ZUMÁRRAGA (CUMARRÁGA), JUAN. - First bishop of Mexico, born toward the end of 1468 or at the beginning of 1469 at Taria de Durango, died in Mexico on June 3, 1548.
He entered the Franciscan convent of Abrojo and subsequently was guardian, definitor and provincial. Charles V appointed him in 1527 inquisitor for Navarre against witchcraft, and on Dec. 12, 1527 presented him as first bishop of Mexico, though the appointment was not then followed up because of the political struggle with Clement VII (Sack of Rome). At the end of Aug. 1528 Z. sailed together with the first officials destined for the civil government of Mexico and landed there on Dec. 6, 1528 with the title of bishop-elect, and as protector of the Indians he opposed their oppressors. The officials of the 1st Audiencia succeeded in bringing him into disfavor at court, so that Charles V withheld the bull by which Z. had been confirmed bishop of Mexico on Sept. 2, 1530, and summoned him to Spain to justify himself. Having arrived in his homeland on March 17, 1533, Z. cleared himself splendidly and on Apr. 27, 1533 at Valladolid was consecrated. With a group of craftsmen and 6 women for the education of Indian girls he returned to Mexico in Oct. 1534. To avoid difficulties with the civil government Z. renounced the title of protector of the Indians, which passed to the more benevolent 2nd Audiencia and then on Nov. 17, 1535 to the first viceroy of Mexico, Antonio de Mendoza. On June 27, 1535 the inquisitor general Alvaro Manrique, archbishop of Seville, appointed Z. apostolic inquisitor of the city and diocese of Mexico.
When, after the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe (1531), the mass conversion of the Indians began, Z. organized the Church and ecclesiastical life in Mexico. Despite great difficulties, principally concerning the validity of mass Baptisms and the validity of the marriages of polygamists, difficulties later resolved by the celebrated bull Altitudo of Paul III of July 1, 1537, Z. attended with great zeal to the conversion of the Indians.
In the struggle against idolatry and superstition he had a great number of temples and idols destroyed. He built churches and convents, hospitals, especially in Mexico and Vera Cruz, schools for boys and girls, founded the celebrated college of Tlatelolco, promoted good morals, crafts and industry, and after the publication of the Nuevas Leyes which prohibited the slavery of the Indians he succeeded in preventing a bloody insurrection of the colonists. In 1539 Z. had the first printing press in the New World installed in Mexico through the work of Juan Cromberger of Seville, in which many books were printed for the mission among the Indians, such as, for example: 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). Z. was the author of catechetical books, such as, for example, Doctrina cristiana breve para enseñanza de los niños (ibid. 1543) and: Doctrina breve muy p'uechosa etc. (ibid. 1544). In 1545 he wished to renounce his diocese in order 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, Michoacan, Tlaxcala, Guatemala and Ciudad Real de Chiapas. Z. was its first archbishop but died before the relevant bull arrived in Mexico.
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Nicola Kowalsky