The Guaraní under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata 9781503618084

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The Guaraní Under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata

The Guaraní Under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata

Barbara Ganson

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2003 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Published with the assistance of Florida Atlantic University Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ganson, Barbara Anne The Guaraní under Spanish rule in the Río de la Plata / Barbara Ganson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8047-5495-0 (pbk: alk. paper) 1. Guaraní Indians — Government relations. 2. Guaraní Indians — Missions. 3. Jesuits — Missions — Paraguay. 4. Seven Reductions,War of the, 1754-1756. I.Title. F2230.2.G72 G35 2003 323.1'198382082'09033 — dc21 2002030455 Original Printing 2003 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 Typeset by BookMatters in 10.5/12.5 Bembo

To my mother, Elaine M. Ganson, my late father, Richard C. Ganson, and G.A.M., who all have a special place in my heart and who encouraged my appreciation of history and Native American cultures

Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction

ix xi 1

Part One:The Invasion from Within 1. Early Encounters 2. The Footprints of Saint Thomas 3. Daily Life

17 30 52

Part Two:The Invasion from Without 4. From Resistance to Rebellion 5. The Guaraní in the Aftermath of the Expulsion of the Jesuits 6. Our Warehouses Are Empty: Guaraní Responses to the Reorganization of the Missions 7. Guaraní Cultural Resiliency and Reorientations Appendices Glossary Notes Bibliography Index

87 117 137 164 191 205 207 257 285

Illustrations

Maps 1. Spanish Mission Territory Ceded to Portugal by the Treaty of Madrid, 1750 2. Jesuit Province of Paraguay with Locations of Guaraní Reductions 3. Jesuit Reductions in Guairá, Early Seventeenth Century 4. Jesuit Province of Paraquariae, 1732 5. Guaraní Map of Missions Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, La Cruz, Santo Tomé, and San Francisco de Borja, 1784 6. Jesuit Mission Landholdings along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers During the Mid-Eighteenth Century 7. The Jesuit Missions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, 1749 8. The Río de la Plata, 1754

66 90 106

9. The Jesuit Missions Divided into Five Departments, 1768–1827

139

2 3 32 33 60

Figures 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Yerba Maté Leaf and Bombilla Tupí-Guaraní Lamentations The Cario-Guaraní, c. 1537 Mission San Juan Bautista in the Eighteenth Century Evolution of the Jesuit Mission Indian Population, 1641–1803 Guaraní Sculpture of Infant Jesus Asleep Guaraní Woman at her Spinning Wheel

13 21 24 42 54 69 74

x

Illustrations

8. Guaraní Drawings on Church-Floor Tile at Mission Santísima Trinidad 9. Drawing of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus in Explicación del Catecismo, by Nicolás Yapuguay, 1724 10. Facsimile of Letter of Corregidor Miguel Guaího, 1753(?) 11. The Guaraní in Brazil as Depicted by Jean Baptiste Debret 12. Mission San Miguel in 1842 13. Guaraní Sculpture of The Virgin Mary, Mission Santa Rosa

75 82 99 157 158 178

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank those many individuals who have been so generous with their time and ideas. Susan Deans-Smith, who directed the dissertation on which this book is based, stimulated my interest in the fields of colonial Latin American history and ethnohistory through her excellent teaching at the University of Texas at Austin. She provided judicious guidance, inspiration, and support at crucial stages in the development of this project. I am also grateful to historical archaeologist Samuel M.Wilson of the University of Texas at Austin for further developing my interest in the field of ethnohistory. Several other scholars have been of great assistance. William B. Taylor, James Schofield Saeger, Jerry W. Cooney, Cynthia Radding, Jesús F. de la Teja, Alan Knight, and Jonathan C. Brown offered insightful comments and suggestions for improving various versions of the manuscript. Lic. Ida Beatriz Genes assisted me with the Spanish translations of Guaraní manuscripts. Carlos Mayo and Eduardo Saguier helped me find sources at the Archivo General de la Nación and the Archivo de la Provincia de Buenos Aires “Ricardo Levene.” Ernesto J. A. Maeder, Rafael Carbonell de Masy, S.J., Alfredo Poenitz, Jorge Francisco Machón, and John Hoyt Williams offered suggestions for sources at different stages of the research. Arno Alvarez Kern, José Proenza Brochado, the late José Antonio Perasso, Adriano Irala Burgos, Bartomeu Meliá, S.J., Branislava Susnik, Miguel Chase Sardi, Pedro Inácio Schmitz, S.J., and Ruth Adela Poujade allowed me to examine and photograph their archaeological findings from mission sites or shared their ideas about Guaraní cultural adaptation. I am indebted to Caroline Castillo Crimm for her artistic talent in recreating several maps.These individuals, among many others, made this book possible. My appreciation to the directors and staffs of the Benson Latin American

xii

Acknowledgments

Collection of the University of Texas at Austin, Archivo General de las Indias, Centro de Estudios Antropológicos of the Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Archivum Romanum Societatus Iesu in Rome, Archivo General de Simancas, Archivo Histórico Nacional de Madrid,Archivo del Palacio Oriental in Madrid, Bibliothèque Nacionale in Paris, the British Library, Archivo General de la Nación in Buenos Aires, Museo Mitre, Archivo de la Provincia de Buenos Aires “Ricardo Levene,” Archivo de la Provincia de Corrientes, Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco,Archivo Nacional de Asunción, Museo Etnográfico Andrés Barbero,Archivo de la Curía Metropolitana de Asunción,Arquivo do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Instituto Histórico e Geográfico do Rio Grande do Sul, Arquivo Público in Porto Alegre, Arquivo de la Curía Metropolitana de Porto Alegre, Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, Museu do Indio, Museu da Chácara do Céu, the Vatican Film Library, Pius XII Memorial Library at Saint Louis University, New York Public Library, and the libraries of Florida Atlantic University and the University of Miami. A number of institutions and foundations have also supported my research and writing in various ways over the past several years.The U.S. Department of Education granted me a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship to Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil in 1990–91. Several grants from the Department of History and the Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of Texas at Austin financed research in Spain,Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil in 1990–91.A National Endowment for the Humanities Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship, 1993–94, provided a full year of support to organize and write the dissertation. An Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship supported additional research at Saint Louis University in 1995.The Division of Sponsored Research at Florida Atlantic University provided two international travels grants and a generous research award, which made this publication possible. It is a pleasure to have this book come out with Stanford University Press. I am grateful to my editor, Norris Pope, for his patience and valuable advice, and to my excellent readers for the Press, Erick Langer and Dauril Alden, whose insightful comments and criticisms greatly improved the book’s final version. I greatly appreciate the meticulous efforts of production editor Anna Eberhard Friedlander and copy editor Alex Giardino. Responsibility for final contents is, of course, mine. Finally, I would like to thank my sister, Ricarda, brother, Michael, and faculty colleagues at Florida Atlantic University, especially Mark Rose and Stephen Engle, for providing great humor as I completed the project. These individuals, along with my friends and relatives in Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, were always a source of inspiration.

The Guaraní Under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata

Introduction

On July 20, 1753, Nicolás Ñeengirú, a Guaraní cacique, musician, and corregidor (magistrate in charge of an Indian town council) from the Jesuit mission of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción wrote a letter in his native Guaraní language to the Spanish governor of Buenos Aires, José de Andonaegui, to protest the Treaty of Madrid (1750).The cacique expressed disbelief that “it could not be in the heart of the King of Spain to make them [the Guaraní] relocate,” or order the Indians to give up their land to their traditional enemies, the Portuguese, because they had a separate letter from the king stating that the crown would look after their needs and always protect them (see Appendix 1).1 The Jesuits described Ñeengirú as tall in stature, dignified, and more ladino than other Guaraní. This cacique was the direct descendant of another chief Nicolás Ñeengirú who had helped Father Roque González and other Jesuits establish several missions among the Guaraní along the Paraná River in the early seventeenth century. His father had served as a sargento mayor (a lower-ranking officer) in the Guaraní militias trained by the Jesuits that had expelled the Portuguese from Spanish territory at Colônia do Sacramento, Uruguay, in 1704 and 1705. Like his father before him, Nicolás Ñeengirú was named after his ancestor and was highly esteemed by his people for his eloquence.2 Ñeengirú became the main leader of the rebellion against Spain and Portugal in the Guaraní War, 1754–56 (also known as the War of the Seven Reductions). The Treaty of Madrid signed by Spain and Portugal in 1750 stipulated that the Spanish territory of seven Jesuit missions east of the Uruguay River in the region of the Río de la Plata was to be turned over to Portugal in exchange for Portugal’s withdrawal from Colônia do Sacramento, an entrepôt of smuggling and Portuguese stronghold in Uruguay across the

2

Introduction

Map 1. Spanish Mission Territory Ceded to Portugal by the Treaty of Madrid, 1750. The area was made up of seven Jesuit-Guaraní reductions, along with ranches that belonged to these towns, and other reductions west of the Uruguay River. (Adapted from “Mapa de la governación de Paraguay y de la Buenos Aires con la línea divisora de las tierras de España y Portugal, adjustada entre las dos coronas, año de 1750” [1752]. From Guillermo Furlong Cardiff, S. J., Cartografía jesuítica del Río de la Plata, Buenos Aires: Casa Jacobo Peuser, 1936, p. 78, no. 23)

estuary from Buenos Aires (see Map 1). The approximately twenty-nine thousand Guaraní in the seven missions were to pack up their belongings and move with their missionaries to reductions in Spanish territory west of the Uruguay River (see Map 2). They could remain, but their land would now belong to the Portuguese, and they would be subjects of Portugal.Although Ñeengirú resided in a mission where the Guaraní were not forced to relocate under the terms of the treaty, the residents of Concepción had close ties with those east of the river. Several Guaraní families had left Concepción to settle in two of these missions. Mission Concepción, along with at least three additional missions west of the Uruguay River, also had a stake in the abandonment of all the mission lands.

Map 2. Jesuit Province of Paraguay with the Definitive Locations of the Thirty Guaraní Reductions Along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, as well as the Two Northern Reductions Established Among the Tobatí-Guaraní, c. 1750. (Adapted from Sélim Abou, The Jesuit “Republic” of the Guaranís (1609–1768) and Its Heritage, translated by Lawrence J. Johnson, New York: Crossword, 1997)

4

Introduction

They too owned cattle ranches and yerba maté plantations in the territory that fell into Portuguese possession. Map1Her2 In his letter, Chief Ñeengirú referred to the Guaraní as Christians who prayed every day and who had not offended anyone to deserve relocation and the loss of their lands.The Jesuits, he explained, had “taken care of us, had loved us always, and never spoken of relocating before . . . until now.”3 He could not understand why the Spaniards had brought his ancestors out of the forest, educated them, and now wanted to sacrifice everything. Ñeengirú also explained to the governor how “God had given them their land,” but that they, not the Spanish or the Portuguese, had worked it with their own hands.4 His people, he noted, constructed the magnificent churches and the attractive Spanish-style towns and took care of the vast cattle ranches, yerba maté, and cotton plantations.The Guaraní leader neither gave an ultimatum nor made any threats to the Europeans. His letter was rather one of clarification and a statement of discontent with the terms of the Treaty of Madrid. However, Ñeengirú warned his people that the Spaniards and Portuguese intended to seize not only the seven towns, but all the territory of the Jesuit missions and that they would mistreat the Guaraní as the Spanish did in Paraguay.5 Ñeengirú’s letter, along with similar letters from the Indian corregidores of the seven missions, demonstrates that the Guaraní attempted to work within the Spanish colonial system to redress their grievances before proceeding to extralegal methods.When the Spanish officials ignored their petitions, Ñeengirú became one of two prominent leaders of the rebellion.The other leader, Captain José (Sepé) Tiarajú, a cacique from Mission San Miguel, initially led the Guaraní forces. Following Tiarajú’s death in February 1756, Ñeengirú assumed command of native militias and fought against the Spanish and Portuguese troops at the battle of Caaíbaté, south of Mission San Miguel. Several hundred Guaraní soldiers died in that episode. Ñeengirú survived, but later the Jesuits removed him from his position as corregidor, banished him from Concepción to another mission, and confiscated all of his personal belongings. Nevertheless, he remained a powerful chief in the mission territory after the rebellion. Like his ancestors before him and a large proportion of the mission Guaraní Indians, Ñeengirú chose to remain under colonial rule and accepted the terms of the Treaty of Madrid. Jesuits in the Río de la Plata associated Nicolás Ñeengirú with the rumors, rife in Europe, that the Jesuit order operated in Paraguay an opulent state independent of Spain.This Jesuit republic, it was said, minted its own coins, had a king, Emperor Nicolás I, who sat on a throne, and maintained an army of sixty thousand, who were well armed with artillery and

Introduction 5

muskets and were ready to defeat Spanish and Portuguese troops.6 The image of Emperor Nicolás I as depicted in the European pamphlets, however, was not that of a Guaraní chief but of a Spanish Jesuit.7 No proof was ever uncovered to substantiate these damaging rumors.8 However, gossip derived from the reputation of a Guaraní chief and allegations that the Jesuits had incited the Guaraní to rebel played a vital role in the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portuguese and Spanish America, respectively in 1759 and 1767. Ñeengirú’s story provides a metaphor for an entire historical period and for Guaraní historical agency: the Indians’ resistance, adaptation, and ultimate accommodation to Catholic missionary contact under Spanish rule. His life reveals that the encounter between the Guaraní and the Jesuits was a highly complex one, shaped by different historical processes, cultural adaptations, and survival strategies that changed over time.These factors were not determined solely by the goals and intentions of the Europeans but also by those of the Guaraní.9 Above all, Ñeengirú’s letter illustrates the central concern of this book: the disparities between Guaraní culture as presented in extant accounts of the Jesuit missions, and Guaraní culture (and indigenous voices) as revealed in many heretofore unanalyzed native documents. Up to now, the literature on the Jesuit missions in the Río de la Plata, written from a Eurocentric viewpoint, has suffered from an emphasis on the ecclesiastical and administrative roles of missionaries. Scholars have traditionally depicted mission Indians as passive receptors of European culture and institutions, rather than as agents who helped shape a major part of their own history. Philip Caraman, S.J., for example, in The Lost Paradise:The Jesuit Republic in South America (1975) views these indigenous people merely as a reflection of European culture or a part of the exotic background of South America.10 Anthropologist Elman R. Service, by contrast, contends that the Guaraní rapidly lost their native culture in early colonial Paraguay.11 In reality, however, these indigenous people shaped the encounter with Europeans and retained aspects of their native culture in this remote province throughout the colonial era. Native texts, Indian testimonies, late-eighteenth-century descriptions of their religious festivities, mission Indian artifacts, and the widespread use of the native language in upper region of the Río de la Plata all demonstrate Guaraní cultural resiliency. Influenced by Charles Gibson’s seminal work, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810 (1964), this study will focus on the responses and adjustments that indigenous peoples made and how they coped with Spanish colonial rule.12 It will examine

6

Introduction

the adaptive processes of the tropical lowland Guaraní in South America, the persistence of their indigenous value systems, and the melding of European and Guaraní cultures in this part of colonial Spanish America. Like a growing number of recent borderland studies, this study will present a revisionist interpretation of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay.13 It will stress the importance of human agency with regard to understanding the impact of colonialism and Christianity in the New World.The research of Nancy Farriss on the colonial Maya (Maya Society Under Spanish Rule) (1984) in part leads me to test her hypothesis regarding the cultural adaptation of indigenous people under Spanish domination. Farriss argues that Indians should not be viewed as passive objects, but rather as independent agents who helped shape a major part of their cultural reality. Farriss’s work raises the question of whether mission Indians were able to determine their own historical reality.14 The Catholic Church and the colonial state certainly were important influences in their lives, but as this study will demonstrate, the Guaraní in the Jesuit missions were able to make many of their major life decisions and determine their own destinies.The Guaraní not only helped shape the formation of Paraguay’s hybrid culture but also were active participants in the historical processes of the Río de la Plata. Since the late Renaissance, European literature has shown a tendency to romanticize these missions and their native people. Montaigne, Voltaire, and Montesquieu are among the notable writers whose portrayals of the Tupí-Guaraní as innocent children of nature, noble savages, or cannibals often reveal more about the nature of Western culture itself than about the original beliefs and cultural traditions of these “others.” In his masterpiece, Candide,Voltaire expresses both admiration and contempt for the Jesuits in his description of Candide’s fictitious visit to the missions of Paraguay. According to Voltaire, the government of the Jesuit missions is a “most admirable thing,” but the “Padres have everything and the people have nothing.”15 He refers to the Jesuits as individuals “who here make war on the Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors.”16 Voltaire, in effect, blames the Jesuits for inciting the Guaraní to rebel. Not all writers of the Enlightenment were so critical. Montesquieu (1689– 1755), for example, admiringly compared the Jesuit missions of Paraguay to ancient Greek civilization.17 This French philosopher, however, appears to have had a more positive attitude than his peers; this could be because he died in 1755 and thus was not influenced by the negative press the Jesuits received in Europe following the Guaraní War. Portrayals of the Guaraní as innocent children of the jungle or noble savages can also be traced to the writings of England’s poet laureate,

Introduction 7

Robert Southey, a leading figure in British romantic literature. Besides being a poet, Southey was a historian and author of a three-volume study, the History of Brazil (1810, 1817, and 1819), which includes an account of the Guaraní War. In 1825, Southey wrote a long poem, entitled “A Tale of Paraguay,” in which he tells the story of a Guaraní family that flees into the jungle to escape pestilence in their village.18 All the villagers had perished, except Quiara and his wife, Monnema, who later have a child. Quiara dies, but his wife and child survive, and the child helps to comfort its mother. For this Guaraní family, the forest is a refuge or sanctuary. Southey writes that the forest is a place where “never evil thing . . . had power to enter” and where Indians are safely isolated from corrupting influences.19 The image of the Guaraní in this poem is again that of children of nature, simple and pure, but still subject to tragedy because they are unable to escape death.Yet, Southey seems to admire the Guaraní not because of their closeness to nature but because of their closeness to God and their willingness to absorb religious instruction from the Jesuits. He portrays the Guaraní as happy and the Jesuit missions as places where there was no conflict between the Indians and the missionaries and where the Guaraní had a secure subsistence at all times.20 Southey’s idealization of the Guaraní and the Jesuit missions in the Río de la Plata was similar to the writings about native people in North American literature during the early nineteenth century. As part of this romantic literary movement, authors envisioned human nature as good when uncorrupted by the evils of civilization. Romantic writers often assumed that all native people loved their families and mourned their dead. Warriors were always brave. The Indians’ major shortcoming was their childlike understanding of the world.21 These images of native people and the missions appear to have served the agendas of other cultures. They support the view that missionaries did good deeds, protected the natives from harm, and were beloved by their Indian charges. If native people had childlike minds, then European and American missionaries could more easily instill in them their culture and religion. It also implied that Europeans needed to do something for them and bring them up to the European level of “civilization.”22 In the early twentieth century, British author Robert B. Cunninghame Graham idealizes life in the Jesuit missions for different purposes in A Vanished Arcadia (1901), primarily to fit his own political agenda. He depicts the missions as a kind of socialist state.23 In 1870, he traveled to Argentina to learn about cattle ranching. For eight years, he remained there working as a rancher, horse trader, interpreter, and surveyor of the

8

Introduction

Paraguayan yerba maté tea trade. Following his return to Great Britain, Cunninghame Graham founded the Scottish Labour Party in 1880, along with Keir Hardie.24 His view of the Jesuits was highly favorable. He contends that the Society of Jesus did much good, worked among the Indians like apostles, and made them happy. Cunninghame Graham defends the Jesuits by writing that they did not conduct the missions as a business enterprise but “rather as the rulers of some utopia.”25 Referring to the expulsion of the Jesuits in the late eighteenth century, he concludes that “the Arcadian life, which had subsisted more than two hundred years, in the brief space of two short years was lost.”26 By romanticizing the work of the Jesuits and Guaraní life in the missions, Cunninghame Graham indirectly criticizes his own society and uses the Guaraní Indians and the Jesuit missions as a model of what society ought to and could be.27 The motion picture The Mission, winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986, is set in the Paraguayan Jesuit missions during the 1750s; it culminates in the Guaraní War and the defeat of the mission Indians.The film, however, provides little historical understanding of the Guaraní or their experiences under colonialism and Christianity.28 It portrays them only as happy, innocent children of nature.The film’s British director, Roland Joffé, and screenwriter, Robert Bolt, also depict the Jesuit missionaries as heroes and the Portuguese and Spanish as corrupt.Another major shortcoming was that Joffé used Onanis,Amerindians from Colombia, as actors to portray the Guaraní, rather than Guaraní-speaking Indians themselves.The Onanis in the film also appear to be hunters and gatherers, not agriculturists like the Guaraní of the time. Native people appear frequently in the film, but mainly as part of the scenery and not at center stage.Thus Guaraní voices in the film are somewhat muted. When they speak, their words sometimes are not translated into the subtitles, although Father Gabriel does interpret some of the chiefs’ reactions to the Treaty of Madrid. The film is historically accurate in that the Guaraní did tell the Jesuits that they would rather fight the Spanish and Portuguese settlers than give up their land, homes, and churches to their traditional enemies. But they also fought by writing letters of protest against the treaty, such as the one written by Ñeengirú.The movie culminates in the death of several Jesuits who have sheltered the Guaraní in the missions; the killing of Guaraní men, women, and children; and the burning of the newly founded Mission San Carlos by Spanish and Portuguese troops. According to the historical record, there were no Jesuits, women, or children at the battle of Caaíbaté.These images of death and destruction provoke a more powerful emotional response from the audience than would the killing of trained Guaraní militias.The audience,

Introduction 9

however, assumes incorrectly that the Jesuits were heroic defenders of the Indians’ rights, willing to give up their lives for the Guaraní.The historical evidence indicates that the Jesuits never fought against the Spanish and Portuguese military forces. On the contrary, several feared for their lives because during the rebellion the Guaraní took them hostage. In the film’s final scene, Joffé and Bolt show Guaraní children paddling away in a canoe, returning to a natural state in the jungle. The tropical forests once again appear as virgin territory, a refuge from corrupt Europeans and imperialist designs. As in A Vanished Arcadia by Cunninghame Graham and Caraman’s The Lost Paradise, the missions appear to end with the departure of the Jesuits.The impression the film leaves, like that of several literary works, is quite erroneous; the missions continued to exist into the early nineteenth century. This ethnohistorical study thus seeks to challenge these passive portrayals of the Guaraní. By examining the ideas and actions of the indigenous people, along with those of the missionaries, it will provide a more balanced view of the history of the Jesuit missions. It will demonstrate that the historical roles of the mission Indians were greater in the colonization of the Río de la Plata than previously thought. Indeed, without the missions and the accommodation of these semisedentary people, the Spanish would not have had much of a presence in the Upper Plata region.

Main Themes and Limitations The central period covered in this book spans the half-century from 1750 to 1800. The second half of the eighteenth century is of particular scholarly interest because it was a critical period of transition, an important stage in the changing relations between the Guaraní and the Spanish and Portuguese within the larger period 1500 to 1848. It was also one of the most controversial eras in the history of the Jesuit order in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Many of the missionaries in the Río de la Plata region suddenly faced forced relocation themselves, when they were expelled from the empires of Portugal, France, and Spain. Although historians have explored the reasons the Jesuits were expelled from Latin America, they have tended to overlook how Amerindians themselves reacted to this important event. Many have also focused on the Jesuit period, rather than this era of transition. However, in this work neither the early colonial era nor the early nineteenth century has been neglected. The work encompasses a rather ambitious time frame in order to analyze more precisely the persistence of native culture and its alterations by the end of the colonial period.

