract and Keywords
Starting with an analysis of an imagined “mystic frontier,” this chapter analyzes various
cases of mysticism in Spain and the Americas in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen
turies that form part of the frontier imaginary and represent the transformation of spaces
into social landscapes. This chapter posits that female mystics were a definitive factor in
the attempts to renovate the Franciscan missionary frontier in northern New Spain. The
dream of converting infidels and the symbolic territoriality of the “cross” could be used to
consolidate missionary power in areas defined as frontiers because of their proximity to
nomadic Indians. In particular, this chapter will analyze the case of the Spanish nun
María de Jesús de Agreda (Spain, 1602) along with Francisca de los Ángeles, a lay sister
of the Third Order of Franciscans who had the protection of the Colegio de la Santa Cruz
de Querétaro and fray Antonio Margil de Jesús.
Keywords: spiritual conquest, mysticism, beatas, Francisca de los Angeles, Sor María de Jesús de Agreda, Francis
can utopia, systems of reduction, Antonio Margil de Jesús
With such variety, as the Lord showed, among those who did not profess the Faith,
Gentiles, Idolaters, perfidious Jews, Mohammedans, and Heretics, I declare your
Majesty, that those creatures least indisposed to convert, were the gentiles of New
Mexico, and other remote Kingdoms in that region.
—Fray Joseph Jiménez Samaniego (1759)
AN extensive historiography examines the range of processes that developed around the
evangelization of the native people who were subject to the spiritual conquest of the
northern frontier of New Spain. This vast space was the scene of many events that
demonstrated the hardships, fears, and possibilities brought by the conquest: its greatest
challenge, according to historians, was the transformation of the frontier region into a
space of faith and obedience to the king of Spain.
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Due to the theological assemblies held in Mexico City between 1569 and 1575, and the
decision by the Third Provincial Council of Mexico (1585) to deny support to the war of
blood and fire against the Chichimec Indians, the Viceroy Villamanrique (1585–1589) was
obliged to find a different means of pacifying the Chichimec territories. In this context,
the influence of the Augustinian friar Guillermo de Santa María laid the foundations for
the design of a process of pacification through colonization, the creation of Indian towns,
and the establishment of missions.1 Viceroy Villamanrique’s predecessor Pedro Moya de
Contreras,2 concerned like Santa María by the situation of the Indians, undertook the cre
ation of a network of missions and defensive settlements in response to a petition by
Domingo de Alzola, Bishop of Guadalajara, who advocated for the teaching of the faith
and for the conversion of the Indians by example.3
These events ushered in a long period of religious conquest in the Americas, in

(p. 510)
which more than fifteen thousand missionaries participated between the sixteenth and
nineteenth centuries.4 With the objective of converting the pagans, the mendicant orders
set a range of jurisdictional processes in motion under the principles contained in the
1573 ordinances banning war: “War cannot and shall not be made against the Indians of
any province to make them receive the holy Catholic faith or to make them obedient to
us, or for any other reason.”5
In the region that was considered the frontier of the conquered territories of northern
New Spain, and under the banner of conversion by peaceful conquest, the difficult and
complex process of territorial occupation and conversion through the founding of mis
sions began. The missions, different from convents, were established in the Americas be
ginning in the second half of the sixteenth century.6 The earliest Franciscan missions on
the northern frontier were founded around 1560, when Brother Pedro de Espinareda and
lay Brother Jacinto de San Francisco made incursions into the Guadiana Valley on their
missionary journeys through Nueva Vizcaya.7 Later, evangelizing activities expanded into
different regions, where each order would have priority or exclusivity; the space was thus
divided geographically into mission territories. This territorialization would cause dis
agreements between different Franciscan provinces and colleges, who claimed the Indi
ans of a given area as belonging to their missions, and defended their right to reduce
them, among themselves and before other orders.8
The religious orders participating in this process of peaceful conversion took inspiration
from the observations that other missionaries and friars made during the conquest of
Mexico, which in fact form the basis of missionary thought in the Americas. For example,
the Dominican Bartolomé de las Casas (1474–1566) had a decisive influence on imperial
policy regarding the treatment of the indigenous people of New Spain and the Americas
in general.9 While Fray Bernardino de Sahagún was a spokesman of “Franciscan eschato
logical hope”10 and a proponent of the utopia that sought to create a new Kingdom of
Christ in the Indies. However, the actual conditions in the frontier region, derived from
the presence of natives who were culturally different from the Indians in the central ar
eas and the altiplano of New Spain, caused the ideals of primitive Franciscanism to be
abandoned and opened up the space to a different approach, as the Jesuit José de Acosta
Page 2 of 19

recognized in his 1576 treatise De procuranda indorum: “the old, apostolic evangelizing
method cannot be applied exactly to the savages.” According to this method, preachers
went in search of gentiles, without any form of protection, in order to preach the
Gospel.11
Escandell refers to the “universalist character of evangelization” and the agreement be
tween objectives and actions among the missionary orders, acknowledging that they act
ed in accordance with autonomous and traditional methods of organization: the Francis
can approach was conditioned by nominalist and scotist doctrine that viewed evangeliza
tion as a long-term project, while the Dominican approach adhered to Secunda secunda
Tomist theology that viewed missionary action as constrained by free assent.12 The Je
suits, driven by their philosophy of seeking “universal” good and the salvation of souls,
employed the same system of reductions as the Franciscans, seeking (p. 511) to distance
the Indians from the abuses of the encomenderos and prevent all contact with nearby
Spaniards and mestizos.
The origins of the Franciscan eschatological utopia date to the middle ages, when reli
gious groups and sects sought a return to primitive Christianity founded on the renuncia
tion of worldly goods and a strict adherence to a life of poverty, while also undertaking to
evangelize in all parts of the known world where there were infidels. This utopian ideal
opened the doors to the first Franciscan attempts at evangelization in the Americas. From
the moment of their arrival, evangelization and colonization went hand in hand in the con
quest of new regions. In this process, however, dissident positions arose that condemned
any form of association with colonial power.13
Several significant instances of mysticism were influenced by the Franciscan evangelizing

