papal bulls and royal decrees. Some of the orders at once complied with this regulation. The arrangement had, however, its exact counterpart in many cases, entire communities being composed wholly of creoles and others wholly of Spaniards.[1]
Although the alternation system, repeatedly insisted upon by the crown, secured to creoles the right to official appointments, it was not faithfully carried out, and frequent were their complaints of partiality to Spaniards and injustice to themselves.[2] It utterly failed to produce harmony. Criminations and recriminations prevailed down to the nineteenth century, and instances are not wanting of these teachers of peace and humility proceeding to acts of personal violence among themselves.[3]
In the zealous assertion of their privileges the action of friars was not unfrequently marked by turbulency and opposition to the civil authorities,[4] and
- ↑ The decrees sent from Rome and Spain ordered alternation every three or four years. For the reason that for some time no natives of Old Spain applied for admission into the order of the Hermitaños de San Agustin of Mexico, the prelates of that society finally admitted only creoles. A royal cédula dated November 28, 1667, ordered the viceroy to investigate and reform the irregularity. Id. The convent of the Carmelites and the apostolic colleges of San Fernando, Cruz de Querétaro, and others were composed entirely of Spaniards; the communities of Guadalupe de Zacatecas, and those of San Juan de Dios and San Hipólito of the hospitallers, were creole. Alaman, Hist. Méj., i. 13, 70. Pope Urbano VII. defined, by brief of November 12, 1625, the observances to be used by the Franciscans in the distribution of offices among the three different classes of which their order was composed, namely, the 'criollos,' the 'hijos de provincia,' and the 'capuchines,' who are thus respectively defined. The first were those who were bom in the country of Spanish parents and had taken the habit; the second were Spaniards who took the habit in New Spain, and the third were Spaniards who entered-the order in Europe. Urbano VIII., in Disturbios de Frailes, i. 146 et seq.
- ↑ The three classes mentioned in the preceding note were distinguished by different habits. Sierra, Dictamen, in Id., i. 347-63. A royal order dated September 11, 1766, confirming previous ones issued in 1691, 1697, and 1725, directed the admission of Indians into the religious orders. Providencias Reales, in Mex. Ordinanzas de esta N. C., MS., 178-82.
- ↑ A notable case occurred in the city of Mexico on the 9th of July 1780 when a serious riot occurred in the convent of San Francisco, occasioned by the seizure of the 'guardian Fray Mateo Jimenez, a gachupín.' The two parties came to blows, 25 friars fled, and it required the employment of a military force to effect the release of Jimenez, his captors having twice refused to obey the summons sent by the viceroy to surrender him. Gomez, Diario, in Doc. Hist. Mex., 2da'série, vii. 89, 91-2.
- ↑ A tumult was occasioned in 1664 by the rescue of a negress who was being led to execution for the attempted murder of her mistress. The friars
