Michoacn And Eden Vasco De Quiroga And The Evangelization Of Western Mexico [Paperback]

Don Vasco de Quiroga (1470-1565) was the first bishop of Michoac?n in Western Mexico. Driven by the desire to convert the native Purh?pecha-Chichimec peoples to a purified form of Christianity, free of the corruptions of European Catholicism, he sought to establish New World Edens in Michoac?n by congregating the people into pueblo-hospital communities, where mendicant friars could more easily teach them the fundamental beliefs of Christianity and the values of Spanish culture.

In this broadly synthetic study, Bernardino Ver?stique explores Vasco de Quiroga's evangelizing project in its full cultural and historical context. He begins by recreating the complex and not wholly incompatible worldviews of the Purh?pecha and the Spaniards at the time of their first encounter in 1521. With Quiroga as a focal point, Ver?stique then traces the uneasy process of assimilation and resistance that occurred on both sides as the Spaniards established political and religious dominance in Michoac?n. He describes the syncretisms, or fusions, between Christianity and indigenous beliefs and practices that arose among the Purh?pecha and relates these to similar developments in other regions of Mexico.

Written especially for students and general readers, this book demonstrates how cultural and geographical environments influence religious experience, while it adds to our understanding of the process of indigenous appropriation of Christian theological concepts in the New World.