project in the northern borderlands of New Spain from the perspective of primitive Fran
ciscanism. Of particular interest are the cases of mysticism that resulted from the influ
ence of the nun Sor María de Jesús (1602–1665) on the work to promote evangelization
done by the Franciscan missionaries Alonso de Benavides (1578–1635) and Antonio
Margil de Jesús (1657–1726). The New Spanish beata Francisca de los Angeles (1674–
1744), would emulate the spiritual journeys of Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda to the re
gions of the infidels on the northern frontier to convert them to Christianity.14
Conversion Miracles
The possibility of creating a new world based on the conversion of the Indian infidels is a
fundamental aspect of the motivations of most Spanish inhabitants of the borderlands.
The idea of the creation of a space based on the new utopia finds expression in a land
that for the Europeans was devoid of history, a new world full of possibilities. In this con
text, the Franciscan utopia in the marginal regions of the New World is often seen as a
consequence of exigencies that were overcome in the process of creating new, Western
spaces over old, native ones. The utopian content of the spiritual conquest is only occa
sionally covered in the historiography of those remote spaces that were barely reached by
the influence of the Crown, but where God was present in the miracles and wonders he
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bestowed on a world of infidelity waiting to be transformed. In this sense, the task of con
version was a product of divine will; if it was not realized, everything would be over, as
the friar Jerónimo de Mendieta expressed: “Since beyond this transaction of souls (for
which God wished to reveal this land to us), all else is pestilent greed and misery of the
evil world.”15
Franciscan mission work on the frontier nurtured the utopia by combating infidelity in
those rugged, distant regions plagued with spiritual challenges. It was inspired by their
belief in a new creation after the end of history. A large portion of the slow and difficult
missionary activity in northern New Spain imprinted the space with its imagination of the
miraculous and sustained its creation through the power of faith. The mission (p. 512)
space gradually promoted and strengthened the Franciscans’ enormous effort to control
mass infidelity, placing a bet on utopia in the New World, where spaces were divided be
tween the holy and the infidel on the basis of the establishment of missions. These were
normalizing heterotopias, or localized utopias.16 They were characterized by their dis
tinctness and the difficulty of their permanence but that established spaces safe from
idolatry and the devil.
In his struggle against idolatry and the devil, and in his pursuit of the salvation of infidels,
Fray Martín de Valencia (1474–1534), the superior of the 1524 expedition that brought
the first twelve Franciscans to Mexico, experienced raptures even before his voyage to
New Spain. In them, he observed “many souls of infidels who were converted in great
numbers, and came as if rushing to receive holy baptism.”17 Martín de Valencia’s mysti
cism had an important impact on the odyssey of the twelve missionaries, as much on
those that were close to him as on those who came after.
One of these Franciscans, Fray Jerónimo de Mendieta (1525–1604), took mystical thought
to another level of connection with evangelical work, by defining the miracles and mar
vels of evangelization as an expression of “martyrdom without death.”18 He viewed the
work of evangelizing the “savage” Indians as the most valuable spiritual labor because it
demanded martyrdom in life, and he thought it was a means of attaining holiness through
contact with the Chichimec Indians, whose very name meant “fierceness, ferocity and
bestiality of the said [Indians].”19 These Chichimec Indians were difficult to convert even
after they had been exposed to Christianity, to the extent that they committed deliberate
acts of apostasy. For Mendieta, the persistence of patience represented the possibility of
conversion among the savages:
The occasions of deaths of friars is what has been related, according to the Spa
niards. But I say that the main thing was their desire to turn to idolatry, tempted
by the devil, and regress, and become apostates […] of all these friars here
named, and others I am unaware of, dead at the hands of the Chichimecas, it can
be left only to God to judge which ones achieved the palm and crown of martyr
dom.20
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Mendieta’s history is one of eminent men, devout Catholics, told for a western, Christian
audience. After a few years, given the Indians’ willingness to accept Christianity, Friar
Martín and his companion, Friar Toribio de Benavente, Motolinía, were believed to have
baptized more than a hundred thousand people. Mass conversion resulted from an urgent
need to save the infidels before the end of time, and also from another kind of miracle:
the disposition of the infidels and their implicit conscience of self-redemption, even when
they were unfamiliar with the content of the Gospel or what it meant in their own lan
guages. From Friar Martín de Valencia onwards, this miracle would be repeated on many
occasions throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in a variety of settings;
there are abundant testimonies of this in documents relating to evangelization on the
northern frontier, such as the one referred to by Balcárcel y Rivadeneira about conver
sions by Friar Juan Larios in 1673, who claimed that over three (p. 513) thousand Indians
with weapons followed him, begging to be converted and baptized.21 Despite the long
century between them, both Friar Alonso de Benavides and Friar Margil de Jesús seem
attached to this idea of primitive Franciscanism.
The stories of Sor María de Jesús and Francisca de los Angeles, both of whom wished to
spread the Gospel among the infidels but who were legally prevented from working as
missionaries, appear as part of a secret history of Franciscan evangelizing in new lands
where all kinds of miracles, signs, and wonders were possible. Those possibilities could
include martyrdom in life when the women concerned were classified as mad, false mys
tics, or any other insult commonly applied to women who believed themselves intermedi
aries of God or the Virgin. Both women suffered persecution and a harsh trial by the In
quisition. Later, as hagiographers and faithful followers of the “venerable” Sor María,
both friars Antonio de Benavides and Antonio Margil de Jesús promoted and constantly
revived Sor María de Jesús’s miracle of bilocation, in lands that were removed from the
center of political clashes over the path of conquest through war, or the alternative of a
conquest via spiritual means.
Despite policies established by the Crown that privileged conquest by spiritual means, in
the regions furthest from viceregal authority, the situation of belligerence was not funda
mentally altered. For decades, conquistadors and adventurers who entered the northern
territories marked their trails with the two apparently unopposed symbols of the sword
and the cross, just as they had in the war against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula. War,
then, could be seen as a crusade, a constant and “harsh war against Hell” personified by
“ministers of war” (the friars) engaged in announcing the law of the Gospel to the “sav
age and untamed nations,” “converting numerous souls to a life of grace, and removing
them from the ugly lethargy of guilt,” as Fray Joseph de Arlegui stated in 1737.22
The scale of evangelizing activity in the Americas and Asia, inspired by the potential to
end infidelity in the world by preaching the Gospel and offering baptism by missionaries
who risked their lives “armed with the shield of faith,” represented for Sor María de Jesús
the possibility of attaining one of her greatest desires: to evangelize in a land of infidels.23
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María de Jesús’s parents, Catalina de Arana and Francisco Coronel, were devout
Catholics and were close to the Franciscans of the San Julián Convent in the town of
Ágreda, where María de Jesús was born in 1602. She was baptized with the name María
Coronel y Arana. This connection to the Franciscans, in addition to other more earthly cir
cumstances related to the family’s economic situation, undoubtedly explains why in 1619
her mother established a convent of Franciscan nuns of the order of the Immaculate Con
ception in the family home where María and her sister took their vows. Her father and
two brothers entered the Franciscan convent in Nalda, also in the province of Soria. The
Conceptionist convent would be Sister María de Jesús’s sole residence until her death at
the age of 63.24
At the age of eighteen, having had a brief but intense spiritual life, and attempted to en
ter the barefoot Carmelite convent in Tarazona, María de Jesús took her vows as a Con
ceptionist nun at the Ágreda convent. From then on, she experienced a series of (p. 514)
mystical phenomena such as raptures, ecstasies and levitations, and trances, which last
ed approximately a decade, until 1630.
The hagiography of Sor María de Jesús, authored by Fray Joseph Ximénez Samaniego,
provides an account of this period of her life. According to the friar, María demonstrated
an infinite love of God and had mystical contact with him from a young age. Her most im
portant memory refers to a vision in which God showed her the difference between good
and evil. After this encounter, she had no more visions until a few days after having taken
her vows as a nun, when God “illuminated her within […] with a light, or illumination,
which […] the Mystics normally call internal speech.”25
From that moment, the nun experienced mystical states up to three or four times a day.
She said she received from God the deepest secrets of the faith and of Christ’s sufferings
for the redemption of souls. In these trances, she gained access to knowledge of unre
deemed souls who had died in sin without the possibility of redemption. God had trans
ported her spiritually so that she could gain knowledge of the range and quantity of souls
at risk of dying in sin, a fact that caused her a suffering that was only alleviated by offer
ing her own sickness, pain, and torments for the conversion of those infidels.
In one of her raptures, which generally occurred after communion, God told her his
predilection for the conversion of the gentiles of New Mexico and “other remote king
doms” of the region and that those gentiles had demonstrated their openness to conver
sion. From that time on, always when she was in a state of ecstasy, God showed her the
situation of those provinces in great detail, the Indians’ way of life, their great desire for
conversion, and the immense need for missionaries willing to risk their lives for these
gentiles in the Americas. After months of communication with God, on one occasion for
the first time she experienced the miracle she had been hoping for: “[God] worked in her
and through her, one of the greatest wonders witnessed by the centuries.” From one mo
ment to the next, in a fit of ecstasy, she found herself in a place with a climate very differ
ent from that of her surroundings, and in a town of people like those God had described
to her: “It seemed I could see them with my eyes, that I could strongly perceive the
Page 6 of 19

