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Show 294 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN Mota Padilla gives expression, in a lamentable way, to the sentiment which seems to have prevailed in court circles in Spain, as to the real benefits which the crown would reap by these conquests in the New World, for he says: ‘‘It is most likely the chastisement of God that riches were not found on this expedition, because, when this ought to have been the secondary object of the expedition, and the conversion of all those heathen their first aim, they bartered with fate and struggled after the secondary; and thus the misfortune is not so much that all those labors were without fruit, but the worst is that such a number of souls have remained in their blindDeas, When the news reached Spain of the martyrdom of the friar Juan de Padilla, a number of Franciscans were fired with the onl of entering the country and carrying on the work thus begun. Seyeral received the royal permission and went to the Pueblo country. It is said that one of them was killed at Tiguex, where most of them settled. A few went on to Cicuyé or Pecos, where they found a cross which the friar Juan de Padilla had erected. Proceeding to Quivira, the natives there counseled them not to proceed further. They were given an account of the manner in which the friar Juan de Padilla had been put to death, and said, that if he had taken their advice, he would not have been killed.2°° Every facility was granted to these friars, by the government, for their coming to New Spain and other portions 2° of the newly discovered countries. These appeals from New Spain were nearly always addressed to the h mendicant i whose Their orders. These Sole object in view was friars were sent by the conversion THE HISTORY their of the superiors, barbarians. vows of poverty protected them against the temptations were not resisted by the soldiers themsel ves. In 1522, Pope Adrian VI invested the Franciscans with his own apostolic wake ity In everything which the friars, being on the ground, thought necessary for the salvation of the souls of the s avages, when , there one were :no bishops or where the bisho ps, if there were any, resided at which *6¢ Mota Padilla, cap.oaxxxiii, 4. p 200. It is not difficult to understand the Sentiments of Mota Padilla, for imbued with the idea of a peacefu& way a Franciscan himself, and thoroughly l ¢ onquest of the natives and their salvation throughal the medi um of th @ memb 5 Siccnaninan : ers of his order. oe, oY + arker, Coronado Expedition, 14th B. A. E ) 266 Herrer a, Historia, vol. 1, dec. 536. 1, lib, vi, Cap. xx, p- 174. eae SPANISH FRIARS 255 a distance of a two days’ journey.?*’ It was the glory of the Franciscan order that Fr. Juan de Padilla had sealed with his blood the cause of Christianity while attached to the expedition under Coronado. The Franciscans were by far the most popular of the orders, as they were also the most powerful, and the members were greatly beloved by the Indians. The relative position of the Spanish soldier and the Franciscan friar, so far as the esteem of the poor Indians was manifest, is expressed by Nufio de Guzman, one of the most cruel hearted of all the Spanish conquerors, who said that ‘‘the poor natives were well disposed to receive the friars, while they flee from us as stags fly in the forest.’’ °° As has been said, the Spanish settlements, during the forty years succeeding the Coronado expedition, had gradually proceeded northward from New Galicia to the southern portion of Chihuahua. In this state, in the neighborhood of the present Jimenez, known at that time by the various names of San Bartolomé, Santa Barbola, and San Gregorio, rich mines were being worked by the Spaniards. At the settlement, present working as was always the case, the Franciscans were for the cross, and, at this particular place, there was also a small military force, maintained for the protection of the settlers and miners. At this settlement, there was living a Franciscan friar, named Agustin Rodriguez.?°° This good friar, after the fashion of those of his order of that day, was filled with an ardent desire for martyrdom, as a fitting close and reward for his work in the salvation of souls. This soldier of the cross had read the narrative of Alvar Nufiez Cabeza de Vaca, and had also received much information from the Conchos and Passaguate Indians, who told him that far to the north were some large cities and kingdoms which had not yet been discovered or explored by the Spaniards. Moved by the usual desire determined, region. for the conversion if possible, Therefore of these to secure in November, heathen permission 1580, he made people, the friar to visit this far-off application to the get Icazbaleeta, Zummaraga, p. 111. This papal bull was called the Omntmoda. 268 Doc. Inédit., vol. ii, p. 356. 269 In the narrative attached to the Relacion of Espejo, this friar is called Agustin Ruiz, but he is known by the name of Rodriguez by Torquemada, Mota Padilla, and Aparicio. Being a Franciscan, Mota Padilla ought to know. |