10

Introduction

This book is divided into two parts. Part One, “The Invasion from Within,” is a study of the pre-Columbian cultural landscape of the region of the Río de la Plata and its inhabitants, and of European-Guaraní interactions from the sixteenth through the mid-eighteenth centuries. Although it is virtually impossible to unravel the close-knit fabric of social relations or to identify an ideological system before the arrival of the Europeans, Chapter 1 provides a basis for analyzing the incorporation of the Guaraní into the Spanish Empire and the hybridization of culture in Paraguay. By accenting the violent nature of the Guaraní-European encounter, it sheds light on subsequent Guaraní behavior and helps to explain why some Guaraní were receptive to the arrival of the Jesuits at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Chapter 2 examines the initial intercultural contact between the Guaraní and the Jesuits. It explains how the Guaraníes’ and Jesuits’ lives were changed by their contact with one another in the seventeenth century. Chapter 3 looks at the extent to which the Guaraní conformed to or accepted their lives in the Jesuit reductions when these were at their peak in the mid-eighteenth century. It demonstrates how the Jesuits, too, were important historical agents, who built on the existing political, economic, and social structures of native society and dramatically transformed many Guaraní lifeways. At the same time, it highlights how these indigenous people retained their cultural autonomy. Part Two, “The Invasion from Without,” examines how the Guaraní responded to and resisted the colonial policies imposed on them by Spain and Portugal, as well as the Catholic Church, during the late colonial period. To date, scholars have not analyzed in great depth the roles of the Jesuits, the Guaraní, and ideology in the Guaraní War. Chapter 4 demonstrates that this rebellion was not conceived or led by Jesuits, but was instead a conservative native rebellion intended to preserve the mission system and to prevent the forced relocation of the Guaraní from seven missions. Chapter 5 examines the Guaraníes’ reactions to the expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America. Contrary to some claims that the mission Indians simply returned to the forest, the historical evidence shows that the bulk of the indigenous population remained in the missions. Judging by the Guaraníes’ own words, their reactions ranged from acceptance, sorrow, and concern for the future to resignation at the prospect of new missionaries and secular administrators. Rather than openly challenging Spanish rule, the Guaraní chose strategies of accommodation and nonconfrontational forms of resistance, especially massive flight. Chapter 6 provides an analysis of the native responses to the reorganization of the missions during the late colonial and the early national peri-

Introduction 11

ods.The Guaraní did not passively accept the imposition of a new system of government for the missions, Spanish and Portuguese incursions into their territory, or the rise of economic opportunities in the region of the Río de la Plata. Many responded to these changes by abandoning the missions to seek work elsewhere. Some engaged in cattle rustling, homicide, and theft. Often, however, the Guaraní chose to collaborate with the Spanish authorities by working within the channels of the colonial system. The study concludes with a discussion of the significant cultural and religious transformations that occurred in the missions. It describes how the Guaraní developed a Catholic folk tradition while retaining some of their traditional native beliefs and practices into the late colonial period. It also sketches how Guaraní culture affected the lives of the missionaries. Finally, Chapter 7 reexamines the complexity of the Guaraní-European encounter, shaped by the introduction of diseases, Indian slavery, European trade goods, international wars, forced removal, migration, and social displacement, as well as by the character of native society. These were often the same processes that took place in many other parts of the New World. Indeed, in retrospect, the Guaraní responses to Spanish colonialism were not so different from those of other Amerindians, except for the native militias formed to combat Indian slave traders and defend Spain’s interests in the Río de la Plata. But in colonies, such as Florida, ethnic soldiering among Amerindians was known to have existed for a brief period. However, in New Spain, the native troops served as auxiliaries in contrast to the Guaraní who were the army.What may be even more distinctive were the Europeans’ responses to contact with the Guaraní: their early reliance on native women’s labor and the few elements of native culture they adopted, especially language, diet, popular beliefs, and the use of native herbal medicine, which to this day can be observed in Paraguay and neighboring parts of South America.

Theoretical Considerations and Sources A discussion of that elusive term culture is necessary before this social and cultural analysis of the indigenous people who congregated in the Jesuit missions and what became of them can proceed. Culture has been defined by anthropologists as an idealized pattern of meanings, norms, and social values shared by the members of a society.29 Culture can encompass all the characteristics of a group of people organized together to meet their basic needs for living. Such characteristics include political, economic, and social organization; religious beliefs; social values; and technology. Culture is also expressed symbolically in language, art, dance,

12

Introduction

music, mode of dress, and ritual, and it provides order and meaning to the universe for its adherents.30 For the purposes of this account, culture refers to the wide range of activities that took place in the mission region— European, Guaraní, and a hybrid of the two. These may be seen in the mixing and selection of European and indigenous modes of subsistence, the use of both Guaraní herbal remedies and European medical techniques, and new ways of performing traditional activities.31 The Jesuits also introduced a new social and economic complexity into native life by establishing a functional hierarchy based on occupation. Indian artisans practicing European arts and industries constituted a new group distinct from those involved only in subsistence activities. Transculturation refers to the complex processes by which these colonized peoples selected and invented new traditions from the materials or elements introduced to them by a more dominant European culture.32 This idea lends itself well to this study of historical agency because the Guaraní selected, rejected, or reinvented from the ideas, material culture, and customs introduced to them by the “other.”The colonized people, for example, shaped European institutions such as the cabildo to meet their own needs in this periphery of the Spanish Empire. One may also readily observe some traits that were indigenous or European in origin and others that arose from the blending of the two cultures to form entirely new traditions in this region. South Americans in Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and Río Grande do Sul, for example, daily consume large quantities of yerba maté from a wooden, metal, or squash gourd (maté) using a metal straw known in Spanish as a bombilla (see Figure 1). This popular South American drink has indigenous roots.33 Apparently Tupí-Guaraní natives consumed this herb for medicinal purposes. Beginning in the early seventeenth century, Spaniards and mestizos, both men and women, in Paraguay,Argentina, southern Brazil, Uruguay, and as far away as Chile and Peru developed a taste for this stimulating beverage, which, like coffee, is rich in caffeine.34 Another example of a transculturative process is the adoption of a new writing system by the Guaraní. By the mid-eighteenth century, the Guaraní learned to read and write in their native language. Although their private letters have not been preserved, their petitions convey how the Guaraní adapted to the new colonial milieu and negotiated with colonial authorities. Fig1Her Related to the idea of culture is the concept of power. Jean and John Comaroff have defined power as “the capacity of human beings to shape the actions and perceptions of others by exercising control over the production, circulation, and consumption of signs and objects.”35 According to Michel Foucault, power is all pervasive and deeply rooted.36 He envi-

Introduction 13

Figure 1. Yerba Maté Leaf and Bombilla (metal straw) (M. César Famin, Chili, Paraguay, Uruguay, Buenos Ayres, Patagonie, Terre du-Feu et Archipel des Malouines. Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, 1840)

sions power as something people are constantly negotiating and deploying, whether they belong to the dominant group or to the dominated. He contends that power is always exercised with a specific objective in mind.37 The concept of power may not have an exact equivalent in the Tupí-Guaraní language.The Guaraní, however, understood that a warrior had strength and courage (abá eté or abá mbaraté meant that a warrior was courageous) and that a shaman had magic.38 The concept of power is not something easily studied or understood in the Jesuit missions because much of the historical evidence is scattered and fragmented. With an

14

Introduction

incomplete historical record, it is difficult to contextualize how power is exercised by whom, over whom, and with what objectives and consequences. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to try to work out how the Jesuits managed to exercise their will against the resistance of the Guaraní, and vice versa.The concept of power may be applied to this analysis in order to determine how the Guaraní, as historical agents, negotiated with the Spanish, Portuguese, and members of the Catholic Church, or utilized their institutions as a means of retaining influence over their own lives. Power is also an appropriate concept to apply to this study because of the social controls and other means of persuasion used by clergymen and Spanish authorities in the missions. Power therefore refers not only to political power in the general sense but also to the manipulative and coercive methods used by the representatives of church and state to influence the behavior and beliefs of the Guaraní.39 To reconstruct how the Guaraní asserted their cultural autonomy, this study approaches these native people with the help of some of their voices in Guaraní texts and supplements these with traditional sources, such as Jesuit accounts that transcribe the words of the Guaraní, Guaraní nativelanguage dictionaries, official correspondence from colonial bureaucrats to their superiors in Spain and Portugal concerning Indian policies, and judicial records. Native sources are fairly abundant and provide evidence of Guaraní behavior and voices during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.40 These native documents serve as an important guide to understanding the continuities and changes in Guaraní culture, mentality, and even consumer habits, since one of the documents is a kind of Guaraní shopping list. Other valuable sources exist that illuminate the lives of the Guaraní.These include Jesuit censuses, maps drawn by the Guaraní, mission artwork, archaeological evidence, and material culture. Criminal records are especially important because they contain the testimonies of illiterate Guaraní, male and female, commoners of mission Indian society. These documents provide a contrast to most of the native texts, which tend to represent the view of the elite, especially the cabildantes.This rich variety of documentation yields a great deal of information about the Guaraní: their thoughts and sentiments, their social values and religious beliefs, their hopes and fears, their rage and sense of oppression, their daily experiences. This study will suggest that a multiplicity of cultural processes were involved in shaping the encounter between the Guaraní and the Europeans. The Guaraní responded to Western contact depending on the dynamics of Guaraní culture, their individual interests and experiences, as well as the changing political, economic, and social realities of the late Bourbon period.

Chapter

Early Encounters

1

An outline of pre-Columbian Guaraní political, economic, and social organization, gender roles, and religion serves to establish a framework for illustrating the processes that demonstrate how the Guaraní, an agricultural people, were incorporated into the Spanish Empire in the mid-sixteenth century.1 These historical processes included military alliances, the forming of kinship relations through intermarriage and cohabitation, Indian slavery, rape, the encomienda, and missions. At the same time, the chapter will highlight the patterns of interactions that show how the Spaniards and their mestizo offspring adopted many elements of Guaraní culture, including their language, diet, and material culture, to survive in this new environment. Together the Guaraní and the Europeans, willingly or unwillingly, created the beginnings of a new hybrid culture prior to the arrival of the Jesuits in the Río de la Plata during the late sixteenth century.

The Cultural Landscape The Tupí-Guaraní-speaking peoples were central Amazonian in origin, although they evolved independently of one another during the past 1,500 to 2,000 years. According to the archaeological record, the spread of the Amazonian Polychrome Ceramic Tradition correlated with the migration of the Tupí and the Guaraní from central Amazonia.This migration must have started at least by 200 b.c., a conservative estimate.2 Among other tropical lowland native peoples, the Tupí occupied most of Brazil, and the Guaraní established villages in southern South America, along the Paraná, Uruguay, and Paraguay Rivers and their tributaries.3 The Guaraní also occupied the subtropical forests, hills, and grasslands of Guairá, Tape, and the area of Lagoa dos Patos in southern Brazil, as well as the island of Martín García and the area east of the Tigre River delta in the Río de la

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the invasion from within

Plata.4 The Avá-Chiriguanos migrated from the region east of the Paraguay River and settled along the eastern mountain ranges of the Andes in present-day Bolivia.5 Cario, Guarambarense, Itatín, Mondayense, Paraná, Uruguayense,Tape, and Mbaracayúense were among the principal guáras (regional-ethnic groups) of the Guaraní. Together the various Guaraní communities may have numbered approximately 1.5 million in 1500 a.d. at the time of the first European contact.6 The Guaraní usually referred to themselves as abá (men) or ñande ore (all of us). According to their mythology,Tupí and Guaraní were brothers whose wives fought with one another over the ownership of a large colorful parrot. Following the dispute, Tupí, the older brother, and his wife remained in Brazil, while the younger brother, Guaraní, and his family left to establish new villages in the subtropical lowlands of the Río de la Plata River systems.7 The native peoples mentioned as Guaraní in Spanish and Portuguese historical documents spoke different dialects of the TupíGuaraní language. Guaraní, which means “warrior” in their language, was the more common name the Europeans in the Río de la Plata used to refer to these people, a name evidently acceptable to the Guaraní themselves because it appears as a self-reference symbol in one of their texts.8 The Guaraní rarely referred to themselves as Indians, a European category. Approximately 2,000 years before Christ, bands of Guaraní hunters and gatherers learned the slash-and-burn method of agriculture. Both men and women used the branches of the trees, along with straw, to build their long houses. These were usually one or two large straw-thatched huts where multiple families resided under the same roof in villages often surrounded by wooden palisades.9 These settlements of five or six long houses usually had two to three hundred inhabitants, but never had more than a thousand. Every three to five years, when their soils were exhausted, the Guaraní abandoned their villages and selected new sites to plant their crops and build long houses.10 The division of labor was predominantly based on gender. Men engaged in intermittent activities. When not hunting, fishing, or burning or clearing the fields, they made fish nets and small wooden benches, prepared for and engaged in warfare, and visited other villages. Women always were more burdened than men were, at least from the perspective of sixteenthcentury Europeans. Female activities included all the planting and harvesting of manioc, corn, beans, peanuts, squashes, and sweet potatoes using digging sticks, as well as the collection of roots, fruits, and cotton.Women also transported water, gathered honey and palm hearts, made pottery, spun cotton, wove baskets and hammocks, cared for the children, did domestic chores, and prepared the food.11 In addition, using their saliva to

Early Encounters 19

ferment corn, native women made a mild alcoholic beverage called canví, canouin, or caguí (maize beer) in large earthen vessels, a common practice among many Amerindians in South America.12 Each village or long house where the Guaraní extended their cotton hammocks was headed by a patrilineal chief called a tuvichá. The chiefs were responsible for governance in their communities, warfare, diplomacy, and forming marriage alliances. Guaraní societies generally operated according to the concepts of reciprocity and mutual consent. Chiefdoms were hereditary offices passed on from the father to the son. In the absence of a son, the position went to a brother or another male relative. If a tuvichá were an eloquent orator or a great warrior, he might rule over several villages.13 The Guaraní societies were patrilineal and matrilocal, according to which when a couple married, they went to live in the household of the wife and were surrounded by her family members or clan.14 A tuvichá usually had more than one wife, a symbol of prestige, although some of the indigenous groups were monogamous.Women, unlike men, faced death if caught committing adultery. Divorce, however, was relatively easy for both men and women to obtain. Couples simply separated and went their own way.15 Guaraní women practiced abortion, but sources indicate neither how frequently this occurred nor the reason women ended their unwanted pregnancies.16 As an agricultural people, they rejected infanticide because they needed their children to work alongside them in the fields. There were few social distinctions among the Guaraní. Unlike the Aztec and the Maya nobility, who wore elaborate clothing to distinguish themselves from native commoners, most Tupí-Guaraní did not cover their bodies, but women sometimes wore a small cotton garment called a typoi.17 For warmth during the winter, shamans covered themselves with animal skins or feather robes and decorations, which also served certain religious purposes.18 Shamans (pajé or opara’íva, meaning “one that sings”) played a prominent, dual religious-political role in Guaraní societies. Because these shamans were the most influential individuals in society, many tuvichás became shamans to increase their power among their people. Shamans enjoyed special status in society by virtue of their link with the spiritual world and their performances in ritual dances and songs.19 Aside from being healers, as spiritual leaders they were in charge of all the ceremonial rituals and keepers of the tribe’s oral traditions.Their rituals included the veneration of the ancestors, whose souls were believed to remain in the bones.20 Shamans led the religious chants and dances, used charms and amulets, and pipe-smoked tobacco, which was believed to have magical

20

the invasion from within

powers.21 The gourd rattles of the shamans were indispensable musical instruments that set the rhythm of the natives’ ceremonial dances and served as links to the spiritual world.22 Although it was uncommon, native women could become shamans (cuñambaye).23 If they did, they never married or gave birth to a child, so as to avoid losing any influence or respect. In this manner, they differentiated themselves from other women of lower social status, prestige, or power.24 Sixteenth-century Europeans imagined that the Tupí-Guaraní were godless.The first Jesuit Provincial in Brazil, Manuel da Nóbrega, described them in 1549 as having no knowledge of God and as worshipping nothing.25 Jean de Léry also observed during his visit to the coast of Brazil in 1556 as a member of a French expedition that the Tupinambá had no rituals or idols.26 Many early explorers and missionaries assumed that Amerindians’ minds were a tabula rasa on which they could easily inscribe the Catholic faith. Tupí-Guaraní religion was animistic. These native peoples believed in nature and in the importance of the sun, moon, thunder, lightning, and other natural forces.The Tupinambá in Brazil especially feared the anthropomorphic spirit of thunder, whom they envisioned to be a destructive figure. The Tupí-Guaraní identified their guardian spirits with good weather, abundant harvests, and the ability to wage warfare successfully against other indigenous groups.27 They also believed in a number of evil spirits who could cause them harm through sickness, death, defeat in warfare, and drought.28 Animalism, which anthropologists define as the concept of supernatural powers in animal form, was another feature of TupíGuaraní religion. Sometimes evil spirits underwent metamorphoses and became animals; or animals themselves were thought to have special powers. Birds were important symbols because they were believed to accompany the souls of the dead to the sky.29 The Guaraní also linked birds and other animals to the development of individual personality traits. If someone touched an owl, they would become lazy, because owls do not fly much. If a pregnant woman saw parrots, she might become more talkative.30 Unlike the Aztecs, Inca, and Maya, the Tupí-Guaraní had no monumental temples or calendars to measure time but only counted the phases of the moon.They recognized two seasons: summer (Quaraçi pucú, or long sun) and winter (ara ro’y, or the time when it is cold).31 The Tupí-Guaraní believed that in the afterlife their human spirits resided in the mountains and danced in beautiful gardens.32 When a villager died, native women wailed for at least half a day (see Figure 2).The body was buried in a near-upright fetal position in a large ceramic funeral urn (yapepó) or covered by these ceramic pots. If it were a respected elder,

Early Encounters 21

Figure 2. Tupí-Guaraní Lamentations (Jean de Lèry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil. 16th Century. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990)

especially a shaman, he would be buried with his cotton hammock wrapped around him, along with some necklaces, feathers, and other personal belongings.33 Women, on the death of their husbands, inflicted great bodily harm on themselves, by puncturing holes in their bodies with pointed sticks, or crippling themselves by jumping off a cliff.34 Fig2Her Similar to the belief of Amerindians in North America in a happy hunting ground, the Tupí-Guaraní believed in yvy marane’y (a land with-

22

the invasion from within

out evil).The foremost seventeenth-century Jesuit linguist, Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, defined yvy marane’y in Tesoro de la lengua Guaraní (1639) as “intact soil, where nothing stands,” perhaps referring to virgin land. Marane’y alone meant “purity, innocence, or virginity.” The absence of references to the concept of the land without evil in other Jesuit accounts and native texts may signify that this concept was less significant to the colonial Guaraní than in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries or, more likely, that the missionaries did not fully understand the importance of this concept. Almost completely opposed to the notion of a land without evil, the Tupí-Guaraní believed in the imminent destruction of the world, either by fire or a great flood.35 Jean de Léry noted that the Tupinambá believed in the myth of a great flood, which reminded him of the story of Noah. Some sixteenth-century friars considered the Amerindians’ belief in a deluge to be evidence that they once had knowledge of Christianity long past and now they only needed to be reintroduced to the faith.36 The Tupí-Guaraní had the reputation of being cannibals. The Tupinambá, for example, ate pieces of their war captives’ bodies, which they believed possessed symbolic or magical powers.37 Cannibalism among Amerindians in general has been the subject of many scholarly debates. In The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy (1979), W. Arens asserts that he has been unable to uncover adequate documentation of cannibalism as a custom in any society.38 He attributes reports and rumors of cannibalism to the need of Spaniards to justify the enslavement of Indians. In the case of the Tupí-Guaraní, however, there is some evidence that suggests that they practiced cannibalism. A native term (avaporú) for the eating of human flesh exists in the Tupí-Guaraní language.Archaeologists in Brazil recently uncovered skeletal remains at sites that appear to have been fractured and distributed among various households in such a manner as to serve as corroborating material evidence. However, additional studies of pre-Columbian Guaraní sites are needed to validate these recent findings.39 Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616), the son of a Spanish conqueror and an Inca “princess,” also notes in his Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru (1612) that the Avá-Chiriguanos “ate human flesh which they obtained by raiding neighboring provinces, devouring all their captives without regard for age or sex.”40 Garcilaso de la Vega states that the Avá-Chiriguanos consumed not only their neighbors’ flesh but their own people’s as well. On the other hand, Garcilaso de la Vega may have been exaggerating in order to make the Incas appear more “civilized” than their indigenous neighbors.The Paraguayan anthropologist Miguel Chase Sardi asserts that the Tupí-Guaraní practiced can-

Early Encounters 23

nibalism because of a protein deficiency.41 Garcilaso de la Vega’s account provides some evidence to support his hypothesis too.The Peruvian mestizo wrote that the Avá-Chiriguanos were fond of eating meat, for none exists in their own country.42 Nonetheless, there appears to have been adequate protein sources, such as fish, deer, capybara, birds, monkeys, wild boar, insects, nuts, and other plants and animals in the Upper Plata region, which casts some doubt on this interpretation. Like the Araucanians in Chile, the Tupí-Guaraní most likely used their reputations as cannibals as a form of resistance to intimidate outsiders entering their territory. The thought of being taken captive and devoured must have struck fear in the hearts of their enemies. Religion served to explain this ritualistic behavior to members of their society.The Tupí-Guaraní consumed pieces of human flesh to obtain the magical or symbolic powers of their captives or family members. Psychological warfare, the need to defend one’s natural territory and seek revenge, along with religion, thus appear to have been primary motives behind Tupí-Guaraní anthropophagy.

