The Ex-Jesuit Colegio in Zacatecas: History and Architectural Patrimony
The Society of Jesus came into existence in the sixteenth century at a period of religious and political conflict. The Protestant Reformation challenged the corruption of the Catholic Church and polarized the region as anti-Papal and anti-Catholic practices and rhetoric spread. In Germany, for example, the public rituals of Carnival known locally as Fastnacht evolved into popular expressions of anti-Catholic and anti-Papal sentiments. Carnival in German communities evolved into a mocking of the Papacy, Catholicism, and Catholic intellectuals such as the Strasburg polemicist Thomas Murner. In Wittenberg, for example, Protestants took effigies of the Pope, cardinals, and bishops to the market, where people pelted the figures with dung. In 1522 in Strasburg, Protestants carried a figure of Thomas Murner in the streets, and passed beneath his window. Catholics and Protestants went to war against each other and committed atrocities in the name of the Prince of Peace.
The first General was Iñigo López de Loyola who later took the name Ignacio de Loyola. He was born around 1491 to a good family in Azpetia in Castilla. He initially pursued a military career, but was wounded in battle in 1530 and had a slow and painful recovery. During this period, he read about the life of Jesus and had a spiritual rebirth. He decided to dedicate his life to God. In 1534, Iñigo López de Loyola was in Rome, and there he along with Francisco Xavier, and seven others founded the Society of Jesus. Pope Paul III authorized the new order six years later in 1540. Ignacio de Loyola became the first General in 1541. He died in Rome on July 31, 1556.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Jesuit Generals sent missionaries throughout the world to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Jesuits found their way to Huronia in the French colony in Canada, the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia, Goa and other Portuguese outposts in India, the Ming Dynasty court in China, and to Japan where they baptized thousands until the government initiated an anti-Christian persecution that ultimately resulted in the expulsion of most Europeans and a policy of isolation that lasted for several centuries. The first act of persecution was the 1597 crucifixion in Nagasaki of Japanese Christians and a handful of foreign missionaries, a total of 26 men including three Japanese Jesuits. One was the Franciscan Felipe de Jesús who was a native of México City. The first members of the Society of Jesus arrived in Mexico in 1572, and began establishing a presence in major cities in Nueva España. The largest number were in Mexico City and Puebla de los Ángeles. The most important of their installations was the Colegio Máximo de San Pedro y San Pablo located in Mexico City. They arrived in the important mining center of Zacatecas at the end of the 1580s.
Spaniish explorers discovered rich silver deposits, and established the city of Zacatecas around 1548. The mining center was beyond the porous frontier between sedentary and the non-sedentary indigenous peoples collectively known as the Chichimecas. Some Chichimeca groups resisted the Spanish intrusion into their territory, and particularly the destruction of traditional plant foods and the displacement of game by growing numbers of Spanish cattle. Chichimeca hunters killed cattle, which, in turn, resulted in retaliation by the Spanish. Chiichimeca warriors attacked the caravans of supplies being shipped to Zacatecas, and killed individual Spaniards they found on the road to Zacatecas. This resulted in further retaliations. The Spanish and their sedentary indigenous Allies fought a conflict known as the Chichimeca War (1550-1600) in an effort to pacify the Chichimeca bands, and to secure the road to Zacatecas. The c. 1580 relación geográfica map of San Miguel and San Felipe de Chichimecas is a visual microcosm of the conflict. The Jesuits arrived in Zacatecas at the height of the conflict.
The Jesuits established the colegio de la Purísima Concepción in 1589 to educate the children of the elite miners, merchants, and royal officials. The college received a donation of land in the city as a site for the installation, as well as alms paid in money. Within two weeks of its founding 120 students reportedly had already been registered for the program in basic education. The Jesuits later added programs in grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. In 1756, they founded a second colegio and seminary named San Luis Gonzaga. The Jesuits also attended to the spiritual and physical needs of the people of the city, and organized two congregaciones dedicated to the Annunciata and Our Lady of the Sorrows.
The Jesuits directed the construction of a large complex that still exists. In 1616, they received a donation of 8,000 gold pesos for the construction of a church. A document dated February 1, 1625 detailed the costs of the construction of the new church. One accounting noted an expenditure of 6,000 pesos for the woodwork, 2,000 pesos for the wood delivered for the project, 2,000 pesos for the master masons and workers, and 1,250 pesos for 50,000 bricks. The cost of the main altar reportedly was 8,000 pesos, the lead covering cost 4,000 pesos, and metal for the main door cost 500 pesos. These and other costs totaled 29,990 pesos. There was an additional cost of 27,450 pesos for white stone for the church and two loads of stone for the church entrance. The total enumerated cost was 57,440 pesos. The Jesuits had the church rebuilt between 1746 and 1749. The colegio itself consisted to two cloisters built as a two-story structure.
