Even if Sahagún and like-minded friars believed in the equality of human souls and had a thirst for legitimate cultural and linguistic knowledge of the Indigenous cultures, Christian intolerance also justified the study of pagan things for purposes of facilitating their eradication (Buckhart 1989, 3). Sahagún, in his prologue to his Historia, compares the friars’ enterprise of conversion to that of the physician who needs knowledge to cure the sick. So, for Sahagún, knowledge about native culture provided the “medicine” to extract the disease of paganism. Translation at the Colegio involved the “purification” of pagan resonances, and Christian notions served as models for the adjustments of traditional ideas.
But translations require more than simply supplanting native codes with Christian ones. A coherent understanding of the cosmos organizing native religious beliefs was required to adjust the alien European systems of thought and representation. The task of the gramáticos was monumental. On the one hand, they provided a written corpus to serve the friars’ understanding of native practices against Christian ethical and moral principles, which provided the reasons for the Spanish presence in their territories; on the other hand, their translations were also intended to persuade other natives to embrace a foreign system of thought, refuting traditional beliefs. Christianity, whether by true conviction or not, provided the space for cultural negotiation. By declaring their affiliation to Christianity, the gramáticos, and other Indigenous writers, conveyed traditional beliefs and practices. This enunciative space not only allowed them to escape possible charges of apostasy but enabled them to maintain the echoes of their ancient traditions.
The ambivalence of transcribing ancient beliefs for the purposes of conversion is revealed in the translation of the Coloquios y Doctrina Christiana. This text is in the dialogue genre, with friars engaging the Tlamatinimeh (Nahua wise men) to convey Franciscan arguments for the superior truths of Christianity. But in the course of this dialogue, the Tlamatinimeh elaborate on the coherence of the ancient way of life, and in the end refuse to repudiate it even in the face of the best persuasions of the friars. Because the Coloquios are transcriptions of oral exchanges, traditional Nahua techniques could be used by the gramáticos. In contrast to the indirect style, at times used in annals, where everything is told in the third person, it is through quoting the words uttered by the characters where Nahuas express emotion. This technique, known also as direct style, gives immediacy to speech that reflects the collision of the Indigenous system of beliefs with the European ones. In their role as linguistic authorities, the gramáticos were able to preserve the sacred beliefs Christianity was erasing, even if the intent of the texts was the opposite. The highly emotive re-creation of the words of the elders, which Indigenous people would consider sacred, would in some cases reinforce these beliefs. Refusal to “forget” the teachings of the elders was a main reason given for difficulties in “eliminating idolatries” in the Manual de ministros para el conocimiento de sus idolatrías y extirpación de ellas of priest Jacinto de la Serna in 1636 (León-Portilla 1990, 63). The preservation of the word of the elders, so emotively re-created by the gramáticos, would continue as a practice of resistance in future textual creation by native intellectuals in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Just as transcription of ideas from the pre-conquest past opened a space for Indigenous preservation of old practices and beliefs, adjustments to the coherence of that past were necessary to explain their colonial present. The gramáticos tried to give coherence to a reality in which the Indigenous people were losing so much of their territories and traditions by searching for answers in their own past and implementing what they learned from European knowledge. The transcription into Nahuatl of Book XII of Sahagún’s Historia general (also known as the Florentine Codex) at the Colegio is a good example of creative interpretation of initial Nahua reaction to the Spanish encounter and rationalization of their defeat. Accounts passed through several hands when transcribed at the Colegio, including those of friars who might have collaborated in the gramáticos’ interpretations. For example, the section on the omens, which certainly was added a posteriori, may be highly influenced by European Christian and pagan myths (Dupeyron 2002, passim), and a spreading belief that Don Hernando Cortés was mistaken for Quetzalcoatl has been questioned by some scholars (Elliot 2002, 105–108; Dupeyron 2002; Lockhart 1992). However, being a compilation of many sources, Book XII gives us a good idea of how the Indigenous people perceived Spanish phenomena.
Book XII also illustrates the gramáticos preserving their ethnic identities, founded in the collective memory of their own altepetl (ethnic community established in a specific territory). It also reveals that each altepetl had its own views on the ancient past which, at times, competed against each other. The conquest in the Florentine Codex is written from the point of view of the Tlatelolcans (inhabitants of Tlatelolco), relatives of the Mexicas (inhabitants of Tenochtitlan) but from separate communities. This account of the conquest clearly sympathizes with the Tlatelolcans at the expense of the Mexicas, who had conquered them in 1473. The writing of local histories not only preserved tradition, but would also have a pragmatic use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a means to restore previous positions of high status and to appeal for privileges and territory restitution.
The Colegio’s half-century trajectory reflects the struggles that the different secular and religious factions had in their purposes and methods of colonization. For the first 20 years, the Colegio operated under a general atmosphere of optimism. The Nuevas Leyes (1542–1543) favored the protection of the Indigenous people against the exploitation of the encomienda system, and debates suggesting natives as potentially “perfect” Christians gave friars motivation to advocate for their education-conversion projects. Later, however, in the face of the Counter-Reformation and emerging social pressures in an established colony, colonial policies would turn to favor further the economic goals of colonization by Hispanicizing the natives.
The Struggles of the Colegio Imperial de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco
Some scholars believe that one of the goals the Franciscans had for the Colegio was the ordination of native priests (Ricard 1966, 342). Perhaps Franciscan optimism and desire to build a new Christian society (Baudot 1995, passim), further fed by the success of the first Indigenous students, was what gave birth to the belief that the Colegio would produce the first generation of Indigenous priests. The Colegio’s intent to ordain natives was assailed almost immediately, however. Some critics doubted the capabilities of neophytes to interpret Christian dogma, and feared errors would lead to heresy. To friars such as the Dominican Domingo de Betanzos, Indigenous education must be limited to tutelage because the natives lacked the authority and understanding for preaching (Cuevas 1946, 440). Indeed, only three years after the Colegio’s inception, ex-student Don Carlos Ometochzin, lord of Texcoco, was condemned for apostasy. There is little doubt that this development raised questions about the effectiveness of native education (Ricard 1966, 343–397; Cuevas 1946, 439). Perhaps these pressures from the opposition (along with rejection of celibacy vows by many students) contributed to Friar Juan de Zumárraga’s disappointment in 1540 (Cuevas 1946, 441). In a letter written to visitador Juan de Ovando in 1570 the Franciscans recognized that the initial goal of teaching theology had to be abandoned, stating that the students proved to be better in grammar (Documentos para la historia de México, 1941, 63).
The decline of the Colegio by the late 1580s had much to do with power conflicts among different factions in an increasingly established colonial structure. In the first years of evangelization of New Spain the religious orders were granted by papal bulls the authority to convert the Indigenous peoples. Members of the religious orders even served as bishops and archbishops; positions held usually by the secular clergy. The Franciscan order, the first group to come upon the scene in the first quarter of the sixteenth