It was clear that the Spaniards couldn’t expel the Aztecs from New Spain and send them away as they had done with the Muslims and the Jews in Spain. Simply, there was no where for the Aztecs to go. Thus, the Spaniard's mission was to persuade the surviving natives to take on a new vision-- the Spanish one, of course, and to abandon their old vision based on polytheism and human sacrifice. How was this possible, and did the Spaniards succeed? Two types of hegemonic forces were at work at the moment of the Conquest, one ideological and the other military. Hernan Cortes took the latter in his charge, while the Franciscan friars took care of the former. The ideological one was made possible with a kiss, and ended with a cross. It came in on the coattails of the military one that brought the Aztec Empire to its knees, beginning with the arrival of three Flemish Franciscans in 1526 and lasting until the 1540's.

In this paper I will be focusing on the ideological conquest. The Franciscans who arrived were imbued with the ideology of the Renaissance that held the seeds of the Enlightenment and that was inspired particularly by the works of Erasmus and his humanistic notions. In essence, what these men attempted was a mental conquest fostered by humanist education. After exploring indigenous ideas they used them, in an effort to supplant them with the new ideas the conquerors wanted to instill based on the teachings of Christ. In so doing they transformed the Aztec, or more specifically the Mexica, notion of an educated subject, made them subservient to an imposed order, and introduced new traditions that have ever since shaped what was then Mexica and is now Mexican society.

Along the way, however, various opportunities arose, largely out of decisions on the part of the Franciscans, for the Mexica to resist their conquerors and to retain elements of their own culture that they felt it was vital to hold on to. In their resistance they even resorted to killing a group of their own children, as in the infamous story of the three boys from Tlaxcala. The actions associated with the mental conquest, on both sides, illustrate better than anything else Foucault's claim regarding the productiveness of power: "it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult (Popkewitz, p. 220).

I have referred to what the Franciscans were up to as a "project," because in many ways it does fulfill the requirements of one. Certainly the Franciscans had a goal ("to lift up the fallen Indian"), and certainly in their own eyes they came close to attaining that goal. Like any good project, it had a beginning (the pope granting license to members of the Franciscan order to board ships to the New World) and an end (the counter-reformation in the Catholic Church). Most importantly, it had in Pope Adrian VI, an instigator and promoter. This pope, a counselor to the Spanish emperor Charles V, in 1521 endowed the Franciscans with the extraordinary power of being able to act as parish priests in the Indies, thus making them in essence a kind of secular clergy in New Spain. In 1523 three Franciscans from Flanders began to introduce institutions designed to make permanent the spiritual conquest of Mexico. Nine months later, a larger group of Franciscans was sent to New Spain, and other clergy -- more Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians, followed in time. Among these later arrivals were women (known as beatas), unordained but affiliated with the Franciscan order. Their experience falls outside the time from of this paper.

Hernan Cortes had various military options open to him, but by all accounts he took it for granted that a spiritual conquest was needed and hence had specifically requested that clergy be sent to Mexico. The Franciscans in turn upheld his authority during the turbulent 1520s, seeing in its continuance their chance of Christianizing Indians and of calming Spaniards. Here we see the logic of the two hegemonic forces, and how they reinforced each other (Liss, p. 70).

Yet the Franciscans had a clear mission of their own. At its core was a desire to ensure that the Indians were treated as human beings and, as friar Pedro de Gante wrote in a letter to Charles V, to provide them with an education that would "lift them up" from where they had fallen. Upon the arrival of the Franciscans in New Spain, Cortes assembled the highest Spanish and Indian dignitaries to welcome them. Cortes actually knelt down to kiss their hands to show not only his respect but the submission of the secular to the sacred orders. We can now see, however, how potently that kiss symbolizes what turned out to be Cortes' strategy of conquest: the uniting of physical force with that combination of medieval and Renaissance/humanist philosophy which the Franciscans would be instilling in the natives over the next twenty years, in the two schools set up by friars Pedro de Gante and Berdardino de Sahagun.

The earliest two schools were San Jose de los Naturales and Santa Cruz de Tlatelcolco, and were built on top of the ruins of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. Pedro de Gante opened up the Franciscan project by asking all local caciques to surrender their offspring to his school: Es necesario [. . .] que vosotros nos deis y pongais en nuestras manos a vuestros hijos pewaunos, [quienes] comprenderan con mas facilidad la doctrina que les ensenaremos. Y despues ellos a veces nos ayudaran ensenandos a vosotros y a los demas adultors lo que ovieron deprendido". (Mendieta, vol. II pp. 55-57in Liss). Thus the first thing that the colonized were forced to give up to the colonizers were their own children. As the passage suggests, these children were, in turn, to return to their homes and pass on to the adults in their families and communities what they had learned at school. Apparently the transition to the new schools was a relatively smooth one, for, as any account of Mexica culture suggests, that culture already was deeply imbued with a spirit of sacrifice for study and with an incredible habit of study.