Early Spanish-Guaraní Relations Spanish explorers, conquerors, and settlers came to the southeastern coast of South America in the early sixteenth century without prior knowledge of the indigenous peoples that inhabited this region. Lured by stories of gold and silver, they came in search of a geographical passageway that would lead them to Inca wealth in Peru. Juan Díaz de Solís entered the area in 1516 and discovered the river the Guaraní called Paraná-guazú, the yet-to-be-named Río de la Plata (River of Silver). Native peoples, perhaps Querendí or Guaraní, who resided near the mouth of the estuary of the Río de la Plata killed him using clubs and bows and arrows. Ferdinand Magellan spent a few months there in 1520 without incident en route to the Pacific Ocean. In 1528, Sebastian Cabot traveled to the Upper Plata, where he encountered fierce resistance from the Payaguá, a Guaycuruan tribe that dominated the Paraná and Paraguay rivers. Unable to “reason” with these nonsedentary Indians, his men fired on them using cannons, harquebuses (a firearm having a matchlock operated by a trigger and supported for firing with a hook), and crossbows.The Payaguá returned their fire with bows and arrows. In 1536, Pedro Mendoza’s expedition to the Río de la Plata had to be abandoned because of starvation and attacks by the nomadic Pampas Indians. Unable to adapt to the environment in the sparse pampas, the Spanish explorers under the command of Juan de Ayolas traveled more than one thousand miles upriver, where in 1537 as many as twenty-four thousand semisedentary Cario-Guaraní resided (see Figure 3).43 Led by their

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the invasion from within

Figure 3. The Cario-Guaraní, c. 1537 (Ulrich Schmidl, Warhafftige und liebliche Beschreibund etlincher furnamen indianischen. Frankfurt, 1567. Span. trans. Historia y descubrimiento del Río de la Plata y Paraguay. Buenos Aires: MAP, 1881)

cacique, Lambaré, the Cario-Guaraní greeted the Spaniards with a shower of arrows. After two days of intense fighting, the Spaniards succeeded in subjugating the Guaraní warriors.The Spaniards proceeded to establish an outpost called Nuestra Señora de Santa María de Asunción.44 Fig 3 Here Initially defeated in battle, the Cario-Guaraní acted more amicably toward the Spaniards because of the benefits they could expect to derive from the association. In exchange for metal hardware and assistance in defeating the nomadic Chaco Indians, the Cario-Guaraní offered the Spaniards food and labor, as well as their wives and daughters, not only as concubines or even wives but also as agricultural laborers. The Spaniards in turn became heavily dependent on the Cario-Guaraní women, since native women, not men, were the primary agricultural producers in that society, and their labor was needed to plant and harvest their crops and prepare their food.The first Spanish governor, Domingo Martínez de Irala (who had at least seven Indian concubines who bore several mestizo offspring), wrote in 1541 that seven hundred Guaraní women were serving the Spaniards.45 Although some Guaraní women were given as a sign of friendship, it is difficult to determine conclusively why others chose to

Early Encounters 25

live with and bear the children of the Spanish.These Guaraní women may have been well disposed toward the Spanish because they valued the gifts of clothing and other material objects the Europeans gave them. The Cario-Guaraní women evidently obtained a certain amount of prestige from these unions.The Guaraní referred to the Spaniards as Caraí (meaning astute, but usually translated into Spanish as señor).This was a term of respect and authority, usually applied to powerful shamans.With their sailing vessels, horses, crossbows, harquebuses, armor, swords, and hatchets, the Europeans must have looked very powerful to the Guaraní, but not like priests or gods, according to what is known about the early contacts.46 Expressions of goodwill between the Spaniards and Cario-Guaraní, however, did not last long, as happened in many cases of intercultural contact in the New World. Within less than two years of the founding of Asunción in 1537, a major Guaraní uprising took place.47 Taking advantage of the preparations for the Spanish celebration of the Catholic holiday of Corpus Christi, several chiefs came to Asunción on the pretext of participating in the religious festivities and confirming some marriage alliances between the Spaniards and the Guaraní. In reality, these leaders planned a rebellion with more than eight thousand Guaraní, because the Spaniards were treating them as tapi’í (inferiors or virtual slaves) instead of as relatives and friends. A Guaraní woman revealed their plans to a Spaniard, Juan de Salazár. Like La Malinche (Malitzin or Doña Marina), Hernando Cortés’s Indian mistress in sixteenth-century Mexico, a traitorous Guaraní woman provided the Spanish with crucial information, with which they thwarted the revolt. Feeling a great sense of betrayal, the Guaraní caciques attempted to leave Asunción. Governor Domingo Martínez de Irala took them captive and hung ten of them to discourage others from plotting a similar action.After suffering this serious defeat, the Cario-Guaraní referred to the Spaniards not as their relatives but as “thieves, adulterers, and scoundrels.”48 As Spanish-Guaraní relationships broke down even further, the Spanish Crown ordered Governor Martínez de Irala to establish a more formal mechanism to extract tribute (a head tax) from male Indians between the ages of eighteen and fifty in the form of forced labor, the encomienda (a grant usually given to a Spaniard of the right to receive tribute and/or labor from a group of Indians; it carried the obligation to Christianize the Indians). Those who were caciques were exempt from tribute payment. The Guaraní originarios (those who were subjected to encomienda) worked perpetually for their encomenderos (grantees of encomiendas) in their households and on their farms, ranches, and vineyards. Indian women spun cotton for coarse cloth to be made into blankets and ponchos for

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the invasion from within

local consumption. They neither owned land nor had ties to any indigenous communities. Since no precious metals were ever found in this province, Spaniards used Guaraní labor to build their economy around agriculture, livestock, and shipbuilding.49 In 1556 an estimated twenty thousand Cario-Guaraní were divided among 320 Spaniards. Most of these indigenous peoples resided in villages near Asunción and beginning in 1580 in Franciscan reducciones (Spanishstyle villages into which Indians were resettled often under the use of arms) that were established in the central region of the province.50 The encomiendas of Guaraní serving their turns of forced labor (mitayos) lived in thirteen Franciscan reductions of Altos,Atirá, Caázapá, Guarambaré, Itá, Tobatí, Yaguarón, Yutí, Ytapé, Ypané, Perico, Jejuy, and Itatí, all founded between 1580 and 1615.51 All the Guaraní in the Franciscan reductions were subjected to encomienda. Males between ages eighteen and fifty worked for their encomenderos for two months per year. During the other ten months, they worked in their own fields. In contrast to the originarios, the mitayos had access to land and lived in reductions under the spiritual guidance of the Franciscans.They were in extended contact with colonial society due to the proximity of their villages to Spanish towns and demands for their labor.

Demographic Disaster As it did throughout the New World in the first century of European contact, the indigenous population in the province collapsed by 1600. Unfortunately, it is impossible to measure the extent of the decline with any accuracy because of the lack of censuses and tributary records. Most inhabitants died because of new epidemic diseases for which the Guaraní had no natural immunities.52 Fewer native children were also born as a consequence of the extensive intermarriage between the Spaniards and Guaraní women. As early as 1547, a Franciscan friar noted that there were numerous mestizos in the province. Moreover, many Guaraní simply perished because the Spaniards overworked them under the encomienda. According to a report by the governor of the province in 1597, the Guaraní worked “every year and even on the day the holy church sets aside . . . on their farms and in their towns . . . which causes notable harm and diminution of the Indians.”53 Spaniards had also begun using Indian women as wet nurses to breastfeed Spanish infants.The native infants thus received less of their mothers’ breast milk and probably died from malnutrition.The use of indigenous wet nurses was so widespread in the Río de la Plata that the Spanish Crown had to intervene and forbid this practice.54

Early Encounters 27

Furthermore, the Spanish conducted Indian slave-raiding expeditions, pillaged villages, and burned and cut Guaraní cornfields, thus destroying one of the natives’ main sources of sustenance. On occasion, Spaniards captured native women and separated them from their spouses and children, including their newborn babies, leaving their infants to die. In one instance, eleven or twelve elderly Indian women, incapable of defending themselves against Spanish attacks, hung themselves to avoid capture.55 Governor Domingo Martínez de Irala traded to the Portuguese a number of Guaraní women to work as slaves in Brazil in exchange for horses, small quantities of iron, and tools.56 For the Spaniards living in the area of Asunción, the Guaraní represented, above all else, a resource to be exploited.57 By 1605, reports of abuse became so prevalent the Spanish Crown ordered the president of the Audiencia of Charcas to send a royal inspector to observe the conditions of the native peoples and to adjust the price of tributes in the provinces of Paraguay, Río de la Plata, and Tucuman. During his visit several years later, Francisco de Alvaro observed that there were Indian families who were often separated and that the labor of children was used, despite the laws. He also noted that there were Indians held in encomienda for more than ten years and who still had not received any religious instruction. In addition, the Guaycuruans of the Chaco and other Indians often enslaved natives and sold them to the Spaniards who also traded them. To remedy the situation, Alfaro advocated eighty-five new ordinances in 1611, which were confirmed in a royal decree in 1618.58 Among the numerous ordinances, Alfaro ended personal service, meaning the Guaraní could no longer pay their tributes to encomenderos in the form of labor for an established period of time. He also stipulated that reductions were to be founded near Spanish towns so the Indians could have their own lands, learn artisan trades, and serve the Spaniards in their households and on their haciendas. Each reduction would have a church. Indian children between the ages five and eleven were required to study catechism for a half hour each morning. Priests could make use of one or two Indian boys between age seven and fourteen in order to serve them in their households, along with one adult male to dress them, and an elderly female cook. Alfaro called for the establishment of Indian cabildos in every reduction. These would include one or two alcaldes and no more than four regidores, depending on the size of native population, as measured by the number of houses. These Indian officials would be elected every year on New Year’s Day and would serve to keep the peace in the communities. He prohibited Spaniards, mestizos, mulattos, and Negroes from residing permanently in the reductions and from having contact with native women. Married Indian women and their children were required

28

the invasion from within

to reside in the same reduction as their spouses. Single Indian women, however, could reside with their children in their own reduction until they married.The Indians could work as the Spaniards did, by the day or by the year, but they could not be paid less than 20 pesos annually. If they had their own children, then Indian women were prohibited from raising the children of Spaniards. However, in the event that their children died, they could raise Spanish children. Finally,Alfaro prohibited the sending of Guaraní males to extract yerba maté from the forests of Maracayú in Paraguay because it resulted in so many deaths and caused notable harm to the Indians.These new laws served as an early blueprint for the governance of the reductions and Spanish-Indian relations.59 Alfaro’s ordinances raised strong protests throughout the provinces.The members of the cabildo from Villa Rica del Espíritu Santo (who most likely were all encomenderos themselves), for example, complained to Alfaro that his ordinances were too strict and impossible to obey “because of their miserable state of impoverishment.”60 Although they were unsuccessful in changing Alfaro’s mind, the settlers most likely simply ignored many of his ordinances, given their need for Indian labor and the lack of resources in this remote backwater region of the Spanish Empire. The crown also made no serious attempts to enforce the law because of the apparent ruin to the colony. Unfortunately, the violence and abuse of the Guaraní was not unique in the New World. Kidnappings, enslavement, use of forced native labor in encomiendas, sexual abuse of women, and warfare were common modes of contact throughout Spanish America. What was rare in the upper region of the Río de la Plata was the heavy reliance of the Spanish on female Indian labor.To survive in this new environment, Spaniards sought Guaraní women not only for sexual favors as their wives and concubines, but also because they were skilled at agriculture and could provide them with sustenance. Guaraní men also hunted, fished, built houses and ships, as well as occasionally served as guides to the explorers who crossed the Chaco region into Alto Peru. Despite the violent nature of the encounter, a pattern of cultural borrowings developed in this backwater region of the Spanish Empire beginning in the mid-sixteenth century. Each side learned from one another to some extent. The Guaraní language became predominant, since only small numbers of Spaniards settled in the Upper Plata, and even fewer of their wives joined them. In the absence of Spanish women, most Spanish men intermarried with Guaraní women and had numerous concubines. Mestizo children tended to take on “Spanish” status, but they spoke the Guaraní language. In 1566, a Franciscan priest wrote that a “catechism had

Early Encounters 29

to be translated into the language commonly spoken in this province,” referring to the native language.61 For a period of time, the Spaniards must have spoken a pidgin language with the Guaraní in order to communicate their basic needs. The majority of their mestizo offspring most likely acquired their knowledge of the Guaraní language from the maternal side. And each group learned something about each other’s cultural ways. Spanish settlers learned to sleep in hammocks, and corn and manioc became main staples in their diets. The Guaraní adopted European iron tools, especially knives and axes, cotton and wool clothing, and other items of trade and material culture. The Spaniards, the Guaraní, and their mestizo offspring also formed entirely new traditions. By the turn of the seventeenth century, they began to consume Paraguayan tea on a daily basis. These patterns of cultural adaptation in tropical lowland South America closely resembled those in other fringe areas of Spanish and Portuguese America where there were semisedentary Indians and the absence of natural resources, especially precious metals, which the Europeans could exploit. Until the eighteenth century, the cultural trajectories of southern Brazil and Paraguay were quite similar in that these two areas lacked dynamic economies and sustained European migration.Those Europeans who came to these backwater regions resided in towns surrounded by satellite Indian villages or reductions. This worked to produce similar results: an intense process of miscegenation and the adoption of the native language. Similar to the Maya in Yucatán, the Guaraní could more easily retain many of their traditional lifeways because of the absence of Europeans in their environment.Above all, Guaraní native culture did not simply fade away, contrary to the argument put forth several decades ago by anthropologist Elman R. Service. Indeed, Guaraní culture showed great resilience in resisting and adjusting to the encroachment of Europeans. The Guaraní appeared to have incorporated the Spaniards into their own cultural system to some extent, as they too became part of the Spanish Empire.The Spaniards in turn would never have had much of a presence or have survived in the Río de la Plata in the sixteenth century without the Guaraní.Together the Spaniards and their mestizo offspring established many Spanish towns, including Ciudad Real (1557), Santa Cruz de la Sierra (1561),Villa Rica del Espíritu Santo (1570), Santa Fe (1573), the second Buenos Aires (1580), Corrientes (1588), and other villages. Along with the arrival of Spanish settlers came Roman Catholic missionaries, who lived in or near Guaraní native villages.The Guaraní found methods for both the accommodation of and resistance to the pressures of missionization. Ultimately, the Guaraní helped to shape the terms of Jesuit accommodation in the reductions.

Chapter

The Footprints of Saint Thomas

2

Maracaná, a powerful Guaraní shaman, and several of his followers in the region of Guairá, now part of the state of Paraná in southern Brazil, told the first Jesuit missionaries who entered their territory about Sumé, an important mythical figure in Tupí-Guaraní cosmology.They explained to the men dressed in long black robes how their Great Spiritual Father had sent Sumé, an extraordinary wise man who was tall and had a long white beard, to teach them agriculture, moral and religious precepts, and the value of yerba maté and manioc.1 Once the Guaraní had acquired this valuable knowledge, Sumé returned to the other side of the ocean, leaving only his footprints on diverse hilltops as evidence that he had visited them. The Jesuits responded to this narrative by telling the Guaraní that Sumé was not just any old wise man, but Saint Thomas, one of the twelve Apostles. Saint Thomas, they explained, had come to the New World even before the arrival of the Europeans and had taught the Indians how to grow manioc and corn, what to believe, and how to behave. They also explained that Saint Thomas had come specifically to make preparations for their arrival. Indeed, with the passing of time, the Guaraní would all be resettled into towns by men carrying crosses in their hands.2 In this manner, the Catholic missionaries discovered an important Tupí-Guaraní myth and made use of it to gain the Indians’ confidence, in hopes of radically transforming Guaraní ways. Beginning in the early seventeenth century, the Jesuits worked diligently to spread Christianity among the Guaraní. For example, they introduced Christianity through the co-optation of local gods or deities, as illustrated in the myth of Saint Thomas or Tomás Sumé. An analysis of their efforts provides a rare glimpse into how indigenous cultures changed

The Footprints of Saint Thomas 31

in early contact situations. It reveals an interaction between the Europeans and the Indians that manifest the efforts of the Guaraní to assert control over their lives and retain their autonomy.At the same time, it also demonstrates how the Jesuits’ lives were changed too, as they came into extended contact with the Guaraní. Additionally, the early encounter between Amerindians and missionaries provides a context for understanding why the Jesuit missions and the Guaraní were so important to the Spanish state in stabilizing the border with Brazil and resisting Indian slave expeditions from São Paulo.

The Jesuit Order The Jesuits were not present during the conquest period; the order arrived late in Paraguay, as it did in other parts of Spanish America. Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus was established during the CounterReformation in Europe and was an outgrowth of Spain’s crusading zeal. In 1588, the first Jesuits to arrive in Asunción devoted much of their time to baptizing several thousand native peoples in the forest.3 Encouraged by the creole governor in Asunción, Hernando Arias de Saavedra, the Jesuits established their first reductions in remote areas of the provinces of Paraguay, Guairá, and Itatín, since the Franciscans established reductions in the central part of the province (see Map 3) among those held in encomienda. The Jesuit reductions were located in what the missionaries referred to in Latin as Paraquariae, or Paraguay (see Map 4). The Jesuit Province of Paraquariae encompassed the secular provinces of Paraguay, Buenos Aires, Tucumán, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and even parts of Peru. The Jesuits called this vast area of southern South America Paraquariae because the Society of Jesus had established its first colegio (college) in the upper region of Río de la Plata in Asunción.4 Map3Her4 Nearly three-quarters of the Jesuits who came to the Río de la Plata between 1550 and 1749 were European born, the rest were creoles.5 They were men of many nationalities. Approximately 74 percent of all the Jesuits were from Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, and France.6 Most of the foreign Jesuits arrived after 1690.At the time of expulsion, seventyseven Jesuits resided in the thirty-three missions among the Guaraní and Tobatínes in the area of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers. Among the Europeans were forty-two Spaniards, thirteen Germans, eight Italians, two Hungarians, and one Frenchman. Eleven Jesuits were creoles born in the Río de la Plata.7 Nearly all were considered middle-aged or elderly men. Of the seventy-seven missionaries in the reductions in 1763, none was under age thirty; nine were between thirty and thirty-nine; twenty-eight

Map 3 (above). Jesuit Reductions in Guairá, Early Seventeenth Century (Adapted from Pablo Hernández, S.J., Organización social de las doctrinas guaranís de la Compañía de Jesús, Barcelona: Gustavo Gilig, 1913) Map 4 (right). Jesuit Province of Paraquariae, 1732 (Hand Drawn by Francisco Retz, S.J.“Paraquariae Provinciae Soc. Jesu cum adjcentib. 1732.” Gondra Collection. Map #2808. Courtesy of the Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin)

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were between forty and forty-nine; eighteen were between fifty and fiftynine; eighteen were between sixty and sixty-nine; and four were over seventy years old. Of these, eleven were either too ill or physically unable to provide for the spiritual and material needs of the indigenous people.8 The age structure suggests that these missions were not merely religious communities established for the conversion of the Amerindians. By the mideighteenth century, the Guaraní reductions were places where a number of aging priests retired after many years of missionary service. Indeed, several missionaries had resided among the Guaraní for more than two or three decades, including Jesuit Superior Mathias Strobel, Father Bernardo Nusdorffer, Father José Cardiel, and Father José Ribarola.9 These priests had the opportunity to establish relationships of confidence with the Guaraní by the time international politics affected the missions. The Jesuits approached their missionary work from a standpoint of cultural superiority. This perceived superiority was based on their advanced education, technical skills, knowledge of the arts and sciences, and strong sense of moral rightness. They were entirely convinced that their intentions were good and that the Guaraní needed their protection and guidance. Like members of other religious orders in the New World, many Jesuits held a low opinion of the spiritual and intellectual abilities of Indians.10 Some perceived them as being childlike, as lacking any creative abilities of their own, as naturally lazy, and inferior to the missionaries.11 Some Jesuits thought that by nature the Guaraní had “a very limited capacity, and understood nothing except what immediately falls under the senses.”12 Others viewed them as irresponsible.There were, however, some exceptions. Several members of this religious order believed that the Guaraní were in some respects equal to Europeans. They praised the Guaraníes’ abilities by noting that “they succeeded, as it were, by instinct in all the arts, to which they are applied.”13 Some greatly admired a talented Guaraní musician by the name of Paica who “played all kinds of instruments with great skill.”14 One Jesuit asserted that the Guaraní, if taught properly, could embrace and retain the Christian faith, learn artisan crafts, and a good measure of “civility.”15 Such attitudes reflected the missionaries’ own sense of cultural superiority and determination to alter native ways.

Early Missionary Contact In 1609 two Jesuits set out from Asunción with Parané-Guaraní cacique Arapizandú to establish a reduction in his village south of the Tebicuary

The Footprints of Saint Thomas 35

River, which became known as San Ignacio Guazú. Chief Arapizandú had traveled to Asunción to ask Governor Arias de Saavedra to send missionaries to his village. His behavior and words signified that the ParanáeGuaraní favored accommodation, after more than half a century of fierce resistance against the Spanish.This new strategy may have been result of the serious demographic collapse of the native population in Paraguay. His actions were not simply an issue of wanting to fend off slavers and avoid encomenderos because the Paranés were still subjected to forced labor under the encomienda at the Jesuit reduction of San Ignacio Guazú.Arapizandú was apparently receptive to the missionaries because he believed that they could act as intermediaries with the Spanish colonial world into which they were coming more and more into contact. The Paranáes offered the Jesuits a meal of beans, manioc, and corn.To gain their trust and friendship, the Jesuits distributed among the Paranáes gifts of rosaries, mirrors, pins, needles, combs, scissors, glass beads, metal fishhooks, and other items.16 The native people coveted iron objects because metals were rare and were more practical than stone tools in making certain domestic implements and weapons.The Guaraní quest for Catholic missionaries soon became part of a broader pattern in the Río de la Plata. Several other Guaraní caciques, including Cabacamby and Tabacamby, also heard of the benefits to be derived from the missionaries’ presence and invited the Jesuits to establish reductions among their people along the Alto Paraná River.17 In 1619, after visiting mission Itapúa, cacique Nicolás Ñeengirú requested a missionary for his people in the regions of Tapé and Uruguay.18 At nearly the same time that the reduction at San Ignacio Guazú was being established, two Italian Jesuits set out from Asunción in the company of Rodrigo Ortiz de Melgarejo, a creole who had resided in the region for many years, to found the first two reductions among the Guaraní in Guairá in the valley of Paranápanema, Nuestra Señora de Loreto del Pirapó, and San Ignacio del Ypaumbuçú. Between 1610 and 1630, the Jesuits founded more than a dozen reductions in or near indigenous communities east of the Spanish towns of Ciudad Real, Santiago de Jerez, and Villarrica, on the tributaries of the upper Paraná River. They established fourteen more reductions among the Tapé-Guaraní in the Banda Oriental of Uruguay. Beginning in 1632, the Jesuits founded twelve other reductions among the Itatín-Guaraní in present-day Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil.19 Along with the Spanish towns, these Jesuit reductions served as a temporary bulwark against Portuguese expansion in these areas and provided the Spaniards with labor through the encomienda. The Jesuits received financial support from the Spanish Crown to establish these

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reductions and convert the Guaraní to Christianity. King Philip II provided 1,000 pesos for the sustenance and clothing of the missionaries, along with an annual 1,400 peso stipend.20 Before entering a village to establish a new reduction, the Jesuits sent word to the caciques, expressing their interest in baptizing them using a Guaraní messenger loyal to them. The caciques responded in a peaceful manner by offering their women to the missionaries. To avoid offending the chiefs and to obtain their approval, the Jesuits spent several days in the village in the company of these women but refrained from any sexual contact because of their vows of celibacy. Once initially accepted, the missionaries asked the Guaraní to construct a hut for them to serve as a chapel in or near the village. From their earliest contacts, the Jesuits adopted the native lifestyle in order to gain the respect of the Guaraní. They ate manioc roots, bananas, sweet potatoes, and occasional wild game that the Guaraní offered them or what they could gather, grow, or hunt for themselves.The little wheat they planted only sufficed for their communion wafers. There was never enough for their daily bread, nor did they have salt or beef, as they were accustomed. The little wine they brought from Asunción for the ceremonial Mass had to last for nearly five years.21 The Jesuits’ adoption of native ways not only ensured their survival but also was an important means for obtaining acceptance by the Guaraní. To accomplish their goals, the Jesuits adapted their evangelistic message to the conceptual framework of their potential converts. By reinterpreting the legend of Sumé, for example, the Jesuits could more easily appropriate the natives’ past, unite Tupí-Guaraní and Catholic traditions, and direct cultural change. If Saint Thomas had taught the Guaraní their agricultural and manufacturing skills, then his followers, the Jesuits, could more easily instruct the natives in what to believe and in how to cultivate new plants, such as wheat; and how to raise cattle, grow fruit trees, manufacture goods in workshops, and behave according to European social norms. Jesuit missionary Nicolás del Techo notes that the Guaraní believed that there was a hilltop between the towns of São Paulo and Archangel, which was the burial place of Saint Thomas.They also believed that the saint’s footprints remained near the Spanish town of Villarrica in a spot where the Jesuits built a reduction. Techo further observed that near Asunción was a sharp rock that, although flat on top, bore the man’s footprint. Stories of Saint Thomas spreading Catholicism throughout the world are an old Catholic tradition. Among Christians in India, there has long been the belief that Saint Thomas evangelized that part of Asia. Franciscans claimed that Saint Thomas had visited India. In Mexico, the Franciscans were also largely responsible for the legend of Saint Thomas. In South

