Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal

Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal, born in Cuenca, to a family of the hidalgo class, had entered the University of Valladolid at the age of sixteen, where he received a degree in canon law.

In 1520 he became inquisitor of Seville, and was later a member of the Royal Chancery of Granada.

He had been named bishop of Santo Domingo and president of its Audiencia, occupying this position from 1528.

In Hispaniola, he punishes mistreatment of the Indians, reorganizes the treasury, and faces the rebellion of Enriquillo in Bahoruco.

He has built schools, established villages and constructed public works.

He pays particular attention to mining, and to the rights of the Indians.

At this time the African slave trade to Hispaniola and Cuba is just beginning, in order to supply labor for the mines and for sugar production.

Bishop Ramírez does not oppose this slave trade, which is considered necessary at the time.

He does oppose monopolies in the slave trade that lead to inflated prices.

The Second Audiencia (high court) of New Spain is named in a royal decree dated January 12, 1530, following the disastrous First Audiencia of Nuño de Guzmán.

Until the establishment of the viceroyalty of New Spain, the high court will be the highest authority in New Spain.

It includes Bishop Ramírez de Fuenleal as president and Juan de Salmerón, Alonso de Maldonado, Francisco Ceinos and Vasco de Quiroga as oidores (judges).

These individuals had been nominated by the bishop of Badajoz, who is also president of the Chancery of Valladolid.

In contrast to the members of the first Audiencia, all of these men are honest, honorable and capable.

All hold the academic degree of licentiate (licenciado).

The nominated oidores are located in various parts of Spain at the time; Ramírez de Fuenleal is in Santo Domingo.

The king has directed that whoever among them arrives first in New Spain should begin immediately to govern.

The remaining auditors retain power and continue their outrages.

In the early part of 1530, they drag from a church a priest and a former servant of Cortés, accused of grave crimes, quarter the priest and torture his servant.

The actions of the Audiencia attract the attention of Juan de Zumárraga, bishop-elect of Mexico, who puts it under an ecclesiastical interdiction for violation of sanctuary on March 7, 1530, and the Franciscans retires to Texcoco.

At Easter the interdict was lifted, but the auditors are excommunicated for a year.

Cortés, now titled Captain General of New Spain, reaches Vera Cruz on July 15, 1530, having failed to regain his governorship but having been confirmed in his vast estates and his military command.

The Crown has appointed new auditors, among them Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal, Bishop of Santo Domingo, and the lawyer Vasco de Quiroga, who will later become the first Bishop of Michoacán.

Although Zumárraga is appointed bishop on August 20, 1530.

As Protector of the Indians, Zumárraga endeavors to defend them.

His position is a critical one; the Spanish monarchy has defined neither the extent of his jurisdiction nor his duties as Protector of the Indians.

Moreover, he has not received official consecration as bishop, and was thus at a disadvantage when he attempted to exercise his authority.

The Indians appeal to him as protector with all manner of complaints.

His own Franciscans, who have so long labored for the welfare of the Indians, press him to put an end to the excesses of the auditors.

It is clear that he must have had an open conflict with the civil officials of the colony, relying only on his spiritual prerogatives, which command no respect from these immoral and unprincipled men.

Some members of other religious orders, perhaps envious of the influence of the Franciscans, uphold the persecution of the Indians.

Bishop Zumárraga attempts to notify the Spanish court of the course of events, but the auditors have established a successful censorship of all letters and communications from New Spain.

Finally, a Biscayne sailor conceals a letter in a cake of wax that he immerses in a barrel of oil.

In December of the same year, the new Audiencia, the ensemble of auditors, reaches Mexico, and with them, an era of peace for both Zumárraga and the Indians.

Matienzo and Delgadillo are sent to Spain as prisoners, but Nuño de Guzmán escapes, being absent in Sinaloa.

Ramírez de Fuenleal, while Bishop of Santo Domingo, had encouraged the Franciscans to teach the sons of Indians grammar in their native language of Nahuatl.

Franciscan Arnaldo de Basccio had begun the task with considerable success, which gave support to the project of establishing an institute of higher learning.

Ramírez de Fuenleal had urged the crown to provide funds to establish and support such an institution.

The Franciscans had already established primary schools, one at Texcoco, established by Fray Pedro de Gante in 1523 and the other by the leader of the First Twelve Franciscans, Martín de Valencia in Mexico-Tenochtitlan in 1525.

Still others had been founded by Franciscans in this early period.

These schools for Indian and mestizo boys taught basic literacy, but also singing, instruction in how to help with the mass, and sometimes manual labor.

The primary education of Indian girls was also a concern and schools were established in Mexico City, Texcoco and six other locations lasting only for a decade.

However, not until the establishment of the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Santiago Tlatelolco, the first seminary in the New World, are sons of Indian men given higher education.

Bishop Zumárraga is a supporter of the establishment of the colegio, but credits Fuenleal and the crown for the accomplishment.

The colegio is inaugurated on January 6, 1536, the feast of the Epiphany, deliberately chosen for its symbolism of calling the gentiles to the true faith.

The establishment of such a school to train young men for the priesthood is highly controversial, with opposition especially coming from Dominican friars and articulated by the head of that order, Fray Domingo Betanzos.

Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún writes a strong defense of the capacity of the Indians, countering the opinions of those who doubted the Indians' ability not only to learn Latin grammar, but to speak, and compose in it.

He goes on to refute concerns about the possibility of the Indians spreading heresy.

Betanzos in his opposition to the colegio says that Indians who know Latin could expose the ignorance of (European) priests, an argument that perhaps unwittingly exposes the flaws of the existing clergy.

The original purpose of the colegio is to educate a male indigenous priesthood, so pupils are selected from the most prestigious families of the Aztec ruling class.

These young men are taught to be literate in Nahuatl, Spanish and Latin, and receive instruction in Latin in music, rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, and indigenous medicine.

One student educated at the colegio is Nahua botanist Martín de la Cruz, who in 1552 will write the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, an illustrated herbal.

Actual instruction at the colegio is by two Franciscans at a time, aided by Indian assistants.

Charles V had prohibited the enslavement of conquered subjects, but in 1534 he had revoked that prohibition, at least insofar as to allow slavery of natives captured in a "just war".

When Vasco de Quiroga became aware of this, he had written to Charles his celebrated Información en derecho (1535), in which he strongly condemned the encomenderos, saying that they did not accept the natives as men, but only as beasts.

Appointed in 1536 as the first bishop of the newly established diocese of Michoacán, he had been nominated by Ramírez Fuenleal, after the first candidate Fray Luis de Fuensalida had declined the honor.

The Emperor and the Pope had approved the nomination and in 1537 the appointment was made official.

He takes office in 1538 and will remain in Michoacán as pastor and protector of the Indians for most of the remainder of his life.

As bishop, he transfers the seat of the bishopric from Tzintzuntzán to …

…Pátzcuaro, which is made the capital of the new Spanish province of Michoacán.

He works to gather the Indians in large towns near Lake Pátzcuaro in the center of Purépecha territory, recently ravaged by Guzmán.

Using Thomas More's Utopia as a model, here the Indians are to be taught religion, crafts and the fundamentals of self-government.

Each town is to become the center of an industry.

Each person works six hours a day and contributes on an equal basis to the common welfare.

He will gradually realize the necessity of restricting the scope of his plans, which he had hoped to apply throughout the colony, to the smaller area over which he has jurisdiction, partially because his personal funds are not unlimited.