warmer climate of the land, and that the rest of my senses experienced that difference.
[…] The Lord ordered her to relieve her longings for his charity by preaching his Faith,
and his Holy Law to those peoples.”26
Sor María perceived that she was preaching to them in Spanish and that the Indians
could understand her perfectly, as if she were speaking to them in their own language.
From her point of view, this fact proved, as God had assured her, that the Indians were
willing to be converted, and she saw them kneel before her, clamoring to be redeemed.
But the greatest miracle, described by Ximénez Samaniego, was that of the preaching it
self: the nun’s desire to preach, to act as a missionary among the infidels, and in this way
achieve their salvation. As a result of her efforts she was able to verify that the Indians
were converted to the faith, and she continued with her catechism. This was repeated
more than five hundred times in ten years, achieving the conversion of “an extensive
kingdom” near the region where the Franciscan missionaries she claimed to have seen in
action were already preaching. Knowing that she was unable to baptize the (p. 515) Indi
ans, Sor María guided them to beg the ministers to baptize them and to send them “work
ers” or missionaries, who would teach them the catechism.27
Fearful that such miracles were the result of an evil influence, she found it difficult to be
lieve that her visions occurred beyond her spirit. Her confessor assured her that she had
been sent bodily to the Indies, by the grace of God, which would later be corroborated by
the testimony of Indians who referred to a beautiful woman in a blue tunic, who appeared
among them to catechize them.
The miracle was confirmed when Fray Alonso de Benavides, guardian of New Mexico,
heard of these wonders from the mouths of the Indians and corroborated that they had
known of the Gospel even before missionaries arrived there.28 Eight years later, in 1630,
when Fray Alonso was in Madrid, he began to investigate the events that had occurred in
New Mexico. He met with the general minister of the Franciscan order, Fray Bernardino
de Sena, who assured him that the missionary nun was Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda,
whom he knew by her reputation for saintliness. The minister immediately appointed this
friar as commissioner in charge of writing an account of the events, based on the state
ments of the nun, whom he instructed him to visit in Ágreda.
“Sacrificing her secret, for the sake of obedience,” Sor María told Friar Alonso the story
of her experiences of being bodily transported to those regions of America, in the pres
ence of her confessor. Fray Alonso asked her to describe the places, the Indians, their
customs, and anything that might help him corroborate the events she narrated to him.
Sor María told many things that could only be defined with such clarity by someone who
had lived in those remote regions, in addition to describing the missionaries who worked
there, the places, the days, the hours, and so on. Along with the provincial father and Sor
María’s confessor, Fray Alonso de Benavides wrote an account of the events that would
later become two memorials that sought to provide a true record of the mystical phenom
enon that led the nun to preach in body and spirit among the Indians in the north of New
Spain.29
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Benavides wrote the memorials while he was in Europe acting as confessor to Francisco
Melo, Spanish Ambassador before the Holy See in Rome and sent them to the two highest
authorities on the subject of missions and evangelization: Pope Urban VIII, and the re
cently created Propaganda Fide.30 In the first memorial, Benavides recounts the earliest
news of the presence of a woman, to whom he refers as the “Servant of God,” who con
verted and catechized the Indians. He tells how the fathers Juan de Salas and Diego
López, assigned as guardians to New Mexico, were received by over ten thousand Indians
requesting baptism. After a brief examination of what they had learned from the mouth of
the woman who came to visit them and teach them the faith, the fathers decided to bap
tize them all. In that moment the miracle of the Indians’ faith became apparent, as they
begged through the mouths of their leaders: “Father, until now we have been like deer
and wild animals, but you have much power before God.” They asked that their sick (the
blind, the crippled, the paralyzed) be healed and that the fathers not abandon them. The
fathers, reading the Gospel Loquente Jesu (Mark 16) and replying with the Concede Nos
prayer, saw that the Indians were instantly healed.31
In the second memorial (1631), Benavides describes what Sor María claimed to
(p. 516)
have seen on her mystical travels to New Mexico and Gran Quivira: “All of the things I
write here were told to me by our Mother María de Jesús [ … ] nobody has heard these
things in Spain, and they are from New Mexico.”32 The nun assured him that through the
ministry of angels she had been there many times and that the last time had been a
month and a half before meeting with Fray Alonso. To support her claims, she signed a
letter dated May 15, 1631, in which she assured the reader that everything Fray Alonso
had written was true: “Thus I tell of what happened in the provinces and kingdoms of
New Mexico, of Quivira, Yumanas, and other nations […] I believe the first kingdoms I vis
ited are in the east […] I call those kingdoms, with respect to our terms of speaking,
Tidar, and another Chillescas and Caburcos, which have not been discovered.”33
Fray Alonso wrote to his missionary brothers in New Mexico, emphasizing the nun’s me
diation between God and the Franciscans, in which he took pleasure for being [the mis
sionaries] beneficiaries of the blessed soul of María de Jesús […] since her style and
thought is Evangelical […] she has seen them, and she commends them to God, and thus I
thank them […] And I also give many thanks to the Indians, as they are deserving of her
love […] as spiritual children, to whom she has preached the Holy Catholic Faith, and lit
up the darkness of Idolatry.34 Sor María’s fame seemed to have expanded beyond the
town of Ágreda after the attention garnered from the General of the order. Clergy, laypeo
ple, and devotees of the nun attended the convent to witness the raptures she suffered
daily, with the knowledge of her sisters, causing “reckless and dangerous disturbances,”
of which she was thoroughly unaware.35 When the nun discovered these abuses, the
provincial ordered her to ask God to spare her from externally visible manifestations and
visions. Four years after Fray Alonso de Benavides’s visit to Ágreda, the Audience of the
Holy Office of the Inquisition in Logroño advanced a case against Sor María de Jesús, dat
ed the May 19, 1635. According to one of the witnesses, Fray Andrés de la Torre, the case
recorded the accusation “that the aforementioned María de Jesús, being sometimes and
sometimes not in a state of rapture, was transported by the hands of angels to some king
Page 8 of 19