The Footprints of Saint Thomas 37

America, it was the Jesuits who gave it new life.22 Catholic missionaries needed to construct a foundation on which they could establish a church. Of course, it is improbable that Saint Thomas ever traveled to the New World before the European discovery. What is significant is that this Old World tradition was apparently widely accepted by the Guaraní.The myth of Saint Thomas or “Tomás Sumé” in Brazil and Paraguay, and the identification of Saint Thomas and the Indian divinity Quetzalcóatl in seventeenth-century Mexico, were prime examples of syncretism in the New World.23 Listening to the stories of the Tupí-Guaraní, the early Jesuit missionaries in Brazil and Paraguay interpreted them according to their own Catholic traditions, which had originated in far off and rather exotic places like the Holy Land, China, and India. They remembered the pilgrimage of San Ignacio de Loyola, and the exhortation of Jesus Christ to his apostles to spread his faith throughout the entire world.24 When the Jesuits were expelled from Spain and its possessions in 1767, the Guaraní of Mission San Luis east of the Uruguay River wrote, in a letter to the Spanish governor in Buenos Aires, “Apostle Saint Thomas had spread the faith among our ancestors in this land.”25 It appears that the belief in the myth of Saint Thomas was more widespread among the Guaraní in Paraguay than in Mexico.26 In both colonial Mexico and Paraguay, this myth and beliefs in native divinities theologically served to support the notions that Christ could not have overlooked a major portion of humanity in the New World and that his apostles indeed had gone out and preached to all people on all the continents.27

Spiritual Confrontations While many of the Guaraní appeared to welcome the missionaries to their villages, several powerful shamans strongly resisted all Jesuit efforts to alter their lifeways. As priests, the Jesuits posed a serious threat to the shamans’ power and control over their Indian followers. Many of the shaman-chiefs combated the missionaries with their eloquent verbal skills. Chief Artiguaye, for example, went to visit the missionaries in Guairá. He shouted: You are not priests sent by God to save us, but only devils from hell, sent by your prince, to see to our ruin.What doctrine have you brought us? Our ancestors lived with freedom, having as many women as they wanted . . . with whom they lived and spent a happy life, and you want to destroy our traditions and want to burden us by tying us to only one woman.This will not happen. I will make sure of it.28

By referring to the Catholic priests as “devils from hell,” the shaman most likely used the same terms the missionaries had used to refer to him.29

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Artiguaye left the village before the Jesuits could respond to his complaints. Guaraní shamans had difficulty understanding the Jesuit vows of celibacy. One shaman mocked a priest by calling him “grandmother.”30 The Guaraní probably did not know what to make of celibacy because, in their society, men of authority and prestige were expected to have had sexual relations with numerous women. Possibly the Guaraní referred to the Jesuits as abaré (diverse men, or men different from other men) because of the missionaries’ vows of celibacy. A major grievance for the shamans was the missionaries’ intention to instill the social value of monogamy. Before agreeing to baptize them, the missionaries initially required the Guaraní to marry their first woman. Several men who wanted to be married to their favorite concubine, however, told the Jesuits that they had no other woman.31 Finally, after consulting with Rome on this issue, the Jesuits permitted these men to take any woman as their wife, as long as they had only one woman. Many Guaraní, however, still were reluctant to do so. At the reduction of Santa María la Mayor, after being warned that they would have to take only one wife before receiving instructions for baptism, a group of Guaraní fled back into a remote part of the forest. There they built a new village and renounced Christianity.While the fugitives were away hunting and cutting wood, however, two Jesuits, with the assistance of several loyal Guaraní, set fire to their huts.32 The Jesuits were not reluctant to use force against the Indians, nor were the shamans reluctant to respond with violence against their Jesuit competitors. When a shaman shook his gourd rattle at the missionaries to intimidate them and threatened to kill them and their converts, the chief Jesuit ordered loyal converts to seize him.Then the priests had the shaman whipped in public.33 Total banishment from the area was another method relied on by the Jesuits. The “demon” Tayubay, for example, was publicly whipped, then banished from the reduction of San Miguel.34 Various shamans, such as Ñezú and Yeguacapú and their followers, took as many as seven Jesuit lives on different occasions in the early seventeenth century.35 According to the testimonies of Pablo Arayú and cacique Guirayú, reducidos (neophytes) from the reduction of Candelaria on November 10, 1631, Ñezú had ordered the killing of the Jesuits because their presence among them meant they would no longer have any women and their children would be baptized without their consent.36 After killing a Jesuit, one shaman put on the fallen missionary’s black robe, and then over it he placed his own animal skins or feather robes. It was as though he had assumed the Jesuits’ power by wearing their cloth-

The Footprints of Saint Thomas 39

ing. He then told his followers that they could now keep as many wives as they pleased. He also had all the baptized children unbaptized by washing their heads in hot water, scouring their tongues with sand, and scraping them with a shell so as to wipe away the salt that had been given to them by the Jesuits.37 The shamans said, “I baptize you in order to unbaptize you.”38 These political-religious leaders associated the Christian sacrament of baptism with the outbreak of epidemic disease and subsequent death of many Guaraní.39 When the iron church bell accidentally fell and broke at the reduction of Loreto, a shaman claimed responsibility.40 This was an impressive strategy intended to challenge the Jesuits and increase the shaman’s own power and influence among his followers. Similarly, in the French Jesuit missions of Canada, Huron shamans and elders waged an ideological war of resistance against their missionaries in the early seventeenth century. During an epidemic, Huron shamans developed their own version of baptism as a means to cure the sick.41 One of the Jesuits’ main goals was to supplant the shamans as the principal religious and political leaders in all aspects of native life.The Jesuits knew how to attack the shaman “demons.” Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, for example, set fire to two of their secret temples near the reduction of Loreto. Out of sight of the Jesuits, however, many shamans continued to practice their rituals. The Guaraní constructed sacred religious sites on hilltops where they kept the bones of renowned dead shamans. Inside these huts, the Guaraní hung the shamans’ skeletons in hammocks decorated with multicolored feathers. Along the walls of the huts they hung offerings of fruit, which the shamans ate and distributed to their followers. These early Guaraní responses to Christianity were quite distinct from the notion of idols behind altars in the literature on religious adaptation in Spanish America. By practicing clandestine rituals on hilltops in the middle of the forest, these indigenous people tended to be accommodationists because they avoided a direct confrontation with the Catholic priests. At the same time, their meetings probably served to renew their sense of identity. Perhaps they offered the Guaraní an opportunity to “fill out” sacred power and ritual as the Jesuits presented it to them in the reductions. By performing Mass at altars inside straw huts and singing religious songs in the forest, the Jesuits subtly altered the methodology and content of the shamans’ craft. At the same time, many shamans began mimicking the Jesuits by building wooden altars in the forest, wearing black clothing, and drinking canguí (maize beer) using the same hand movements with which the Jesuits drank wine during the Catholic Mass, raising the sacred

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cup toward the sky. In effect, the Guaraní were not merely reproducing European culture but also transforming their own culture radically and decisively.42 The missionaries also undermined the shamans’ position by creating generational conflict in native society. The Jesuits, like their predecessors in other parts of Spanish America, the Franciscans, focused their attention on the religious instruction of Guaraní children. Catholic missionaries concentrated on children because it was easier to alter their behavior and thinking and to instill what was considered “proper” behavior.43 The children could also be used to influence the behavior of their parents and to inform on them. A Guaraní boy, for example, betrayed his relatives by revealing to Jesuit Nicolás del Techo the location of clandestine Guaraní religious sites. In addition, missionaries publicly mocked the shamanchiefs in front of their followers. Children, particularly boys, played an active role in making fun of the shamans. In one instance, children laughed at a shaman who received a hundred lashes and “made sport at him,” or they flung mud in a shaman’s face in front of other Guaraní.44 Through such extended contact in the reductions, the Guaraní gradually accepted the Jesuits as their new native priests. Mimicry, which was part of the process of cultural adaptation during the early contact period, on occasion represented a form of flattery. The Guaraní were curious about and attracted by the Jesuits’ use of song and music, which they attempted to emulate with their own voices. In other instances, however, mimicry could be a form of mockery and a means of increasing power. By putting on the black robes of Jesuits who had been killed, for example, the Guaraní shamans may have increased their influence in the eyes of their followers. Cultural identity was perceived in various ways. For example, at Mission Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, which was composed of diverse indigenous groups including Guaraní, the caciques greatly resented the cutting of their long hair, which was a symbol of their independent spirit and traditional ways. The wearing of long hair and the manner in which it was combed were also expressions of cultural identity, and most likely had religious significance. Some Amerindians associated certain children’s hairstyles with good health; if their children’s hair were shorn, they believed that the children would die. The royal cédulas of 1581 and 1587 in the Recopilación de las Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (the great compilation of Spanish colonial law published in 1681) specifically recognized that some Indians in the New World regarded long hair as an “ancient and venerable ornament.”45 Priests were not supposed to cut the Indians’ hair even for baptism and were supposed to allow the Indians to wear their hair as

The Footprints of Saint Thomas 41

they pleased. For a priest to cut or pull an Indian’s hair was a deep humiliation. Nevertheless, the Jesuits ignored the royal decrees and shortened the Indians’ hair to achieve uniform styles. The chiefs from Mission Yapeyú traveled to Buenos Aires, where they pleaded with the Spanish governor not to allow the Jesuits to cut their hair. Their willingness to travel such a long distance and appeal to rival authorities suggests the seriousness of their request. It demonstrates that Guaraní were quite adept at recognizing the significance of tensions within the Spanish world and were capable of manipulating events to their own advantage. To redress serious grievances, it was not unusual for Amerindians to travel so far from their communities. Steve J. Stern shows that as early as the 1550s, Andean peoples of Huamanga traveled as far away as Lima to redress local grievances.46 Indigenous peoples seemed to learn early on where power rested and attempted to resolve their differences, often using Spanish mechanisms. By the late 1630s, there had been a Spanish presence in the Río de la Plata for a century. Guaraní caciques, such as Arapizandú, knew that if they made requests in person to men of authority, colonial officials may meet their demands.This Guaraní protest in Buenos Aires was successful. Little by little, however, the other indigenous residents at Mission Yapeyú acquiesced to the haircuts, until eventually all wore their hair in the same short style.47 This episode reveals how the Guaraní struggled to retain their cultural autonomy. Although much of the political authority still rested with the missionary fathers, negotiations took place between them, the members of the Indian cabildo, and the caciques. This incident illustrates that, by appealing to secular authorities, the mission Indians were willing to work within the channels of the Spanish colonial system to air and resolve such differences. Even though some chiefs were excluded from participation in the cabildos, Guaraní caciques’ concerns and interests were not ignored. The Jesuits increased social differentiation within Guaraní society and rewarded individuals by allowing certain people to wear rather elaborate clothing made of wool, cotton, and even silk and velvet. Members of the cabildo, military officers, altar boys, and dancers all wore special costumes or uniforms on days of celebration, along with shoes and socks.48 As soon as the celebrations were over, however, the Jesuits usually locked up their uniforms, apparently believing the Guaraní were too irresponsible to care for these expensive garments. Figure 4 shows the Guaraní militias parading in their fine Spanish military uniforms in the churchyard of Mission San Juan Bautista. Militia officers carried canes of office denoting their special status. A crowd of Guaraní women stands by the main entrance to the church, separated from the men, most likely near the entrance of the

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coty guazú. The Jesuits themselves dressed in homespun gowns that were dyed black, woven, and sewed by the Guaraní. To clothe the Indians, the missionaries distributed cloth to families from the community of goods in the warehouses. Guaraní women did the sewing at the school in the company of other women.49 Fig4Her For the Guaraní, the wearing of elaborate Spanish dress implied more social prestige than the modest clothing styles of native commoners.Their adoption of European-style clothing signified that the mission Indians outwardly accepted some of the material culture, values, and customs of the foreign culture.The wearing of European-style gowns by more priv-

Figure 4. Mission San Juan Bautista in the Eighteenth Century (Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Archivo General de Simancas, M.P. y D., II-14)

The Footprints of Saint Thomas 43

ileged groups within society also reflected certain Jesuit conceptions about the nature of hierarchy in a Christian community. Their idea that men of importance should wear more elaborate clothing on special occasions probably did not differ from the beliefs of most members of secular society. The wearing of such fine silk and velvet costumes by certain Guaraní, however, may have increased the jealousy of other churchmen and settlers in the province who resented the Jesuit missionary enterprise. Throughout most of the year, Guaraní males wore white cotton shirts and pants. Many men wore hats like the Europeans, but they usually went without shoes or socks. On religious holidays, though, some wore socks of various colors.50 All Guaraní women wore long white tunics that were made of a rough cotton called typoís and had embroidered necklines. The origins of this native dress are obscure. Similar gowns probably were first worn by the mestizas and Guaraní women from the Franciscan reductions in the central region of the province that had been established prior to the Jesuit reductions.51 These loosely fitted dresses reflected early Christian attitudes.The Catholic missionaries sought to disguise the shape of the female body by requiring women to wear these costumes of virgins. Of course, they demonstrate that modesty and morals were a source of concern to the Jesuits. The long gowns worn by the women did not stress individuality. The emphasis on clothing style in the missions instead was on achieving uniformity among all the females and male Indian commoners.The choice of cotton clothing by men and women was governed by the warm tropical lowland climate. During the winter months, men wore a poncho made of wool or cotton. Missionaries probably encouraged the wearing of white clothing simply because white was the cotton’s natural color and the use of dyes would represent an additional expenditure. Learning the native language facilitated the transformation of Guaraní culture and religion.The early missionaries used interpreters and relied on the catechism translated into Guaraní by Franciscan friar Luis de Bolaños; later on they read the grammars, vocabularies, and dictionaries written in Guaraní by Jesuit Antonio Ruiz de Montoya. The Jesuits could more effectively confront the shamans once they had mastered the Indians’ words. In this, their seminary training in foreign languages helped. Eventually, the Jesuit fathers used another method to compensate for any problems the missionaries might have in speaking Guaraní. Following the daily Mass, they relied on a Guaraní chief to repeat and explain their sermons to the indigenous audience. Several Guaraní women responded to their religious instruction with fervor. Jesuit accounts vividly describe the miraculous behavior of a few

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female converts. Two women, they asserted, had died and visited heaven and hell before coming back to life again.They then retold their experiences to others in the reductions. One of them claimed that she had seen the Virgin Mary, who was all shiny and gold, surrounded by all the saints in heaven. She also claimed that she saw members of their congregations who were dressed in elegant clothing. Another Guaraní woman said she had heard demons hissing like snakes during her visit to hell. She claimed she had seen the tormented souls of several individuals, including some that she recognized from their village.The Jesuits insisted that she was an apostle among her people. One Jesuit later claimed to have been responsible for performing a miracle himself by taking the rosary from one of the native women who had died eight or nine months earlier. He gave it to a sick child who miraculously recovered during an epidemic while almost all the children in the village died. The woman’s body during that time had not decomposed whatsoever and had no odor. It was exhumed because the space was needed for another Indian burial and then reburied. Following these rather miraculous events, the priests summoned all the chiefs and asked them for their help in securing the souls of their relatives.52 Visionary experience represented a point of convergence between the two cultures.The recounting of dreams and visions was an essential feature of Guaraní religion and early modern Christianity.53 One can only speculate on the reasons why these Guaraní women embraced Catholicism. Certain elements of Christianity were evidently appealing to them, including the reverence for the Virgin Mary and other female saints. Select men and women assisted the Catholic priests as members of the two congregations in each town: the Congregación de San Miguel Archangel and Congregación de Beatísima Madre de Nuestra Salvador.54 However, we do not know the depths of their beliefs or whether they were converted to Catholicism, since the women did not speak for themselves in the documentation. Guaraní women and men appear to have been receptive to the teachings of the Jesuits partly because these missionaries sought to fend off encomenderos and slavers.

Enslavement Life for the Guaraní and the missionaries on the frontier was perilous. The early Jesuits were forced to abandon many of their reductions not long after their founding and rebuild them in less vulnerable sites southward along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers.55 Using Tupí as auxiliaries, the

The Footprints of Saint Thomas 45

Paulistas (inhabitants of São Paulo) made repeated raids, burned down Jesuit reductions and Spanish towns, and carried away as many as sixty thousand Guaraní in Guairá alone between 1628 and 1631.56 A list of Guaraní captives dated 1615 reveals that approximately 70 percent were women and children. This preference for women appears to reflect the division of labor in agriculture, in which women played a primary role in planting and harvesting.57 Guaraní women were also sought because they could serve as concubines, wives, and domestic servants. Those Guaraní who were captured and who survived the long journey to the Brazilian coast were sold as slaves to work on the sugar plantations, estates, or in the urban households of Bahia, Pernambuco, and especially São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.58 The enslavement of the Guaraní was illegal. Spanish and Portuguese royal legislation had repeatedly prohibited it and declared the freedom of the captured Indians.The king of Spain also ordered the provincial governors of the Río de la Plata and Paraguay to use any means possible to punish the Paulistas.59 In 1637, Father Ruiz de Montoya traveled to Madrid as procurador (business agent, trade representative, or an individual who promoted the interests of an organization or a community at the courts of Spain and Portugal) of the Company of Jesus to request the Jesuits be given the right to arm the Guaraní.60 Ruiz de Montoya also sent two of his Jesuit subordinates to Salvador, Bahia, the colonial capital of Brazil, to see the Portuguese governor general to protest the cruel treatment and enslavement of the Guaraní. The pope, moreover, excommunicated from the church anyone who seized, used, or traded the Guaraní slaves in 1639.61 Nevertheless, the slave traders and masters found loopholes in the laws or simply ignored all of these attempts to put an end to Indian enslavements.62

Guaraní Militias and Growing Tensions in the Provinces Armed with only bows and arrows and clubs, the Guaraní and the Jesuits at first had difficulties resisting the Paulistas, who wore armor breastplates, carried muskets, and always used between fifteen hundred and two thousand Tupí as allies.The concentration of the Guaraní into reductions actually made it easier for the Paulistas to capture them. The slave raids devastated the reductions so severely beginning in 1631 that the Jesuits decided to relocate them to new sites south of the Tebicuary River. Some Guaraní accompanied the Jesuits to found new reductions in the Province of Itatín. But later on, these too had to be abandoned because of

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Paulista raids.63 Of an estimated thirty thousand Guaraní in Guairá, fewer than twelve thousand moved voluntarily to the new area designated for them.64 Many refused to abandon their natural territory because of strong attachments to the land. Others died in epidemics.65 The decision of more than half of the mission Indians to remain in their natural territory represents a loss of confidence in the Jesuits by the Guaraní and the need for accommodation. Those several thousand who did relocate to the newly founded reductions of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, hundreds of miles away from the Paulistas, still suffered enormous hardships. Epidemics of typhus, measles, and dysentery broke out for three continuous years soon after their arrival.66 As many as 5,536 mission Indians died in the epidemics of 1634 to 1636. During the three-year period from 1637 to 1639, in the reductions in the area of the Uruguay River, 4,600 Indians died of disease and famine.67 In terror, many Guaraní fled from these reductions.To make matters worse, in 1636 and 1638, closely following the epidemics came even more Paulista raids. Several thousand Guaraní were driven in chains to São Paulo. Many others were slain or escaped and fled back into the forest.68 Even before the news of royal approval arrived in the Río de la Plata, the Jesuits had already armed some of the Guaraní in time for a major confrontation with the Paulistas in 1641.69 A Guaraní force of four thousand defeated some four hundred Paulistas and two thousand and seven hundred Tupí auxiliaries in the battle of Mbororé. A Jesuit priest, Domingo Torres, a former veteran of the Spanish army, led the Guaraní soldiers under the command of Captain General Nicolás Ñeengirú on land, while cacique Captain Ignacio Abiarú took charge of the Guaraní forces on the Mbororé River, commanding some seventy canoes mounted with firearms. In 1642, the Jesuits and the Guaraní soldiers together put an end to the slave raiding in that region with a second defeat of the Paulistas.70 These important victories renewed the indigenous peoples’ sense of pride; they also increased Jesuit prestige in the eyes of the Guaraní, which for warrior societies like the Guaraní meant a great deal. Although trained by the Jesuits, Guaraní males renewed their sense of autonomy, power, and traditions of warfare through the formation of militias and the acquisition of firearms. Guaraní men readily volunteered for military service because they could continue their warrior traditions through this new institution. Bravery and courage were traditional social values among the Guaraní.71 Highly respected in both Spanish and Guaraní cultures, these common values fostered understanding between the Amerindians and the Europeans. Equally important, the native militias

The Footprints of Saint Thomas 47

served the interests of Spain at the same time that they contributed to the accommodation of the Guaraní. The crown had no regular troops in the Río de la Plata, and in exchange for certain benefits and special privileges, the Guaraní were willing to fulfill this duty in effect without costs to the royal treasury. Although the Guaraní troops occasionally suffered military defeats and were poorly equipped, these militias provide evidence that the Guaraní were not powerless. Indeed, this institution strengthened their position within colonial society. The crown was willing to allow the Guaraní to retain a greater degree of autonomy, as long as it was in the best interests of Spain. The formation of Guaraní militias trained by Catholic priests was a distinguishing feature of these missions. Ethnic soldiering, however, was quite common throughout many Spanish colonies, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, Florida, Mexico, Panamá, New Granada, Peru, and Guatemala. Similarly in northern New Spain, the Bourbon regime used small numbers of Opata and Pima warriors from the missions as auxiliaries as a means of lowering the costs of frontier defense in Sonora.72 In contrast to northern New Spain, however, the Guaraní in the Jesuit reductions were the military, not just auxiliaries like the neophytes in New Spain. Eight companies served all the thirty Jesuit missions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers. Each mission had its own armory, where a portrait of the king of Spain was displayed as a reminder to the Guaraní to remain loyal. Not all Guaraní militia officers, however, were always compliant. In 1661, a Guaraní captain, cacique Mbaiugua, and several other caciques from five missions south of the Paraná River rebelled against the Jesuits. Mbaiugua demanded that the Guaraní be left in charge of their temporal affairs and that the missionaries only look after their spiritual needs.The Jesuits quickly put down this uprising. They identified the leaders who received corporal punishment and confinement in mission jails at San Ignacio Guazú and Santos Reyes de Yapeyú.73 Because criollos feared Indian uprisings, the Jesuits did not easily achieve the arming of the Guaraní. For a brief period, the Jesuits were required to store their weapons not in the armories in the reductions, but in Asunción. In 1664, however, the Jesuits obtained royal permission to keep some of the Indians’ weapons in the missions because it was too impractical to keep the arms at such a far distance. Following another Paulista raid on four missions in 1676, the Jesuits succeeded in getting all their weapons returned to the reductions by a royal cédula of July 25, 1679.74 This achievement marked the beginning of a period of consolidation of the Jesuit missions.

