Conquest’s Mouth: Bartolomé de Olmedo, the Mercedarian Order, and the Spanish Invasion of Mexico

Religion was an oft-cited justification for European overseas expansion in the sixteenth century. In reconstructing the development of Christianity in Mexico, historians begin with the twelve Franciscan friars who arrived in New Spain in 1524. In contrast, this essay asks about the Christian clergy who preceded them. As a friar in the Mercedarian order, Bartolomé de Olmedo served as the chaplain for Hernando Cortés’s 1519 expedition, which initiated the Spanish conquest of Mexico. He also served as a mediator, counselor, and spy. Olmedo’s role mirrored his order’s wider sixteenth-century reputation as worldly and sociable. By critically reading conquistador memoirs, Mercedarian commemorations, and Nahua images, this essay argues that Olmedo and the Mercedarians were instrumental in the Spanish invasion of the Americas—albeit not in the evangelical aspect that later Mercedarians wanted to promote. Instead, it was Olmedo‘s pragmatism and diplomacy—traits particularly prized and deliberately cultivated by the Mercedarian order—that enabled the initial Spanish invasion of Mexico.