ABSTRACT
The colonial state and the Church both sought the evangelization of Mexico’s indigenous population. Their conversion legally justified Spain’s conquest of its New World territories and ideologically facilitated the maintenance of colonial government. Missionaries also undertook natives’ proselytization because of their genuine faith in Catholicism’s superiority over all other religions and their fear for the perdition of the souls of the unconverted. Jacinto de la Serna, a famous expurgator of native idolatry, worked within the tradition. Serna conveys the outrage that missionaries felt upon detecting that despite presenting a veneer of genuine conversion to Catholicism, native people continued to practice Pre-Columbian traditions and to adhere to Pre-Conquest spirituality. Missionaries, beginning with the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagun in the mid-sixteenth century, compiled histories of Mexico’s native people and treatises about their spiritual practices in order to undertake their evangelical work more effectively.
