Having expected childlike natives, empty vessels waiting to be filled by the Word, the Franciscans instead found themselves fencing with skilled rhetoricians, proud of their intellectual traditions. In the end the friars resorted to a crude but effective argument: the Indians had to pledge fealty to the Christian god, because their own “gods were not powerful enough to liberate them from the hands of the Spaniards.” In a sober ceremony, the Mexica abjured their old religion and embraced Christianity.
