In 1524, Fray Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía) arrived in New Spain with the intention of Christianizing the Nahua. Dedicated to his mission, Motolinía learned Nahuatl and performed mass baptisms. Early on, the Spanish settlers' abuse of the Nahua impelled him to advocate on the indigenous' behalf. Motolinía campaigned for humane treatment of the natives and combated negative portrayals of the Americans as barbaric and inferior others. Elitist Europeans had created a White Legend endorsing the Spanish's divine right to subjugate the heathen race. Those opposed propagated their own Black Legend of the Spanish's injustices in the Americas, recasting the natives as morally superior beings and the Spaniards as devilish fiends. Motolína, along with other Spanish mendicants, attempted to reconcile the perceived differences between the two cultures, and advocate the Franciscan mission, by documenting the Nahua's history. This thesis argues Motolinía's Historia de los indios de la Nueva España provided a Spiritual Franciscan, millenarian interpretation of Nahua history that refuted notions of the Nahua's otherness and informed later mendicant chronicles of the century. Modern scholars have performed noteworthy evaluations on related subjects, however, they are all too brief. This study expands on those works and delves into previously unexplored aspects of the sixteenth century friar and his chronicle. In all, this study contributes to the literature on the spiritual conquest of Mexico and intellectual history through textual analysis.
