Breve Tratado de Doctrina Christiana...
Breve Tratado de Doctrina Christiana
Doctrinas or catechisms were religious texts used by Spanish missionaries across the empire to educate natives on Christian culture, practice, and tradition. The purpose of a Doctrina Christiana in the New World was to prescribe specific interpretations of Catholicism tailored to different colonial audiences in Indigenous languages. These texts aimed to instruct individuals in the fundamental tenets of the faith and guide religious practice, such as teaching prominent prayers like the Our Father or Hail Mary or important Catholic teachings and stories from the Bible as part of the missionary orders’ project to convert all the peoples of the Spanish Empire to Catholicism. Although the realities in the Americas were different, one can find the main precursors of catechisms in the New World in the christianization process and conversion policies of Jews and Muslims during the fifteenth and sixteenth century in the Iberian Peninsula, (Granicka 2023, p.4)
Doctrinas were not isolated to just the Mesoamerican region but across the Spanish Empire in many Indigenous languages. In colonial Mexico, Spanish friars, collaborating with Indigenous peoples, produced a wealth of religious texts in native languages, like Nahuatl. The first doctrinas were produced very early in the colonial period and by the 1540’s there were already printed catechisms in Nahuatl. These texts served as essential tools for spreading religion, providing both teachers and Indigenous pupils with translations of Catholic doctrine accessible in the native languages of New Spain. This approach sought to bridge cultural and linguistic barriers to evangelization. For Spanish missionaries, the translations of Christian principles in Nahuatl allowed for a more effective and culturally relevant presentation of Catholicism, tailored to the specific context of colonial Mesoamerica where Nahuatl served as the lingua franca of the region before and after the Spanish conquest. However, the translation process did not come without its challenges and unintended consequences, as the pre-columbian religious terms permeated and influenced Christian discourse. Thus, the doctrinas became a medium that allowed the old Nahua concepts to survive in the language (Granicka 2023, p.11).
The author of this Breve Tratado de Doctrina Christiana is an anonymous Franciscan friar, indicated by the initials "Fr. N [ ] de la R. Observancia de N.S.P.S. Francisco" in the first page of the document. The author wrote the Doctrina in 1774 in Taxco and was stationed at the “Convent of Saint Bernardino” during that time period. Indigenous participation in the creation of this text is possible, but as it was officially forbidden, it is only traceable through an analysis of the language used.
Taxco’s significance lies in its role as a major hub for silver mining during the colonial
period. Although it is not completely clear the extent of it, the reales and mines in this region used Taxco’s indigenous forced labor and brought Indigenous involuntary tribute from communities in Cuernavaca, Mexico City, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca, and other places (Haskett 1991, p. 452). In 1774, in colonial Mexico, when the Breve Tratado de Doctrina Christiana was written, the region was under the rule of King Charles III of Spain, a Bourbon monarch preoccupied with strengthening Spain's control over its colonies and reducing the threat of English dominance in the colonial economy. Part of his strategy was to maximize the mineral, agricultural, and financial resources of New Spain that ended up in a decapitalization of Spain’s main colony (p. Stein and Stein 2003, p. 352-353). Therefore, colonial Mexico experienced social and economic transformations driven by the exploitation of natural resources, particularly silver mining, an industry that fueled economic growth but also led to the exploitation of indigenous labor and social upheaval (Haskett 1991, p.474-475).
The production of religious texts like this doctrina likely played a role in justifying and perpetuating the hierarchical social order established by Spanish colonizers, reinforcing their authority over the native population. But at the same time, the process of translation of Christian beliefs into Nahuatl allowed for the Nahua worldview and religious concepts to permeate Christian discourse, creating spaces of ambiguity and contestation (Granicka 2023, p.1).
The Breve Tratado de Doctrina Cristiana was acquired in December of 1834 by an individual named Miguel, as noted on the inner cover of the manuscript, making him the first known owner of the book. Subsequently, in 1930, ownership was transferred to Robert Garrett, whose ownership mark is inscribed in pen on the back of the manuscript as "R. G. Mexico. 1930". Robert Garrett, a third-generation Princeton alumnus and member of the class of 1897, ultimately donated the Doctrina to the Princeton manuscript collection in 1949 .
Works Cited:
Granicka, Katarzyna. "His Body Will Appear in All of the Mirrors: Explaining Christian Doctrine to the Nahuas in the 1548 Doctrina Christiana." Religions 14, no. 12: 1487. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14121487
Haskett, Robert S. "Our Suffering with the Taxco Tribute: Involuntary Labor, Moral Politics, and the Colonial Intelligentsia in Late Colonial Mexico." Hispanic American Historical Review 71, no. 3 (1991): 447–469.https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvr33br9.10?seq=5.
Stein, Stanley J., and Stein, Barbara H.. 2003. Apogee of Empire : Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759-1789. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Accessed June 18, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Further reading:
Christensen, Mark Z. “Getting Down to the Basics: Commandments and Prayers.” In Nahua and Maya Catholicisms: Texts and Religion in Colonial Central Mexico and Yucatan, 1st ed., 99–124. Stanford University Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr33br9.11.