Colonial Christianity. Migration, Ethnicity, and Religion in Early Modern New Spain

The paper addresses the impact of migration and cultural differentiation on the formation of the Catholic clergy in the Spanish overseas realms during the early modern period. With the conquest of the Americas legitimized primarily through a missionary endeavor, and drawing on the royal patronage granted by pope Alexander VI, the Spanish crown seeked to build up an effective ministry in the New World. The early members of the Spanish-American regular and secular clergy were recruited predominantly from Spain, but church ranks were opened soon to Spaniards born in the Americas. The criteria of inclusion and exclusion played a vital role for the formation of the Spanish-American clergy. While initial projects to ordain indigenous priests were eventually dismissed, the Crown and local representatives of the church and the inquisition saw in the migration of Jewish converts from Spain a new threat to the formation of a reliable priesthood. Finally, competition for church benefices between peninsular and American born priests was another dispute regarding the criteria of inclusion and exclusion for the Spanish American priesthood. The mentioned politics and disputes regarding the recruitment of the Spanish-American clergy must be interpreted within the context of a colonial society, where concepts of belonging were based largely on notions of ethnicity and locality.