The Jesuit ‘reductions'—God's country in the jungle?

The last but probably most impressive political experiment in Spanish America was the ‘reductions’ of the Jesuits.⁴⁷ The Society of Jesus, a clerical order established in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola, had members who usually wore no special vestments and who were very well educated.⁴⁸ When the order was given responsibility for missionary activity in America, the Jesuits realised that the conquered countries already had been under clerical supervision by other congregations, so they chose the as yet almost untouched areas between the borders of the Spanish and Portuguese territories.

From 1609 the Jesuits founded reducciones in the jungle areas in the southern and western borderlands of Brazil, and particularly in Paraguay. These were rural towns planned on a drawing-board with a strictly geometrical layout of streets, central plaza, church, guildhall, gaol and all other buildings necessary for a ‘civilised’ town in line with Baroque ideals of urbanism.⁵⁰ In such towns the Indians of the surrounding land were congregated (Latin reducere = bring together). The Jesuit fathers, generally only two or three of them, ruled each town in a paternalistic and theocratic fashion. The Indian residents of the reductions in Paraguay, mainly Guarani, were tributaries of the Spanish king, required to pay taxes just as every other tributary. Above all they had to provide military service to the king with no right to be paid for such service. In this position they had to defend the borders of the Spanish domain against the Portuguese or hostile Indians.

Soon the Jesuit reductions became a veritable centre of power in Spanish America. The core area of the Guarani mission included at its apogee about 100,000—142,000 inhabitants. Together with all the other areas under Jesuit overlordship, more than 300,000 people lived under Jesuit control.⁵² The reduction troops became the most powerful army of the Spanish king in America. And the economy of the reductions boomed. The Jesuits introduced cattle raising, and the number of livestock increased so quickly in the absence of natural predators that cattle could be left to graze on their own and captured only when needed. Father Anton Sepp reported at the end of the seventeenth century:

We brought together 50,000 cows within two months and drove them into my village. The Indians would have even brought 70,000 or 80,000 if we would have told them to do so and we needed them. What I tell about my village is also true for all others... I did not pay a mite for those 50,000 cows.⁵³

This situation only changed in the eighteenth century, when the Spaniards also started helping themselves to the wild droves of cattle; subsequently, the cattle had to be guarded and branded.

Every kind of trade was also to be found in the reductions,⁵⁴ even the operation of printing shops and dockyards. Especially impressive churches were built, the ruins of which can still be visited today.⁵⁵ Several historians indeed consider the Jesuit reductions as the highest developed political system of colonial Spanish America.⁵⁶ However, according to current perspectives, there existed little personal freedom for the Indians.⁵⁷ Both sexes received their special clothing; jewellery was forbidden, as was private property except for some special cases.

Although the Jesuits beat Indians if they did not obey, at least there was no death penalty in the reductions as in other areas of Spanish America, where an Indian life was essentially worth nothing to the Spaniards.⁵⁸ The Jesuits organised a burgeoning industry, of which the only benefit for the community was basic services. Compared to other regions, however, the level of education was high in the reductions, where a school system taught all children. A considerable number of Guarani therefore could speak Spanish, some were able to understand Latin and because many of the Jesuits had their roots in Germany, others even mastered a little German as well. Yet this education never led as far as allowing the Indians to challenge the authority of the priests. As the Franciscans and Dominicans before them, the Jesuits insisted on the idea that the Indians intellectually had to be regarded as children in need of parental guidance. Higher education and participa­tion in administration therefore were impossible.⁵⁹ Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, Indians could not become Jesuits themselves, neither were they able to become Christian priests, although there had been moves towards ordaining them in the beginning of the reductions.⁶⁰

Despite their colonial success, or maybe just because of it, soon powerful opponents to the Jesuits arose: the local Spanish administration, which felt its own power curbed by the reductions; Spanish slave hunters; Spanish traders who saw the Jesuits as commercial competition; as well as critics who viewed the Jesuits with mistrust as they were the most powerful back-up force of the Pope. Eventually the Jesuits also lost the support of the Spanish Crown, which no longer wished to tolerate a state within a state.⁶¹ In 1767 Charles III banished all Jesuits from his kingdom.

