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1. Sea la Luz
THE MAKING OF MEXICAN PROTESTANTISM
IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST, 1829–1900
Juan Francisco Martínez
Number 4 in the Al Filo:
Mexican American Studies Series
University of North Texas Press
Denton, Texas
Sea la Luz INT 5/18/06 1:46 PM Page iii
2. Contents
List of Illustrations viii
List of Abbreviations ix
Preface x
Introduction 1
1 “Planting the Institutions of Freedom”
Protestant Attitudes Toward the Conquest of the Southwest 6
2 “Unfit for the Duties and Privileges of Citizens”
Anglo American Protestant Attitudes Toward the Mexicans
of the Southwest 16
3 “Making Good Citizens Out of the Mexicans”
Motivations for Protestant Mission Work Among
Mexican Americans 27
4 “Yet Many Do Not Declare Themselves for Fear”
Protestant Mission Efforts Prior to the Civil War 50
5 “Teaching Them to Be Law-abiding, Industrious and
Thrifty Citizens”
Mexican American Protestantism in Texas 61
6 “A Slumbering People”
Mexican American Protestantism in the Territory of
New Mexico 80
7 “Doing What He Could”
Mexican American Protestantism in Colorado, the Territory
of Arizona, and California 110
8 “A Power for the Uplifting of the Mexican Race”
Characteristics of the Nineteenth-Century Mexican American
Protestant Community 125
Conclusion: Beginnings of a New Subculture 145
Appendix 150
Notes 152
Bibliography 176
Index 188
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3. 27
3
“Making Good Citizens
Out of the Mexicans”
MOTIVATIONS FOR PROTESTANT MISSION
WORK AMONG MEXICAN AMERICANS
We hold the key to Mexico’s evangelization and to the re-
demption of the whole Southwestern frontier of the United
States . . . [because] Methodism appears first on the field
in most of this territory.
Texas Christian Advocate (1885)
The work of educating these people in the knowledge of
Christ Jesus is a great work. The Spanish speaking people
know more about saints and images than they know about
Christ. Nothing but the Spirit of God can lead them to see
that God is to be worshipped without an image, and that
they can pray to Christ without the aid of a saint.
John Menaul (1891)
[P]atriotism and home missions are inseparably united.
Neither can stand, in the mind of the Christian citizen,
without the other.
Sherman H. Doyle (1905)
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4. THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER DESCRIBED THE “PROBLEM” AS PERCEIVED
by American Protestant mission agencies: Mexican Catholics
had been accepted as U.S. citizens and these people were not fit
for the privilege. This situation served, in turn, as the chief mo-
tivator for Protestant mission work among the Mexicans of the
Southwest. The Mexican population needed to hear the Protes-
tant message to be freed from Catholicism. Closely tied to this
message was Anglo American culture, perceived by Protestant
leaders to be the logical result of living out the Protestant mes-
sage. To preach a Protestant understanding of the gospel was
also to promote the best of Anglo American cultural, social, po-
litical, and economic values. Both theological and cultural un-
derstandings of Anglo American Protestantism motivated mis-
sionaries to evangelize Mexican American Catholics.
Doubts about Evangelizing Mexican Americans
The rhetoric used to justify the conquest of the Southwest did
not translate into a strong missionary enterprise, however.
Many Protestants questioned whether there should even be a
missionary effort among the Mexican American population.
