Mexico

Long before there were Basque centres, the Basques of New Spain came together around a devotion: a confraternity dedicated to the Virgin of Aránzazu, from which came a school for girls that has not closed since the eighteenth century.

The confraternity of Aránzazu (1681)

The Cofradía de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu de México (confraternity of Our Lady of Aránzazu) was founded by notarial deed on 18 December 1681 and brought together natives of Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Araba and Navarre.⁵ Garritz and Sanchiz place its disappearance in the time of the Reform Laws.⁴

The Colegio de las Vizcaínas (1767)

It was the confraternity that conceived the school, and the project was slow. Around 1730, with José de Eguiara y Eguren as rector of the confraternity, a school for girls began to be planned. In 1732, fifty members of the confraternity agreed to found it; the first stone was laid on 31 July 1734, and the Colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola, known as the Colegio de las Vizcaínas, opened on 13 September 1767.⁵

What set it apart was its lay character: it was governed by an independent board of trustees, not by the clergy. According to the Auñamendi, it is the only educational institution of the colonial period that has not interrupted its activity since it was founded, and today it houses a Biblioteca de Estudios Vascos.⁵

More than a century later, it was the Basques of another age who took charge of it. In the early twentieth century, the members of the Centro Vasco set out to recover the administration of the foundation for the Basque community, and they succeeded in 1912.⁴