The first of these two schools was San Jose de los Naturales. This primary school offered, within doors, a basic educational program to the children of the elite, and outside, on a patio, an even more basic one to the children of the plebeians. The former group received schooling in Spanish, basic numeracy, and religion, the objective being to create subjects both knowledgeable and obedient to Spanish law. The idea was that, owing to their higher societal rank, these pupils would be able to influence and indoctrinate the rest of the population. With respect to the schooling of the plebes, the most that was hoped for was to make them good Christians, part of which meant going to church being able to sing.

Not long thereafter, another school, Santa Cruz, was built. Its mission was to provide a more advanced education for those who had completed their primary education, and to prepare indigenous men to become priests and teachers. It also served at various times as the center for the scholar Sahagún's project of classifying aspects of Mexica culture and life, and produced with the help of native scribes, a voluminous body of writings-- materials which to this day serve to educate us about the Mexicas.

The stratification characteristic of the Franciscan schools-- in terms both of social class backgrounds of the students and of the missions the schools were designed to achieve-- was not new to the Mexicas. In fact it built on the tradition found in the highly stratified Aztec education system, a system that employed two main types of schools: the Calemac and the Telpochcalli. In the Calemac, students who were children of Aztec nobles were groomed to take on high responsibilities in the various branches of government, the military, and the priesthood. The sons of the macehualli, la gente del pueblo, were educated in the Telpochcalli and were prepared for " things related to war" ("las cosas de la guerra").

In Aztec society there had been a tradition of universal and obligatory schooling. If a child did not attend one of the two aforementioned types of schools, the child would attend a trade school in the community. Students usually lived at the Calemacs full time; students at the other schools lived at home. The "domestic" education supplied at home was seen by the Mexicas as constituting an important responsibility of parents to their children, yet the Franciscans feared its continuance, since they thought that in this way parents would pass on to their children a culture that they themselves were trying to eradicate.

Precisely how the Spaniard schooling came to replace the Aztec system is something that needs further study. We do know that Spanish edicts banned idolatry, and since both of the Mexica types of schools were housed in temples devoted to Aztec gods, they too must also have been banned. How quickly the Spanish-style schools replaced them is not known, but it is clear that Spanish-style schooling first took hold in such prime urban centers as Tenochtitlan and Cholula. As more Franciscans, and members of other orders arrived in New Spain, they spread out to other areas, where they outlawed the Calemacs and other schools and instead implemented de Gante's model of schooling. Though surely there must have been a lapse in which at least one generation of Mexica children received no formal schooling, whatever. This sudden absence of an institution so important to Mexica society and culture must have been devastating. In other words, Cortes' kisses, which wed conquest to schooling, brought even more far-reaching changes to the lives of the Mexicas of the Americas. The situation is unique, when we consider that the Franciscan friars recognized almost immediately the high place that education held in Mexica society. And if there had not been existing schools, and a literate culture, the Spaniards might never have dared to undertake such ambitious plans to educate the Mexicas. In a letter to Charles V, for example, Cortes marvels at the high level of sophistication characteristic of the Mexica schools he encounters. Thus there was no question in the minds of the Franciscans that the Mexicas were indeed eminently "teachable."

There is no doubt that values vital to a society's interests are embedded in schools. Since schools can be seen as a mechanism for normalizing values, such values constitute pieces of evidence providing valuable clues as to how power has been exercised. The Mexica schools sought to produce students eager to serve the Gods, and thereby that much better serve the Aztec Empire. In the case of the Franciscan schools, the values they hoped to imbue in their students were the Christian ones of humility and obedience, but the deeper goal was akin to the Mexica one: to produce people better able to serve the Spanish crown. While the Mexica schools tried to realize their vision of an educated subject-- the good Mexica-- by means of physical discipline, penance, and military preparation, the Spaniards sought to create good Christians through the agency of literacy and catechism training.

