The Guadalajara Reporter

Education is often drowned in pessimism

When Fray Martin de Valencia, tireless organizer of the Franciscan effort to educate the survivors of Hernan Cortes’ destruction of Tenochtitlan, died on the wharf of Ayatzingo, August 31, 1534, the “indians” of the Aztec Empire lost a valuable ally, though many didn’t know who he was. Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, was in ruins, and there was a slightest pause in the Spanish Catholic Church’s first religious order to answer Cortes’ request for a group of friars to convert the people whose civilization he was in the process of destroying.

Described as an “exemplary figure of poverty and humility,” Fray Martin was one of “The Twelve” friars to answer Cortes’ request, bringing religious as well as practical and linguist skills to the indigenous population of that space now known as the Federal District and the State of Mexico. The value of this effort was also seen by many of his Franciscan brethren. They realized that, as more opportunistic — and poorly educated — Spaniards began to arrive in New Spain seeking their fortunes, conversion and basic skills were the way to save indigenous lives.

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