Criminal and Citizen in Modern Mexico (review)
However, it is not the character of the Franciscans that is the central focus of the work but rather the gradual erosion of Franciscan political authority from a highpoint prior to the Pueblo Revolt. While the crown's shifting priorities in the eighteenth century were essential to the Franciscans' demise, Norris argues that the 1680 Revolt had already begun to transform the role of the Franciscans, whose fear of further rebellion fostered dependence on civil-military authority. The unreliable, sporadic financial support of the crown, the crown's emphasis on the frontier's military security, and the frequent relocation of friars to different missions further weakened Franciscan authority. Norris chronologically plows through each governorship, spending more time on those administrations where the documents are richest. Ultimately, the erosion of Franciscan authority is evidenced not only by the Franciscans' interactions with civil authorities but also by the friars' subsiding resistance to the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Durango. By the early nineteenth century, the Franciscans are so without authority—political or otherwise—that many key sources from the period essentially ignore these increasingly isolated figures.