With this action, the last great political experiment of the Spanish overseas empire ended. Some reductions continued living under casual Spanish colonial administration; the spirit that inspired Indians to feel proud members of a religious community tightened, but a strong economic community was gone. Therefore it was not surprising that the former Jesuit formations, which still existed after the banishment of the order, demographically evaporated and sank back into irrelevance.

Despite the great variety in experiences and institutions throughout Spanish America, and although the overseas areas legally had been Spanish provinces in which all citizens were free, it seems legitimate to talk about a colonial empire. In particular there indeed had been individual efforts to establish Indians and mestizos in higher positions but, because of the political interests of the local powers, those experiments were never successful in the long term. Although the various Indian cultures had first been treated very differently in consequence of the conquest—for instance, because they opposed the Spaniards or supported them—the colonial system led to a situation where the indigenous people soon were no longer seen as Totonacs, Guarani or Incas but simply as ‘Indios’. A few decades after the establishment of Spanish rule the offspring of the natives even saw themselves as ‘Indios’.

Notes

1 The most important published colonial sources are by Peter Martyr d’Angiera (1457-1526) and Bartolome de Las Casas (1484/85-1566).

2 On Columbus and the idea of crusading, see Corina Bucher, Christoph Kolumbus: Korsar und Kroiz- fahrer (Darmstadt, 2006).

3 Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy (London,

1991), p. 124.

4 Manuel Fernandez Alvarez, La gran aventura de Cristobal CoUn (Madrid, 2006), p. 243.

5 Peter Hume, ‘Columbus and the Cannibals’, in Colonial Encounters: Europe and the.Native Caribbean, 1492-1797 (London, 1986), pp.

6 Sale, The Conquest of Paradise, p. 155; Julian B. Ruiz Rivera and Horst Pietschmann (eds), Encomiendas, indiosy espanoles (Cuadernos de Historia Latinoamericana 3) (Munster, 1996).

7 Sermon of Fray Antonio de Montesinos O.P. (4th Advent, 21.12.1511), in Bartolome de Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, lib. III, cap. III., in Obras escogidas de Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, Historia de Las Indias, Juan Perez de Tudela and Emilio Lopez Oto (eds), Vol. II (Madrid, 1961), p. 175.

8 Michael Zeuske, Kleine Geschichte Kubas (3rd edn) (Munich, 2007), pp. 13-17.

9 Bartolome de Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, lib. III, cap. XXIII, in Obras escogidas de Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, Juan Perez de Tudela and Emilio Lopez Oto (eds), Vol. II, p. 236.

10 The most important published colonial sources are Hernan Cortes (c. 1483-1547), Bernal Diaz del Castillo (c. 1493-1591), Lienzo de Tlaxcala (c. 1550), Anales de Tlatelolco (1528), Francisco Lopez de Gomara (c. 1511-c. 1566), Fray Bernardino de Sahagün O.F.M. (1499/ 1500-1590), Diego Munoz Camargo (c. 1529-1599) and Fray Juan de Torquemada O.F.M. (c. 1562-1624).

11 Juan Miralles Ostos, Hernan Cortes: Inventor de Mexico (2nd edn) (Mexico City, 2001), p. 67.

12 For details, see Pedro Carrasco, Estructura politico-territorial del imperio tenochca, la triple alianza de Tenochtitlan, Texcocoy Tlacopan (Mexico City, 1996).

13 Hassig represents the most detailed thesis; see Ross Hassig, Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (2nd revised edn) (Norman, OK, 2006).

14 Jose Luis Martinez, Hernan Cortes (Mexico City, 1992), pp. 160-168.

15 The conquistadors mostly state in their reports that they found the treasure in the quarters Moctezuma gave them. Yet this is quite implausible. It was rather Pizarro, of whom we will hear later, who took Cortes’ strategies as a model.

16 The best Spanish edition is Hernan Cortes, Cartas de relation, Angel Delgado Gomez (ed.) (Madrid,

1993) ; the best English translation is Hernan Cortes, Letters from Mexico, Anthony Pagden (ed.) (New Haven, 1986).

17 For more on the Spanish city founding of Mexico complete with plans, see Martinez, Hernan Cortes, pp. 387-398.

18 Felix Hinz, ‘Hispanisierung' in Neu-Spanien. Transformation kollektiver Identitäten von Mexica, Tlaxkalteken und Spaniern 1519-1568, Vol. II (Hamburg, 2005), pp. 430-436, 464-468.