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the invasion from within Jesuit Mission Foundations, 1609 – 1750 75 Guaraní Reductions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers 1633 Santa Ana 1609 San Ignacio Guazú 1634 San Cosme y Damian 1610 Loreto 1651 Santa María de Fé 1611 San Ignacio Miní 1685 Jesús 1615 Encarnación Itapuá 1690 San Borja 1619 Concepción 1691 San Lorenzo 1622 Corpus Christi 1698 San Juan Bautista 1626 Santa María la Mayor Santa Rosa San Nicolás 1705 Trinidad San Francisco Xavier 1707 Santo Angelo 1627 Santos Reyes de Yapeyú Candelaria Itatín-Guaraní Reductions 1631 La Cruz in Northern Paraguay San Carlos Santos Mártires 1746 Joaquín 1632 San Miguel 1749 San Estanislao Santiago Santo Tomé San Luis Apóstoles San José

Tensions, nonetheless, were rife between the Jesuits and the Franciscans and settlers in Paraguay who competed for Indian souls and labor. In 1644, Bernardino de Cárdenas, the Franciscan bishop of Paraguay, forbade the Jesuits to preach within the capital and challenged their missionary work. He openly announced that he would expel the Jesuits, confiscate their property and reductions, and seize their revenues. He was resentful of their growing influence. He also excommunicated Governor Gregorio de Hinestrosa twice after a series of insults. When the governor learned of a plot to seize the Jesuit colegió, Hinestrosa warned the Jesuits and summoned six hundred Guaraní soldiers to come to his assistance. On March 16, 1649, Cárdenas and his supporters looted the Jesuit colegio and set fire to the building. In response to this attack, the Audiencia of Charcas sent one of its members, Don Andrés de León Garabito, as an oidor (royal investigator) to Asunción. Léon Garabito denounced Cárdenas and summoned him for trial in Alta Peru. After ignoring the summons, the royal inspector marched on Asunción with Spanish troops and three thousand Guaraní soldiers loyal to the Jesuits. He proceeded to the cathedral where he found Cárdenas. He kissed the bishop’s ring, and then ordered him to leave the province. Nevertheless, Cárdenas remained in

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Asunción for several months, evidently hoping to be restored to office. In early 1651, he retired in Chuquisaca, his birthplace, thereby putting an end to this crisis.76 Occasionally, policies emanating from Spain conflicted with those of the Jesuits in the Province of Paraguay. In 1680, the king of Spain ordered the relocation of one thousand Guaraní families to Buenos Aires to build new fortifications.The Jesuits protested this measure by using delay tactics and ignoring the orders of the governor. The Guaraní also complained that the port city was too cold for them and that “when the more robust male adults go there for a few months, they usually get sick and die.”77 Guaraní women especially lamented the idea of having to leave their homes in the reductions to reside in the land of the Spanish.They tore out their hair and refused to eat or prepare food. Elderly Guaraní women recalled the words of Ñezú, a deceased shaman who predicted that those Guaraní who resided in reductions would eventually be taken to the land of the Spanish.78 The Guaraní effectively communicated their needs and desires to the missionaries who would negotiate for them. The Jesuits finally reached a compromise with the Spanish governor in Buenos Aires by agreeing to send three hundred Guaraní male volunteers to work in the construction of the fort for only four or five months at a time.79 Although not ideal, this was a better solution to the hardships the Guaraní would have endured during their relocation. The fact that the missionaries got their transfer to Buenos Aires reversed is significant.These native people, through the use of intermediaries, were capable of protecting their own interests. Their native voices were heard by Spanish authorities through the Jesuits and were not ignored. Although the primary function of the Guaraní militias was to defend the mission territory, the governors of Asunción and Buenos Aires frequently used the Guaraní militias to accomplish their secular objectives. Guaraní militias occasionally did reconnaissance along the Río de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean to defend Spanish towns. In 1697 and 1701, two thousand Guaraní soldiers and officers defended Buenos Aires against pirate attacks and smugglers. In 1704 approximately four thousand Guaraní soldiers expelled the Portuguese from their stronghold at Colônia do Sacramento in Uruguay across the estuary from Buenos Aires. Colônia do Sacramento, however, was returned to Portugal under the Treaty of Utrecht of 1715 and remained a strategic center for contraband trade in the Río de la Plata.80 The crown also sent Guaraní militias to put down a major criollo rebellion, known as the Comunero Revolt (1721–32) of Paraguay, against a Spanish governor in Asunción. Criollos led by José de Antequera y Castro

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murdered Asunción’s Spanish governor, Manuel Agustín de Ruyloba, because he was considered to be too partial to the interests of the Jesuits. News of his homicide spread quickly to Lima and Buenos Aires. In Madrid, the report of his murder was not well received. Both Philip V and Ferdinand VI were sympathetic to the Society of Jesus; their confessors were Jesuits.The governor of Buenos Aires ordered the Jesuits to arm six thousand Guaraní troops and put down this revolt. José de Antequera y Castro was captured and sent to Lima to stand trial. He lingered in prison from 1726 to 1731, awaiting the outcome of his trial, until the king of Spain ordered his public execution.81 Underlying the causes of the rebellion were the criollos’ increased demands for Guaraní labor, special privileges granted to the Jesuits by the crown, and the growing competition in the yerba maté trade.82 Beginning in 1661, Guaraní male adults who entered the Jesuit reductions no longer were obligated to provide labor to the criollos in encomienda with the exception of Mission San Ignacio Guazú, the first reduction established by the Jesuits. Instead, they paid tribute directly to the crown.83 These tensions led to the outbreak of violence, as it erupted in 1723, 1724, and 1730. Although the Guaraní militias occasionally suffered serious defeats on the battlefield, they did manage to put down this rebellion. To avoid further conflicts, following this event all thirty reductions under the Jesuits were transferred to the jurisdiction of the governor in Buenos Aires.The Guaraní at Mission San Ignacio Guazú in Paraguay also became exempt from the encomienda.84 Tensions between the Jesuits and the criollos, however, lingered throughout the eighteenth century. The first century of Jesuit contact with the Guaraní was characterized by a series of confrontations and accommodations between indigenous peoples, missionaries, the crown, settlers, and slavers. Although the Jesuits established all their reductions in remote locations, they could not isolate their charges from those who so desired their valuable labor. The Jesuits, nevertheless, offered the Guaraní some protection from both the Paulistas and a life of servitude in encomiendas, which endured in Paraguay as late as 1803.85 Early Jesuit missionary methods closely resembled those of other Catholic missionaries in the New World. For example, they concentrated on converting children, especially males, although Guaraní women were attracted to the faith. Some of their tactics, such as the use of banishment, imprisonment, and corporal punishment, nevertheless, appear harsh by modern standards, but acceptable within their ideological framework of the seventeenth century. As yet, little has been understood about the early intercultural interactions between the missionaries and the Guaraní. It is quite notable that the

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lives of the Guaraní underwent change as a result of their contact and confrontations with the priests. The Jesuits influenced these indigenous peoples by imposing restrictions on their marriage and divorce practices. The Guaraní also witnessed the destruction of their sacred sites on hilltops where in hammocks inside huts they hung the skeletons of their great shamans. The eradication of their cannibalism, however, is unclear in the fragmented documentation. Possibly these religious practices went underground or were substituted with Catholic rites.Above all, as a result of the European encroachments into southern Brazil and the Río de la Plata, the Guaraní suffered from enslavement, disease, and displacement from their natural environment. Demands for their labor, especially in the collection of yerba maté in faraway places, often took a devastating toll on Guaraní lives and probably undermined family life in the reductions. Guaraní militias also significantly increased the mobility of men and brought them into more direct contact with the Hispanic world.The soldiers and officers acquired new knowledge about the arts of warfare from the Jesuits in order to protect themselves better and establish safer havens. In certain respects, the formation of Guaraní militias represented a form of co-optation by the Spanish colonial state. But they also served Guaraní interests in their cultural survival. Eventually, the Guaraní militias would turn their military tactics against the Spanish and the Portuguese in the Guaraní War. Guaraní cultural adaptation and the dimensions by which the Jesuits exercised control over their lives in the reductions were at their height during the early eighteenth century. During this period, many Guaraní carved out a new existence for themselves, given the changing circumstances, and retained a greater degree of autonomy than the traditional historiography suggests. One must grasp this before looking closely at the Guaraní War.

Chapter

Daily Life

3

How did the Jesuits manage to control and exert influence over more than one hundred thousand indigenous people in the reductions? To what extent could the Guaraní shape their own world and retain some of their traditional lifeways? To address these questions, one must assess how power was exercised by whom, over whom, and with what consequences during the early eighteenth century, and how the Guaraní came to accept or reject a new lifeway and distinctive patterns of labor in permanent urban settlements. Such analysis explains much about daily life in the reductions, particularly the cultural conflicts, continuities, and changes in the political, economic, and social roles of the Guaraní in the mission system, as well as their gender relations. The Jesuits were agents of cultural change who employed a variety of strategies to reshape Guaraní behavior. Along with the Spanish colonial state, these missionaries were important influences in the everyday lives of the Guaraní.We must not lose sight, however, that the Guaraní themselves displayed a degree of autonomy under Spanish rule. Some avoided, deflected, and manipulated engagements with the missionaries in their communities. Most, however, adapted to town life and became active participants, along with the Jesuits, in the development of a new hybrid culture. Governed largely by their own leaders, caciques and cabildantes, and to an extent by their own traditional patterns of work, these indigenous people collaborated with the Jesuits to build some of the largest and most prosperous missionary complexes in the New World.

Demographic Patterns By the early eighteenth century, the Jesuit reductions of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers far exceeded the populations of other missions in Spanish

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America.1 In 1732, their peak year, they reached a total of 141,182. By comparison, in the missions of Chiquitos in Bolivia, the semisedentary indigenous population was nearly twenty-five thousand at their height on the eve of the Jesuit expulsion in 1766. Similarly, the Franciscan missions among the semisedentary Guaraní-speaking Chiriguanos in southeastern Bolivia housed an estimated twenty-five thousand at the apogee of their mission system in 1810.2 The Guaraní mission Indian population along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, nevertheless, fluctuated widely during the eighteenth century (see Figure 5 on the evolution of the mission Indian population, 1641–1803).After 1732, the peak year, the mission population reached its lowest figure, 73,910, in 1740.This represented a massive loss of more than 67,000 inhabitants or 47.7 percent of the total mission Indian population in only eight years. By 1750, however, the total had recovered to approximately 91,000.3 Five years later, the population grew to 104,483 inhabitants.4 The increase in the indigenous population during certain years suggests that the population grew naturally, extensive migration occurred, or that the missionaries successfully recruited many Guaraní and other indigenous groups from the forest.The Jesuits also practiced irrigation, diversified crops, used lime to nourish acidic soils, and occupied lands suitable for cattle grazing, even in dry periods, which allowed them to support such sizable populations.5 In other years, serious epidemics devastated the towns. Jesuit censuses indicate, for example, that 18,733 Guaraní died in the thirty reductions on the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers in 1733. Of this sum, 5,840 were adults and 12,933 were infants. A total of 126,389 Guaraní resided in these missions that year.6 The number of deaths in 1741 was substantially lower; only 3,067 Guaraní died in the thirty towns. Of these, 798 were adults and 2,269 were infants.7 The Guaraní succumbed to European diseases even though they lived in the missions under the care of the Jesuits.8 Because of concentrated native populations in more dense urban settings, diseases could spread quickly from one household to another. Fig5Her Marriage patterns appear to have been endogamous. According to the Jesuit census of 1702, 1,564 couples married in the reductions.9 In 1733, near the peak of the mission population, some 2,516 pairs were joined in marriage.10 Prior to the celebration of a marriage, a Guaraní bride offered her groom a gift of a hollow gourd, which later she would use to bring water from the river.The groom in turn presented his bride with a piece of wood for the campfire that the couple kept lit in their houses or huts. Jesuit censuses reveal some Guaraní attitudes toward marriage.They suggest that many Guaraní couples conformed to Christian ideals by celebrating their marriage in a church ceremony. The Jesuits, accordingly,

0

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90,000

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Figure 5. Evolution of the Jesuit Mission Indian Population, 1641–1803 (Data from MG 1705e; MG 985; MG 571; MG 1664; Col.Angelis, BNRJ, I-29,5,42;AGN IX 18-8-5;ARSI, Roll 156, Paraquarie 13; Ernesto J.A. Maeder, Las misiones de Guaraníes: Historia demográfica y conflictos con la sociedad colonial, 1641–1807. Madrid: MAPFRE, 1992, p. 51)

Number of Mission Indians

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accepted the natural coupling of young Guaraní men and women, since the mission Indians married at an early age, fourteen or fifteen for young women and sixteen or seventeen for men.11 Had the Guaraní married in their mid- to late twenties, as was common in Western European marriage patterns during the eighteenth century, then one could assume that the Jesuits had substantially altered Guaraní marriage patterns and social relations. By encouraging marriage at an early age, when the Guaraní reached an age of sexual maturity, the missionaries would not have to be so concerned about prenuptial pregnancies.The Jesuits could also better control the Guaraníes’ sexual behavior, which tended to be much freer than in Western European societies. Following marriage, the Spanish Crown imposed a policy of patrilocality in the reductions, meaning that all newly married Guaraní couples were required to live among the relatives of the groom, rather than among those of the bride. If the husband became a fugitive, however, the wife and her children were expected to reside either in his mission or among her own relatives in the town of her birth. Alfaro’s ordinances allowed single women with children to reside in the town of their birth until marriage.12 Since individual marriage records from individual reductions have not been preserved, it is unclear whether the Guaraní lived up to this policy, which tended to reinforce male dominance in society. Nonetheless, it illustrates how the crown and the Jesuit missionary enterprise could bring considerable upheaval and reconstruction to native society. As might be expected, infant and child mortality rates were extremely high. Infant mortality rates varied from one mission to another, although the reasons for these regional variations are unclear.At Mission Santa Rosa south of the Tebicuary River, for example, which had the highest rate of all the missions, the infant mortality rate was 781.5 per one thousand.This means that more than three quarters of all the infants who were born there soon died. At San Miguel east of the Uruguay River, by contrast, which had the lowest infant mortality rate, the rate was 471.9 per one thousand.13 We have no comparable figures for the neighboring Spanish towns. However, this lowest rate was substantially higher than the infant mortality rates that are available for Western Europe during the same period.14 The value of this comparison, of course, is limited because the environmental and historical contexts were so distinct.A comparison with the demographic patterns in Alta California for the same period is also not particularly valuable because the California missions were established among small numbers of hunters and gatherers. Equally important, the data is not comparable. We do not have complete parish registers for any of the missions in Paraguay during the Jesuit period. The Jesuits only

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noted the total number of Indian souls (almas), infants, adults, widows, widowers, and families, as well as the number of confessions, marriages, and baptisms they performed, along with the number of deaths of infants and adults that occurred at every reduction on an annual basis.15 The Jesuit missionaries attempted to save lives, nevertheless, by having the Guaraní build separate infirmaries for men and women and yet another infirmary for women who were pregnant and about to give birth.16 Ideally, the Jesuits had the Indians construct these infirmaries outside the missions, but a few were built near the main plaza.The Jesuits also instructed the Guaraní to build many temporary, individual huts, called teyupas, for those they suspected might have a headache or who displayed other early warning signs of a disease.This way, those Guaraní who were coming down with an illness were isolated from their families and other members of the community. During epidemics, the missionaries also asked those individuals who had recovered from a previous illness to care for those who were sick. Evidently, the Jesuits knew that certain Indians had built up immunities that might prevent them from falling ill again. The voluntary nurses usually fed the sick a special diet of squash (andaí ), barley, and other vegetables instead of the usual meat, manioc, and mbeyú (manioc pancakes). The Jesuits sometimes administered a native herbal remedy, called aguaraibay, which the Guaraní used in bathing to heal sores on their bodies. The missionaries also burned this native plant inside the hospital, believing that the smoke stopped the spread of disease by purifying the buildings.The clothes of those who fell ill and recuperated were also burned, and these people were given a new set of clothes before returning home.17 All of these protective measures may have helped prevent the spread of disease in the Jesuit missions.18 At each mission, there were at least four to eight curuzuyá (indigenous medical practitioners, or literally those that carry crosses), nurses, and curanderos (medicine men, or healers) who relied on their traditional herbal remedies to cure the sick.These practitioners consulted with the missionaries, who served as physicians and had access to medical books in the mission libraries.19 Unfortunately, moreover, no major medical advances took place in eighteenth-century Europe that the missionaries could have introduced to lower the high infant mortality rate. European medicine proved to be as ineffective as some of the native remedies.20 Jesuit Father Sigismundo Asperger, for example, recommended the consumption of a medicinal powder made from a native herb, yerba de Santa María (manzanilla), mixed with rabbit fur, honey, and flour for the treatment of a broken arm or skull. Other ingredients in his various concoctions included

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mother’s milk, ashes of earthworms, drops of donkey blood, deer’s horns and teeth, garlic, parsley, radishes, fish oil, toad powder, celery seeds, eggs, goat’s milk, and goat’s liver.21 The missionaries’ willingness to use plants indicates that the Jesuits borrowed elements from the native culture.Their use of native herbs for medicinal purposes also suggests that the missionaries displayed a certain respect for the vast knowledge of the Guaraní of medicinal plants. Some of the Jesuit remedies, however, were probably harmful to the patient, causing further infections and possibly death, although most seemed harmless. The missionaries’ intention, of course, was to relieve the suffering of Guaraní men and women under their care and guidance.

Political Organization A common stereotype of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay is one of an extreme autocratic regime.22 Charles A. Washburn, a nineteenth-century U.S. diplomat to Paraguay, in his two-volume work, The History of Paraguay (1871), describes as absolute the power of the Jesuits within the reductions. Jesuit influence, he asserts, went far beyond the confines of the mission territory and could be felt throughout the country. He associates the Jesuit regime with the rise of dictatorships in nineteenth-century Paraguay.The only difference, he points out, is that power under the Jesuits rested in a hierarchy, rather than being wielded by a single individual.23 The rise of dictatorships in the national period, of course, is much more complex than Washburn’s anti-Jesuit critique. He obviously exaggerates their influence, since most of the Jesuit missions were not even located within the territorial boundaries of modern Paraguay.William Henry Koebel in his popular account of the missions, In Jesuit Land:The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay (1912), depicts the Guaraní as “gentle, helpless creatures,” who lived in a state of tutelage under the Jesuits.24 R. B. Cunninghame Graham similarly views the Jesuits as all powerful in his book, A Vanished Arcadia: Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay, 1650–1767 (1924). He notes that even though the appearance of the administration of the missions was “democratic,” the Jesuits named all members of the cabildo. He neglects the roles of caciques in the governance of the missions, who tended to cooperate with the cabildantes and the missionaries. An authoritarian view tends to prevail in some recent studies. British geographer John Hemming in his work Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500–1760 (1978) asserts that the Jesuits were the “absolute masters of these missions.”25 Similarly, American historian John F. Schwaller claims that “the mission-

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aries controlled all aspects of life, directly or indirectly.”26 Schwaller, however, carefully points out that power was shared by the Jesuits, cabildantes, and caciques in the reductions. In the last two decades, scholars, especially ethnohistorians, anthropologists, and archaeologists, have begun to explore how Amerindians, their native culture, and local conditions shaped life in the New World following European contact. Through mining the archival and archaeological evidence and by using an ethnohistorical approach, they reveal how native cultures tempered the encounter between Europeans and Amerindians. This study builds on these recent trends in order to assess the significance of the collaboration of the caciques and cabildantes in the governance of the missions. Unfortunately, the scanty nature of the historical record, especially the loss of most cabildo records from the Jesuit period, makes it extremely difficult to learn about the level of operation of Guaraní cabildos and how these native people used this Spanish institution to negotiate with the Jesuits and Spanish authorities on a daily basis. To make the missions function properly and prosper economically, the Jesuits utilized the political, social, and economic structures in Guaraní society to ensure continuity and stability. For instance, they maintained Indian chiefdoms, or cacicazgos. Guaraní warriors and village elders still selected their caciques for their bravery, knowledge, and speaking ability. The Jesuits, however, made these hereditary chiefdoms. Certain traditional families, such as the Ñeengirú, retained their influence throughout the colonial period.27 Each cacicazgo usually comprised between twenty and thirty families.28 Caciques, including those who were cabildantes, and their wives were given the titles of “don” and “doña.” These patterns of “don” usage illustrate the importance of their social status in mission society. These Guaraní élites, however, never led sumptuous lifestyles like a fortunate few Peruvian kurakas (chiefs) and Mexican caciques who sometimes owned fine houses in Spanish cities and managed their affairs as though they were absentee landlords or hacendados.29 The absence of Guaraní wills suggests that perhaps they did not accumulate much wealth in comparison to their counterparts in Mesoamerica and Peru. There was some continuity in the chiefdoms under the Jesuits because many endured into the early nineteenth century, unlike those of the Maya in Yucatán, for example.30 This can be observed in the few remaining parish records available and the mission censuses for Corpus Christi and Santa Rosa. Of forty-six cacicazgos at Corpus Christi in 1759, forty-two of the same chiefdoms existed eighteen years later.31 Of approximately twenty-three cacicazgos at Santa Rosa in the 1750s, twenty chiefdoms by

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the same indigenous surname remained in 1801.32 These included the chiefdoms of Yacaré, Cheracu, Guaibaiyu, Arayeyú, Yaipá, Mbocarerá, Aguaney, Zesaca, Quandarey, Moboatá, and Parobi, among others. Many caciques, however, had fled from the missions, leaving their chiefdoms in the hands of other Guaraní.33 These elites sought refuge in Spanish and Portuguese towns because, like Indian commoners, they too were subject to compulsory labor demands in the missions and were equally drawn by economic opportunities elsewhere. Guaraní caciques had more privileges than commoners, but probably fled periodically from the missions to avoid epidemics or join other relatives that had already abandoned or refused to enter the reductions. The Jesuits expanded on the Guaraní political structure by introducing the Spanish concept of the municipality in the form of an Indian cabildo at each mission, in accordance to the Ordinances of Alfaro. The cabildo was headed by a cacique who became the corregidor. He was the primary officer of the town council, who was responsible for the recruitment of native labor. Only men occupied positions in the town councils, which reinforced male dominance in mission society. Representing thereby a form of indirect rule, these councils formed part of the basic administrative structure of the Spanish Empire. The cabildos were at the bottom of the hierarchy, under the jurisdictions of the provincial governments of Paraguay until the Comunero Revolt (1721–35) and the Río de la Plata, as well as the Audiencias of Charcas and Buenos Aires and the Viceroyalty of Peru.34 They fell under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata when it was created in 1776. Certain basic activities were fundamental to the operation of the cabildo.These included appointing officials, recording finances, maintaining an archive, and constructing a municipal building (casa de cabildo) for meetings.The Jesuits in charge of each mission named two or three candidates, usually those chiefs who were the most favored and the most acculturated, to occupy positions of authority in the missions.The Jesuits’ recommendations for the high office of corregidor were confirmed later by either the governor of Buenos Aires or the governor of Asunción, depending on the mission’s political jurisdiction. The missionaries also selected other cabildo officeholders, including a lieutenant corregidor (second highest councilman who assisted the corregidor in carrying out his duties) two alcaldes ordinarios (municipal magistrates), four regidores (secondary officers), one alferez real (a lower ranking military officer), two alguaciles (constables), a mayordomo (steward), and a secretary. As the positions descended in rank toward the lowest levels of officeholding, the scope and range of their duties and authority narrowed.35 The members of

Map 5. Guaraní Map of Missions Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, La Cruz, Santo Tomé, and San Francisco de Borja, 1784 (Courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires)

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the cabildo named the sacristans, military captains, the Indians in charge of the warehouses, and those who watched over the women and children in the coty guazú (shelter, or big house).36 No cabildantes, military officers, musicians, or artisans received a salary, although cabildantes carried a cane of office as a symbol of their authority. The cane of the corregidor was silver-tipped, unlike that of the other officeholders. The cabildo had to provide the local community with the public services and regulation necessary for the maintenance of an orderly society. Cabildantes heard grievances, meted out punishment after consulting with the priests, and scrutinized other Indians’ behavior to ensure that they put in a full measure of work. The Jesuits oversaw the division of labor, the planting schedules, the mission school, and the training of the militia. In the event a cabildante failed to perform his duties, was abusive, or was corrupt, this individual could be removed from office by the Jesuits or deposed by his own people. If a dispute arose, the Jesuits acted as the final arbitrator.The Guaraní cabildantes and caciques, however, appealed to the Jesuit superior at the mission capital of Candelaria to resolve more serious conflicts and disagreements. The cabildantes utilized the cabildo as a means of negotiating with the Spanish through the writing of petitions. One of the cabildo’s functions, for example, was land regulation. If a dispute over land ownership with the Spaniards arose, the Jesuits, along with members of the cabildo, attempted to settle these disagreements. Some cabildantes, for example, drew maps of their missions’ landholdings to substantiate their claims. Map 5 is a reproduction of a Guaraní map of missions Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, Nuestra Señora de la Cruz y Bororé, San Borja, and Santo Tomé. This map became a document for litigation in colonial courts. It serves as evidence that the Guaraní challenged Spanish power and defended their community interests using the European tradition of mapmaking, which represents a unique cultural adaptation.37 Map5Her

