At an early period the friars of New Spain appear to have displayed much of the indifference to laws and independence of action which was assumed by the colonists. Quickly amassing wealth, many of them returned to Spain without permission, while others, attracted by the comforts and ease offered by a residence in the larger cities of the New World, took up their abode in them, and failed to proceed to their destination.[1] Nor did they refrain from intruding upon the occupations of classes outside their own profession. They bought and sold and opened shops; they dealt in cattle,[2] and made the natives toil for them without payment; private individuals acquired property,[3] and monastic communities, in common with the secular clergy, possessed themselves of estates bequeathed to them by persons whose unbiassed action was interfered with to the detriment of their own heirs.[4] Moreover, in their zeal for self-aggrandizement, they encroached upon the prerogatives of the govern-
- ↑ Laws were passed in 1558 and 1566 prohibiting friars returning to Spain from bringing with them more gold or silver than was sufficient to meet the expenses of their passage. Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 33; Morelli, Nov. Orb., 200. Great restrictions were laid upon their returning to Spain. Recop. de Ind., i. 93, 107-8, 127-8. The rules on this matter were frequently broken, as is evident from the repeated repetition of them.
- ↑ Id., i. 125, 129.
- ↑ In 1568 a law was passed ordering that the papal brief forbidding individual friars to hold private property should be observed. Id., i. 117; Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 229. The practice of making Indians work without paying them was forbidden in 1594, Recop. de Ind., i. 125, but in 1716 the same practice prevailed, the friars going so far as to impress upon the natives, who worked for them, that they were exempt from paying the royal tribute. In November of the above named year a cédula was issued ordering such abuses to cease. Guat., Col. Reales Céd.
- ↑ In 1754 the king expressly forbade any member of a religious order to interfere in the drawing-up of last wills and testaments, Castro, Diario, 55, and in 1775 a cédula was passed prohibiting confessors or their convents from being heirs or legatees. Reales Cédulas, MS., i. 194-6. In 1796, however, a decree was passed allowing friars to inherit estates. Rescriptos Reales, Ecles., MS., 28-56, 99-151, 177.
bull suppressing all that were not occupied by eight resident friars. Guat., Col. de Cédulas Reales; Morelli, Fast. Nov. Orb., 353. According to Torquemada, iii. 381-2, in 1612 the Franciscans possessed about 172 monasteries and religious houses, divided into the five provincias of Mexico, Michoacan, Zacatecas, Nueva Galicia, and Yucatan; the Augustinians had about 90 monasteries in two provinces, that of Mexico and that comprising Michoacan and Jalisco; and the Dominicans 69 monasteries in the provincias of Mexico and Oajaca.
