Our Debt to the Franciscan Missionaries of New Mexico

It is especially fitting that the Academy of American Franciscan History is being formally inaugurated this month, for in this same month of April, three hundred and thirty-five years ago, the Franciscan Commissary General of the Indies, by authority of the General of the Franciscan Order, instructed Fray Juan de Torquemada to prepare an official history of the Franciscan province of New Spain, the first to be published, in words that may well be repeated here. He wrote: “Considering how just and desirable it is that the memory of saintly men, who by their heroic deeds honored our Holy Religion, ... be preserved for all time ... :We are of the opinion that in our own times it is desirable to prepare chronicles that make known these deeds ... And having investigated with special care the persons in this province of ours of talent, learning, virtue, and the other qualifications necessary for such an important and arduous undertaking, we have agreed that your reverence, who has all of these qualifications, be entrusted and charged ... with bringing to light the many unknown facts of importance that are worthy of being recorded and known by everyone. And thus, by these presents, we request, and if necessary so order, that your reverence undertake to gather all of the reports and writings ... that may be found, for the preparation of new chronicles of all the provinces, verifying anew the facts in each case, and inquiring into, or tracing and checking, the specific and general matters of importance ... which in that and the other provinces of New Spain may be verified and written up, your reverence preparing all in good literary style and in historical form

Debt · Order (exchange · Political science · Reverence · Virtue · Classics · History · Latin American history and culture · Law

• Articles with Franciscan Content in The Americas , 1944–2023

  Open Access•John F Schwaller•The Americas A Quarterly Review…•2025

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