Economic Organization and Alterations in the Division of Labor The missions’ economic activities were devoted to agriculture, cattle raising, and artisanal production. The mission complexes were economically successful by the standards of the eighteenth century, since they proved capable of supporting such sizable populations in relative prosperity. The missions had extensive herds of beef cattle, sheep, oxen, horses, goats, mules, and burros.The production of cotton was another important economic activity, since the Guaraní spun and wove their own clothing. By 1742, five or six reductions already had established their own yerba

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maté plantations nearby.Within twenty years, nearly all the reductions had their own yerba maté plantations.38 Nonetheless, there were occasions in which the economies suffered, especially during troubled times, such as the Comunero Revolt of 1721–35. The Guaraní became hungry and slaughtered the cattle to satisfy their appetites. As estate managers, the Jesuits strove for developing self-sufficient communities. Generally, they achieved their goals because food did not need to be imported. Exterior commercial relations were a secondary goal. Through the export of yerba maté, cloth, candle wicks, and other items, the Jesuits raised capital for the payment of debts, tributes for males between ages eighteen and fifty, and the purchase of church ornaments and other goods not readily available in the reductions. A few reductions specialized in a particular trade. Missions Loreto and Santa María la Mayor, for example, had printing presses and published books under the direction of the missionaries. The Jesuits required the vast majority of men to work as farmers and day laborers, rather than hunters and warriors. Men, women, and children worked as horticulturists on plots of land that belonged to their families and were called abambaé (man’s possession), and also on communal lands, called Tupambaé (God’s possession), used to feed the orphans, widows, widowers, the disabled, women in the coty guazú and the sick.39 The Jesuits utilized the pre-Columbian agricultural pattern of communal landholding, although they introduced the concept of private property in the form of individual family plots.40 No one, including caciques and cabildantes, was exempt from providing agricultural labor, except perhaps some artisans, the disabled, a few elderly, and females without relatives in the coty guazú. The Guaraní began their day at dawn. After attending Mass, the Guaraní worked in the fields until noon. Then, following lunch, they rested for a few hours before returning to work. In the late afternoon, the missionaries gathered them together again at the church to say their afternoon prayers, recite their catechism, and say the rosary. After receiving their rations, they then retired to their homes for the evening. During the growing season, June through December, Guaraní farmers worked their family plots four days a week,Tuesdays through Fridays. On Mondays and Saturdays, they worked on the communal lands. During the remaining months of the year, January through May, Guaraní men worked in the collection and processing of yerba maté, herding of cattle, the manufacturing of canoes, ceramic tiles, and bricks, and building construction.41 There were changes as well as continuities in the gendered division of labor.42 Women, however, were not displaced from their traditional household work and agricultural labor. They planted and harvested crops, pre-

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pared meals, did domestic chores, and cared for the children. In the reductions, they were also required to make a certain quantity of cotton thread, which the male artisans used to make cloth using large wooden looms in the workshops.The Guaraní women then took the cloth and sewed clothing for themselves and for members of their families. Like the women, mission Indian men planted, cultivated, and harvested a variety of different crops, in addition to performing their traditional activities, such as clearing the fields, hunting, and fishing. Although the Europeans introduced some new plants, such as wheat, they did not displace indigenous crops in the agricultural system.The Guaraní men and women continued to plant and prepare their traditional foods: corn, squash, sweet potatoes, and manioc, especially mbeyú, chipá (manioc bread), and cangui (corn beer).43 The men, however, most likely resented doing “women’s work” in the fields. Planting, weeding, and harvesting were normally women’s tasks in precontact indigenous societies.The Jesuits’ depictions of them as “lazy” perhaps was a sign of their resistance to this change in gender roles.44 Guaraní alcaldes also did not always obey the missionaries.They overlooked those persons who did not want to work in the fields, especially their own relatives and friends. They helped some Guaraní to hide from the priests, who often assumed the police role to ensure that the mission Indians fed their own families and provided for the community.45 The Jesuits introduced new agricultural technology to the Guaraní in the form of iron plows, hoes, shovels, wedges, hatchets, and knives, all to increase production. The Jesuits also provided each Guaraní farmer with one or two teams of oxen during the month of June. The missionaries, however, often had difficulties getting the Guaraní men to use oxen to plow their fields.The Indians, the missionaries complained, killed the oxen they were working and used the wooden handles of plows as firewood.46 The Guaraní were selective in their acceptance of new metal tools introduced to them by the Europeans. Even though the Guaraní may have favored metal objects, they never entirely abandoned their use of lithic implements for certain purposes. Indeed, the material culture of the Guaraní as uncovered by archaeologists at the mission sites of Candelaria, San Lorenzo, and Trinidad suggests that these European iron tools, certain types of ceramics produced in workshops, and ornaments were utilized in addition to, rather than a replacement of, aboriginal items. Guaraní adult males extracted from the forest large quantities of yerba maté, their favorite beverage and the missions’ major export item. Groups of Guaraní, accompanied by wagons pulled by oxen and carrying food and supplies, traveled to Maracayú, northeast of Asunción, and other places several hundred miles from the missions.There they cut the small branches

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of the yerba maté tree, toasted them over a hot fire, and then ground the leaves and stems, not too fine like flour, but more like tea. The Guaraní stored the Paraguayan tea in large leather bags and transported it by boat or wagon to the Spanish town of either Santa Fe or Buenos Aires, where two Jesuit procuradores stored the tea in warehouses until it was sold.47 Returning to the reductions, the sailors received distributions of clothing, rather than wages, as compensation. The missions sold 12,000 arrobas of yerba maté (304,200 pounds; 1 arroba is equivalent to 25.35 pounds) annually to Santa Fe and Buenos Aires, where some of the yerba maté was shipped overland in wagons to Chile and Peru.The Guaraní, however, gathered much larger quantities of yerba maté than what was exported from the missions to pay their annual tributes because they themselves consumed great quantities of the Paraguayan tea.According to one report, covering the years 1715 to 1736, the Guaraní from the Jesuit missions sometimes collected between 16,000 and 18,000 arrobas of caáminí (finely ground Paraguayan tea) and between 25,000 and 26,000 arrobas of yerba de palos (yerba maté of inferior quality, containing small stems).48 Sometimes the Guaraní took a nurse or a curandero with them to attend to the workers who became ill while harvesting the yerba maté.49 Traveling hundreds of miles to extract yerba maté from the forest, the Indians were exposed to all kinds of dangers, including snakebites, jaguar attacks, slave hunters, and disease.The collection of yerba maté itself was demanding work because the Guaraní had to carry from 150 to 225 pounds of yerba maté (between 6 and 9 arrobas) in one or two leather sacks on their backs before loading them onto wagons or boats. The Jesuits’ eventual discovery of how to cultivate this rather delicate plant probably resulted in fewer deaths because the Guaraní no longer needed to leave the reductions. By the mid-eighteenth century, several missions had yerba maté fields, although some Guaraní still extracted the Paraguayan tea directly from the forest.50 Guaraní men performed a variety of other tasks. Guaraní herders supervised the cattle that thrived on the ranches belonging to the reductions. We have no mission inventories for the mid-seventeenth century, soon after European domestic animals were introduced, but by the time of the Jesuit expulsion in 1767, the thirty missions of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers owned 698,353 head of beef cattle. Mission Santo Reyes de Yapeyú’s economy, unlike that of other missions, was based predominantly on stock raising instead of yerba maté because it was situated on savannas. In the 1690s, the number of beef cattle in this mission’s various ranches rose slightly from 70,436 head in 1690 to approximately 80,000 in 1694. By the period of the expulsion, Mission Santos Reyes de Yapeyú owned 56,979

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head of beef cattle, 5,700 oxen, 46,118 sheep, 6,977 horses, 3,257 mules, 295 burros, and 39 goats.51 Nearby Mission Santo Tomé also had numerous cattle, including 40,000 sheep.52 Although Guaraní “cowboys” rode horses to round up the livestock, these agricultural people never developed a horse culture as a strategy for survival like the nonsedentary Guaycuruans of the Chaco and the Araucanians (Mapuche) of Chile. With the introduction of beef cattle, the Guaraní diet changed. The archaeological evidence, however, indicates that the Guaraní continued to hunt small game even though they depended on rations of beef and grew a variety of their traditional crops on their lands.53 Guaraní consumption of beef, nonetheless, caused health problems, such as parasites, that often were fatal, because they usually ate their rations of beef nearly raw.54 The raising of cattle may also have been disruptive, since the cattle could invade their fields. However, by the mid-eighteenth century, the landholdings of the missions were rather extensive (see Map 6). Map6Her Even though the king of Spain had prohibited the Spanish from removing Indians from the reductions to work on neighboring ranches and in Asunción and other Spanish towns, or allowing the Indians to travel off the missions without the written permission of the Spanish governor, several thousand Guaraní migrated on their own from the Jesuit missions during the early eighteenth century.55 In the pampas near Buenos Aires, they found work as agricultural laborers or farmers. Most found employment as ranch hands and received a monthly salary of 6 or 7 pesos.A few earned as much as 8 pesos per month, including the cost of their meals. Most, however, received their salaries in kind, rather than in silver. After a few years, some Guaraní fugitives in the pampas acquired oxen, beef cattle, and horses with their earnings. There was so much open land, they grew crops and raised animals with little objection from the local ranchers. Perhaps they purchased clothing, knives, hatchets, tobacco, yerba maté, alcohol, and other items from the local pulpería (country store and tavern).56 Once they left the reductions, a few Guaraní fugitives were apprehended by Spanish authorities. For example, Luis (no last name cited) from Mission Itapúa, approximately thirty years old, was arrested for stealing some merchandise (it is not clear what kind) belonging to a Don Joseph Zevallos in Corrientes.57 Cristóbal, another mission Indian working as a peon, killed a Guaraní from the Franciscan mission of Yutí in a knife fight following a dispute over a Guaraní woman. Cristóbal was sentenced to two hundred public lashes, as was customary for the Guaraní mission Indians who committed homicide. Because the historical record is quite fragmented, it is impossible to tell how many serious crimes the Guaraní committed during the Jesuit period.58

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Map 6. Jesuit Mission Landholdings along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers During the Mid-Eighteenth Century (Adapted from Guillermo Furlong Cardiff, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaraníes, Buenos Aires: Imprenta Balmes, 1962)

The Guaraní fugitives probably preferred living outside the missions, away from the eyes and the rigid control of the missionaries. Many Guaraní fled temporarily from their missions in response to Chaco Indian raids, particularly from the missions south of the Tebicuary River in Paraguay, as well as to avoid epidemic disease. Unfortunately, it is ex-

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tremely difficult to estimate the numbers of Guaraní who decided to reside permanently in newly founded villages in more remote areas of the Río de la Plata or those who joined neighboring indigenous tribes. Guaraní flight was a means to escape social constraints in the missions. Several caciques from Mission Candelaria, for example, regularly abandoned their community because they were punished for being thieves and reboltosos (troublemakers). Spanish officials suspended Vizente Tiribe, the lieutenant corregidor of Apóstoles, from his job because he was at Candelaria along with other Guaraní for more than six months and neglected his duties. Many other Guaraní left their towns and went to other missions, which, according to Spanish officials, caused notable harm to the mission economies; these individuals did not work in the communal fields or on their own private plots of land.59 Many also apparently wanted to be free-wage earners. In 1744, several fugitives, individuals as well as entire families, appear in a census of the Province of Buenos Aires. In the district of Matanzas, Faustino, thirty years of age and from the mission of San Ignacio, was married to Paula, a twenty-eight-year-old from the same town who had a two-year-old daughter named Sisilia. They lived on a ranch belonging to Pedro Morales.60 It is not always clear whether the Guaraní listed in the Spanish censuses were from the Jesuit missions or from those founded by the Franciscans in central Paraguay. Some were listed simply as Indio Guaraní, Indio Tape, or Indio del Paraguay. Several, however, were listed as Indios misioneros (Indians from the missions), most likely referring to those from the Jesuit missions. The family of Graviel is one example. Graviel, a forty-year-old who was married to Margarita, aged twenty-five, from the same town worked with Pablo, twenty-eight; Juan, twenty-two; Juan’s wife, Petrona, thirty; and their four-year-old daughter, Jacinta.All came from the missions.The men worked as peons on the property of Don Juan Cavesas in Matanzas.61 Most migrants who resided near Buenos Aires were adult males between the ages of twenty and forty. Some worked for the Spaniards and creoles who rented property from the Company of Jesus.A few worked at kilns designed for making bricks in the district of Arravales. Another one named Joseph worked as a servant in the residence of the Jesuits, located in what is today the neighborhood of San Telmo in Buenos Aires. Joseph probably was not a fugitive from the missions but was brought to the city by the missionaries.62 Not all migrants were men.Two women, Magdalena and Martina, Indias misioneras, worked as agregadas (domestic servants) in the household of Don Francisco Suero in the district of Barrancas. Other Indian women from the missions were described as chinas misioneras (Chinese mission women), a typical phrase used in the Río de la Plata to refer

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to indigenous women during the colonial era because of their Orientallooking eyes.63 It is interesting to note that none of the Guaraní and Tape Indians listed in the census maintained their indigenous last names. The census takers may have simply dropped those names because they were difficult to pronounce and spell. If they listed the Guaraní surnames, moreover, they may have been required to return to the missions. By dropping their last names, the Guaraní fugitives themselves may have eased acceptance among the Spanish.The loss of their Guaraní names may also suggest that the mission Indians lost a sense of their cultural identity once they came into frequent contact with the Spanish. Nevertheless, the clustering of small numbers of Guaraní in certain districts, such as Matanzas, suggests that they may have formed small ethnic enclaves, which helped to preserve their sense of identity.

Guaraní Artisans To satisfy the daily needs of the community and to make the missions more self-sufficient, the Jesuits taught some Guaraní highly skilled crafts and required them to work at these activities regularly. The Guaraní acquired skills to work as blacksmiths, carpenters, tanners, rosary makers, hatmakers, weavers, shoemakers, dyers, leather workers, sculptors (santo apohavá, makers of saints), woodcarvers, (retablo apoháva, those who carved reliefs), makers of musical instruments, painters, goldsmiths, silversmiths, printers, embroiderers, lacemakers, and potters.64 Nearly half the statues carved by the Guaraní under the supervision of the Jesuits were Catholic saints and angels. Images of Saint Joseph were common because he was especially favored by the Society of Jesus and valued as a figure of compassion. Images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Michael slaying the devil were also very common. According to Gauvin Alexander Bailey, many images of saints and angels carved by the Guaraní rank among “the great works of world art.”65 The Guaraní, however, did not simply imitate European crafts but showed creativity in their own right on occasion. Some of their saints and angels display a sense of serenity and calmness that is different from much Iberian and Latin American religious art.66 The Guaraní artisans, in addition, incorporated the European baroque style with native images such as birds, mburucuyá (passion fruit) flowers, papaya leaves, and the caraguatá plant (a kind of wild pineapple). One statue from the Mission San Cosme and Damian has distinctive native elements: almond-shaped eyes and the features of a Guaraní woman. Figure 6 is a photograph of Hispanic-

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Figure 6. Guaraní Sculpture of Infant Jesus Asleep (Courtesy of Museo de Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco, Buenos Aires, no. 1397)

Guaraní artwork of the Infant Jesus asleep.The relaxed pose suggests that the Guaraní artist displayed a high degree of sensitivity to human expression.The base of this sculpture incorporates elements from the Old World and the New, such as depictions of birds, a snake, a cow, and Guaraní hunting prey.This small statue does not at all resemble European religious art during that same period. Although most Hispanic-Guaraní baroque art-

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work is anonymous, a number of Guaraní musicians became well known in the Río de la Plata. Inacio Paica, for example, knew how to make and play bugles and trumpets; he also made astronomical spheres. Gabriel Quirí, a Guaraní musician from the mission of Santo Tomé, invented new types of organs and repaired old ones. He also made a copy of an astronomical clock with such fine workmanship that the Jesuits thought it was manufactured in Europe.67 The Guaraní, however, went far beyond reproducing European art and crafts to create a hybrid form—some of the most delightful baroque art in the New World. Fig6Her Artisans had more social status than most native commoners. Abarey (an ordinary man or commoner) was the term the Guaraní used for those without a trade. Abá guaipí or abá ní (men that were ordered around or men without value) were other terms that were used to refer to individuals without a trade.68 The artisans were “better paid” than other Indians in that they received more of the mission goods distributed for their daily consumption. Besides toiling in the workshops, however, most artisans still labored in the fields, cultivating their crops.69 All the specialized trades were done by men. Pottery now was redefined as a masculine job, perhaps because the Jesuits introduced the pottery wheel, which required training and demanded that potters work more intensively in workshops, which, in turn, were strictly male domains in the missions. Ethnographic studies in many parts of the world indicate that men are the primary potters in workshop industries, and females are typically the major pottery producers in domestic spheres.The Jesuit missions in Paraguay in this respect followed the worldwide pattern. Guaraní women still made pottery for their domestic use.70 The emergence of craft specialization was linked to the ability of the mission society to produce an agricultural surplus to support these nonagriculturist segments of the native population. Guaraní mission Indian riverboat captains and sailors made trips to barter surplus goods produced in the missions at the port of Las Conchas on the outskirts of Buenos Aires or at Santa Fe on an annual basis. By forbidding the Guaraní sailors to load and unload their goods at the port of Buenos Aires, the Jesuits limited their contact with the Spanish. These Guaraní men encountered Spaniards, nevertheless, and were influenced by their behavior. Like sailors everywhere, the Guaraní sailors got drunk, became belligerent, had knife fights over women, and sometimes landed in jail. Using their own sailing vessels to ship their goods, Guaraní mission Indians bartered yerba maté, cotton cloth, candlewicks, sugar, and tobacco.71 The sailors carried a list of the goods they transported in their native language, along with a list translated into Spanish by the Jesuits. As

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ordered by the missionaries, the mission Indians first paid their annual tributes, then brought back goods imported from Spain, such as iron tools, knives, swords, rifles, gunpowder, religious ornaments, oil paints, silver and gold for the jewelry makers, and silk and other fine cloth for the cabildantes’ clothes, as well as for the uniforms of the military officers, chiefs, musicians, and other Indians “of some distinction.”72 They also purchased glass beads, which the Guaraní highly valued for their rituals and the missionaries could use to reward certain Indians for their labor.73 The Guaraní sailors usually only made this trip once a year. When not traveling, the Guaraní sailors made canoes and boats, repaired bridges, cleared roads, or worked in the manufacturing of ceramic tiles and bricks for the construction and repair of churches, houses, workshops, the hospital, and the mission school.74

Alterations in Physical Space Under the direction of the Jesuits, the Guaraní built their reductions around a central plaza similar to other Hispanic towns throughout the New World.The missions usually were built on elevated lands, which had access to riverine resources and woodlands. Raised areas or hilltops served a strategic function because they could be more easily defended and be used as outlooks to observe any approaching enemies. The church, the largest and most imposing structure in every mission, always faced a large rectangular churchyard. A belfry stood alongside the church or was constructed in the main plaza. Some church buildings constructed by the Guaraní had as many as five naves. The church at Mission Santíssma Trinidad, for example, was a most impressive structure. Milanese architect Father Gianbattista Primoli designed it soon after his arrival in Paraguay in 1716. Its depictions of Guaraní musicians along the walls of the church are a distinguishing feature. To construct this and other fine baroque churches, Jesuits directed Guaraní laborers who quarried rock, cut it into squares, and transported the red stone blocks to the site where they built the church buildings, casas de cabildo, living quarters for the priests, workshops, storerooms, higher status Indian houses, and other buildings arranged around a plaza. Under the careful guidance of the Jesuits, Guaraní artisans carved reliefs, wood and stone religious statues of saints used to adorn the main altar and niches, as well as stone baptismal fonts and fountains. The baroque sculptures of God the Creator, Jesus Christ, and all of the saints served to make the message of Christianity more real to the indigenous people.75 Descriptions left by Jesuit missionaries, mission censuses, inventories,

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and the ruins of the missions themselves indicate that these complexes were the size of large towns, with as many as six thousand inhabitants. A few missions, such as Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, Loreto, and San Miguel were comparable in size to the Spanish town of Asunción, which had a population of 6,475 in 1761.76 Most inhabitants in Paraguay were concentrated within a 50-mile radius of this town.As the province’s capital, it had an influential cabildo, which tended to be dominated by local Spanish and creole elites. Beyond this town were several villages, including Villarrica, Pilar, and Curuguatí. As late as 1803, some six thousand Guaraní living in reductions administered by the Franciscans provided forced labor to the Spanish under the encomienda.The dimensions of the more isolated Jesuit missions and their populations also greatly exceeded those of the Indians’ traditional villages, which usually had fewer than two hundred inhabitants.77 Brazilian historical archaeologist Arno Alvarez Kern has uncovered some native influences in the construction of the Jesuit missions among the Guaraní. He notes that the gridiron pattern of the reductions was not unlike some traditional Tupí-Guaraní villages, which were also laid out in a rather uniform pattern. Most scholars, including Alvarez Kern, however, concur that the primary source of inspiration for the reductions was the gridiron pattern of Graeco-Roman cities, as specified by the Laws of the Indies.78 The majority of the Guaraní lived in straw-thatched huts made of wood, adobe, and bamboo, not in the stone houses with tile roofs, pillars, and covered verandas commonly depicted in illustrations of these sites. The row of houses that faced the churchyard in each of the missions belonged to the Indian nobility, the caciques and cabildantes and their families. Their residences, however, were not single-family dwellings, according to recent archaeological findings. In this respect, Guaraní customs tended to prevail, and the Jesuits could not entirely impose their own preference for an individual nuclear family residing under a single roof. Many Guaraní elites and commoners actually spent much of their time outside in the open air, because their homes always were full of smoke and covered with soot from the cooking fires burning inside.79 Extended Guaraní families or multiple households, nevertheless, had to adapt to living in more restricted quarters. Religious ideology affected how the Guaraní lived and their gender relations in that women’s behavior was carefully controlled at nearly all times. Before the Jesuits arrived, Indian males had carefully observed the behavior of their wives, sisters, and daughters to ensure their well-being and protect them from harm, especially during enemy raids.The Catholic

