Toribio de Benavente Motolinia

Toribio of Benavente, O.F.M. (1482, Benavente, Spain – 1568, Mexico City, New Spain), also known as Motolinía, was a Franciscan missionary, one of the famous Twelve Apostles of Mexico who arrived in New Spain in May 1524. His published writings are a key source for the history and ethnography of the Nahuas of central Mexico in the immediate post-conquest period as well as the challenges of Christian evangelization. He is probably best known for his attacks on the defender of the rights of the indigenous peoples, Bartolomé de las Casas and his critique of the Conquest. Motolinia supported the subjugation of the Indians as savages and did all he could to vilify the Dominican campaign to protect their natural rights and full humanity.

Toribio entered the Franciscan Order as a young boy, dropping his family name of Paredes in favor of his birth city, as was the custom among the Franciscans. In 1523 he was chosen to be among the first twelve missionaries to be sent to the New World.

After a strenuous journey he arrived in Mexico where Fray Toribio was greeted with great respect by Hernán Cortés. Upon walking through Tlaxcala the Indians commented on his ragged Franciscan robes, saying "Motolinia", which in the Nahuatl language means "one who is poor or afflicted." This was the first word he learned in the Nahuatl language and he took it as his name. For the Franciscan Order, poverty was an important and defining virtue. He was named Guardian of the Convent of San Francisco in Mexico City where he resided from 1524 to 1527.

From 1527 to 1529 Fray Toribio worked in Guatemala and perhaps Nicaragua, studying the new missions in that area. Back in Mexico he stayed at the convent of Huejotzinco near Tlaxcala, where he had to help the natives against the abuse and atrocities committed by Nuño de Guzmán. He suggested to the native leaders that they complain to Bishop Fray Juan de Zumárraga about Guzmán but the latter accused him of trying to instigate a revolt among the Indians against the Spanish sovereignty. In 1530 he went to the Convent of Tlaxcala and contributed in the foundation of the City of Puebla de los Ángeles, which was chosen for its agricultural and other economic potential and was to be a settlement of Spaniards who pursued agriculture themselves without aid of indigenous labor of the encomienda. With Franciscan colleagues he traveled to Tehuantepec in Guatemala and to the Yucatán to undertake further missionary work.

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