The Institute on Man and Science; City of Man in historical perspective

Latin American perspectives a program of comment and analysis about current Latin American problems and their historical setting. The commentator for these programs is Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Here now is Dr. Gardiner south of the border in Mexico. The confrontation of European and American Spaniard an Indian that is has been a curious thing since the beginning and the beginning of course was long ago. We have today a new volume that by R. C. Patton intitled the hummingbird and the hawk. Subtitled conquest and sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico between 15 3 and 15 40 what. This Work. Unlike others that have previously focused on personalities on the drama on the military conquest on the politics has an interlacing of politics

and religion. The church state relationship that exist in both the Aztec way of life before the Spaniards came and in the Spanish way of life after the discovery and conquests settlement of Mexico in consequence. The humming bird and the hawk is the story of the transition. The conflict between competing Church-State systems we have in part then an anthropological historical work historical religious work and that still leaves us with the strangeness of the title. With us today of course the expressions doves and hawks represent two approaches to the same issue. By one people the people of the United States but the expressions the hummingbird in the hawk used by author Patton Hopper's two different approaches to this common problem of church

state relations by different peoples. Indeed two different cultures are involved. The hummingbird relates to one of the almost unpronounceable native Mexican gods we to look the hawk. Obviously then falls into the camp of the Spaniards and Christianity. The average Spaniard who lived early in the sixteenth century could no more readily distinguish between religion and sovereignty than we of today can confuse the two. It is largely on this account that we so often fail to read or succeed in misreading the Spanish conquerors thoughts and actions that those thoughts provoked yet we must understand how and why he happened to be doing God's work. His King's work and his own all simultaneously what constituted the Imperial ideal

dualism was inherent in the sixteenth century concept of sovereignty because it had both religious and political courage throughout the Middle Ages popes have been called upon to arbitrate temporal disputes. They could and frequently did settle international conflicts by confirming sovereignty or denying it. No in the Western tradition sovereignty almost always involves property of some sort. In fact it is almost as difficult to imagine sovereignty without ownership as it is ownership without property. While the princes of the church acted as arbiters on the basis of Peter's inheritance there were ancient Roman laws. But secular rulers could invoke to secure their ends thorny questions of sovereignty constituted substantially to the divisions of the 16th century much of which could be attributed

to secular princes who are reviving Roman legal principles in their bid for political and ecclesiastical power in the newly centralized national states. And so when it came down to the problem of sovereignty and possession there were two avenues of approach. It was of course the great discovery discovery of America that made the Spanish Empire possible and gave it identity. It also gave rise to the last and most colossal of the people. Donations and provided the ultimate test of the Roman principle of occupancy which for centuries had guided the feudal lords in formation of their estates and in more recent years a given the new monarchs a ready instrument for creation of their national domain. Occupancy one of the time honored natural means of acquiring things was broadly inclusive. It governed an occupied lands jams subsoil riches

abandoned movables the bounties of nature and lands newly discovered. This was the legal engine of the Spanish recon quest against the pagan movers in Spain itself. And it was firmly rooted in the conquerors mind when he invaded the Western Hemisphere. We have then the coming of a church state relationship out of Europe colliding with that which found Montezuma and those who had been monarchs before him and those who followed him also heading a church state relationship and the one of course being so monopolistic. In either case the one could not tolerate the presence of the other. History of course will find the Spaniard victorious over the Indian Christianity victorious over the policy as I'm of the religion of Mexico and in consequence the collision finds many of the

Mexican chieftains the Indian leaders converted to Christianity but Christian conversion in baptism meant little more to them than taking a Christian name especially during the early years. There were not enough friars to provide preliminary instruction at all to often in rural areas. There was little or no catechism following baptism so the first contact was not infrequently the last as well. Conversion was therefore primarily a political act for those who sought to rule to direct yet another loyalty to them. But as a functional focus of sovereignty Christianity could not did not succeed immediately. It was not adequately understood by the Mexican Indians or established to support the appeals that must be made to them under the way of life they previously had known. In other words church to the Spaniard and religion to the Spaniard was not the same as it had been

religion to the Indian he would find for example that a great deal of terror a great deal of fear was part and parcel of the Indian religion whereas brotherhood love tender gentler graces and attributes presumably were dominant in Christianity while the Chieftains attempted to use the new cult as they believe the old one had been employed. They soon found that such was impossible essentially because Christianity failed to evoke terror and so why should not the Chieftain after a brief period of experimentation tend to lapse back into the older political religious patterns of thought and behavior. Although Christianity serves as a pool of sovereignty in Mexico City the capital it generally failed to do so in the remainder of the country. For the convent was not yet an adequate substitute for the temples of

which the Putsch lay. Among the Chieftains there for the friars detected a shifting of position and posture that they interpreted as backsliding and even outright apostasy. On the other hand the common Indian remained much more stable in Christian conversion largely one suspects because he sought peace of mind rather than political power. In this respect Christianity proved more than adequate. The common Indians had known grinding poverty under the old regime and were finding it perpetuated sometimes even increased under the new one. But it seemed less painful now because the Franciscans after their gentle founder made of poverty a virtue. The first of the Roman Catholic bishops in Mexico bishops

America file an apostasy among the Indian chieftains a most vexatious and troublesome problem essentially because they in turn influence so many of the commoners who otherwise were so more readily taking to Christianity to combat the backsliding of the Chieftains the Spanish bishop employed twenty missionary centers each with a small staff of Indian constables who rooted out secret idolatry and otherwise acted as assistants to the resident Friars. Most of these constables were sons of nobles who'd been educated in the local monastery and had emerged fanatical Christians as is often the case with the first generation identifying itself with any new movement or ideology in spying on their parents and the errant in general. They became hated and were not on commonly assassinated.

Gradually the hole there developed a cleavage in which the sons of the nobles gave aid to the commoners against people old nobles and so there were many points of conflict and that these revolved around excessive tribute around the release of slaves before individuals would be granted temporal remission of sins. We have in consequence then a clash the like of which was to continue for many many years. But there is in truth a reconciling factor that came early into religion in Mexico and that was in the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the year 15 31. The Virgin of Guadalupe. Unmistakably Indian in her physical appearance. So a dent defied the Indians or Made Easy there identifying themselves with the religion

of the interloper of the white man. That they told them or considered it the broad embracing religion that was truly theirs. And so there is a measure of reconciliation. But there is still that shortage of priests that shortage of fryers that shortage of catechism that would make for more than a veneer of understanding on the part of those who had adopted the religion of the Spaniard. R. C. Patton in his volume stresses this matter of the conflict between church and state giving us a measure of respect for the complexity and the interlacing nature of the aspects of life of the Indians. At the same time making us aware of a sophistication of Indian outlook that the Indians of our part of America did not possess. And all of this

brought into collision with the Spaniards proving that in the long term struggle between the Humming-Bird of which the push Lee the hawk of the Spaniards that there was of course the concession to be made by the native Indians. Such is the burden of the volume. The humming bird and the hawk conquest and sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico 15 315 41 by R. C. Patton a volume published by Ohio State University Press. This was a Latin American perspectives with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Join us for our next program on Dr. Gardner We'll examine another aspect of life in Latin America. Latin American perspectives is produced and recorded by station WFIU FM at Southern Illinois University and is distributed by the national educational radio network.