Andrés Xavier García

Andrés Xavier García was a Jesuit missionary in New Spain.

Biography

García was born in 1686 in Extremadura, Spain, entered the Society of Jesus in 1705, and made his final vows in 1720.^[1] He embarked for the Americas from El Puerto de Santa María on 22 November 1735. There were more than forty Jesuits aboard the ship with him, including Alexandro Rapicani and Jacobo Sedelmayr. On 18 February 1736, they were shipwrecked on the island of San Juan de Ulúa; there were no casualties, and the Jesuits continued on to Mexico City.^[2]

By 1737, García was Visitor General of the Jesuits in New Spain. That spring, he visited several of the Sonoran missions, including Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi and Mission Santa María Suamca.^[2] He served as provincial superior from 1747 to 1750.^[1]

As provincial superior, García supported the construction of the Convent of Corpus Christi, Mexico City in Mexico City for indigenous women, arguing that they were honest, humble, and as intelligent as Europeans.^[3] He also altered the Jesuit regulations on corporal punishment of natives in a 1747 order, raising the maximum number of lashes from eight to twenty-five.^[4][5]

García's last known post was as spiritual advisor at the Colegio Seminario de San Gregorio in Mexico.^[1]

References

1. Polzer, Charles W. (1976). Rules and precepts of the Jesuit missions of northwestern New Spain. Tucson : University of Arizona Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-8165-0551-7. Retrieved 5 May 2024.
2. Kessell, John L. (1970). Mission of sorrows; Jesuit Guevavi and the Pimas, 1691-1767. Tucson, University of Arizona Press. pp. 60–74, 88, 119, 185. ISBN 978-0-8165-0192-2. Retrieved 22 February 2024.
3. Greer, Allen (4 January 2016). Greer, Allen; Bilinkoff, Jodi (eds.). Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, 1500–1800. Routledge. p. 238. ISBN 978-1-315-02358-8.
4. Yetman, David (15 November 2010). The Ópatas: In Search of a Sonoran People. University of Arizona Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-8165-0109-0.
5. Stockel, H. Henrietta (15 September 2022). Salvation Through Slavery: Chiricahua Apaches and Priests on the Spanish Colonial Frontier. University of New Mexico Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-8263-4326-0.