doms of idolaters in the Indies, and that there she instructed the Indians in the faith of
the true God.”36
The Inquisition desisted from its case in 1645 following the intervention of Philip IV, with
whom María de Jesús maintained a long epistolary relationship as his advisor and confi
dante up until his death in 1665. From the moment the case was opened, Sor María
ceased to travel to America in body and spirit as a missionary and devoted her life to writ
ing various works dictated to her by the Virgin Mary, among which is the notable history
of the life of the Virgin: Mystica Ciudad de Dios (1725), a baroque story in which she nar
rates the life of the mother of Christ.37
The verification of the nun’s apparitions occurred at a time when the mission to convert
the savage Indians in the north of New Spain was undergoing a period of profound ques
tioning with regard to mass conversion methods. If Fray Alonso de Benavides could claim
that in her mystical travels, Sor María had achieved half a million conversions in distant
northern New Spain, this “extraordinary harvest”38 opened up new possibilities for the
redemption of infidelity governed by the devil.
Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús and the San

(p. 517)
ta Rosa Beatas
Among the Ágreda nun’s writings, the first of her spiritual exercises—among others Es
cala para subir a la perfección (Ladder for rising to perfection); Ejercicio cotidiano (Daily
exercise); Ejercicios espirituales y leyes de la esposa (Spiritual exercises and laws for
wives), along with the Mystica Ciudad de Dios, would have a decisive influence on two of
the most remarkable Franciscans in the history of evangelization in the Americas: Anto
nio Margil de Jesús (1657–1726), founder of the convent of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Za
catecas for propaganda fide in 1706, and Junípero Serra (1713–1784), founder of a dozen
missions in the region of Alta California.39
For over four decades, Margil de Jesús did missionary work in the Americas: in
Nicaragua, his first venture, in Costa Rica, among the Talamanca Indians, in Boruca, on
the Isthmus of Panama, and in Guatemala and Yucatán. He also headed the Franciscan
mission in the northernmost part of Texas, Nachitoches. The missionary work of Fray
Margil, as he is known among Franciscans, was associated with a number of wonders and
miracles that brought him close to saintliness, thus the order of the friars’ minor and
their followers advocated for his canonization along with the venerable Sor María de
Jesús of Ágreda.
The sobriquets applied to Margil, “Northern Atlas Pilgrim,” and “Friar of the Winged
Feet,” respond to the miracles attributed to him in his extraordinary mobility, for the
speed with which he could travel from one place to another, very distant (e.g., from
Guatemala to Querétaro), in an amount of time impossible for a human being.40 Juan
Domingo Arricivita described Fray Margil’s missionary work in detail, describing him as a
Page 9 of 19

“kind of wonder in which were renewed the footprints of the primitive apostolic men, who
miraculously traveled the rough paths of these Realms,” and commenting that “such rare
speed was doubtless to be admired.”41 It seems that the friar only slept a few hours at
night, and on waking he read the writings of Sor María de Jesús with Fray Antonio de los
Angeles before moving on to confession and penitence: “He told me, like someone very
enlightened, what God had ordered, then I would lie on my back on the floor and he
would put his foot on my mouth, while reciting three credos: then I would sit and he
would do the same, until we reached the matins.”42 His dedication to meditating upon the
life, passion, and death of Christ was equal to his dedication to the Virgin through read
ing the history of her life that was transcribed by Mother Ágreda.
Fray Isidro Felix de Espinosa adds an interesting memory: acting as president of the Mis
sionary College of Zacatecas, Fray Margil exhorted the Franciscans to fulfill their duty to
recognize the Mother Guadalupana, since she ennobled the college, and “elect her as
their special prelate, in imitation of the venerable Mother María de Jesús of Ágreda, with
those most devout circumstances that can be read at the end of the third volume of the
Mystica Ciudad de Dios.”43 From then on, the Colegio de Zacatecas would recognize the
Virgin of Guadalupe as its prelate.
Additionally, Arricivita explicitly mentions Father Margil’s influence on the

