Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez, canonical inspector of the missions of New Mexico in 1776, compared most everything in New Mexico to Mexico City, "the delightful and alluring cradle of my birth, for which no praise is ever adequate." And hardly anything measured up. He disparaged the people of New Mexico and the religious art of Spanish immigrant Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco. Then, by an ironic twist later in 1776, Dominguez found himself on a five-month vision quest with Miera and Fray Silvestre Velez de Escalante. Dominguez likened New Mexican churches to hacienda granaries, wine cellars,...