Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (August 14, 1645 – August 22, 1700), considered one of the first great intellectuals born in the Americas, was the Spanish viceroy of New Spain (Mexico City). He was a criollo patriot, exalting New Spain over Old. A polymath and writer, he held many colonial government and academic positions. Sigüenza is considered the ("Mexican da Vinci") and among the most important intellectuals from Colonial Spanish America, alongside Juan de Espinosa Medrano.
Early life Sigüenza was born in Mexico City in 1645 to Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Benito, originally from Madrid, and to Doña Dionisia Suárez de Figueroa y Góngora, who was born in Seville, Spain. His father and mother met in New Spain in 1640. Sigüenza was the second oldest and first male of the couple's nine children. He was related to the famous baroque Spanish poet Luis de Góngora through his mother. He studied mathematics and astronomy under the direction of his father, who had been a tutor for the royal family in Spain.
Expulsion from the Jesuits Sigüenza entered the Society of Jesus as a novice on August 17, 1660 and took his simple vows on August 15, 1662 in Tepotzotlán. He was dismissed from the Jesuits in 1668 for repeatedly flouting Jesuit discipline and going out secretly at night. He repented and pleaded to be reinstated, but the head of the Jesuits, the General of the Order, rejected his plea, saying, "The cause of the expulsion of this person is so disreputable, as he himself confesses, that he does not deserve this boon [of being readmitted]." using the quotation from . This dismissal was not only a grave disappointment and a blot on his reputation, but it also meant that he would be financially insecure for the rest of this life. He became a secular priest without a parish or a steady income. He sought many offices throughout his life in order to support himself and his extended family, all of whom, his father included, were dependent on him to the end of his life. He was ordained a secular priest in 1673.
Career in Science He studied at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de México (Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico) following his dismissal from the Jesuits, where he excelled at mathematics and developed a lifelong interest in the sciences. When a faculty position in Mathematics & Astrology (when he held it he taught mainly astronomy) was available, Sigüenza sought to compete for it, although he did not hold a doctoral degree in the subjects. It was not clear that he could even be eligible to compete, but Sigüenza argued successfully to do so. Selection for university posts was via oposiciones or competition between candidates. A question was posed and the candidate had to complete a response within 24 hours to be judged by a panel. Ghost writers or ringers sometimes completed the exercise and Sigüenza successfully argued that his chief rival for the position, and the person who vociferously argued that Sigüenza had no standing to even compete, had to be kept under surveillance during the competition to prevent cheating. On July 20, 1672, he was named to the chair of Mathematics and Astrology. His record as a professor was marred because he was frequently absent from the classroom due to his researches on various topics and to the pressing of other obligations he took on for fiscal reasons. One of his biographers suggests that his absences from the university might be attributable to his disdain for astrology, which he considered "a diabolical invention and consequently, alien to science, method, principle and truth." quoting from a translation included in .
In 1681 Sigüenza wrote the book Philosophical Manifest Against the Comets Stripped of their Dominion over the Timid in which he tried to dismiss fears of impending superstitious predictions that linked comets to calamitous events; in the work he takes steps to separate the fields of astrology and astronomy. The Tyrolean Jesuit Eusebio Kino, who had come to New Spain to evangelize on the northern frontier, met Sigüenza at his home in Mexico City. Both men had observed the comet of 1680 and both were keenly interested in the phenomenon. The warm feelings between the two soured quickly, with Sigüenza believing that Kino belittled Mexican-born Spaniards' (creoles) level of learning. Kino published a strong criticism of Sigüenza's opinion on comets, without naming him specifically. Kino's criticism was that because they were contradictory to established astronomical/astrological belief in the heavens. Sigüenza often cited authors such as Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, and Tycho Brahe. In 1690, Sigüenza moved to defend his previous work by publishing "Libra Astronómica y Filosófica"; it was unlike many of his other writings, which remained in manuscript form because he could not afford to publish them. He directly attacks Kino by saying "I hereby point out that neither his Reverence [Kino] nor any other mathematician, even if he is Ptolemy himself, can set up dogmas in these sciences, because authority has no place in them at all, but only proof and demonstration." Theology was known as the "Queen of the Sciences", but Sigüenza's stance is on the side of science as defined in the modern era.
Royal geographer
In the 1680s, he prepared the first-ever map of all of New Spain, which won high praise and was widely copied. He also drew hydrologic maps of the Valley of Mexico. In 1692 King Charles II named him official geographer for the colony. As royal geographer, he participated in the 1692 expedition to Pensacola Bay, Florida under command of Andrés de Pez, to seek out defensible frontiers against French encroachment. He mapped Pensacola Bay and the mouth of the Mississippi: in 1693, he described the terrain in Descripción del seno de Santa María de Galve, alias Panzacola, de la Mobila y del Río Misisipi.