19 On the chiliasm of the Franciscans, see John Leddy Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World: A Study of the Writings of Geronimo de Mendieta (1525-1604) (Berkeley, 1956).

20 On this wider aspect, see Manuel Fernandez Alvarez, Carlos V, el Cesary el hombre (Madrid, 2006); and Hugh Thomas, The Golden Empire: Charles V, and the Creation of America (New York, 2010).

21 The most important published colonial sources are Nikolaus Federmann (c. 1505-1542), Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdez (1478-1557), Juan de Castellanos (1522-1607) and Jose de Oviedo y Banos (1671-1738).

22 Charles reigned over two countries at the same time. As Charles I, he was King of Spain, and as Charles V, he was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. But the Spaniards, too, soon chose to call him ‘Charles V’.

23 For details, see ‘Los recursos del Imperio’, in Manuel Fernandez Alvarez, Carlos V, el Cesary el hombre (Madrid, 2006), pp. 187-197.

24 For details, see Juan Friede, Los Welser en la conquista de Venezuela (Caracas, 1961), pp. 135-157.

25 On the Muisca or Chibcha, see Eduardo Londono, Los muiscas: una resena historica con base en las primeras descripciones (Bogota, 1998).

26 For the wider context, see John Hemming, The Search for El Dorado (2nd edn) (London, 2001).

27 Juan Friede, Los Welser en la conquista de Venezuela (Caracas, 1961), pp. 235-335.

28 Ibid., pp. 375-409.

29 Ambrosius Alfinger (or Thalfinger or Dalfinger), before 1500-1533.

30 The following report basically follows that of Siegfried Huber, Entdecker und Eroberer. Deutsche Konquistadoren in Südamerika (Olten, 1966), pp. 247-275.

31 A peso equalled 4.6 grams of gold.

32 The most important published colonial sources are Celso Gargia (dates unknown), Juan Diez de Betanzos y Araos (1510-1578), Pedro Pizarro (c. 1515-1602), Pedro de Cieza de Leon (1518-1554), Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616) and Felipe Guamàn Poma de Ayala (c. 1534/56-c. 1615/44).

33 John Howland Rowe, ‘Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest', in Julian H. Steward (ed.), Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. II, The Andean Civilizations (Washington, 1946), pp. 183-330.

34 The Incan roads had already been praised by Pedro de Cieza de Leon, El senorio de los incas (Cronicas de America), chap. 15, Manuel Ballesteros (ed.) (Madrid, 2000), pp. 62-65. See also John Hyslop, The Incan Road System (Orlando, FL, 1984).

35 John Hemming and Edward Ranney, Monuments of the Incas (Albuquerque, NM, 1982).

36 Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios reales de los incas, lib. VI, cap. VII (‘Postes y correos. Y los despachos que llevaban'), Carlos Aranibar (ed.), Vol. I (Mexico City, 1995), pp. 342-343.

37 They are called the Trece de la Fama—the Famous Thirteen.

38 James Lockhart, The Men of Cajamarca: A Social and Biographical Study of the First Peruvian Conquerors (Austin, TX, 1972).

39 Bernard Lavalle, Francisco Pizarroy la conquista del Imperio Inca (Madrid, 2005), pp. 127-132.

40 John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas (London, 1970), p. 35.

41 ‘El requerimiento que se ha de hacer a los indios en las conquistas' (1513), in Àngel de Altola- guirre y Duvale (ed.), Gobernacion espiritualy temporal de las Indias, còdice publicado en virtud de acuerdo de la Real academia de la historia, Vol. XXII (Madrid, 1927), p. 311.

42 Even if the sources differ from each other in general—on this detail they share one opinion.

43 Peter L. Bernstein, Die Macht des Goldes. Auf den Spuren einer Faszination (Munich, 2005), p. 155.

44 Bernard Lavalle, Francisco Pizarroy la conquista del Imperio Inca (Madrid, 2005), pp. 226-231 (Cuzco) and pp. 232-234 (Lima).

