ESPINAR, ALONSO DE

Franciscan missionary in the Antilles; place and date of birth unknown; d. at sea, 1513. A friar by this name was vicar of the Franciscan friary of S. Antonio del Jobre in Galicia in 1499, and he may be the same friar who came in 1502 to Santo Domingo with Governor Ovando as the superior of 17 Franciscans. At any rate, Espinar and his friars began the work of evangelization of the New World. In Santo Domingo he began the famous friary of San Francisco, which became the headquarters of the province of the Holy Cross. This was the first province founded by any religious order in the New World, and Espinar seems to have been named the provincial. He helped found the first hospital, La Concepción, in November 1503. He guided the expansion of the friars to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica and to the South American continent. He favored the elementary education of the sons of the caciques and other native leaders. By 1512 these students were so numerous that Espinar had shipped from Spain for their use 2,000 primers of reading and writing. In the commotion that resulted in 1511 from the sermon of the Dominican Antonio Montesino, who condemned to hell all Spaniards who held natives, Espinar took a more moderate view and helped to write the laws of Burgos (1512–13) that regulated the labor of the natives. For this he merited the vituperation of Las Casas, although even a prejudiced witness was forced to confess that Espinar was "a good religious and a venerable person" and "that the king had already formed a high opinion of him." On a trip to Spain, Espinar requested 40 friars from the king for the work in the New World. The request was readily granted, and the Crown agreed to defray all expenses of the outfitting and of the trip. Espinar was leading eight of these friars to Santo Domingo when he died, as the documents say "in the middle of the sea" and was buried there.

Bibliography: a. lÓpez, "Fray Alonso de Espinar, misionero en las Indias," Archivo ibero-americano 6 (1916) 160–167. a. s. tibesar, "The Franciscan Province of the Holy Cross of Española, 1505–1559," The Americas 13 (1956–57) 377–397.

[l. g. canedo]