It is not an easy matter to disentangle the motives lying back of any great enterprise such as the Spanish conquest and colonization in the Americas. The idea has been very generally held, even among historians, that the Spaniards were universally obsessed with a lust for gold, and however much or little other motives may have entered in, that this lust for gold was the motive above all others which inspired them to feats with few if any parallels in all history for courage and endurance and achievement. “Tell your master,” Cortés is reported to have said to the emissaries of Moctezuma, “that we Spaniards have a fever in our blood which can be cooled only by gold.”

The Mexican of today is proud of his Indian descent, and the heavy discount which he places on what the Spaniard has done for him is typified, for example, in the imposing statue to Cuauctemoc which was given one of the points of greatest prominence on the stately Paseo of Mexico City. One of the large bronze tablets on the base of that statue portrays Cortés and his captains putting the Aztec princes to the torture, roasting their feet to compel them to reveal their hidden treasure; and at that statue today centers the national Fiesta de la Raza.

André Thevet, priest and friar, almoner to Catherine de Medici, cosmographer to four kings of France, is remembered by students of Brazilian history as one of the chroniclers of the unsuccessful attempt on the part of Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon (1510–1571) to found a French settlement in Rio bay. One might say that Thevet’s career was in a very real sense the product of the Christian humanism of the sixteenth century, and his life practically spanned those momentous one hundred years. Apparently of humble stock, he was born in the ancient town of Angoulême in 1502, almost at the time when Brazil was discovered. Of his early life and education virtually nothing is known, and a search for records made a number of years ago in his native city failed to disclose anything that might throw light on his first years.

Three centuries of fertile activity from San Fernando to Isabel la Católica place Spain in a prominent position among the nations of Europe. From being the source of revelation and interpretation of Eastern Culture, she becomes on the eve of the discovery of America, the disseminator of Western Culture.

At the end of the fifteenth century, Spain finds itself prepared to accomplish its high historic mission. Armed with a powerful Christian Faith, victorious in its secular struggle against the Moors, unified spiritually and politically, but nevertheless yearning for deeds of prowess and adventure, Spain feels the imperative necessity of spreading over the New World its spiritual abundance.

A Phase of American history that calls for a more adequate appraisal is the role played by Catholics in the cultural life of Mexico during the nineteenth century, from Hidalgo’s dash for independence in 1810 to the collapse of the Díaz regime in 1910. It is commonly believed that during these hundred years Catholics in Mexico were dolefully sitting on the sidelines and sucking their thumbs, wistfully waiting for a chance to enter once more and enrich with their contribution the temple of national culture. So many imagine that Catholics in nineteenth-century Mexico, being fettered politically and black-listed socially, manifested little interest and made no worthwhile contributions along cultural lines. Belonging generally to the so-called “conservative” party in the political arena, they are supposed to have been debarred from the cultured “liberal” circles of the day and for this reason remained inarticulate, contributing nothing of real importance and enduring value to the culture of independent Mexico and exerting no appreciable influence on contemporary literature, art, science, and education.

I Dedicate this article to the so-called Indigenists and Apristas, who, perhaps with very good intentions, preach the return to Indian primitivism. They advocate this, in the first place, without ever having lived the life of the Indian and secondly, with complete forgetfulness that the only thing that made men of the Indians was the doctrine of the gospel of Christ and that the only ones who understood the Indians were the Catholic missionaries.

I also want to emphasize the long and special preparation the missionaries underwent before attempting the conversion of millions of Indians, a fact which has not been stressed sufficiently in the works dedicated to this subject.

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…

A Survey of the history of the Franciscan Provinces and Mission Colleges of Hispanic America, particularly of the colonial period, it seems to the writer, will be a contribution to historical scholarship inasmuch as it will point the way for further investigations by those who are devoting or who wish to devote themselves to historical research.

To many others who perhaps have heard only of the Franciscan Missions of California, such an outline will convey a faint idea at least of the magnitude and extent of the missionary work which has been carried on by the sons of St. Francis in the vast Spanish and Portuguese portions of the New World.

When Father Bartolomé Lledó, parish priest of St. Peter’s Church, Petra, Mallorca, entered another name into the baptismal register on Nov. 24, 1713, he automatically became the originator of “Serrana” as we will henceforth call Serra literature. He wrote but five succinct lines in current Mallorquín and no doubt looked upon it as a routine though obligatory task. The subject of his entry might have turned out to be no more than a God-fearing, industrious Mallorcan farmer and thus the body of Serrana would have remained just five lines of Mallorquín. But by the time another priest, Father Francisco Palou, on Sept. 5, 1784, at the Indian mission of San Carlos de Monterey, in California, wrote an unusually long death record in the libro de difuntos, events fraught with significance in Church and State had occurred. Miguel Joseph Serra had died as Fray Junipero Serra, founder and Presidente of the California missions. Seventy full and energetic years had passed, packed with thoughtful plans, arresting drama, and ceaseless activity in which oratory, authorship and practical administration were happily blended. Seventy years of Serrana had come into existence.