A Cult of Saints for the Oppressed

When the first twelve Franciscan missionaries arrived in Mexico in 1524, they introduced the Word of God. But the followers of Saint Francis also brought with them Iberian notions of race and white supremacy. While tasked with Christian conversion, friars upheld an empire’s mission to dominate, enslave, and extract. The paper considers Franciscan art, writing, and performance against this backdrop and interrogates, specifically, the order’s attempts to extend and exploit a post-Tridentine cult of saints amongst populations that were directly or indirectly enslaved and subjected to colonial violence. While recent scholarship by Erin Rowe and Miguel Valerio has heightened our awareness of visual programs showcasing Saint Benedict of Palermo, a Black Franciscan, my paper moves beyond this archetype to specifically examine pictorial case studies that center contemporary Franciscans. In these images, benevolent friars not only comfort the oppressed but, in the process, elevate their own cause for sanctity. How does enslavement serve both the Franciscan project in Spanish America and the order’s claims of sanctity following the Council of Trent? To what extent do Franciscan strategies vary from competing mendicant orders? The order’s own repressive actions were recast, I argue, primarily and most effectively within the visual field. The talk will critically engage key colonial texts, including legal documents and inquisition records, and feature important yet little-known engravings, paintings, and sculptures from the viceroyalties of New Spain, Peru, and Nueva Granada.