Date Awarded
2003
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department
History
Advisor
James Axtell
Abstract
During the seventeenth century, Spanish conquerors established Franciscan missions among the native inhabitants of Florida and New Mexico. The missionaries in the northern frontier doctrinas of Spain's New World empire adapted methods tested in Iberia and Central and South America to conditions among the Guales, Timucuas, Apalaches, and the various Pueblo peoples. The mission Indians of Florida and New Mexico responded to conquest and conversion in myriad ways. They incorporated Spaniards in traditional ways, they attempted to repel the interlopers, they joined the newcomers and accepted novel modes of behavior, they discriminated between which foreign concepts to adopt and which to reject, and they avoided entangling relations with the Spaniards as best they could. By the end of the seventeenth century the frontier missions of Florida and New Mexico collapsed under the weight of violent struggles among Indians, Spanish officials, Franciscan missionaries, and outside invaders. This comparative study will reveal patterns in Spanish frontier colonization and Indian responses to Spanish conquest and missions.
DOI
https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-pym2-hv91
Rights
© The Author
Recommended Citation
Galgano, Robert C., "Feast of souls: Indians and Spaniards in the seventeenth-century missions of Florida and New Mexico" (2003). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. William & Mary. Paper 1539623416.
https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-pym2-hv91
