Nicolás Armentia Ugarte (b. at Bemedo, Diocese of Vitoria, Spain, 5 December 1845; died 24 November 1909) was a Spanish Franciscan Bishop of La Paz, Bolivia, appointed 22 October 1901.[1]
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Before coming to South America, he spent several years in France, and had studied science. As a missionary he was under the guidance of Father Rafael Sans, pioneer in the forests and on the river courses of the Beni region.
The indigenous people there were not numerous, but often hostile, and had for years been decimated by smallpox. To reach them he cut his way through from one abandoned hamlet to another, exposed to hardship from hunger, climate, and disease. He taught and preached wherever and whenever he fell in with Indians, establishing and re-establishing missions; in this way he gathered materials for the geography, natural history, and anthropology of these regions.
His principal publications are:
There is a short biographical sketch, by Lafone y Quevedo, in Tacana, Arte, vocabulario etc. (La Plata, 1902), with portrait. The works cited in the text contain many scattered notices of the career of the missionary.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bandelier, AD F. (1913). "Fray Nicolás Armentia". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.