ZUMÁRRAGA (CUMARRAGA), JUAN. - First bishop of Mexico, b. toward the end of 1468 or at the beginning of 1469 at Tarifa de Durango, d. at Mexico, June 3, 1548.
He entered the Franciscan convent of Abrojo and later became guardian, definitor, and provincial. Charles V appointed him in 1527 inquisitor for Navarre against witchcraft; on Dec. 12, 1527, he presented him as the first bishop of Mexico, though the appointment did not then take effect because of the political struggle with Clement VII (sack of Rome). At the end of August 1528, Zumárraga sailed with the first officials destined for the civil government of Mexico and arrived there on Dec. 6, 1528, with the title of bishop-elect and as protector of the Indians, opposing their oppressors. The officials of the first Audiencia succeeded in bringing him into disfavor at court, so that Charles V withheld the bull by which Zumárraga had been confirmed bishop of Mexico on Sept. 2, 1530, and summoned him to Spain to justify himself. Arriving in his homeland on March 17, 1533, Zumárraga cleared himself splendidly and on Apr. 27, 1533, at Valladolid he was consecrated. With a group of artisans and six women for the education of Indian girls, he returned to Mexico in Oct. 1534. To avoid difficulties with the civil government, Zumárraga renounced the title of protector of the Indians, which passed to the second Audiencia, more benevolent, and then on Nov. 17, 1535, to the first viceroy of Mexico, Antonio de Mendoza. On June 27, 1535, the general inquisitor Alvaro Manrique, archbishop of Seville, appointed Zumárraga apostolic inquisitor of the city and diocese of Mexico.
When, after the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe (1531), mass conversion of the Indians began, Zumárraga organized the Church and ecclesiastical life in Mexico. Despite great difficulties, mainly concerning the validity of mass baptisms and the validity of marriages of polygamists—difficulties later resolved by the celebrated bull *Altitudo* of Paul III, July 10, 1537—Zumárraga zealously attended to the conversion of the Indians.
In the struggle against idolatry and superstition, he had a large number of temples and idols destroyed. He built churches and convents, hospitals, especially in Mexico and Vera Cruz, boys' and girls' schools, founded the famous college of Tlatelolco, promoted good morals, trades, and industry, and after the publication of the *New Laws* that prohibited the enslavement of the Indians, he succeeded in preventing a bloody insurrection of the colonists. In 1539, Zumárraga had the first printing press installed in Mexico in the New World by Juan Cromberger of Seville, in which many books for the mission among the Indians were printed, such as: *Breve y mas compendiosa doctrina christiana en lengua mexicana y castellana* (Mexico 1539); *Manual de adultos* (ibid. 1540); *Doctrina christiana por instrucción y información de los Indios* (ibid. 1544). Zumárraga was the author of catechetical books, such as: *Doctrina cristiana breve para enseñanza de los niños* (ibid. 1543) and *Doctrina breve muy provechosa* etc. (ibid. 1544). In 1545 he wished to resign his diocese to go as a missionary to China, despite his advanced age. On Feb. 11, 1546, Paul III erected Mexico into an archbishopric, separating it from the metropolitan see of Seville, and giving it as suffragans Oaxaca, Michoacán, Tlaxcala, Guatemala, and Ciudad Real de Chiapas. Zumárraga was its first archbishop but died before the bull relating thereto reached Mexico.