When a Spanish attempt to colonize Pensacola Bay in 1698 was thwarted by the arrival of a French fleet, Sigüenza was blamed by the leader of the expedition, Andrés de Arriola, for inciting the French action. He successfully defended himself against these charges in 1699.
Other professional pursuits In order to supplement his modest salary as a professor, he took on a number of other posts. He was chaplain of the Hospital del Amor de Dios (now Academia de San Carlos) from 1682 until his death. This post provided him with living quarters, which given his strapped financial circumstances was a major benefit. It also was a steady income from celebrating masses for a fixed fee. He also served as Chief Almoner for the Archbishop of Mexico, Don Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas, distributing alms to poor women, a charity the "misogynistic prelate could not abide."
Sigüenza not only pursued his interests in science, but he was also a poet, non-fiction writer, historian, philosopher, cartographer, and cosmographer of the realm. Such was his prestige that the French King Louis XIV tried to induce him to come to Paris. He published his first poem in 1662. From 1671 to 1701 (posthumous) he published a yearly almanac. A. Margarita Peraza-Rugeley has studied the surviving almanacs in her 2013 book.Peraza-Rugeley, A. Margarita Llámenme el mexicano: Los almanaques y otras obras de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2013. Currents in Comparative Romance Languages and Literatures Series. Vol. 215.
In 1690 Sigüenza published a pirate captivity narrative which has been considered Latin America's first novel, Los infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez). However, new archival evidence discovered by Fabio López Lázaro (2007, 2011), José F. Buscaglia (2009, 2011), and A. Margarita Peraza-Rugeley (2013) proves that this incredible story of a Puerto Rican taken captive by English pirates off the Philippine Islands is a historical account, not a fictional one. The archival documents contain dozens of eyewitness accounts corroborating not only the existence of Ramírez, his marriage in Mexico City, and also his capture in 1687, his life with pirates (most notably William Dampier), his collaboration with them, and his return to Mexico in 1690, at which time Spanish colonial authorities suspected Alonso of piracy. López Lázaro was the first to discover archival evidence (published in 2007) for the historical existence of Ramírez, his meeting with the Viceroy of New Spain, and the writing of Los infortunios in 1690. Buscaglia corroborated the existence of Alonso Ramírez as a true historical figure in 2009, citing his marriage certificate and pinpointing with exactitude, after two expeditions to the coast of Bacalar, the site of his shipwreck. López Lázaro's and Buscaglia's studies are the most significant findings in more than a century of scholarship on the book. The new archival evidence leaves no room to doubt that Sigüenza's key role in creating Los infortunios de Alonso Ramírez was in editing Alonso's coarse narrative into a superior literary piece. According to López Lázaro's analysis, the book was commissioned by the Spanish administration during the war against Louis XIV to solidify Madrid's commitment to the struggle against French colonial rivals and their buccaneer collaborators but also to warn them about Spain's unreliable English and Dutch allies. In his critical bilingual edition of the Infortunios/Misfortunes, Buscaglia argues that the work opens a door into the intricacies of early American subjectivity. In the same edition, Buscaglia furnishes concrete proof of having found the shipwreck of Ramirez's frigate in Punta Herradura, on the coast of Yucatán, Mexico.
Friendship with Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Seventeenth-century Mexico City had two savants, Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and Doña Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, known to posterity as the Hieronymite nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. It is unclear at what point the two made their acquaintance, but they lived a short distance away from each other, he in the Amor de Dios Hospital and she in the convent where she had taken vows following a time spent in the viceregal court. Although Sor Juana was cloistered, the Hieronymite order followed a more relaxed rule and nuns could have visitors in the locutorio or special room for conversation in the convent. Known as the "Tenth Muse", she was a formidable intellect and poet, and was encouraged in her scientific studies by Sigüenza. Each was well known in circles of power and with the arrival of the new viceroy to New Spain, each was tapped to design a triumphal arch to welcome him, a signal honor to them both. Sor Juana's final years were extremely difficult ones, and when she died in 1695, Sigüenza delivered the eulogy at her funeral. The text of that address is now lost, but in 1680 he had praised her, "There is no pen that can rise to the eminence that hers o'ertops...[the fame of] Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz will only end with the world."
The Ixtlilxochitl-Sigüenza-Boturini collection