belonging to the province of San Diego. They also spread toward the north, founding establishments in Querétaro, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato. They moreover directed their attention to the Sierra Gorda region,[1] but with less success, and consequently prosecuted their labors more generally in the province of Mexico, where they possessed the college of Pachuca[2] and the house of Recollects at San Cosme.
By the close of the sixteenth century the Augustinians had founded so many convents in localities scattered over so wide a range of country, that it was found necessary to divide the provincia into two separate jurisdictions. Accordingly, permission having been obtained from the general of the order, together with the king's sanction, in 1602 the division was effected, the new provincia comprising the territories of Michoacan and Jalisco, under the name of the provincia de San Nicolas Tolentino,[3] while that of Mexico retained the former title of Santísimo Nombre de Jesus. On the 22d of June, 1602, the first chapter was held at Uquareo attended by twenty priors, presided over by Padre Pedro de Vera, who had been elected provincial.[4]
It is unnecessary to pursue in detail the history of the provincia of San Nicolás. The conditions and mode of progress were similar to those of other orders; the friars founded new convents and missions, struggled against the authority of viceroys and audiencias, opposed ecclesiastical encroachments, and were internally agitated by the vexed question of equality of Spaniards and creoles.[5]
- ↑ In about 1757 the order wished to resign its settlements in that district, but was refused license to do so. Soriano, Prólogo, MS., 5.
- ↑ Founded by virtue of a bull of Pope Benedict XIII. of April 3, 1727, and confirmed in July 1733 by Clement XII. Soriano Prólogo, MS., 4.
- ↑ Torquemada, iii. 333; Grijalua, Chron. de S. Augustin, 217-18; Salguero, Vida, 12. The king of Spain gave his permission in 1601; the act by which the division was made was issued by the 'padre maestro' in Mexico on the 17th of March, 1602.
- ↑ Prov. Mich. Agust., 111-13. The author of this work states that the viceroy had previously objected to the division.
- ↑ For 20 years the society of San Nicolas was ruled by the former, and
