REREADING THE CONQUEST
REREADING THE CONQUEST
Power, Politics, and the History of Early Colonial Michoacán, Mexico, 1521–1565
James Krippner-Martínez
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REREADING THE CONQUEST
REREADING THE CONQUEST
Power, Politics, and the History of Early Colonial Michoacán, Mexico, 1521–1565
James Krippner-Martínez
T h e P e n n s y l v a n i a S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s
U n i v e r s i t y P a r k , P e n n s y l v a n i a
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krippner-Martínez, James, 1962–
Rereading the conquest: power, politics, and the history of early colonial
Michoacán, Mexico, 1521–1565 / James Krippner-Martinez
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–271–02129–2 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Indians of Mexico—Mexico—Michoacán de Ocampo—Missions. 2. Indians
of Mexico—Mexico—Michoacán de Ocampo—History. 3. Michoacán
de Ocampo (Mexico)—History—16th century. 4. Michoacán de Ocampo
(Mexico)—Historiography. 5. Tarasco Indians—Missions. 6. Tarasco
Indians—History. I. Title.
F1219.1M55 K75 2001
972Ј.3702—dc21
2001021477
Copyright © 2001 The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802–1003
It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper for
the first printing of all clothbound books. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the
minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
Disclaimer:
Some images in the original version of this book are not
available for inclusion in the eBook.
C O N T E N T S
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Part I. The Politics of Conquest
1 The Vision of the Victors: History, Memory, and the
Proceso contra Tzintzincha Tangaxoan [1530] 9
2 Alterity, Alliance, and the Relación de Michoacán [1541] 47
3 The Writings of Vasco de Quiroga 71
Part II. Reflections
4 Representing the “Spiritual Conquest”:
The Crónica de Michoacán [1788] 109
5 Remembering Tata Vasco 151
Conclusion 181
Bibliography 193
Index 213
P R E F A C E
On October 26–27, 1990, my long-standing interest in religion and politics
became focused on the history and historiography of the sixteenth-century
missionary evangelization of Michoacán. On these dates I attended an ex-
tended series of lectures, speeches, a play, and public ceremonies in Morelia
and Pátzcuaro that commemorated several decisive moments in Michoacán’s
early colonial history. All of these activities in some way referred to Vasco de
Quiroga, who served as the region’s first bishop from 1538 until his death in
1565. They included the 450th anniversary of the Imagen de Nuestra Señora
de la Salud, the Virgin cherished as the patron of Don Vasco’s village-hospi-
tals; the anniversary of his decision to make the village of Pátzcuaro the cen-
ter of his ecclesiastical administration; the 425th anniversary of his death; and
the 450th anniversary of the founding of the Colegio de San Nicolás, the first
seminary/college on the American continent and precursor to the contem-
porary Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo.1
These events culminated in the transfer of Vasco de Quiroga’s mortal re-
mains from a safe in the baptistry of the Basilica de Pátzcuaro to a new, more
prominent mausoleum in the same location.2
Prior to October 26 and 27,
1990, I had embarked on the first stages of research for what was intended to
be a dissertation on Catholicism and regional political culture in the late
colonial era. At the time, graduate training in social history and an interest in
liberation theology shaped my perception of the Mexican colonial past.
1. Francisco Miranda, Don Vasco de Quiroga y su Colegio de San Nicolas (Morelia, Mexico,
1972), 39–40.
2. La Voz de Michoacán (Morelia, México), October 26, 1990, 9-A, 1-B, 9-B; La Jornada
(Mexico City), October 28, 1990, 14; Francisco Martín Hernández, Don Vasco de Quiroga (Pro-
tector de los indios) (Salamanca, 1993), 261; Manuel Toussaint, Pátzcuaro (Mexico City, 1942), 126.
viii
PREFACE
I considered Vasco de Quiroga and the other missionary “defenders of the
Indians” to be precursors of the martyred Latin American Church of the 1970s
and 1980s, in a manner that now seems excessively linear though not entirely
incorrect.3
As I rode the bus from Mexico City to Morelia, and then from
Morelia to Pátzcuaro, I became increasingly curious about the various ways
that Don Vasco was remembered more than four centuries after his death.
In Pátzcuaro, I found the cultural politics demonstrated by the joint par-
ticipation of the Catholic Church and representatives from the traditionally
anticlerical Mexican State to be the most remarkable aspect of the entire ex-
perience. This indicated that the public distance between these institutions—
notable since the liberal reforms of the nineteenth century, and deepened
after the Mexican Revolution (1910–17)—had been substantially reduced, the
result of a rapprochement engineered by the Vatican and the Salinas admin-
istration.4
A...