(p. 518)
“beatas of Santa Rosa” and describes his effort to encourage them “so that they would be
perfect”44 and emulate the Virgin Mary in their qualities and actions. For a while, the fri
ar acted as confessor to the mestiza Francisca de los Angeles, one of the founders of the
Real Colegio Beaterio de Santa Rosa de Viterbo, in the city of Querétaro. The founding of
this Real Colegio Beaterio precisely in Querétaro was no coincidence, since the Francis
can Order had established the Colegio de Propaganda Fide de la Santa Cruz in that same
city in 1683, the purpose of which was to promote missionary work in northern New
Spain. Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús was among the founders of the Colegio de Santa
Cruz in this city that marked the beginning of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (the
Royal Inland Road).45
Francisca de los Angeles stands out in the history of mysticism in New Spain for having
been subject to a trial by the Inquisition, and later named a Venerable, along with her
mother and her two sisters, Gertrudis de Jesús and María Clara de la Asunción.46 In 1689
she entered cloistered life, taking the veil of the third Franciscan Order of Penance. Years
later, when the aforementioned Real Colegio was established by Royal Decree, on July 28,
1727, in a plot the sisters inherited from their father, she became the first rector of the in
stitution, dying at the age of seventy-eight “with a reputation for great saintliness.”47
Being followers of the Franciscans who were established in the recently founded Propa
ganda Fide college (1683), and under the protection of Friar Francisco de Frutes to whom
their father had entrusted them, the sisters received protection and guidance for the cre
ation of the beaterio.
Both the founding of this college and the circumstances in which Francisca took the veil
at an early age, coincide with the story of the life of Sor María de Jesús, who had died two
Page 10 of 19

decades earlier. Once in the cloister, Francisca began having mystical experiences that,
just as with Sor María, would spiritually transport her to the northern frontier of New
Spain, where she would act as a missionary, teaching the Gospel and catechizing the na
tives. Similarly, according to the account provided by María de Ágreda when she came in
to contact with the Indians, Francisca vowed that after traveling great distances, accom
panied by her guardian angel, she had verified the Indians’ willingness to be converted.
However, unlike Sor María, Francisca gave herself over to the task of carrying out bap
tisms. The Franciscan missionaries acknowledged her journeys and thus sought her coun
sel before leaving for the northern frontier. As Rubial García points out, the missionary ef
fort was to have her recognized as a local saint.48 This would undoubtedly help them ob
tain economic and political support for the work to be done in those regions.
Among the confessors of Francisca de los Angeles, Fray Margil de Jesús played an impor
tant role in the establishment of the beaterio, and, as a result, in the increase and ac
knowledgment of her virtues. Francisca’s writings, unlike Sor María’s extensive works,
are limited to a series of letters written between 1689 and 1736 to her confessors and
friends, who considered her to be a visionary. The letters narrate her intimate conversa
tions with God, and her ability to be transported spiritually to the region of Texas, to con
vert and baptize the Indians.49
Like Sor María de Jesús, Francisca de los Angeles affirmed that in her journeys to the
northern regions, a guardian angel took her place in the beaterio so that her absence
would (p. 519) go unnoticed. She also alleged that she had established “utopian” societies
in Texas, built churches, and performed mass for her disciples. Also, like Sor María, Fran
cisca described the places she visited in great detail. She was undoubtedly a fervent fol
lower of the Ágreda nun, whose spiritual writings she read enthusiastically and returned
to daily, as did her guide Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús, who spent whole days with the
nuns of Santa Clara and the beatas of Santa Rosa, to whom he provided confession and
counsel.50
Francisca’s spirituality was founded on her devotion to the passion of Christ, and she had
no doubt of her privileged relationship to the divine, especially the Holy Trinity, the Virgin
Mary, and the Catholic saints. At the age of twenty she suffered a trial by the Inquisition,
which accused her of being an alumbrada.51 But she was exonerated a few years after the
case began.
Beyond the similarities or differences between the two mystics, Sor María de Jesús de
Ágreda was undeniably a definitive influence on the apostolic life of Fray Margil de Jesús,
who, in his eagerness to attain the purest expression of primitive Franciscanism, placed
his hopes for a repetition of the miracle in the beata Francisca de los Angeles. For Fran
cisca, the emulation of Sor María, who was already venerable at the time, allowed her to
carve a space for herself in the society of Querétaro, even while she was aware of the risk
of a trial by the Inquisition and recognized its imminence in the religious climate of the
city.
Page 11 of 19

Saints and missionaries form part of an imagination that goes beyond the simple reason
ing of benefits or privileges that were obtained or desired for missionary work on the
northern frontier. The major difference between the mysticism of Sor María and that of
the beata mestiza of Querétaro resides in the fact that in each case their importance took
a course linked to the eschatological hopes of their times. On one hand, sor María de
Jesús lives on in her religious intention to one day become a saint; her works transcended
their time. In contrast Francisca de los Angeles, known in her time as a beata mestiza and
an alumbrada, was forgotten by the history of Franciscanism in New Spain, and perhaps
remains as just one among the women subjected to trial by the Inquisition: an episode
that demonstrates the power held by the Inquisition in New Spain.
The northern frontier of New Spain, as occurred in other borderlands of the Americas,
transcended in time and space the binary oppositions between good and evil, life and
death, the wars waged by Spaniards against the Indians and those of the Indians against
the Iberian invaders, the war against the devil, and the transformation of redeemed souls
that would follow. In all its different expressions, mysticism undoubtedly nurtured the
imaginary that was so needed for the survival of a monumental project for the spiritual
transformation of the heathen in these distant spaces of the vast territorial dominion of
colonial New Spain.
Bibliography
Acosta, José de. De Procuranda Indorum Salute. Madrid: CSIC, 1984.
Ágreda, Sor María de Jesús. Mystica Ciudad de Dios, milagro de su omnipotencia, y abis
mo de la gracia: Historia divina y vida de la Virgen Madre de Dios, Reyna y Señora Nues
tra, María Santissima, restauradora de la culpa de Eva, y medianera de la gracia: mani
festada en estos últimos siglos por la misma Señora a su Esclava Sor Maria de Jesus,
Abadesa del Convento de la Inmaculada Concepción de la Villa de Ágreda, de la provincia
de Burgos, de la Regular Observancia de nuestro Serafico Padre San Francisco, para nue
va luz del Mundo, alegría de la Iglesia Catholica, y confianza de los mortales. Madrid: Im
prenta de la Casa de la V. Madre, 1725.
Arricivita, Juan Domingo. Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica del Colegio de propaganda Fide
de la Santa Cruz de Querétaro en la Nueva España. Mexico: Don Felipe de Zúñiga y On
tiveros, 1792.
Benavides, Fray Alonso de. Memorial que Fray Iván de Santander de la Orden de
(p. 524)
San Francisco, Comissario General de Indias, presenta a la Magestad Catolica del Rey
don Felipe Qvarto nuestro Señor. Hecho por el Padre Fray Alonso de Benavides Comis
sario del Santo Oficio, y Custodio que ha sido de las Provincias, y conversiones del Nue
vo–Mexico. Tratese en el el de los Tesoros Espirituales, y temporales, que la divina
Magestad ha manifestado en aquellas conversiones, y nuevos descubrimientos, por medio
de los Padres de esta seráfica Religion. Con Licencia. Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1630.
Page 12 of 19