Who were the Jesuits that staffed the colegio in Zacatecas? The end for the Jesuits in Spanish America came in 1767. On April 2, 1767, King Carlos III (r. 1759-1788) issued a decree titled “Pragmática sanción de su Magestad en fuerza de ley para el estrañamiento de estos Reynos a los Regulares de la Compañía, ocupación de sus Temporalidades, y prohibición de su restablecimiento en tiempo alguno, con las demás prevenciones que expresa.” The King chose to not give the reasons for his order, but there was growing anti-Jesuit sentiment in Spain and its territories and there was the precedent established several years earlier by Portugal and France. A bread riot in Madrid in March of 1766 known as the Motín de Esquilache may have been a factor, and became a source of potent anti-Jesuit propaganda as they were blamed for the riot. In a real sense, and given the changed European political reality of Regalism, the Jesuits had outlived their usefulness.
The decision to exile the Black Robes in the Papal States in Italy generated considerable paperwork. Three detailed documents provide considerable detail on the identity of the exiled Jesuits, including those in Zacatecas in June of 1767. One is a 1769 master list of the Black Robes arrested in the Americas, those who died in transit, and those who arrived in Spain. The second is a 1775 report on the number of Jesuits exiled from Spain and the Americas that provides details absent from the 1769 list. It identified the foreign-born Jesuits who did not receive a pension, the Black Robes who were considered fugitives, and those who died through October of 1775. The third titled “Catálogo de los sujetos de la Compañía de Jesús que formaban la Provincia de México el día del arresto 25 de junio de 1767” was published in Mexico City in 1871, and is a profile of the Jesuits in the Province of Nueva España in June of 1767 and following the expulsion.
The decision to exile the Black Robes in the Papal States in Italy generated considerable paperwork. Once arrested, royal officials sent the Jesuits to the nearest port which, in the case of Mexico, was Veracruz. They were loaded as cargo on ships, and those that survived the journey arrived in the Port of Santa María near Cádiz. Three detailed documents already cited above provide considerable detail on the identity of the exiled Jesuits. One is a 1769 master list of the Black Robes arrested in the Americas, those who died in transit, and those who arrived in Spain. The second is a 1775 report on the number of Jesuits exiled from Spain and the Americas that provides details absent from the 1769 list. It identified the foreign-born Jesuits who did not receive a pension, the Black Robes who were considered fugitives, and those who died through October of 1775. The third titled “Catálogo de los sujetos de la Compañía de Jesús que formaban la Provincia de México el día del arresto 25 de junio de 1767” was published in Mexico City in 1871, and is a profile of the Jesuits in the Province of Nueva España in June of 1767. These three documents and a detailed biographical dictionary of Mexican Jesuits are used to create a profile of the origins of the Jesuits.
In June of 1767, there were 678 Jesuits in the Provincia de la Nueva España, that included one colegio in what today is Guatemala, a colegio in la Habana, Cuba, and a residencia in Puerto Principe, Cuba. The majority of Jesuits were from the Americas (464), the second largest group was from Spain (153), and there were 61 foreigners of whom 31 returned to their provinces following the expulsion. The Jesuits assigned to the colegio in Zacatecas evidenced a similar profile. One was a foreigner born in Italy, five were from Spain, but two were natives of Mexico City and six from other communities in what today is Mexico including Celaya (Guanajuato) and Queretaro. Following the expulsion, most of the Jesuits in the Americas went into exile in the Papal States in what today is Italy. Of the 14 Jesuits in Zacatecas at the moment of the exile, two died in unhealthy port city of Veracruz. A total of 35 Jesuits died there in transit. Twelve reached Italy, where they lived out their lives.
