After acting as master of novices at the convent of Puebla, he became Custos of the Missions of New Mexico, 1626–9.
[2] With the support of the King of Spain, and helped by Fray Estéban de Perea, he secured a reinforcement of missionaries there.
[3] In writings from the 1620s, Benavides described seizing "more than a thousand idols of wood" from Pueblo homes and burning the sacred objects in front of the natives.
Back in Spain in 1635, he was appointed auxiliary Archbishop of Goa; he died on the eastward sea journey.
His account of the numbers of people and villages may have been influenced by data taken from Antonio de Espejo.