Espinosa, Isidro Felis de. Crónica Apostolica y Seraphica de todos los Colegios de Propa
ganda Fide de esta Nueva España de Misioneros Franciscanos Observantes. Mexico: Viu
da de don Jospeh Bernardo de Hogal, 1746.
Espinosa, Isidro Felis de. El peregrino septentrional atlante: delineado en la exemplarissi

ma vida del Venerable Padre Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús. Mexico: Joseph Bernardo de
Hogal, 1737.
Gil Albarracín, Antonio. ‘Estrategias espaciales de las órdenes mendicantes.’ Scripta No
va. Revista electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales X, 218. Accessed August 16 2016.
http://www.ub.es/geocrit/sn/sn-218–45.htm.
Mendieta, Jerónimo de. Vidas franciscanas. Mexico: UNAM, 1994.
Mendieta, Fray Gerónimo de. Historia eclesiástica indiana, t. II. Mexico: CONACULTA,
Cien de México, 2002.
Pastor Bodmer, Beatriz. El jardín y el peregrino: ensayos sobre el pensamiento utópico

latinoamericano, 1492–1695. Mexico: UNAM, 1999.
Rubial García, Antonio. Profetizas y solitarios. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica,

2006.
Sheridan, Cecilia. Anónimos y desterrados. La contienda por el ‘sitio que llaman de

Quauyla,’ siglos XVI–XVIII. Mexico: CIESAS, Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 2000.
Ximénez Samaniego, Joseph. Prologo Galeato. Relación de la vida de la V. Madre Sor

María de Jesús, Abadesa que fue, del Convento de la inmaculada Concepción, de la Villa
de Ágreda, de la Provincia de Burgos, y Notas a las tres partes de la Mystica Ciudad de
Dios con Privilegio. Madrid: Imprenta de la Causa de la V. Madre, 1759.
Notes:
(1.) Guillermo de Santa María, a Spanish Augustinian friar, witness of the Mixtón War
(1541) and missionary among the Indians known as Chichimecas for over two decades,
who is the author of the tract The War of the Chichimecas, participated in the theological
conference of 1569. Alberto Carrillo Cázares, El debate sobre la Guerra Chichimeca,
1531–1585. Derecho y política en la Nueva España, vol. I (Mexico: El Colegio de Mi
choacán, El Colegio de San Luis, 2000).
(2.) Archbishop-viceroy and first inquisitor of New Spain. In 1585 he summoned the third
Mexican council.
(3.) Andrea Martínez Baracs, Un gobierno de indios: Tlaxcala, 1519–1570 (Mexico: Fondo
de Cultura Económica, CIESAS, Colegio de Historia de Tlaxcala, 2008), 278.
Page 13 of 19

(4.) The missionary orders authorized by the Spanish Crown to evangelize the Indians in
the Americas were the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Mercedarians, Jesuits,
and Capuchins. The majority were Franciscans (57 percent of the missionaries between
the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries), with the Jesuits in second place (16 percent), and
the Dominicans third (15 percent). Antonio Gil Albarracín, “Estrategias espaciales de las
órdenes mendicantes,” Scripta Nova. Revista electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales
10, 218. Accessed August 16, 2016, http://www.ub.es/geocrit/sn/sn-218–45.htm.
(5.) Gil Albarracín, “Estrategias espaciales de las órdenes mendicantes.”
(6.) There is an extensive bibliography on the processes of colonization, mission activity,

and control of indigenous spaces in the northeast and northwest of New Spain. These
processes differ in many aspects in relation to the actions of Jesuits and Franciscans, and
Indians, as well as to the cultural diversity and ways of confronting Indians considered
“enemies” of the Crown. See Salvador Bernabéu Albert, coord., El gran norte mexicano.
Indios, misioneros y pobladores entre el mito y la historia (Seville: CSIC, 2009); Chantal
Cramaussel, La provincia de Santa Bárbara en Nueva Vizacaya (Mexico: SEP, Gobierno
del Estado de Chihuahua, 2004); Susan Deeds, Defiance and Deference in Mexico’s Colo
nial North (Texas: University of Texas Press, 2003); Cynthia Radding, Wandering Peoples.
Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces and Ecological Frontiers in Northwestern Mexico, 1700–1850
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997); Cecilia Sheridan, Anónimos y desterrados
(Mexico: CIESAS, Instituto Mora, 2000); Thomas E. Sheridan and Thomas H. Naylor, ed.,
Rarámuri. A Tarahumara Colonial Chronicle, 1607–1791 (Flagstaff: Northland Press,
1979); Thomas E. Sheridan and Nancy J. Parezo, eds., Paths of Life: American Indians of
the Southwest and northern Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996); David J.
Weber, The Spanish Frontier on North America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1992), among others.
(7.) Esteban J. Palomera, Fray Diego Valadés, O.F.M.: evangelizador humanista de la Nue
va España. El hombre, su época y su obra (Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1988),
99.
(8.) Representación del guardián y discretorio del Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Querétaro
al Comisario General de la orden de San Francisco sobre restitución a la misión de San
Juan Capistrano de los indios que huyeron a la de San Francisco de Vizarrón, 1754, fs. 1–
9, Archivo Franciscano, Fondo Reservado, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
Ms. 5/104. See the problem of frontier missions in Sheridan, Anónimos y desterrados,
171.
(9.) See Beatríz Fernández Herrero, La utopía de América: teoría, leyes, experimentos
(Barcelona: Editorial Anthropos, 1992).
(10.) Javier Ordiz Velázquez, “La utopía del Nuevo Mundo en el pensamiento de Bar
tolomé de las Casas y Fray Bernardino de Sahagún,” Tierras de León: Revista de la
Diputación Provincial 28, no. 71 (1988): 1–14.
Page 14 of 19

