Domingo de Betanzos

Domingo Betanzos (d. at Valladolid, September 1549) was a Spanish Dominican missionary to New Spain, who participated in the "Spiritual Conquest", evangelizing the indigenous.

A native of León in Spain, he first studied jurisprudence at Salamanca, then became a Benedictine and lived as a hermit on the island of Ponza for five years. He then joined the Dominicans, who had established themselves on Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) in 1510. Betanzos went there four years later. At the time he went to Mexico in 1526, he was over 45 years old.

In 1516 he, with several other Dominicans, wrote a letter to Las Casas on the rapid disappearance of the Indians of the Antilles, concerning the numbers of the aboriginal population, and the excesses thought to have been committed by the Spaniards. In 1526, Betanzos went to Mexico, one of the first Dominicans; and he is considered the founder the Dominican province of Santiago de México. According to Franciscan fray Gerónimo de Mendieta, Betanzos did not know any native language and had little to do with Indians, his time being absorbed by administrative duties.

Tomás de Berlanga almost immediately claimed that it belonged to his newly founded province of Santa Cruz with the provincial seat at Santo Domingo. Betanzos went to Spain in 1531 and obtained from the Holy See the independence of his foundation. He also established the Dominican Province of Guatemala.

As Provincial of Mexico in 1535, he organized missions among three Indigenous groups stocks: the Nahua people, the Mixtec people, and the Zapotec people. He returned to Spain in 1549, and died in September of the same year at Valladolid. The Bishopric of Guatemala was tendered to Betanzos, but he declined it.

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