In 1562 Father Mendieta addressed a letter to Padre Francisco de Bustamante, the comisario general of his order,[1] in which he makes a vigorous defence of the regular orders, and attributes the evils existing in the country to the interference with the authority and privileges of friars by bishops and oidores. Against the audiencia he inveighs with much severity.[2] and considers that the viceregal power should be
- ↑ Mendieta, Carta, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., ii. 515-44.
- ↑ 'Porque es verdad (coram Deo) que es tanta la desórden, y tantos los
Doc., ii.; Mendieta, in Prov. S. Evang., MS., No. 16, 201-26; Dice. Univ. Hist. Geog., v. 238. Fray Gerónimo de Mendieta was the author of several works, of which I enumerate the following: Carta al Rey Don Felipe desde Toluca en 8 de Octubre de 1565, sobre gobernacion de las Indias, MS., fol. 9 pp. This letter is said to have been forwarded in duplicate or triplicate by different conveyances. The present copy is specially recommended, January 20, 1570, by the provincial and definitorio of the Santo Evangelio (Franciscan province), to which the author belonged. It contains 24 articles expressive of the king's duty to provide the best possible government for the Indians, including the religious instruction of the natives and their amelioration in general. ide from the author's excessive preference for the religious, and manifest prejudice against the secular clergy, his letter is commendable as embodying much wisdom. Correspondencia con varios personages desde 1570 á 1572 sobre asuntos de Nueva España é Indias, MS., fol. 26 pp., contains six letters from Father Mendieta to Licenciado Juan de Ovando, of the royal council in the holy and general inquisition, and visitador of the said royal council; one from Ovando to him; and one from Mendieta to the comisario general of the Indies for the Franciscan order. The first letter is highly important, wherein he gives his views on three points upox which Ovando had doubts, namely: 1. How to bring about harmony and good understanding between bishops and friars in the Indies. 2. How to get tithes from the Indians without oppressing them. 3. How Spaniards were to form settlements in the Indies without injuring the natives. His views are expressed in a clear, unbiassed manner. Another letter, the third alluded to, sets forth the best mode, in his opinion, to rule the religious order of Saint Francis in the Indies, for obtaining the greatest good from it. Ovando's letter expresses his high regard for Mendieta's advice, and calls for more of it. But his most noted work was Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, Mexico, 1870, 1 vol. 8vo, 790 pp., preceded by 45 pages of matter pertinent to the author and his work, the whole carefully edited by Joaquin García Icazbalceta. It is properly a history of the conversion of the Indians of New Spain, from the time of the conquest to about the close of the sixteenth century; but as the earlier friars and prelates played so important a part in public affairs, the volume also gives much valuable information on such matters not to be found elsewhere except, perhaps, at second hand. Icazbalceta added to the value of the book by a notice of the author and his work, careful and exhaustive as are all such notices by him; and by an elaborate collation of Mendieta's Historia and Torquemada's Monarquía Indiana, showing how extensively and openly the latter plagiarized from the former. Mendieta's production, finished in 1596, remained in obscurity 274 years. He had sent the manuscript to Spain for publication, but it never appeared till Icazbalceta, as he tells us, discovered it in the library of Bartolomé José Gallardo just deceased, and issued it at his own expense, for which he should receive due credit. The editor gives, moreover, the authorities that Mendieta availed himself of in the preparation of his work, some of whom have reached us only in name, and the later ones that took advantage of his labors, among whom the most noted is Torquemada.