(11.) The tract was written in the first and second sessions of the First Provincial Congre
gation of the Society of Jesus in Peru in 1576 and was not published until 1588 since it
was censored by the Jesuits themselves, and by the Council of the Indies. Paulo Suess, La
conquista espiritual de la América española. Doscientos documentos del siglo XVI (Quito:
Abya-Yala, 2002), 274–284. A complete version was published in 1984 by the Consejo Su
perior de Investigaciones Científicas en España: José de Acosta, De Procuranda Indorum
Salute (Madrid: CSIC, 1984).
(12.) Bartolomé Escandell Bonet, Teoría del Discurso Historiográfico (Oviedo: Universidad
de Oviedo, 1992).
(13.) Beatriz Pastor Bodmer, El jardín y el peregrino: ensayos sobre el pensamiento tópico
latinoamericano, 1492–1695 (Mexico: UNAM, 1999), 219.
(14.) The beata was a common figure in New Spain, the term referring to those women
devoted to a mystical service but who had not officially taken the veil or lived in a con
vent. They could live alone and isolated in their homes or belong to a beaterio or religious
community. For more information on the meaning and role of these female figures in New
Spain’s society see Antonio Rubial García, Profetizas y solitarios (Mexico: Fondo de Cul
tura Económica, 2006), 30.
(15.) Quoted in Luis González, Jerónimo de Mendieta: Vida, pasión y mensaje de un indi
genista apocalíptico (Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1996), 61.
(16.) Michael Foucault, El cuerpo utópico. Las heterotopías (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Nue
va Visión, 2010), 21.
(17.) Jerónimo de Mendieta, Vidas franciscanas (Mexico: UNAM, 1994), 10.
(18.) Since there are numerous versions of this work by Mendieta, the order of the origi
nal, and the page numbers of the edition cited in this article will be systematically re
ferred. Gerónimo de Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana, t. II, Libro V, segunda parte
(Mexico: CONACULTA, Cien de México, 2002), 459. Brandon Bayne, “Converting the Pa
cific: Jesuit Networks between New Spain and Asia,” in The Oxford Handbook of Border
lands of the Iberian World, ed. Danna A. Levin Rojo and Cynthia Radding, 789–816 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2019) provides extensive treatment of the concept of mar
tyrdom without death, and the general motivations for missionary work in the context of
the Jesuit missions.
(19.) Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana, 460. For the different cultural and spatial
meanings of chichimeca see Fernando Berrojalbiz and Marie-Areti Hers, “Fluctuating
Frontiers in the Borderlands of Mesoamerica,” in The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of
the Iberian World, ed. Danna A. Levin Rojo and Cynthia Radding, 83–106 (New York: Ox
ford University Press, 2019), and Cecilia Sheridan Prieto, Fronterización del espacio ha
cia el norte de la Nueva España (Mexico: CIESAS, Instituto Mora, 2015), 91.
Page 15 of 19

(20.) Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana, 500, 502. The desire for martyrdom is also
seen among Jesuit missionaries. Carta del padre Fernando Consag de la Compañía de
Jesús Visitador de las Misiones de California a los Padres Superiores de esta Provincia de
Nueva España, prol. María Eugenia Patricia Ponce Alcocer (Mexico: Universidad
Iberoamericana, 2005).
(21.) Registro de los Autos formados el año de 1673 en la ciudad de Guadalajara a peti
ción del Procurador General de la Provincia de Santiago de Xalisco de la orden de San
Francisco, 1673–1674, 30, Archivo Franciscano, Fondo Reservado, Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México, Ms.5/86. Mendieta, Vidas franciscanas, insists on this point. Pastor
Bodmer, El jardín y el peregrino, 237, mentions that for the Franciscans this accelerated
conversion and baptism was a convenient way to expedite the fulfillment of prophecies—
the end times, for example—a system in conflict with the Dominicans, who insisted on a
more rigorous catechism that cast doubt on the idea of the Indians’ natural readiness for
baptism.
(22.) Joseph Arlegui, Crónica de la Provincia de N.S.P.S. Francisco de Zacatecas: com

puesta por el M.R.P FR. Joseph Arlegui [1737] (Mexico: Cumplido Impresor, 1851), 55.
(23.) Francisco de los Ángeles, “Patente y obediencia” taken from Mendieta, Historia
Eclesiástica Indiana, L.III, Cap. X, cited by Elsa Cecilia Frost, La historia de Dios en las
Indias. Visión franciscana del Nuevo Mundo (Mexico: Tusquets Editores, 2002), 166.
(24.) Joseph Ximénez Samaniego, Prologo Galeato. Relación de la vida de la V. Madre Sor
María de Jesús, Abadesa que fue, del Convento de la inmaculada Concepción, de la Villa
de Ágreda, de la Provincia de Burgos, y Notas a las tres partes de la Mystica Ciudad de
Dios con Privilegio (Madrid: Imprenta de la Causa de la V. Madre, 1759).
(25.) Ximénez Samaniego, Prologo Galeato, 100.
(28.) A Spanish missionary, member of the regular observance and guardianship of con
version in New Mexico, to whom Ximénez Samaniego refers as “a man of great spirit, and
zeal for the conversion of souls,” Prólogo Galeato, 95.
(29.) Alonso de Benavides, Memorial que Fray Iván de Santander de la Orden de San
Francisco, Comissario General de Indias, presenta a la Magestad Catolica del Rey don Fe
lipe Qvarto nuestro Señor. Hecho por el Padre Fray Alonso de Benavides Comissario del
Santo Oficio, y Custodio que ha sido de las Provincias, y conversiones del Nuevo–Mexico.
Tratese en el de los Tesoros Espirituales, y temporales, que la divina Magestad ha mani
festado en aquellas conversiones, y nuevos descubrimientos, por medio de los Padres de
esta seráfica Religion (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1630).
Page 16 of 19

(30.) Mar Rey Bueno, Magos y reyes. El ocultismo y lo sobrenatural en las monarquías
(Madrid: EDAF, 2004), 209.
(31.) Benavides, Memorial.
(33.) Diego Miguel Bringas, Índice Apologético de las razones que recomiendan la obra
intitulada Mistica Ciudad de Dios escrita por la Ven. Madre Sor María de Jesus Coronel y
Arama, fundadora y abadesa del religiosisimo convento de religiosas descalzas de la
Purisima Concepción de la villa de Ágreda (Valencia: Oficina de Brusola, 1834), 280.
(34.) Junípero Serra, “Traslados de las razones, que la Bendita Madre María de Jesús es
cribe a los dichos PP. del Nuevo México,” in Francisco Palou, Relación histórica de la vida
y apostólicas tareas del Venerable Padre Fray Junípero Serra, y de las misiones que fundó
en la California Septentrional, y nuevos establecimientos de Monterrey (Mexico: Im
prenta de Don Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1787), 340–341.
(37.) First published in 1684 in Lisbon by Miguel Manescal, printer of the Holy Inquisi
tion.
(38.) Serge Gruzinski, La colonización de lo imaginario. Sociedades indígenas y occiden