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missionaries, however, had a different agenda. They restructured relations and physical space within the missions with the intention of protecting women’s honor and virginity, as well as their physical well-being. With these objectives in mind, the Jesuits created the coty guazú.This enclosure within the mission complex was a place where women of all ages could retreat, temporarily or for many years. It was a dwelling where they could enjoy a “good” social standing in the eyes of the missionaries.The Jesuits’ main concern, however, was to prevent unattached women from falling into “temptation” and “sinning in public.”80 If the husband of an Indian woman was expected to be away from the mission for a long period of time, she entered this residence so as not to live alone and be unprotected. In addition, those women whose husbands had abandoned them also resided in the coty guazú. The coty guazú also was intended for the raising of girls, orphans, and young Indian women until they were married. Some were placed there by missionaries against their wishes for having displayed “scandalous” behavior.81 Many women, especially widows, also moved there of their own free will, but primarily for economic reasons. In the early eighteenth century, approximately 5 percent of the total mission population was composed of widows. The census of 1724 indicates that there were 6,860 widows and 345 widowers.According to the 1747 Jesuit census, there were 5,068 widows and 305 widowers. At San Ignacio Guazú, which had 2,247 inhabitants, there were 201 widows and 14 widowers.82 The disparity between the number of widows and widowers suggests that there may have been a tendency for the Jesuits to attract women, rather than men, to the reductions.The coty guazú may have represented a safe haven for them. Guaraní men, by contrast, may have migrated from the reductions more frequently than women. Mortality rates of males, more significantly, may have been substantially higher due to the dangers the Guaraní were exposed to while collecting yerba maté and serving in the militias in the interests of the crown. The disparity between widows and widowers may also partly be attributed to the fact that women tend to live longer lives than men. Thus, usually two or three older women in the coty guazú raised the younger females and the orphans. Indian women could not leave these shelters except during religious celebrations, and only when all the residents went together.They attended daily Mass and afternoon rosaries.The Jesuits expected the women to contribute to their economic well-being. Women spun cotton or wool thread, did sewing, and worked in the fields. Every Wednesday, their skeins of yarn or thread were weighed by an alcalde to ensure that the assigned amount of wool or cotton had been spun by

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Figure 7. Guaraní Woman at Her Spinning Wheel,Winding off the Bobbin of Yarn from Her Spool into a Ball (Drawing by Jesuit Missionary, Father José Sánchez Labrador. Courtesy of Joseph De Cock, S.J., Director, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome)

each woman.83 Figure 7 is a late-eighteenth-century Jesuit drawing of one of these women at her spinning wheel, winding off the bobbin of yarn from her spool into a ball.The stick she is using is called a notespindes. From the handspun cloth, women made clothing for their families. Fig7Her Because so few Indian voices are heard in the archival documents, especially female voices, it is difficult to assess how the Guaraní felt about these separate spheres and the coty guazú. Some of the men from Mission Santo Reyes de Yapeyú suspected that the priests locked their women inside these enclosures, with the intention of giving them away to the Spaniards at some point.84 It is also difficult to know whether the quality of gender relationships improved in the missions. The historical evidence suggests that under the Jesuits the status of women rose dramatically. In comparison to the early contact period when native women had low social status (sometimes they were taken captive or even exchanged for metal hardware), Indian women’s lives probably improved under the Jesuits because

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Figure 8. Guaraní Drawings, Including One of a Bird (right), on Church-Floor Tile at Mission Santísima Trinidad

by the early eighteenth century the missions offered them a greater sense of security. Nevertheless, women saw more restrictions placed on their movements and behavior. Guaraní women found themselves increasingly confined to a more rigid and narrowly defined “woman’s domain.” This extended beyond the household to a public sphere in which European and Indian men played virtually all the significant political, religious, and economic roles. Little is known about whether matrilocality persisted in the missions, since marriage records have not been preserved. Possibly when a couple married, they went to reside in or near the household of the husband and, less frequently, among the wife’s relatives. Although the Guaraní greatly outnumbered the two or three missionaries at each reduction, the Jesuits were influential figures in their daily lives. Guaraní drawings inscribed on the wet clay floor tiles in the main church of Mission Trinidad, San Ignacio Mini, and San Joaquín illustrate the apparent reaction of these indigenous people to the Jesuits and the missions (see Figure 8).A Guaraní drawing suggests that the church was an important structure in the Indians’ minds; it is the only building in the mission complex that the Indian potter drew. The church, with its bell tower, was also significant to those Indians who made similar drawings at Mission San Joaquín.These motifs may reflect a certain pride the Guaraní had in their fine baroque churches, which corroborates the same feeling

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expressed in their texts. In contrast to one happy, smiling face of an Indian in a drawing from San Joaquín, the drawings of faces or profiles from Trinidad were expressionless or rather somber. One Jesuit profile was the most detailed of all the drawings of people.This reflects a certain curiosity about the missionaries and indicates that the missionaries were dominant figures in their lives.85 Fig8Her

Social Control To influence the Guaraníes’ behavior and to make them more submissive, the Jesuits used various methods of social control, including religion, education, music, song, and dance; the use of rewards and corporal punishment; and military discipline. As the Indians learned to read and write in the mission schools, the translation of ideas of the dominant culture into the native language, particularly through the Catholic catechism, was a powerful force of cultural domination. Catholic values and concepts were more easily transmitted through the repetition of sermons by caciques, as directed by the Jesuits. By allowing the Guaraní to dance at religious fiestas, the Jesuits also made Catholicism more compatible with traditional native culture. One reason the religious festivals were an effective mechanism of social control is that they brought people out into the main plazas and the streets, where the missionaries and cabildantes could scrutinize their behavior. They also provided a respite from the rules and constraints of everyday mission life. Religious holidays interrupted the normal weekly work routine; the Guaraní took three or four days preparing for the processions.86 The Catholic missionaries celebrated numerous religious holidays. In addition to each town’s celebration of its patron saint’s day, the missionaries and Guaraní observed Christmas Day, Pasqua de Reyes (Three Kings), Easter, Corpus Christi, Assumption, Annunciation, the saints’ days of Peter and Paul, and several others.87 During Holy Week, between Palm Sunday and Easter, many of the Guaraní, even boys as young as six, flagellated themselves as a form of religious discipline and as a display of their devotion.88 Contemporary Jesuit accounts reflect how nearly all mission activities done throughout the day emphasized the central role of the Catholic ritual in the daily existence of the Guaraní and the Jesuits. Guaraní men, women, and children attended Mass, afternoon rosaries, and confession, according to gender. Groups of male agricultural laborers carried with them a wooden statue of one of the saints to the familiar plots and common fields set aside to feed the orphans, the disabled, widows, and wid-

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owers. Indian women and girls carried wooden figures of the Virgin Mary and other saints to the fields where they worked on their familial and common plots of land.89 For those who worked far from the towns, there were small chapels on the ranches belonging to the missions. Every day at dawn or even before sunrise, the two or three Jesuits at each mission had the church bells rung to wake the Guaraní for their morning prayers. Guaraní children beat little drums as they walked along the streets until they reached the churchyard. In separate groups, boys and girls filed into the church by the side doors led by one or two elderly men and women. On their knees on the ground or in their pews, the children said their daily prayers and repeated questions and answers according to their catechism. Once all the children had finished reciting, they went outside again.The priests then had the main doors of the church opened and rang the bells, calling all the Indians to attend Mass.The boys entered first. Men followed and sat next to the boys.The girls then filed in and sat behind the boys, followed by the Guaraní women.Together they heard the Mass, either sung and accompanied by Indian musicians, or unsung with prayers. On religious holidays and Saturdays, the Guaraní choir sang Mass, accompanied by seldom fewer than twenty-four Guaraní musicians.They played violins, harps, organs, and other instruments that the Guaraní artisans manufactured themselves.90 On special holidays, following the Mass, the Guaraní left the church and then proceeded to walk around the main plaza in procession. Guaraní dancers dressed “a la Española,” wearing formal attire made of imported silk, damask, velvet, and wool. Some wore costumes of angels.91 Dancing provided the Indians with an outlet through which they could express their feelings about themselves and their society.92 By wearing fine European-style clothing, dancing Spanish dances, and forgoing the steps of their shamans, however, the Guaraní mission Indians expressed the values of what was, by the mid-eighteenth century, the dominant culture. They also created new traditions by making up dances to celebrate the anniversary of their victory over the Paulistas at Mbororé. They usually danced, however, to illustrate the battles between the Moors and the Christians and the Indians and the Christians.93 Although outwardly they accepted Catholicism, some Guaraní maintained traditional native beliefs and practices, as suggested by small ceramic figurines uncovered at the mission sites of Apóstoles and San Juan Bautista.These sacred objects possibly were talismans or amulets from a shaman’s medicine bag, which are signs of the bonds of the Guaraní mission Indians and the spiritual world.These small figures with half-human and half-animal features could easily be hidden from the eyes of the missionaries.

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The Jesuits used corporal punishment to influence and control the Indians’ conduct. The missionaries were primarily responsible for the severity of the punishments, although Guaraní alcaldes administered the lashes.94 Whippings on the buttocks for adult males, females, and children alike were the primary punishment for correcting misbehavior.95 The Jesuits treated the Guaraní not as they would slaves, but more as a strict father would treat his own children or a schoolmaster would a classroom of pupils. Life for the Guaraní was never as oppressive as it was for African slaves on a plantation in the southern United States or in Latin America. The mission Indians were never bought and sold by the missionaries, their family members were not usually separated, and the Jesuits were never known to take Indian women as their concubines. Nevertheless, the Jesuits’ methods demeaned the adult Indians because these were exemplary punishments administered in front of their peers in the churchyard. The Jesuits also confined Guaraní men in the mission jail. It is unclear whether the coty guazú served as female prisons. This obviously limited the Indians’ sense of freedom and hurt their independent spirit. Indian alcaldes patrolled the streets to take anyone to the mission jail who wandered around at night. Alcaldes frequently visited the Indians’ lands, both their individual family plots and the communal lands, to see if they had planted their fields.They informed the missionaries if the fields were neglected.The Guaraní cabildantes had an interest at stake in ensuring an orderly society. If they performed their duties well, they could be reappointed or promoted to a higher office within the cabildo the following January.These men obtained a certain amount of prestige by serving the Jesuits. They occupied the houses made of bricks, stones, and tile closer to the main plaza, rather than the straw and wood huts of the commoners far from the churchyard.Their other privileges may have included more frequent distributions of clothing for their families. Their relative autonomy, however, was jeopardized in that they depended on the Jesuits for the approval of their actions. Nonetheless, these individuals could manipulate the missionaries by failing to identify those friends and relatives whom they wanted to protect. If the mission Indians refused to work, they faced corporal punishment. In 1747, Jesuit Father José Cardiel, S.J., observed that one-fourth of the mission Indians worked in the fields without any use of corporal punishment. These primarily included the cabildantes, musicians, and artisans. The remaining three-quarters, however, now and then received a few lashes.96 The number of lashes the Guaraní received for minor offenses, such as missing Mass, is unclear. According to the Recopilación, however, which was in effect in the missions, an alcalde could punish an Indian

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with one day in jail and six or seven lashes for missing church; punishment was issued more severely in cases of intoxication.97 The Jesuits’ need to use force to compel some mission Indians to participate in church ceremonies suggests that not all the Guaraní readily embraced Catholic practices.98 The missionaries justified the severity of their actions by claiming the Guaraní understood that they received beatings “for their own good,” not out of any hatred for them. One father wrote that after being whipped, the Guaraní kissed the priests’ hands and thanked them for giving them understanding.99 Perhaps more important than coercion were incentives and a system of rewards. Caciques, along with a dozen Indians from each mission nominated by the Jesuits, were exempt from tribute payment.Those male adults who recently entered the reductions also received a special exemption from tribute payment for a period of at least twenty years following their baptism. All male commoners between the ages of eighteen to fifty in the reductions, by contrast, were obligated to pay a tribute in the amount of 1 peso of 8 reales of silver each year to the crown beginning in 1668.This was a common practice throughout Spanish America.100 Following the morning Mass, the Guaraní who attended also received their daily rations of caáminí (fine quality yerba maté), salt, and tobacco from the priests at the church door. The Guaraní drank their yerba maté before leaving for work in the fields or the artisan workshops.The ration was sufficient to last until the afternoon rosary, when the priests distributed another one.101 The rationing of yerba maté immediately following all the daily religious services served as an incentive for the Indians to attend church.102 Through these rations, the Guaraní became dependent on the missionaries, who could then induce them to give up other aspects of their native culture and become more culturally Spanish.103 The Jesuits, in addition, rationed food, because the Guaraní were reluctant to store it. The missionaries could not make them understand that it was necessary to keep food for the next day. According to the Jesuits, the Guaraní did not worry at all about the future.104 This was a common complaint of missionaries in the New World.

Mission Schools In the daily sphere, the missionaries gained control over the socialization of children by controlling the content of their education, primarily teaching the Indian boys Catholic religious doctrine, as well as reading, writing, and mathematics in their native language in mission schools. Like the Franciscans, the Jesuits paid special attention to the sons of the elite,

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knowing that they would become the leaders of the next generation and could influence the community.105 The missionaries accomplished this at the social cost of depriving Indian parents of some influence over their own children.The parents, nevertheless, continued to teach their children how to hunt and fish, how to use a bow and arrow, and other traditional survival skills. The Jesuits taught the Guaraní in their own native language, rather than in Spanish. The very acceptance by the Jesuits and other missionaries of the native language suggests that the Europeans thought that elements of native society were not incompatible with Catholic ways. Although Spanish law required Catholic missionaries know the Indians’ native languages, in 1743 Spain altered its language policy by insisting that the Jesuits encourage the Indians to use Castilian in the missions. By requiring instruction in Spanish, the Bourbons intended that Amerindians would obtain a better understanding of Christian concepts. The king of Spain specifically ordered the provincial of the Company of Jesus in Paraguay to teach Spanish to Indian children that same year. The Jesuits, however, found it nearly impossible to put this decree into effect because the Guaraní language was so widely spoken, not only in the missions but in the entire Province of Paraguay, even in the Spanish towns.106 Following a tour of the province in 1744, the bishop of Paraguay, José Cayetano Paravicino, observed: “The customs and language of the Spaniards born here as well as that of Negroes and mulattos of which there are many, is that of the Indians, with few differences.”107 A Jesuit observed, “In Paraguay many have forgotten the Spanish language and adopted that of the Indians, which they use in their homes in the towns and in the rural areas where as many live as in the towns, and where no one knows another language other than that of the Indians.”108 Boys, he noted, studied Spanish in the schools, but did not know it well and were punished if they spoke Guaraní in class. As soon as school was out, however, they would speak Guaraní. Few females knew how to speak Spanish, because girls never studied the language at school.109 The presence of only two or three Spanish speakers in the midst of several thousand Guaraní in each mission also made any progress in Spanish language acquisition nearly impossible.110 Furthermore, not all the Jesuits may have taken the king’s order seriously.A missionary noted, in a draft of a letter, that all the missions had fine schools and “the best kind of instruction one could ever desire.”111 He asserted that “there was no need to establish anything new in this case,” referring to the mission schools.112 The crown circulated a similar decree in 1760, encouraging the eradication of the diverse languages spoken in the Spanish Empire and requiring

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that only Spanish be spoken. Charles III ordered that the “Indians be taught the dogmas of our religion in Spanish, and that they be taught to read and write in this language only . . . in order to improve administration and the spiritual well-being of the natural ones [Indians], and so that they can understand their superiors, love the conquering nation, rid themselves of idolatry, and become civilized.”113 The Guaraní resisted this change in language policy. The missionaries explained that the Guaraní “expressed a certain love toward what was their own,” their native language.114 The Guaraní in the Franciscan missions in Paraguay also were reluctant to learn Spanish. In 1744, according to Joseph Cayetano, the bishop of Paraguay, following a visit to the missions, the Guaraní “prefer to be punished, rather than learn the rational language [Spanish].”115 Individual Guaraní, by contrast, may have had more of an incentive to learn Spanish, particularly the riverboat captains, sailors, and soldiers who came into periodic or extended contact with Spaniards outside the missions. Indeed, there was a tendency in the Guaraní militias of the Río de la Plata to adopt Spanish names in the eighteenth century.116 It is nearly impossible to assess how many or what percentage of the native population became literate in the Guaraní language and retained their ability to read and write throughout their lives. Literacy was not always reserved for members of the Indian elite; conversely, even some members of the elite were illiterate. Interestingly, Guaraní mission Indian fugitives, most of whom became day laborers or ranch hands living in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe in the mid-1750s, kept in touch with events in their mission towns “through the letters they received” from other mission Indians.117 Among Amerindians in North America, by comparison, native language literacy was also uncommon, although several cases are known. Puritan missionaries, for example, encouraged literacy among the Massachusett Indians so that the Indians could have direct access to the scriptures. The Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay similarly used the Guaraní language in the missions, taught male children how to read and write it, and published books in it on mission printing presses. A number of Jesuit and a few Guaraní authors published their works at the missions of Santa María La Mayor and San Francisco Xavier during the early eighteenth century. These included the works by Father José Serrano, De la diferencia entre lo temporal y lo eterno, Crisol de desengaños, con la memoria de la eternidad (1705), which included forty-three illustrations by a mission Indian, Juan Yapari; by Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, Vocabulario de la lengua Guaraní (1722) and Arte de la lengua Guaraní, with notes by Father Restivo (1722); and by Guaraní musician and cacique Nicolás Yapuguay, Explicación del catecismo en lengua Guaraní (1724) and

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Figure 9. Drawing of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus in Explicación del Catecismo, by Nicolás Yapuguay, Mission Santa María la Mayor, 1724

Sermones y ejemplos en lengua Guaraní (1727).118 Nicolás Yapuguay used Guaraní throughout most of his text Sermones y ejemplos en lengua Guaraní, but Father Restivo added footnotes in Spanish and several passages in Latin.These were hybrid works.All the Spanish nouns in the Guaraní sermon were Catholic concepts, such as the Holy Spirit, Christmas, the Mass, angels, and the names of saints.119 Figure 9 is an illustration of a drawing of the Virgin Mary holding the Infant Jesus that appeared in Explicación del Catecismo published in 1724. By becoming adept writers in their own language (and even learning mathematics), a number of mission Indians learned to keep track of their community property, conducted their daily affairs under the direction of the Jesuits, carried out trade, and communi-

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cated with one another. These indigenous people also used their literacy as a weapon of resistance in response to the Treaty of Madrid (1750). Fig9Her The evidence presented above illustrates the variety of ways in which the Jesuit missionary enterprise had a significant impact on the daily lives of the Guaraní. By the mid-eighteenth century, the influence of shamans evidently declined, as the Jesuits became more powerful figures in the eyes of the Guaraní. Rather than serving the Jesuits, perhaps these political and religious leaders preferred relying on cabildantes and caciques for shielding them from interference by the missionaries. Rewards and punishments probably encouraged the mission Indians to follow the guidance of the Jesuits and benefit from their association with the priests. By the mid1700s, several generations of Guaraní found sufficient reasons to adapt and accommodate to life in the reductions under the Jesuits. Under Jesuit direction, the Guaraní had constructed their own dwellings, churches, chapels, workshops, schools, armories, warehouses, and hospitals. The Guaraní, however, still had opportunities to be independent and act on their own. Many evaded some of the obligations imposed on them by the missionaries. To elude them, several chose to reside in makeshift huts on their individual family plots of land, rather than near the center of town. Flight, whether temporary or permanent, was another option some Guaraní used to avoid the missionaries and the regimented lifestyle of the reductions.The fact that several hundred Guaraní resided in Buenos Aires indicates that the level of social control of the missionaries was limited. Equally important, the Guaraní utilized the Spanish mission system itself to defend their material interests and cultural autonomy. Guaraní cabildantes and caciques negotiated with the missionaries and appealed to the Jesuit superior at Mission Candelaria or to Spanish authorities in Buenos Aires.This dispute resolution procedure was based on long-established traditions of the Spanish state that encouraged negotiation and compromise.120 By appealing to different factions within colonial society, the Guaraní were on occasion capable of playing one group against another. However, these native people seemed to have preferred utilizing the Jesuits as their intermediaries with the Spanish colonial world. The Guaraní perhaps recognized that as leading teachers and scholars, and as men who often led them successfully into battle, the influence of the members of this religious order was greater than their own in dealing with the Spanish world. Ultimately, their actions expressed both elements of selfgovernment and subordination to colonial rule. European patriarchal society and cultural values, moreover, had a significant impact on Guaraní culture. Missionary contact affected Guaraní men and women differently. Men’s lives changed considerably,

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while women’s changed only slightly from their precontact patterns, although women came to lead more protected lives.Traditionally, Guaraní women appeared to be more influential in the area of the economy, at least from the perspective of Europeans. The missionaries, nevertheless, greatly expanded the economic roles of Guaraní men, much more dramatically than those of women, even though women continued to play vital production roles in agriculture and in their households. Guaraní men participated more actively than ever before in the expanding regional economy of the Río de la Plata. Over time, these indigenous people became increasingly dependent on the lands that they had secured under the Jesuits and defended for several generations using their militias. Despite all their missionizing efforts, the numerically outnumbered Jesuits could not fully eradicate all the Guaraní traditional ways.As part of a process of transculturation, the Guaraní were selective in their acceptance of things European. They chose to adopt what proved to be useful and rejected those things of little value to them. These native people incorporated new writing skills, artisan crafts, and products into their economic and social lives, which became more complex, less egalitarian, and socially differentiated. Many aspects of Guaraní society changed in the reductions, but then there were notable continuities and ample evidence of Guaraní resistance, particularly on the part of men. Finally, the Guaraní and the Jesuits created a New World culture in the reductions, which resulted from the blending of European and native traditions, diets, medicines, material culture, and technologies.The growth and development of their Hispanic-Guaraní-baroque towns in the subtropical forest eventually came to an end with the onset of the struggle between the Spanish and the Portuguese Empires over their boundaries in South America.

Chapter

From Resistance to Rebellion

4

In the mid-eighteenth century, Felicitas, an elderly Guaraní widow from the Jesuit mission of Nuestra Señora de Bororé y La Cruz, spoke of a prophecy of doom and destruction to other people in her town. They wrote her words down on paper and circulated them from mission to mission. Felicitas predicted that her town would become depopulated, that it would be overwhelmed by death and total destruction, that there would be an end to everything. In her native language, she spoke of mbabuçu oicone, which means that “the great work, a great death,” would be the fate of the missions.1 At the same time, as a devout Catholic, she went to Mass every day, said the rosary, went to confession, took communion, and celebrated the fiestas of the Virgin. According to the Jesuits, she also prayed in the mission church at dawn “without fail and without being ordered” and brought gifts of fish to the missionaries from the Uruguay River every Friday. In many ways, Felicitas symbolizes the incorporation of Catholic practices into the existing native belief system in the Jesuit missions. Inwardly, however, Felicitas remained true to her native religion: she believed in the importance of premonitory visions and dreams. Her narrative illustrates the disparities between native culture, as presented in extant accounts of the Guaraní revolt, or the War of the Seven Reductions, and indigenous voices, as revealed in unstudied Guaraní texts.

