ABSTRACT
The life and writings of Bishop Alonso de la Mota y Escobar reveal the conditions and complexities of early modern contact and reform in New Spain, and by extension, the greater Americas and Caribbean. As a first-generation Hispanic-descended settler, creole or criollo, in New Spain, Mota y Escobar was a product, subject, and agent of trans-Atlantic imperial expansion and reformation. The goal of civilizational reformation as defined by the metropole was pursued by the conquering creoles who came into existence in the violence of encounter, but in their pursuit the nature of their colonial position altered course. This article illuminates the ways in which one creole bishop articulated his vision of the colonial-metropolitan relationship as one of debt, acknowledgment, and perpetual collection: his writings reveal the ways he asserted the righteousness of this vision while walking the edge of imperial acquiescence and tolerance.
