Editing Jesuits (section)

====Mexico====
[[File:Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto. Siglo XVIII.jpg|thumb|The Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó in the 18th century, the first permanent Jesuit mission in Baja California, established by [[Juan María de Salvatierra]] in 1697]]
[[File:Francisco Xavier Clavijero.jpg|thumb|Mexican-born Jesuit [[Francisco Javier Clavijero|Francisco Clavijero]] (1731–1787) wrote an important history of Mexico.]]
The Jesuits in [[New Spain]] distinguished themselves in several ways. They had high standards for acceptance to the order and many years of training. They attracted the patronage of elite families whose sons they educated in rigorous newly founded Jesuit {{lang|es|colegios}} ("colleges"), including [[San Pedro y San Pablo College (Museum of Light)|Colegio de San Pedro y San Pablo]], [[San Ildefonso College|Colegio de San Ildefonso]], and the [[Museo Nacional del Virreinato|Colegio de San Francisco Javier, Tepozotlan]]. Those same elite families hoped that a son with a [[vocation]] to the priesthood would be accepted as a Jesuit. Jesuits were also zealous in evangelization of the indigenous, particularly on the northern frontiers.

To support their {{lang|es|colegios}} and members of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits acquired landed estates that were run with the best-practices for generating income in that era. A number of these haciendas were donated by wealthy elites. The donation of a hacienda to the Jesuits was the spark igniting a conflict between 17th-century Bishop [[Juan de Palafox y Mendoza|Don Juan de Palafox]] of [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Puebla de los Ángeles|Puebla]] and the Jesuit ''colegio'' in that city. Since the Jesuits resisted paying the tithe on their estates, this donation effectively took revenue out of the church hierarchy's pockets by removing it from the tithe rolls.{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=242}}

Many of Jesuit haciendas were huge, with Palafox asserting that just two colleges owned 300,000 head of sheep, whose wool was transformed locally in Puebla to cloth; six sugar plantations worth a million pesos and generating an income of 100,000 pesos.{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=242}} The immense Jesuit hacienda of Santa Lucía produced [[pulque]], the alcoholic drink made from fermented [[agave]] sap whose main consumers were the lower classes and Indigenous peoples in Spanish cities. Although most haciendas had a free work force of permanent or seasonal labourers, the Jesuit haciendas in Mexico had a significant number of enslaved people of African descent.{{sfn|Konrad|1980}}

The Jesuits operated their properties as an integrated unit with the larger Jesuit order; thus revenues from haciendas funded their {{lang|es|colegios}}. Jesuits did significantly expand missions to the Indigenous in the northern frontier area and a number were martyred, but the crown supported those missions.{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=242}} [[Mendicant orders]] that had real estate were less economically integrated, so that some individual houses were wealthy while others struggled economically. The [[Franciscans]], who were founded as an order embracing poverty, did not accumulate real estate, unlike the [[Augustinians]] and [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]] in Mexico.

The Jesuits engaged in conflict with the episcopal hierarchy over the question of payment of tithes, the ten percent tax on agriculture levied on landed estates for support of the church hierarchy from bishops and cathedral chapters to parish priests. Since the Jesuits were the largest religious order holding real estate, surpassing the Dominicans and Augustinians who had accumulated significant property, this was no small matter.{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=242}} They argued that they were exempt, due to special pontifical privileges.{{sfn|Cline|1997|p=250}} Bishop De Palafox took on the Jesuits over this matter and was so soundly defeated that he was recalled to Spain, where he became the bishop of the minor [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Osma-Soria|Diocese of Osma]].

As elsewhere in the Spanish empire, the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767. Their haciendas were sold off and their ''colegios'' and [[Spanish missions in Baja California|missions in Baja California]] were taken over by other orders.{{sfn|Van Handel|1991}} Exiled Mexican-born Jesuit [[Francisco Javier Clavijero]] wrote an important history of Mexico while in Italy, a basis for [[Criollo people|creole]] patriotism. [[Andrés Cavo]] also wrote an important text on Mexican history that [[Carlos María de Bustamante]] published in the early 19th century.<ref>Carlos María de Bustamante, ''Los tres siglos de México durante el gobierno español, hasta la entrada del ejército trigarante. Obra escrita en Roma por el P. Andrés Cavo, de la Compañía de Jesús; publicada con notas y suplemento''. 4 vols. Mexico 1836–38.</ref> An earlier Jesuit who wrote about the history of Mexico was Diego Luis de Motezuma (1619–99), a descendant of the [[Aztecs|Aztec]] monarchs of [[Tenochtitlan]]. Motezuma's {{lang|es|Corona mexicana, o Historia de los nueve Motezumas}} was completed in 1696. He "aimed to show that Mexican emperors were a legitimate dynasty in the 17th-century in the European sense".{{sfn|Warren| 1973|p=84}}<ref>Diego Luis de Motezuma, ''Corona mexicana, o historia de los Motezumas, por el Padre Diego Luis de Motezuma de la Compañía de Jesús''. Madrid 1914.</ref>

The Jesuits were allowed to return to Mexico in 1840 when General [[Antonio López de Santa Anna]] was once more president of Mexico. Their re-introduction to Mexico was "to assist in the education of the poorer classes and much of their property was restored to them".{{sfn|Mecham|1966|pp=358–359}}

<gallery>
File:AltarDomChaptlTep.JPG|The main altar of the Jesuit colegio in Tepozotlan, now the [[Museo Nacional del Virreinato]]
</gallery>