The Jesuits stationed on the northern missions of Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Sonora were treated differently. Twelve missionaries died in Mexico in transit to exile, including ten who died in Ixtlan (Nayarit). The pattern of deaths there suggests that they arrived during an epidemic. Another died at sea. Some were held in Spain. Twelve missionaries died in Mexico in transit to exile, including ten who died in Ixtlan (Nayarit). The pattern of deaths there suggests that they arrived during an epidemic. Another died at sea. The Sonora missionaries Jose Roldan (d. September 21, 1770) and Francisco Paver (d. January 6, 1770) were among the group that died in Mexico. This was the case with 16 of the Jesuits who had been stationed on the Sonora missions. They initially were held in prison in the Puerto de Santa María, however the record of their lives in Spain is incomplete. For example, royal officials allowed Miguel Getzner to return to Germany in 1780. On the other hand, the Spanish-born Miguel Almela was held a prisoner in the Franciscan convent in Villalon for some 20 years, and died in Spain in 1792. In 1775, Jose Garrucho was being held in prison in Madrid. He died in 1783 in a Jeronymite convent where he was also being held. The last record for seven of the Sonora missionaries was that they were still being held in the Puerto de Santa María in 1775. Why did they receive this treatment. It is plausible that, having been on a frontier with mining activity, they were considered to be a security risk. Of the eight missionaries in the Pimeria Alta which was the northernmost part of Sonora, one died in 1768, a second in 1770 in the Puerto de Santa María, and the other six were held in Spain on the orders of royal officials. Two others held in Spain had staffed Cucurpe and Opodepe missions, located just south of the Pimeria Alta. Two others had been in the Pimeria Alta, but at the time of the expulsion were at missions further south. Royal officials considered them to be security risks.
Following the Jesuit expulsion, royal officials closed the ex-Jesuit church and colegio complex in Zacatecas for a number of years. The Dominicans petitioned to occupy the ex-Jesuit complex, and the ceremony of transfer took place on January 30, 1785. The Dominicans established a presence in Zacatecas in 1604, and built a complex on the southeast edge of the city. The Hospitalarios de San Juan de Dios occupied the former Dominican convent in 1785, and modified it for use as a new hospital. The Hospitalarios de San Juan de Dios established themselves in Zacatecas in 1608. Their Hospital also located on the edge of the city became an hospicio for the poor after 1785. The former Dominican church still exists and is now dedicated to San Juan de Dios, and the original Hospital built in the seventeenth century is a public primary school. The Dominicans occupied the main ex-Jesuit complex until 1859, and the implementation of anti-clerical liberal reforms. The former colegio became a jail, and served this purpose until 1962. It is now the Museo Pedro Coronel. The Colegio de San Luis Gonzaga remained closed until 1785, and in that year the Junta Superior de Temporalidades that administered the ex-Jesuit complexes approved a petition of the Zacatecas city government to reopen it as a school to teach grammar, philosophy, and rhetoric. The two former Jesuit colegios constitute a part of the colonial architectural and historical patrimony that UNESCO recognized when it included Zacatecas in its World Heritage list in 1993.
Sources:
Juan Antonio Archimbaud y Solano, 31 de octubre de 1775, Estado general en que se demuestra el número y clase de regulares de la extinguida religión de la Compañía [de Jesús] que existían en España cuando se les intimó el Real Decreto de expulsión: los que han llegado de los reinos de la América al Puerto de Santa María, los que han fallecido desde aquella época hasta [el] 31 de octubre de 1775, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid, Mss/9136.
Marco Diaz, “El Patronazgo en las iglesias de la Nueva España. Documentos sobre la Compañía de Jesús en Zacatecas en el siglo XVII,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 13(45) (1976), 97-105.
Emilia Recéndez Guerrero, Legado de la Compañía de Jesús a un centro minero Zacatecas (159201767. Zacatecas: Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, 2013.
José de Rivera Bernárdez (conde de Santiago de la Laguna), Descripción breve de la muy noble y leal ciudad de Zacatecas. Mexico City: Bernardo de Hogal, 1732.
Bob Scribner, "Reformation, Carnival and the world turned upside‐down," Social History 3 no. 3 (1978): 303-329.
Francisco Uruburu de Toro, June 30, 1769, “Lista de los jesuitas expulsados de Indias, llegados al Puerto de Santa María,” Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid, MSS/12870.
Francisco Zambrano, S.J., Diccionario Bio-Biográfico de la Compañía de Jesús en México 16 volumes México, D.F: Editorial Jus/Editorial Tradición, 1961.
Rafael Zelis, S.J., Catálogo de los sujetos de la Compañía de Jesús que formaban la Provincia de México el día del arresto 25 de junio de 1767. México, D.F.: Imprenta de I. Escalante y Cia, 1871.