talización en el México español. Siglos XVI–XVIII (Mexico: Fondo de cultura Económica,
1991), 196.
(39.) The “exercises” authored by Sister María de Jesús can be consulted in the last three
volumes of the Obras no Impresas de la V.M. Sor Maria de Jesús, comp. Juan Izidro Yáñez
Faxardo, available in the Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberamericano. Accessed Au
gust 8, 2016, www.iberoamericadigital.net; For friar Antonio Margil, see the hagiography
by friar Isidro Felis de Espinosa, El peregrino septentrional atlante: delineado en la exem
plarissima vida del Venerable Padre Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús (Mexico: Joseph Bernar
do de Hogal, 1737). Concerning the propaganda fide colleges, see Isidro Felis de Es
pinosa, Crónica Apostolica y Seraphica de todos los Colegios de Propaganda Fide de esta
Nueva España de Misioneros Franciscanos Observantes (Mexico: Viuda de don Jospeh
Bernardo de Hogal, 1746).
(40.) Concerning the ‘wonders’ attributed to friar Antonio Margil de Jesús, see Espinosa,
El peregrino septentrional atlante.
(41.) Juan Domingo Arricivita, Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica del Colegio de propaganda
Fide de la Santa Cruz de Querétaro en la Nueva España (Mexico: Don Felipe de Zúñiga y
Ontiveros, 1792), 36.
(42.) Arricivita, Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica, 278.
Page 17 of 19

(43.) Espinosa, El peregrino septentrional atlante, 408. In 1643 Sister María de Jesús de
Ágreda and the nuns of her convent took a vow for persuading the king’s council to name
the Virgin Mary as the patron saint of Spain, which occurred over a century later when
Charles III declared the Immaculate Conception principal patron of Spain. Monique
Gustin, “Iglesias de cal y canto,” in La Sierra Gorda: documentos para su historia, vol. I,
coord. Margarita Velasco Mireles (Mexico: INAH, 1997), 293.
(44.) Arricivita, Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica, 110.
(45.) On the camino real de tierra adentro, see Tatiana Seijas “The Royal Road of the Inte
rior in New Spain: Indigenous Commerce and Political Action,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Borderlands of the Iberian World, ed. Danna A. Levin Rojo and Cynthia Radding, 295–
313 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). On the Colegio de Propaganda Fide de la
Santa Cruz de Querétaro, see Espinosa, Crónica apostólica y seráfica, 1746.
(46.) Varias declaraciones en el caso de Francisca de los Ángeles, 1694, México, Archivo
General de la Nación (hereafter AGN), Ramo Inquisición, vol. 693, exp. 5 and 6.
(47.) Gazeta de México VIII, 17, 133 (3 September 1796), due to the celebration of the
Rectory Chapter of the Colegio de Santa Rosa de Viterbo in the city of Querétaro.
(48.) Rubial García, Profetizas y solitarios, 40.
(49.) Ellen Gunnarsdóttir, Mexican Karismata. The Baroque Vocation of Francisca de los
Ángeles, 1674–1744 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).
(50.) Ellen Gunnarsdóttir, ‘Una visionaria barroca de la provincia mexicana: Francisca de

los Ángeles (1674–1744),’ in Monjas y beatas. La escritura femenina en la espiritualidad
barroca novohispana siglos XVII y XVIII, ed. Asunción Lavrin and Rosalba Loreto (Ali
cante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2006), 205–261.
(51.) El fiscal del Santo Oficio contra una mujer llamada Francisca de los Ángeles, vecina
de Querétaro por alumbrada, 1694, México, AGN, Ramo Inquisición, vol. 693, exp. 5.
Cecilia Sheridan Prieto
Cecilia Sheridan Prieto, Senior Researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estu

dios Superiores en Antropología Social, Northeast Region, Mexico received her doc
torate in history from the Colegio de México. Her research focus is on colonization
and indigenous territorialities in the northeast of New Spain. She has published nu
merous articles and chapters in edited volumes as well as two books: Anónimos y
desterrados. La contienda por el “sitio que llaman de Quauyla” (2000), and Fronteri
zación del espacio hacia el norte de la Nueva España (2015). She is a member of the
Academia Mexicana de Ciencias and the Mexican Sistema Nacional de Investi
gadores. In 2016 she received the Premio Atanasio G. Sarabia, granted by the Fun
dación Cultural Banamex for the best professional research on regional history.
Page 18 of 19

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Franciscan Mysticism on the Northern Frontier of New Spain

Franciscan Mysticism on the Northern Frontier of New

Print Publication Date: Dec 2019 Subject: History, European History

Abstract and Keywords

—Fray Joseph Jiménez Samaniego (1759)

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

These events ushered in a long period of religious conquest in the Americas, in

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Several significant instances of mysticism were influenced by the Franciscan evangelizing

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús and the San­

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Additionally, Arricivita explicitly mentions Father Margil’s influence on the

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Espinosa, Isidro Felis de. El peregrino septentrional atlante: delineado en la exemplarissi­

Mendieta, Jerónimo de. Vidas franciscanas. Mexico: UNAM, 1994.

Pastor Bodmer, Beatriz. El jardín y el peregrino: ensayos sobre el pensamiento utópico

Rubial García, Antonio. Profetizas y solitarios. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica,

Sheridan, Cecilia. Anónimos y desterrados. La contienda por el ‘sitio que llaman de

Ximénez Samaniego, Joseph. Prologo Galeato. Relación de la vida de la V. Madre Sor

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

(5.) Gil Albarracín, “Estrategias espaciales de las órdenes mendicantes.”

(6.) There is an extensive bibliography on the processes of colonization, mission activity,

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

(17.) Jerónimo de Mendieta, Vidas franciscanas (Mexico: UNAM, 1994), 10.

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

(22.) Joseph Arlegui, Crónica de la Provincia de N.S.P.S. Francisco de Zacatecas: com­

(25.) Ximénez Samaniego, Prologo Galeato, 100.

(26.) Ximénez Samaniego, Prologo Galeato, 132.

(27.) Ximénez Samaniego, Prologo Galeato, 139.

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

(31.) Benavides, Memorial.

(32.) Benavides, Memorial.

(35.) Ximénez Samaniego, Prologo Galeato, 138.

(36.) Benavides, Memorial.

(38.) Serge Gruzinski, La colonización de lo imaginario. Sociedades indígenas y occiden­

(42.) Arricivita, Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica, 278.

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

(44.) Arricivita, Crónica Seráfica y Apostólica, 110.

(48.) Rubial García, Profetizas y solitarios, 40.

(50.) Ellen Gunnarsdóttir, ‘Una visionaria barroca de la provincia mexicana: Francisca de

Cecilia Sheridan Prieto

Cecilia Sheridan Prieto, Senior Researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estu­

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

Subscriber: New York Public Library; date: 05 May 2021

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