Many home missions leaders were convinced that mission agen-
cies should focus their energies on the Anglo American immi-
grants entering the newly conquered Southwest. When Melinda
Rankin visited churches in the eastern United States to raise
funds for her missionary efforts in Texas, she found that many
Protestant leaders and members were not interested in reaching
the Mexican American population. She reported that “the prej-
udices existing against the Mexicans, engendered during the
late war, often proved great barriers to my success.” One Pres-
byterian leader told her that “the Mexicans were a people just
fit to be exterminated from the earth.” Another person, a Pres-
byterian minister, even stated, “We had better send bullets and
gunpowder to Mexico than Bibles.”1
Sea la Luz28
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5. titution of its own people, Spanish-speaking and otherwise. But
the missionaries were also necessary because Providence had
pointed out “Texas as an agent to operate upon the Papal
power in Mexico.”23
The relationship between reaching tejanos in southwest
Texas and the evangelization of Mexico was also an important
consideration for the Blanco Baptist Association. They recog-
nized the importance of reaching the Mexican Americans of
their area because it “would be an important step toward evan-
gelizing the border states of Mexico.”24
If there were enough
money to support missionaries there might soon be Baptist
churches among tejanos, which “would honor and advance the
cause of truth even beyond our borders.”25
Presbyterians in Texas viewed their ministry among Mexi-
can Americans in the same light. The first Presbyterian Church
formed in San Antonio in the 1840s transmitted the following
resolution to its Foreign (Mission) Board:
Whereas the town of San Antonio, in Western Texas,
contains a population of more than two thousand
Mexicans, and whereas this town carries on consid-
erable trade with Eastern Mexico and affords facili-
ties for distributing Bibles, etc., among that deluded
people, Therefore, Resolved that, should Texas be
transferred to the Domestic Board, that town be rec-
ommended to the Foreign Board to be continued un-
der their care as a suitable station for operating upon
the population there and also for introducing the
gospel into Mexico.26
Walter Scott, called the “Father of Spanish-speaking Presby-
terianism” in Texas, approached ministry among the Spanish-
speaking communities of that state from a similar perspective.
For him, the presbytery of western Texas had “no western
boundary—it can take in the entire republic of Mexico.” Be-
cause of the constant comings and goings of Mexicans across
the international border, evangelizing both tejanos and Mexi-
“Making Good Citizens Out of the Mexicans” 35
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6. From 1887 to 1892 the San Marcos congregation, with
sixty-seven members, was the only existing Spanish-language
PCUS church in central Texas. After Scott’s ordination to min-
istry, new churches were organized in Martindale and Uvalde in
1893. Scott was the official pastor of all three congregations be-
cause he was the only ordained pastor, and all organized PCUS
churches had to have an ordained minister as titular pastor.
Nonetheless, Scott had valuable assistance: Juan Hernández,
originally licensed to work with the San Marcos congregation,
served in Uvalde, and Julio Avila was licensed to serve in Mar-
tindale.13
In 1896 new congregations were also organized in
Corpus Christi and Laredo. The Presbytery assigned Hernández
to Laredo, and Scott continued as the principal worker in the
Central Texas congregations. Henry Pratt, former missionary to
Colombia, joined the work in Laredo in 1896.14
Under these
leaders, new congregations were established in Reedville
Sea la Luz68
Walter Scott and Mexican PCUS pastors and leaders. Seated, left to right:
Salinas, Scott, Cárdenas; standing, left to right: García, Alba, Samaniego,
Pérez. Picture first appeared in The Texas Presbyterian, March 5, 1896.
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7. work among Mexican Americans in Texas grew more rapidly
than in New Mexico from 1894, and by 1900 there were almost
as many Mexican American Protestants in Texas as in New
Mexico. The overwhelming majority (87.9 percent) of all Mex-
ican American Protestants lived in New Mexico and Texas. Col-
orado accounted for 8.3 percent of Mexican American Protes-
tant church members. California and Arizona together had less
than 4 percent of the total (Graph 4).
Mexican American Protestant membership growth was
most consistent in New Mexico. It was not rapid, but it was
steady throughout the nineteenth century.38
Texas, on the other
hand, went through spurts. From 1870 to 1880 the tejano Prot-
estant population boomed, and by 1880 there were twice as
many Spanish-speaking Protestants in Texas as in New Mexico.
But there was little growth during the 1880s in Texas and by
1887 there were, once again, more Mexican American Protes-
tants in New Mexico. From 1888 to 1895 growth was roughly
parallel in both areas. After 1895 it leveled off in New Mexico
while growth continued in Texas, so that by the beginning of
Sea la Luz142
Texas
2438
New Mexico
2521
Colorado
462
California
115
Arizona
96 1.7%
2.0%
8.2%
44.6%
43.3%
Graph 4
Mexican American Protestants by States, 1900
Southwestern United States
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