Nicolás de Freitas
Nicolás de Freitas (b. 1634) was a Franciscan missionary to New Spain.
Biography
Freitas was born in Mexico City in 1634.[1] His father, Juan de Freitas,[2] was from the Canary Islands; his mother, Gerónima de Rueda, was native to the area. He entered the Franciscan order on June 4, 1650, and accompanied Governor Bernardo López de Mendizábal to New Mexico in December 1658.[3] From 1659 to 1660, he served at Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purisima Concepción de Quarai.[4]
In 1661, Freitas testified to the Holy Office in the Inquisition trial of López de Mendizábal. He recounted a conversation in which López had claimed that the bull Omnimoda had been revoked, limiting the powers of mendicant orders in the New World.[5] He also accused López of allowing the local Hopi to perform their traditional Kachina dances.[6]
Freitas subsequently accompanied López's replacement, Diego de Peñalosa, to Santa Fe, and became custos there.[1] In 1706,[7] Freitas testified to Governor Francisco Antonio Marín del Valle about the likely location of the body of another Franciscan, Geronimo de la Llana.[8]
References
- ^ a b Sheridan, Thomas E.; Koyiyumptewa, Stewart B.; Daughters, Anton; Brenneman, Dale S.; Ferguson, T. J.; Kuwanwisiwma, Leigh J.; Lomayestewa, Leigh Wayne (12 November 2015). Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History, Volume I, 1540–1679. University of Arizona Press. p. 295. ISBN 978-0-8165-3243-8.
- ^ Also sometimes spelled Fleytas.
- ^ Scholes, France V.; Simmons, Marc; Esquibel, José Antonio (16 May 2012). Juan Domínguez de Mendoza: Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627–1693. UNM Press. ISBN 978-0-8263-5117-3.
- ^ Hurt, Wesley Robert (1990). The 1939-1940 Excavation Project at Quarai Pueblo and Mission Buildings: Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, New Mexico. Division of History. p. 4. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
- ^ Scholes, France (1 April 1937). "Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659–1670". New Mexico Historical Review. 12 (2): 134–174. ISSN 0028-6206. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
- ^ Anderson, Frank G. (1956). "Early Documentary Material on the Pueblo Kachina Cult". Anthropological Quarterly. 29 (2): 31–44. doi:10.2307/3316568. ISSN 0003-5491. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
- ^ Historian John Kessell suggests that the date of 1706 may be an error, and the statement may actually date to 1670.
- ^ Ivey, James E. (1988). In the Midst of a Loneliness: The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions : Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument : Historic Structure Report. Division of History, Southwest Cultural Resources Center, Southwest Region, National Park Service, Department of the Interior. p. 237.