The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 41, July 1937 - April, 1938 Page: 191

Book Reviews and Notes

graphical errors and deserves commendation for the pleasing format
and the valuable illustrations (forty-one full-page photogravures)
by the Elson Company, a guarantee in itself of their merit. To
the historian, as well as to the student of family histories, the
book will prove an invaluable source. There was a need for a
serious collection of Texas pioneer genealogies.
C. E. CASTAfEDA.
The University of Texas.
Franciscan History of North America: Report of the Eighteenth
Annual Meeting, Santa Barbara, California, August 2-4,
1936. By the Franciscan. Educational Conference. (Capu-
chin College, Brookland, Washington, D. C., 1937. Pp. vi,
385.)
It is lamentable that an otherwise fine series of papers on this
subject, presented by people interested in and devoted to the
Franciscan Order, should be marred by one monograph of very
doubtful historical or even ecclesiastical value, written with un-
usual vindictiveness, as well as inaccuracy---seemingly for the
chief purpose of extolling the religious virtues of the first Spanish
conquerors of Mexico. Such a paper is the second in the series,
"The Franciscans in New Spain, 1522-1600," by Joseph Thompson,
O. F. M. This article abdicates its right to the pretentious title'
it bears the moment it is read, for only a small part of it is
devoted to the work of the friars and then only to the first so-
called "twelve apostles." The rest of the paper is a polemic on
the superiority of the Roman Catholic Church over its Protestant
offshoots. The general tone of the article may be obtained from
one sentence: "The Conquest of Mexico must be viewed, as it was
viewed by Cortes and his followers, as a holy crusade for the
extension of Christianity." Father Thompson will find it difficult
to reconcile his aversion to Bancroft and Prescott as sound authori-
ties when they take the Church to task, with his praise for them
when they comment favorably on the fine work performed at
times by various individual missionaries among the Indians of
Mexico. He carefully omits all mention of Bishop Zumarraga, and
also places too much credence in the numbers converted by the