Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico: Miguel de Quintana's Life and Writings (review)

It is rare to have any written record concerning the spiritual reflections of the common person, let alone such an individual as Miguel de Quintana (b. 1677–d. 1748), who came from Mexico City to New Mexico as a settler of the Spanish frontier in 1694. The main reason for the preservation of Quintana's spiritual verses was the use of the Office of the Inquisition as a political tool in an attempt to silence and castigate a voice of criticism against the local clergy of the small frontier Villa de Santa Cruz de la Cañada, the most northern European settlement of the Spanish Americas in the eighteenth century.

Francisco A. Lomelí and Clark A. Colahan present the literary voice of Miguel de Quintana to modern readers and successfully place him as an important figure of New Mexico's literary tradition. Lomelí and Colahan's careful analysis of Quintana's spiritual verses reveals a personal spirituality firmly grounded in the Franciscan tradition of Roman Catholicism. The majority of the book consists of English translations and Spanish transcriptions of the various writings of Quintana, allowing readers of one or both languages access to these rare writings. The verses record the encouragement and guidance of "heavenly voices," such as these words of the Queen of Heaven,"Do not dread suffering/ Suffer, because your hardships/ will find relief, Miguel/ for I will be there to intercede." Evident in Quintana's writings is the Franciscan emphasis on poverty and humility, as well as empathy and compassion for the suffering of Christ and the significant role of the Virgin Mary as intercessor.

The fertile influence of the rich and deeply rooted Spanish Catholic tradition that flourished in Mexico City in the seventeenth century nourished the mind and spirituality of Quintana. Unfortunately, his personal motives for volunteering as a settler of New Mexico are not revealed in any of his surviving writings. As a husband and father Quintana sustained his family working as a farmer and a scribe. As a literate individual he was sought by others to record official civil and ecclesiastical proceedings, to write letters, and is known to have written coloquios, plays in the form of extended dialogue.

Quintana's criticism of a local Franciscan friar and his defiance of this friar's demand to confess to him stirred a personality conflict that developed into a denunciation to the Inquisition in July, 1732. The formal basis of the denunciation centered on Quintana's written spiritual prose and poetry, which local Franciscan clergy viewed as containing heretical assertions. Although Quintana maintained his innocence throughout the five years of investigation, he chose to bend as a reed with humility toward the authority of the Inquisition rather than to resist or push back. Following a recantation in 1737, he was exonerated, but only after experiencing much psychological and spiritual turmoil, which is apparent when reading his verses.

In Part One of the book, Lomelí and Colahan lead the reader through the historical and cultural context of Quintana's era with scholarly insights into the common elements of Quintana's expression that show how his writings fit squarely within the accepted Spanish Roman Catholic mysticism and spiritual expression of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In Parts Two and Three they have compiled and organized Quintana's poetry, letters, and essays from a variety of sources,many of which were transcribed from documents in Quintana's handwriting. This book represents an important contribution toward the ongoing documentation of New Mexico's literary tradition, a tradition that extends to the late 1500's. It is also an exceptional source for understanding the personal expression and experience of Roman Catholicism in Spain's North American frontier.