45 Ibid., pp. 245-289.

46 David Adair Robinson, The Revolt of Gonzalo Pizarro (Ann Arbor, 1985).

47 The most important published colonial sources are Fray Samuel Fritz SJ. (1673-1725) and Fray Anton Sepp SJ. (1655-1733).

48 Most missionaries of the Guarani areas, discovered later in this chapter, had even previously taught in universities (Philip Caraman, The Lost Paradise: An Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607­1768 [London, 1975], p. 154).

49 For further details about the concept of the conquista espiritual, see Maxime Haubert, La vida cotidiana de los indiosy jesuitas en las misiones del Paraguay (Madrid, 1991), pp. 25-47.

50 Silvio Palacios and Elena Zoffoli, Gloria y tragedia de las misiones Guaranis. Historia de las reducciones jesuiticas durante los siglos XVIIy XVIII en el Rio de la Plata (Bilbao, 1991), pp. 131-152.

51 Peter Claus Hartmann, Der Jesuitenstaat in Südamerika 1609-1768. Eine christliche Alternative zu Kolo­nialismus und Marxismus (Weißenhorn, 1994), pp. 18-21.

52 Enrique Dussel et al. (eds), Historia general de la Iglesia en America Latina, Tomo I/1: Introduccion general a la historia de la Iglesia en America Latina (Salamanca, 1983), p. 557.

53 Anton Sepp, ‘Reißbeschreibung. Brixen 1696', in Peter Claus Hartmann, Der Jesuitenstaat in Südamerika (Weißenhorn, 1994), pp. 73-97, here p. 81.

54 Hans-Jürgen Prien, Die Geschichte des Christentums in Lateinamerika (Gottingen, 1978), p. 289.

55 For example in Jesus de Tavarangüe (Paraguay), San Ignacio Mini and Santa Ana (Argentina) or Säo Miguel das Missoes (Brazil).

56 Peter Claus Hartmann, Der Jesuitenstaat in Südamerika (Weißenhorn, 1994), p. 33.

57 Philip Caraman, The Lost Paradise: An Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607-1768 (London, 1975), p. 116.

58 About the penalties, compare in particular Caraman, The Lost Paradise, pp. 163-167.

59 The first attempts regarding this started and failed in New Spain (Mexico). See Felix Hinz, ‘His- panisierung' in Neu-Spanien: Transformation kollektiver Identitäten von Mexica, Tlaxkalteken und Spaniern 1519-1568, Vol. 2 (Hamburg, 2005), pp. 380-382.

60 Fernando Ocaranza, El imperial Colegio de indios de la Santa Cruz de Santiago de Tlatelolco (Mexico City, 1934.)

61 Hans-Jürgen Prien, Das Christentum in Lateinamerika (Leipzig, 2007), p. 240.

Further reading

Bethell, Leslie (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. II: Colonial Latin America (Cambridge,

1989).

Castro, Daniel, Another Face of Empire: Bartolome de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham, NC, 2007).

Davidson, Miles H., Columbus Then and.Now: A Life Reexamined (Norman, OK, 1997).

Friede, Juan, Los Welser en la conquista de Venezuela: Edition conmemorativa del IV Centenario de la muerte de Bartolome Welser (Caracas, 1961).

Ganson, Barbara Anne, The Guarani under Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata (Stanford, 2006). Hanke, Lewis, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia, 1949).

Hinz, Felix, ‘The Mechanisms of “Hispanization”: Transformation of Collective Identities During and After the Conquest of Mexico', Revista de Indias, Vol. 68, No. 243 (2008), pp. 9-36.

Julien, Catherine, Reading Inca History (Iowa City, 2000).

Lockhart, James, The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford, 1993).

Pagden, Anthony, European Encounters with the New World (New Haven, 1993).

Pietschmann, Horst, Die staatliche Organisation des kolonialen Iberoamerika (Stuttgart, 1980).

Ruiz Rivera, Julian B. and Horst Pietschmann (eds), Encomiendas, indios y espanoles (Munster, 1996). Sanz Camanes, Porfirio, Las ciudades en la America Hispana. Siglos XV a XVIII (Madrid, 2004). Stirling, Stuart, Pizarro: Conqueror of the Inca (Stroud, 2005).

Thomas, Hugh, Conquest: Cortes, Moctezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico (New York, 1995).