From around 1540 to 1590, Berdardino Sahaúun wrote about Mexica life. Much of what we know about the educational practices of the pre-conquest Aztec Empire, we have learned through his writings. Of Sahagun's 43 entries dealing with Mexica education, 12 deal with the rigid discipline employed in the two types of Mexica schools: the Calemac and the Telpochcalli. The following passage supports the statement made a moment ago, as to how a Mexica youth's preparation for life meant learning how to serve the gods:

En lo que toca a que eran para mas en los tiempos pasados, asi para el regimiento de la republica, como para el servicio de los dioses, es la causa porque tenian el negocio de su regimiento conforme a la necesidad de la gente, y por esto los muchachos y muchachas criabanlos con gran rigor, hasta que eran adultos, y esto no en casa de sus padres, porque no eran poderosos para criarlos como convenia…por esto los criaban de comunidad debajo de maestros muy solicitos y rigurosos…Alli los ensenaban como habian de honrar a sus dioses, y como habian de acatar y obedecer a la republica y a los regidores de ella (Sahagún in Lopez, 1985, pp. 136-137)

The life in the Calemacs and the Tepochcalli was by no means an easy one. Sahagún writes:

Tenian bravos castigos para castigar a los que no eran obeientes y reverentes a sus maestros, y en especial se ponian gran diligencia en que no se bebiese octlil… Los que vivian en los templos tenian tantos trabajos de noche y de dia, y eran tan abstinentes, que no se les acordaba de cosas sensuales…Los que eran del ejercicio militar, eran tan continuas las guerras que tenian los unos con los otros, que muy poco tiempo cesaban de la guerra y de los trabajos de ella…..

According to Sahagún, this form of control was very much in line with Mexica natural and moral philosophy. The education offered in the Mexica schools taught young people that moral virtue entails (a) rigor and austerity, and (b) a continuous preoccupation with all matters beneficial to the empire.

Lopez Austin (1985) has suggested that in Mexica society, certain physical signs differentiated the educated from the non-educated subject. Since military prowess was held in such high esteem in Aztec society, all males were required to grow a tuft of hair at the back of the neck. When one had captured an enemy for sacrifice, the tuft of hair was cut off. We also learn from other writings, that educated persons in Aztec society were those who were articulate and able to memorize and therefore retell the Aztec poems and myths (although books did in fact exist).

As Sahagún concludes however, this entire educational approach came to an end with the Spaniard's arrival:

Como esto ceso por la venida de los espanoles, y porque ellos derrocaron y echaron por tierra todas las costumbres y maneras de regir que tenian estos naturales, y quisieron reducirlos a la manera de vivir de España, asi en las cosas divinas como en las humanas, teniendo entendido que eran idolatras y barbaros, perdiose todo el regimiento que tenian (Lopez Autin, p. 138).

In sum, the Mexica mind was wholly preoccupied with the realm of the sacred, as Durkheim would say, and hence all the duties that an educated Mexica carried out were done in service to the gods. Since there were no secular ("profane") duties, there was no learning that could be considered secular. It was the Spaniards, as Sahagún suggests in the preceding passage, who introduced a dividing line between divine things and things human. That line first appeared largely in the Franciscan schools, as the friars passed on to their Mexica pupils their own grounding in the teachings of Aquinas, Erasmus, etc.

The fact that books on the shelves at San Jose de los Naturales and Santa Clara included volumens by such authors as Erasmus suggests that the friars consider themselves students of these humanist thinkers. In fact, Pedro de Gante had been close to Erasmus before he left Antwerp for New Spain in 1521. Thus, it doesn't seem surprising to find a statement such as the folloowing, made in a letter sent by one of the Franciscan friars back to Spain: "Todos los hombres son iquales ante Dios y un cristiano es responsible del bienstar de sus hermanos independiente de los alienados que esten o de lo humildes que sean" (Bravo, p. 32).

Yet, in spite of the friar's philosophical leanings in the direction implied by this quotation, they couldn't help but consider the Mexica barbarians since their religious practices were based on idolatry, which included human sacrifice. Thus, it must have been almost entirely owing to the Franciscan's belief that the Mexica were in fact "teachable" and capable of reason, that they willingly embarked on an education campaign designed to rid the Mexica of all idolatrous and pagan beliefs and convert them to Christianity. It must have been both their zealousness, and the Mexica's "teachableness," which made them go even further and teach the Aztecs about Spanish custom and law, Latin, and Grammar.

Interestingly, the Franciscans did not seek to eradicate Nahuatl, the indigenous language. On the contrary, they used it rather than Spanish to communicate with the Aztecs. Bravo writes that "…los tres flamencos, en menos de un año, iniciaron una obra educativa que no era mas que un intercambio de enseñanza, ya que aprendian la lengua a traves de los niños…" (p. 24). Much has been written about the Franciscan's interest in learning Nahault, and in using it as the principal language of instruction in the schools. The use of Nahuatl was considered to be the most effective means of ensuring that the Aztec's understanding, and especially that of the Aztec catequists the Franciscans tried to train, would be such as to make them "mas inteligente y mas hondo de la fe catolica." In other words, the idea was that by teaching the Aztecs Catholicism in their own language, there would be no room for misinterpretation; Catholic teachings would remain "pure," and this would ward off all forms of heretical behavior.

