Review of Thomas Calvo and Amaya Cabranes,Franciscanos eminentes

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BOOK REVIEWS

within the confines of the convent and portrays Sor Juana, like other early-modern women, as a “wedding preacher” who could become a “theologian in verse.” Subsequently, Thomas compares Sor Juana with other Iberian nuns who contribute to this poetic form: Sor Cecilia de Nacimiento (1570–1646), Sor Violante do Céu (1601–93), Doña Ana Francisca Abarca de Bolea (1623–?), and Sor Marcela de San Félix (1605–87). Chapter 2 concentrates on the significance of the classical Roman poet Horace to Sor Juana’s poetry written for imperial occasions such as epitaphs, epinicia, and triumphal arches. Sor Juana is the only woman known to design such an arch in colonial history, and Thomas cleverly adds to and evaluates scholarship that highlights her as a proponent of the importance of New Spain and the Americas as opposed to a mere puppet who admires the Spanish metropolis. In chapter 3 Thomas continues to underscore Horace’s influence and devotes much time to Sor Juana’s literary “self-fashioning” or self-promotion. He establishes her link to other women writers and suggests her efforts to develop a community of women scholars. Chapter 4 observes how Sor Juana used birthday verses and poems that accompanied gifts to viceroys and their wives to express her opinions on political matters. She not only focused on kings or viceroys but also addressed queens and vicereines as part of the ruling power in the public sphere instead of in domestic scenarios alone. Thomas concludes with an examination of how the “political aesthetics” in Sor Juana’s occasional works recur in her most read prose composition, the Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz. Thomas’s book is a welcome, thought-provoking, and well-researched addition to Sor Juana studies, and it provides an unprecedented interpretation of Sor Juana’s occasional writings that helps readers better understand her complete works and those of other early-modern women writers. University of Oklahoma

GRADY C. WRAY

Franciscanos eminentes en territorios de fronteras. Edited by Amaya Cabranes and Thomas Calvo. (Michoacán: El Colegio de Michoacán and El Colegio de San Luis. 2014. Pp. 235. $12.00 paperback. ISBN 978-607-8257-78-2.) By the mid-seventeenth century, the enthusiasm and energy that characterized the first generation of mendicant friars who arrived in Mexico to Christianize the indigenous population had declined for many reasons. Although the central and southern areas proved to be more amenable to Spanish settlement and Christianization, in the far north and west the various nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes proved a challenge for evangelizers. The swell of Christianization that seemed so inevitable in the sixteenth century slowed down, and the missionaries had to fight inch by inch to gain converts as well as territory. The personal recollections of two Franciscans engaged in that process form the core of this work. The documents transcribed and edited by the very capable team of Amaya Cabranes and Thomas Calvo belonged to two men who had little in common except

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the desire to add numbers to the meager crop of converts to Christianity in lands still in the hands of “apostates” and “gentiles.” Newly arrived missionary Juan Caballero Carranco narrates a frustrating trip to the coast of Baja California in 1669 led by a man whose main interest was to find pearls. The Franciscan longed to assess the potential for conversion among the scattered population but turned out to be better at registering the incidents of the voyage, its men, and the geography of the area than at proselytizing. He was also a frustrated policy maker. His description of the spiritual and material needs of the Cora tribes in the Sonora and Nayarit area reveal a well-thought plan to supplant the Jesuits and carry out a broad sweep to attract and retain the resilient Indians into the fold of the Church. He represents the idealistic men traveling from Spain to fulfill a personal as well as a religious mission in the belief that all they needed was a well-planned policy to conquer all obstacles. The second friar, Juan González Cordero, tended to his flock on the northwest frontiers of central Mexico (Queretaro, San Miguel, Celaya) from the 1630s to the 1660s. He personified the established parish missionary who performed his duties for years among people who, although official Christian converts, were still engaged in what he called “superstitious” practices. His detailed description of how he proselytized and attempted to guard the purity of Christian beliefs records the practices of the indigenous flock and the endeavors of their guardian. It was an unsettled situation that gave shamans the opportunity to continue practicing their arts and made the missionary’s life one of constant struggle among presumed Christians and non-Christians. González Cordero, almost unaware of his role, left a rich source of information for future ethnologists. The careful introductory comments of the editors underline the importance of preconceived ideas among the evangelizers and the strong pull of the land on the process of evangelization. Calvo and Cabranes define the work of the missionaries as carving physical and spiritual frontiers. They have rendered a great service to historians of the evangelization of northern and central Mexico with the publication of these rich and previously unknown sources. Calvo has made a specialty of unearthing documents about the northwest region of Mexico, which he has published in previous works on the history of that region. Calvo and Cambranes call our attention to the fact that these two narratives are as much mirrors of the missionaries as pictures of the fragility of Catholicism. Still challenged by native “men-gods” attracting subversive practices, the religious landscape of the area, 150 years after the conquest, was still in a state of flux between acceptance and rejection, and between still-active old autochthonous traditions and the stubborn determination of men of the cloth to eradicate them, as they believed their faith required. It was a confrontation that had not yet reached a resolution. As the editors point out, the sixteenth-century Franciscan utopia of creating an independent “Indian republic,” although not totally dead, had changed into a form of assimilation that demanded greater Hispanization, the material support of the crown, and the incentive of trade and industry. It would take another century to achieve those goals, but the records of these two missionaries capture the essence of a middle period of struggle that historians will read with appreciation. Arizona State University (Emerita)

ASUNCIÓN LAVRIN