Maestros de primeras letras de la Nueva España, siglos XVI y XVII

Abstract

This paper entitles to describe the teacher’s profile features of first letters from the colonial times to modern Mexico. This article begins with the analysis of the importance of this ancient profession since the Spaniard occupation in the New World territories up to the colonization, then moving to the description and study of the educators of the indigenous inhabitants of the New Spain Colonies, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
It also highlights the participation of teachers in the evangelization –the main justification that legitimized the conquest and colonization of the New World– and the imposition of a new language to indigenous inhabitants.