The Franciscans soon began to create textbooks and other didatic materials. They developed a primitive printing press out of wood, and published their codices by printing on maguey paper and other materials. Pedro de Gantes' Catecismo de la Doctrina Cristiana is the oldest of these documents, a book replete with images symbolizing the Sign of the Cross, the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Creed, many poems, the sacramental rites, and so on. Gantes later wrote the trilingual (Latin, Nahuatl, and Spanish) Cartilla para Ensenar a Leer (published in 1569, in Mexico), which as its name implies was used to teach people how to read. In the earlier work, however, the technique of pedagogic application went something like this: the teacher placed the book to one side, and using a wooden stick went along pointing to each figure, while he explained the facts behind it. Thus the technique was based on the visual. As Bravo writes:

Tales recursos se asemejaban en mucho a los que acostumbraban los indigenas, por lo que se confiaba, conociendo el material genio de los indios, […] que mejor [que] por los oidos, les entraria la Fe por los ojos. [Los misionarios] hicieron y ordenaron […] representaciones materiales de los misterios de ella, pa[ra] que viran y mas facil persivieran, lo que en la continua tarea de su Predicacion les esplicaba, y aun con las mas expressibas vozes de su Idioma se les havia duro de entender el sermon.

We have noted how the Franciscans brought to education in New Spain a philosophy that separated the secular from the sacred. There is no doubt that the primary goal was conversion, and that they believed that to be educated meant to be more Christ-like. However, they also were working under Aquinas' claim that education can function to help individuals distinguish knowledge that is susceptible to reason from that which can only be miraculously revealed. Thus, it would not be too far-fetched to assume that the Franciscans humanistically assumed that any reasonable human being would be able to comprehend that human sacrifice is barbaric, and that there is only one God and only one true religion. Nonetheless, when the Franciscans introduced the secular into the education of the Mexica, they in effect invented a new tradition, but one deeply implicated in aspects of the past: study as a habit, stratification of knowledge and of schools, and so on.

Of course the Mexica resisted many of the changes wrought by the Franciscans, as a story related by Sahagún shows in the Florentine Codex, Bok X. Bands of young people, many of whom had been educated in the Franciscan schools, returned to their communities. There they spied on parents, and then reported back to the Church authorities the names of those they had caught practicing idolatry. Resistance to these youths and what they were trying to do broke out in the town of Tlaxcala, when parents found out what their children had done and killed three of their own. The friars were forced to discontinue their sermons in some places out of a fear that young people would continue to report on pagan activities and pay a similar price. In a bizarre modern-day twist to all this, John Paul II on his first trip to Mexico in the 1980s, beatified those three children along with Juan Diego.

Overall Sahagún came to the conclusion that the project the Franciscan Education Project in New Spain, had been a failure. By 1540 there was such a high level of drunkenness, and so general a breakdown of Mexica society, that Sahagún waxed nostalgic for the earlier Mexica society, with the exception of that practice of idolatry which was still going strong. When the pestilence in Mexico City reached its height in 1541, Sahagún lamented the lack of education and the loss of indigenous forms of knowledge, as causative factors increasing numbers of deaths: no one knew how to "bleed" the infirm. Sahagún attributed much of the failure to a lack of persistence on the part of the Franciscan clergy. In his view they gave up too soon in many cases, owing to intense resistance on the part of the Mexica (Lopez Austin, 1985).

By the mid 1540s, there had begun to appear in New Spain a version of Catholicism in which the Indians syncretically combined elements of Christianity with other elements of their Mexica religion. While the friars had at first found confusions on the part of their Mexica students "amusing," by this time what had been thought of as "confused" was more likely to be regarded as heretical. Spain, now in the midst of the counter-reformation, had begun to send to New Spain members of the clergy who would go on to replace the liberal ideology of the Franciscans with a far greater degree of orthodoxy. The Inquisition began to seep into New Spain. And so, only a few decades after Martin Luther's posting of his twenty Protestant tenets, the Franciscan experiment in humanism came to an end in New Spain.

Bravo, G. (1977) La Enseñanza del Español a los Indigenas Mexicanos, Colegio de Mexico

Carnoy, M (1974) Education as Cultural Imperialism, NY: David McKay Company, Inc.

Fendler, L. (1998) "What is it impossible to think? A genealogy of the educated subject" in Foucault’s Challenge: Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Education, Popkewitz, T. & Brennan, M. NY: Teachers College Press

Gonzalbo, P. (1990) Historia de la educación en la época colonial, DF: Colegio de Mexico

Leon-Portilla, L. (1962) Broken Spears, Boston: Beacon Press

Liss, P. (1975) Mexico under Spain 1521-1556, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

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(1985) Educación Mexica: Antologia de Textos Sahaguntinos DF: UNAM

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