Since its inception, the Catholic Church has invoked a panoply of holy images to ward off disasters; for example, the archangel Michael brings an end to a plague by slaying Satan, and the Virgin Mary is taken in solemn procession to stop a tumultuous rainstorm or to bring one on. Santiago was said to have come to the aid of Hernando Cortés during his first major battle against the native peoples of early Mexico. But there were no sacred icons to marshal to ensure the conversion of the natives to Christianity.
Nevertheless, 12 apostolic, reformminded Franciscans were in New Spain, as Cortés called the place, within three years of the fall of the Aztec capital. Pious and zealous, the friars were in the vanguard of the legions of clergy who would participate in the evangelization of North America. The Indians were God’s gift to the Franciscans, and through indigenous conversion...
