Juan de Zumárraga

Juan de Zumárraga, OFM (1468 – June 3, 1548) was a Spanish Basque Franciscan prelate and the first Bishop of Mexico. He was also the region's first inquisitor. He wrote Doctrina breve, the first book published in the Western Hemisphere by a European, printed in Mexico City in 1539.

Biography

Origins and arrival in New Spain Zumárraga was born in 1468 or 1469 of a noble family, in Durango in the Biscay province in Spain. He entered the Franciscan Order, and in 1527 was custodian of the convent of Abrojo. Shortly afterwards he was appointed one of the judges of the court for the examination of witches in the Basque province. From his writings it would appear that he looked upon witches merely as women possessed of hallucinations.

By this time more detailed accounts of the importance of the conquest of Hernán Cortés began to be received, and on December 20, 1527, Zumárraga was recommended by Charles V for the post of first bishop of Mexico. Without having been consecrated and with only the title of bishop-elect and Protector of the Indians, he, accompanied by Fray Andrés de Olmos, left Spain with the first civil officials, magistrates (oidores), towards the end of August 1528, and reached Mexico on December 6. Thirteen days after, two of these judges, Alonso de Parada and Diego Maldonado, men of years and experience, died. Their companions, Juan Ortiz de Matienzo and Diego Delgadillo, assumed their authority, which was also shared by Nuño de Guzmán, who had come from his territories in the Pánuco Valley. Their administration was one of the most disastrous epochs in New Spain and one of great difficulty for Zumárraga.

"Protector of the Indians"

Although Zumárraga was appointed bishop on August 20, 1530, he was not consecrated until April 27, 1533. After another year in Spain working for favourable concessions for the Indians, he reached Mexico in October 1534, accompanied by a number of mechanics and six female teachers for the Indian girls. He no longer held the title of Protector of the Indians, as it was thought that the new oidores would refrain from the abuses of prior regimes. On November 14, 1535, with the arrival of the first viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, the rule of the new oidores ended.

The canonical account of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531 features the archbishop as a major player in the story, but, although Zumárraga was a prolific writer, there is nothing in his extant writings that can confirm the indigenous story.

While bishop, he was the principal consecrator of Juan López de Zárate, Bishop of Antequera, Oaxaca (1537); Francisco Marroquín Hurtado, Bishop of Santiago de Guatemala (1537); and Vasco de Quiroga, Bishop of Michoacán (1539).