Barbarianism and its overcoming in Francisco Javier Clavijero

In his studies on the indigenous cultures of the territory of New Spain, the Enlightenment-influenced Jesuit Francisco Xavier Clavijero makes frequent use of the term “barbarian”. This notion, whose implications Clavijero expressly develops, has a specific function in his works as an interpretative instrument for social reality. The notion of barbarianism is oriented, ultimately, towards promoting the human and cultural development of the Indians via education. Clavijero thus continues the Hispanic tradition of missiology and pedagogy in the New World, a tradition that began in the sixteenth century, and which contitutes one of the distinctive notes of Spanish domination in America.