The Criollo and the Western Religious Itinerary to Asia

• In Event: Re-Imagining Colonial Latin American History through Trans-Pacific Spaces

Abstract

This paper explores the significance of the category creole (criollo) for people dwelling along and traveling on the western religious itinerary to Asia between the 1570s and early 1640s. Examining the tensions that were caused by the new mobility of European clergymen travelling on the route between Asia and Europe, the paper demonstrates how the movement of friars across the Pacific, like the Mexican martyr Felipe de Jesús, helped to shed a positive light on the qualities of the creole clergy and the place in which they were born. Yet not all these movements benefited a creole agenda. Contrary to a common tendency in the literature to associate celebration of the American continent with a creole agenda, I argue that, in the context of ongoing struggles between globally operating religious orders, efforts made by friars like Juan González de Mendoza and Rodrigo Aganduru Moriz to mobilize European clergymen by presenting a positive image of New Spain as an ideal stopover on the long journey to Asia opposed the interests of the American orders, which strongly resisted the influx of new friars. Moving between American and European perspectives, the paper reveals the complex significance of missionary activities in Asia in the emergence of increasingly heated discussions of creole clergymen’s qualities and suitability for office.

Author

• Nino Vallen, Freie Universität Berlin