Historiography of the Rebellion The documented history of the Guaraní War has been based overwhelmingly on Spanish and Portuguese sources. Several scholars, primarily Jesuits, have provided narrative accounts of the Guaraní War relying

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on the documentary record left by the missionaries and colonial officials. In six articles, Francisco Mateos, S.J., describes the main events of the war, particularly its major battles, as well as its diplomatic background.2 Mateos convincingly argues that the Jesuits were not responsible for inciting the Guaraní to rebel. As a Jesuit, however, he tends to downplay or ignore the evidence of the increasingly strained relationship that developed between the missionaries and the Guaraní during the conflict. In El tratado hispanoportugués de límites de 1750 y sus consecuencias; estudio sobre la abolición de la Compañía de Jesús (1954), another Jesuit, Guillermo Kratz, similarly describes, in great detail, the geopolitical and diplomatic background of the Guaraní War, its major battles and minor skirmishes, and the reasons for the annulment of the Treaty of Madrid in 1761.3 Professor Jorge Couto of the University of Lisbon also analyzes the geopolitical history of this treaty and the rebellion from a Portuguese perspective.4 Brazilian historian Aurelio Porto, in História das missões orientais do Uruguai (1954), investigates the war’s geopolitical background and the general history of the seven reductions; but, like many others, neglects the war’s aftermath, particularly the impact of the rebellion on the indigenous population.5 Jaime Cortesão has compiled the official diplomatic correspondence between Portugal and Spain and their representatives in Brazil and the Río de la Plata in Alexandre de Gusmão e o Tratado de Madrid 1750 (1950–63).6 Another Brazilian scholar, Rejane da Silveira Several, examines the degree of participation of the Jesuits during the crisis of the 1750s using printed Jesuit accounts and secondary sources, not archival manuscripts, in his A Guerra Guaranítica (1995).This author judiciously concludes that the missionaries did not actively participate in the rebellion, although many Jesuits objected to the Treaty of Madrid and used delay tactics in carrying out the agreement. Ultimately, the missionaries obeyed the orders of the Spanish king, the Pope, and their own superiors, and complied with its terms.7 In Red Gold:The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500–1760 (1978), geographer John Hemming relates the events of the Guaraní War still using Spanish and Portuguese documentation. He accepts the prevailing interpretation that the Guaraní War was a spontaneous and genuine native rebellion.8 An important oversight in these earlier studies is the role of Guaraní ideology during the rebellion. What led Guaraní elites, especially cabildantes and military commanders, to take up arms against Spain and Portugal, after more than a century and a half of missionary contact? What grievances did they specifically express in their rare native texts? To what extent did the dynamics of the relationship between the Guaraní, the Spanish Crown, and the Jesuits deteriorate? Finally, how did the indige-

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nous people cope with the crisis of the 1750s, yet manage to survive in spite of the tremendous odds against them in confronting Spain and Portugal? The individual communities directly affected by the treaty fought hard and with great perseverance to preserve their land.The Guaraní reactions, as measured in the behavior and beliefs of the mission Indians, varied from mission to mission and ranged from a reluctant acceptance all the way to a full-scale rebellion. Although not at all as widespread or as costly in terms of human life as the Túpac Amaru II rebellion of 1780–82 in the Peruvian highlands, the Guaraní War was long and intense.9 It was a pivotal event that marked the beginning of the destruction of the Jesuit mission system in the Río de la Plata.

The Treaty of Madrid (1750) A new boundary agreement, not native communities’ complaints of local abuses by settlers, slavers, and missionaries, led to the rise of Guaraní resistance and the insurrection. On January 13, 1750, the Spanish and Portuguese ministers, Don José de Carvajal y Lancaster and Dom Tomás da Silva Téllez, signed the Treaty of Madrid. Spain and Portugal hoped that the new treaty would settle the boundary conflicts between the Spanish and Portuguese Empires in South America.The treaty replaced the demarcation line originally established by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), which fixed a boundary between the two empires 370 leagues west of the Azores and granted Portugal only the eastern edge of South America.The Treaty of Madrid discarded the Tordesillas line in favor of the principle of utis posisdetis, giving possession to the occupants of the land. In signing the new treaty, Spain’s objectives were to halt the westward expansion of the Portuguese into what theoretically was Spanish territory. Spain also wanted to eliminate the Portuguese presence in Uruguay across the estuary of the Río de la Plata, which made Buenos Aires vulnerable and encouraged Anglo-Portuguese trade that was illegal under Spanish law. Portugal, in turn, sought undisputed sovereignty of the mining districts in the central and far western region of Brazil, the security of Brazil’s frontier in Rio Grande, control of the territory of the prosperous Jesuit missions, the Amazon Basin, and navigation rights on the Tocantins, Tapajos, and Madeira Rivers.10 According to Article 14 of the treaty, Portugal ceded the town of Colônia do Sacramento and all its adjacent territory along the Río de la Plata (in present-day Uruguay) to Spain. In return, the Spanish king ceded to Portugal the lands south of the Ybicuí River and east of the Uruguay River, which comprised the territory of seven missions: San Nicolás, San

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Map 7. The Jesuit Missions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, 1749 (Created by José Quiroga, S.J. By permission of The British Library. Add Ms 17665 B.)

Miguel, San Luis, Santo Angelo, San Juan Bautista, San Lorenzo, and San Borja, along with the ranches of missions La Cruz, Concepción, Santo Tomé, and San Francisco Xavier west of the Uruguay River (see Map 1).11 The Treaty of Madrid, in addition, recognized Spain’s dominion over the Philippine Islands and adjacent islands. Spain in turn recognized Portu-

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guese claims to lands occupied in the Amazon region and Mato Grosso. Article 16 ordered the Jesuits to leave the missions along the eastern side of the Uruguay River, taking with them all their furniture and personal belongings; it also allowed the Guaraní to settle on other lands belonging to Spain.The Indians could also remove their furniture, belongings, arms, munitions, and gunpowder from the missions. The seven missions thereafter belonged to Portugal, as did the surrounding lands, including the vast cattle ranches that had belonged to four other missions west of the Uruguay River.The Guaraní could choose to leave or to remain, as could the Portuguese residents of Colônia do Sacramento.Those who left, however, would lose their holdings.12 Finally, Article 23 stipulated that the terms of the treaty be carried out within one year. The Spaniards and Portuguese in Europe who approved the treaty were unfamiliar with the geography of the Río de la Plata region.They thought there was plenty of land and wide-open space where the Jesuits could relocate the indigenous people. The seven reductions along the Uruguay River, however, were among the most populous of the Jesuit reductions in South America. According to the Jesuit census of 1750, a total of 26,362 inhabitants resided in them, and numerous other indigenous peoples resided nearby (see Map 7).13 A 1751 Jesuit census indicated that there were 29,203 inhabitants in the seven towns and 97,582 Indians in the thirty-two reductions, including the newly founded northern missions of San Joaquin and San Estanislão.14 The area contained vast natural resources: fertile soils, pasture lands, rivers, streams, woods, orchards, planted fields of yerba maté, cotton, and several thousand head of cattle. To begin anew in the wilderness would have caused severe hardship for the Guaraní, who by the mid-eighteenth century had adapted to living in an urban environment in the missions.To round up and drive so many cattle such long distances and across difficult terrain and wide rivers would have resulted in great losses. It would have taken several years to transplant and grow new yerba maté trees, valued by a Jesuit provincial to be worth more than 400,000 pesos, without which the Guaraní could not pay tributes.15 It would take more than a year, moreover, to transport all the material goods in each of the missions to new locations.16 All of these conditions made compliance with the treaty nearly impossible for the Jesuits and the Guaraní. Map7Her

Jesuit Resistance and Collaboration Because of the vast distance across the Atlantic Ocean, it took several months for the missionaries to learn of the treaty. Then, the Jesuits held

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the bad news back from the Guaraní until April 1751, most likely because they hoped that the unfavorable treaty would be annulled. Many Jesuits in the Río de la Plata and Peru did not always agree with the policies emanating from Spain; they disliked the Treaty of Madrid, in particular, seeing that it threatened to destroy more than a half century of their missionary work in the seven reductions. It was highly favorable to Portuguese interests from their perspective.17 Jesuit missionaries denounced the treaty, using primarily economic and religious arguments to defend their cause. In a letter to the Jesuit comisario (the individual charged with carrying out an assignment) Luis Lope de Altamirano (1697–1767), who was Rome’s representative in Spain, and the Jesuit General in Rome, Father Bernardo Nusdorffer, detailed the economic losses to the seven towns and the missions west of the Uruguay River, if the terms of the treaty were carried out. Six of the reductions in the area of Mission San Nicolás and Santo Angelo, he noted, had well-established yerbales (yerba maté plantations), easily accessible to the Guaraní, with a total of 120,210 plants; each valued at 5 pesos, for a total of 601,050 pesos. In the missions that had no yerbales, the Guaraní were required to travel long distances through perilous forests to extract tea leaves directly from the jungle or bartered for yerba maté in order to pay their tributes and satisfy their daily consumption. Nusdorffer estimated this activity to be worth 162,750 pesos.The total losses in this sector of the mission economy were valued at 763,800 pesos. Cotton was important, the missionary noted, for the making of thread and clothing for the Indians, who otherwise would go naked. Each of the seven towns had its own cotton fields, each valued at 5,000 pesos, representing a total loss of 35,000 pesos. The mission territory affected by the treaty, additionally, contained more than one million head of cattle, which could not be easily rounded up and driven across rivers without suffering serious losses. Nusdorffer estimated their value to be 999,999 pesos. Finally, the territory of the seven towns had several magnificent churches, priests’ residences, Indian houses, and coty guazú estimated to be worth 960,000 pesos. The natives’ fields under cultivation, moreover, were worth 600,000 pesos. Orchards and gardens were valued at 27,000 pesos. In all, Father Nusdorffer estimated the total losses to be 3,522,167 pesos, a sizable sum for the eighteenth century, aside from the notable spiritual harm the treaty would cause the Indians by requiring them to relocate elsewhere.18 Nusdorffer may have slightly overestimated the value of these reductions, as a tactic to draw more support for their cause to save the vast missionary territory. Nevertheless, the Jesuits had the reputation of being highly successful estate managers and accurate record keepers; a few were notable mathematicians.

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Jesuits in Córdoba reminded Spanish officials and their own superiors in their correspondence that in the past the Portuguese had committed excessively cruel acts toward the Guaraní; therefore, the treaty was indeed harmful to their interests.19 Jesuit father José Quiroga in his letter to José de Carvajal y Lancaster, president of the Council of the Indies and chief minister of Spain, also stressed that the treaty would result in the possible destruction of all the reductions, along with the Spanish town of Asunción; that that there could be a significant increase in illicit trade with Brazil; and the Guaraní would be unable to pay their tributes due to the loss of their yerbales. He also noted that the treaty would do serious harm to Spain’s conversion efforts because the Guaraní would become more suspicious of missionaries.20 Despite many objections by Jesuits, the Jesuit general in Rome, Francisco Retz, and his successor, Ignacio Visconti, ordered the Jesuits to evacuate from the area, in accordance with the treaty, and comply with its terms. The Portuguese captain general and governor of Rio de Janeiro, Gomes Freire de Andrada, interpreted the Jesuits’ delay as a tactic while they armed themselves and the Guaraní. He contended that the Jesuits had established a wealthy and powerful state with a population of nearly one hundred thousand and later blamed them for inciting the Indian rebellion.21 The Jesuits, however, were not busy building up their indigenous military forces; on the contrary, they were unable to persuade the vast majority of the Guaraní to relocate. The missionaries pleaded with the Jesuit comisario Altamirano for a three-year extension. In February 1752, Altamirano and Spanish officials arrived in Buenos Aires to carry out the terms of the treaty. To help with the costs of the relocation and as compensation for the loss of Indian lands, Altamirano removed 28,000 pesos from the royal treasury in Buenos Aires, 4,000 pesos for each of the seven missions, or approximately 1 peso per Guaraní, quite an insignificant amount. He also packed gifts of clothing, hats, metal axes and hatchets, and batons for the Guaraní. Before he could consider granting the Jesuits an extension, the rebellion had begun.

Growing Antagonism Between the Guaraní and the Jesuits The vast majority of the Guaraní in the seven missions refused to search for new lands, while others decided to abide by the crown’s decision but then found obstacles to settling in these new areas.They claimed that all of the sites were either too rocky, lacked wood or water, were full of ants, or already belonged to other indigenous peoples who were willing to defend them.The residents at Mission San Juan Bautista, for exam-

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ple, noted that all the lands in the south were already occupied by the nonsedentary Charrúas, and that the Portuguese posed a threat to the lands near Mission Corpus Christi. The Payaguá, riverine native peoples who dominated the Paraná and Paraguay Rivers, made hazardous other locations suggested by the missionaries to the Guaraní. The mission Indians of San Luis agreed to join Mission Santo Tomé.They traveled with mission Indians from Yapeyú to the other side of the Mirinay River to select a new site, but the Charrúas threatened them. After reaching an agreement, however, the Charrúas allowed them to settle on their lands. Nevertheless, other mission Indians from San Luis preferred to migrate to other reductions rather than construct a new one. But later, they all changed their minds, decided not to move, and deposed their corregidor.22 After visiting lands to the south, groups of Guaraní from San Borja told a missionary that they no longer needed to move because they had met a porteño (a resident of Buenos Aires), Antonio Muñoz, who had informed them that the treaty had been annulled in Spain.23 However, this was only a rumor. The Guaraní of Mission San Lorenzo also expressed interest in joining their relatives at Mission San María La Mayor, from where they had originated. But they requested that the lands already designated for the inhabitants of San Nicolás be given to them because the Guaraní from that mission had refused to relocate. A group of one hundred men, women, and children, including the corregidor, moved with their priest from San Lorenzo to a site called Tuyunguçú, near the Paraná River between the missions of Itapuá and San Cosme and Damian, and they began building huts and planting crops. However, when the priest back at San Lorenzo wanted to send some ornaments for their new church, the Guaraní there resisted and refused to allow anything to be taken from their town. They demanded that the residents who left be returned, and they forced the Jesuits to name a new corregidor. In mid-September 1753, ten families fled from the new site in canoes across the Paraná River and returned to San Lorenzo.The other families followed them in October.24 Finally, the Guaraní from Mission Santo Angelo burned all the wagons, which the priests had ordered them to build to transport their belongings. They warned the Jesuits, “If the Portuguese wanted our towns and our lands, then they will pay for them with their blood.”25 The Guaraní reacted to what they perceived as an immediate threat to their way of life or a violation of the reciprocal exchanges and obligations they had established with the Spanish colonial state. A cacique remarked that since the time of his ancestors and since the beginning of the missions, they had owned the land on which they now lived, and thus this whole question of moving was strange to him.26 Land for the Guaraní not

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only represented something to farm and to raise cattle on but also was closely linked to the spiritual world. After a Jesuit had selected and approved a new location for a mission between Trinidad and Itapuá north of the Paraná River, the Guaraní told him, according to the testimony, that “we do not need those lands because we already have the lands of our ancestors who were always here and lived well, and we have had for many years our well-constructed church and town all built by the sweat of our brow and cannot leave because a priest, Rafael Genester, who loved the Indians so, was buried here.”27 A group of seventy armed Guaraní from the seven towns also rode to Concepción to pay their respects to Father Roque González, whose bones rested in the mission, and to ask for help and protection from him and the Virgin Mary, whose statue he had used to convert them.28 This evidence confirms that the Guaraní still practiced an ancient bone cult; that is, paying reverence to the bones of the Jesuits, who had by this time replaced their shamans as their spiritual and political leaders. Their responses were similar to those of the Guaraní at a Franciscan mission in Paraguay. The Guaraní kept the bones of their Catholic priest, Antonio de la Cruz, in an urn above a statue of the Virgin on the altar at the church of Yutí in 1725.29 As in many Native American cultures in North America, the Guaraní wanted to preserve and protect their traditional burial grounds. Although at times the Guaraní extolled ancestor worship, on other occasions they used Catholic symbolism. For spiritual guidance, the Guaraní from San Miguel invoked their patron saint, Michael the Archangel, who according to the Book of Revelation was the leader of the heavenly armies that were locked in a constant battle against Satan and his evil forces. Guaraní sculptors depicted him as an angel wearing a helmet, carrying a shield in one hand with a sword in another, standing over a black dragon representing Satan. A boy had a vision that Saint Michael the Archangel had appeared before him and had advised the Guaraní not to abandon their towns or churches. The saint did not want them to live in other lands because God had designated the site of the mission for them and because their ancestors had lived there.Although the Jesuits discounted this revelation, saying that the boy’s mother had made the whole thing up, the Guaraní most likely were sincere and heeded the saint’s words because they still believed in the power of dreams and prophecies.30 Revelations of this kind undoubtedly strengthened the Guaraníes’ will to resist. Similarly in Peru during the 1780 Túpac Amaru II rebellion against “bad government,” the creoles, mestizos, and Indians of Arequipa invoked their own patron saint as a protector and guide during those troubled times.31 The Guaraní of Mission San Nicolás employed several other preventive

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measures to thwart European plans to relocate them. When the Jesuit superior, the corregidor, and some younger Guaraní who were favorites of the priests were preparing to select a new location, several Guaraní hid their horses so they could not depart. One also shot an arrow at and “swore” at the corregidor. Once the Jesuit missionary had departed, a group of Indians (it is not known how many) armed themselves with bows, arrows, and lances. On his return, they approached him and stated that they did not want to relocate and that if the Jesuits had plans about shipping their goods out of the mission they would kill the oxen that pulled the wagons. In a show of force, the mission Indians then lined up in a battalion formation in the churchyard. During this early phase of the rebellion little is known about native leadership; in this case, military officers and caciques that were not members of the cabildo led the rebellion.32 Following this incident, the Jesuit superior in Candelaria summoned a Guaraní cacique and a Jesuit from San Nicolás.The missionaries threatened to take away his cane of office, the symbol of his higher social status. The chief replied that “he did not need his cane and such foolishness.”33 The Jesuits thought that the rebellious Guaraní leader had become deranged. The corregidor of San Miguel pleaded with the missionaries not to ask him publicly to make the decision to relocate but to petition other chiefs first so that his followers would not depose him for being a tool of the Jesuits. Fearing that their ultimate fate would be servitude, the Guaraní of San Miguel deposed their corregidor for having betrayed them to their enemies. Caciques and commoners seized weapons from the corregidor’s house, threw him on the ground, clubbed him, wounded him with an arrow, and threatened to kill him before a missionary intervened to save his life. The Jesuit wanted to take the corregidor to the church, but the Guaraní refused. Instead, an unidentified indigenous captain allowed the Jesuit to put the corregidor in the mission jail and to sew up his wounds. To appease the Guaraní, the missionary selected a new corregidor who was more acceptable to the Guaraní.34 These attacks reveal that the Guaraní did not intend to murder priests, although the missionaries were important targets for their anger. Instead, they wounded, killed, or deposed their own townsmen for cooperating too readily with the Jesuits and colonial authorities. Guaraní artisans from Mission San Miguel, for example, went to the entrance of the priests’ living quarters and threw their batons on the ground. They said that they no longer wanted to practice their trades unless they worked in their own town.When several families traveled in wagons to a new site halfway from the mission ranch to the river, a group of Guaraní rode up to them, seized their horses and mules,

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and then killed a cabildante for wanting to give up their lands. Returning to the mission, the Guaraní opened the priests’ correspondence, verbally insulted them, and accused the Jesuits of wanting to turn them over to the Portuguese.35 The Jesuits therefore resorted to a new strategy. On Christmas Day in 1752, on their knees and with tears in their eyes, they pleaded with the Guaraní for cooperation.The Guaraní of San Juan Bautista, Santo Angelo, and other missions were deeply moved by the priests’ gestures and agreed to relocate. Although they displayed intentions to comply, their words were only words. Succeeding attempts to find new sites soon ended in failure, as earlier ones had. On January 8, 1753, for example, Father Thadeo Enis, a Bohemian priest at San Juan Bautista, left the mission accompanied by 223 Guaraní. By January 16, they had arrived at the Uruguay River. Only 3 deserted along the road, and the next day, the Guaraní feigned that only 30 more had fled. In reality, however, 70 had abandoned the missionary. To persuade the Guaraní to cross the river, Father Enis promised to distribute tobacco among them; but by January 18, only 70 of the 223 individuals remained with him. That figure subsequently fell to 30. Only the most “loyal” Guaraní abided, especially members of the cabildo and helpers with the Mass. Father Enis inquired why so many people had deserted him.The Guaraní replied that a small group, including a cacique, from missions San Miguel and San Lorenzo had trailed behind and spread word that the Jesuits had sold them to the Spaniards and that a huge galleon was waiting for them on the Paraná River, ready to take them to Buenos Aires.36 This incident corroborates that the Guaraní feared slavery and uncertainty. Finally, in February, 1753, the joint Spanish and Portuguese boundary commission approached Santa Tecla, the ranch of Mission San Miguel. They encountered a group of native soldiers, led by Captain Sepé Tiarajú, who had decided to bar the Portuguese and Spaniards from their lands.37 Two Jesuits, one Spanish and one Portuguese, who accompanied the boundary commission attempted to persuade Captain Tiarajú otherwise, but to no avail.The military captain not only had the widespread support of the Guaraní in the seven towns but also that of the Guaraní fugitives residing in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Montevideo.A few individuals had returned from these Spanish towns to join his forces and defend their mission lands from European encroachment.38 There appears to be no evidence whatsoever that the Jesuits had ordered Captain Tiarajú to resist any encroachments on their territory. Captain Tiarajú and his native troops, not the Jesuits, were directly responsible for impelling the Europeans to retreat.39

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Guaraní Protest and Insurrection The Guaraní, however, did more than force the Spanish and Portuguese off their lands. Having learned the power of the written word from the Jesuits, the Guaraní wrote their own letters of protest (see Appendices 1 and 2). Indeed, the Guaraní used their literacy as a weapon of resistance and as a means of explaining their current predicament in hope of finding a solution. It was a sophisticated strategy, short of further violent confrontations.The Guaraní had no voice in the process of settling the territorial boundaries in the Río de la Plata, but they created one by writing letters to express their grievances.Their response in part represents a creative adaptation: they were able to forge something new out of existing elements in their environment. In collaboration with the Jesuits, the Guaraní had written and published books in their native language before, but not letters of protest. These letters justified their behavior and attempted to convince others of their rightful ownership of their land and property.The cabildantes wrote the letters but claimed to have written the letters on behalf of all the men, women, and children in the missions. The role the Jesuits may have had in encouraging the corregidores to compose these letters is difficult to assess.There is no evidence that indicates that the missionaries wrote these letters, even though the Jesuits had opposed the Treaty of Madrid — they feared losing significant economic interests in the region, and were also concerned that the treaty would mean an end to more than a century of their missionary efforts to convert the Guaraní.The Jesuits, however, were directly responsible for translating the letters from the native language into Spanish and submitting them to the proper authorities. The corregidor, Miguel Guaiho, members of the cabildo, and the caciques of San Juan Bautista, for instance, wrote to their priest, requesting that he present the letter directly to the Jesuit commissioner, Luis Altamirano. Later, it was sent to the governor in Buenos Aires and even the king (see Figure 10 and Appendix 3).40Fig 10 Here These texts reveal that the Guaraní refused to comply with the treaty because they were asked to turn over their towns, churches, homes, and land to the Portuguese, their traditional enemies. They remembered that the Paulistas had carried away thousands of their ancestors to work as slaves in Brazil.41 Because of that old enmity, most mission Indians preferred to remain subjects of the king of Spain rather than Portugal.When the Spanish decided to turn over their towns to Portuguese control, however, they were willing to take up arms even against Spain to defend their people and land.Their animosity toward the Paulistas and Spain’s refusal to

Figure 10. Facsimile of a Letter of Corregidor Miguel Guaího, Mission San Juan Bautista, 1753[?] (Estado 7426, Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Archivo General de Simancas)

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defend their interests ultimately drove the Guaraní to carry out a rebellion against both European powers.42 Much of the tone of the letter from San Juan Bautista is conciliatory. The Guaraní wanted to throw themselves at the feet of the monarch and show him the fort at Buenos Aires they had built for the crown. Many indigenous people, according to the Jesuits, had voluntarily flagellated themselves when they heard the news of the death of King Philip V.The Guaraní also reminded the Spaniards of the “great love and feelings the Catholic King had for the Indians,” which suggests that the mission Indians sought his protection and wanted to avoid any reprisals from the Europeans.43 The Guaraní wanted to make it clear that they were rebelling against Spanish policy, not the authority from which it emanated. This was another example of “Death to bad government, long live the King,” the sentiment common in rebellions in eighteenth-century Spanish America. Nevertheless, the Guaraní again made it very clear in their letters that they were willing to fight even the Spaniards.They warned the Europeans that they would get “incredibly angry” if the Spaniards and Portuguese entered their lands and asserted that they would never get tired of fighting.As part of their rhetoric, they mentioned that three thousand Indian soldiers had defeated the Portuguese on occasion and temporarily driven them from Colônia do Sacramento.44 They reminded the governor that they had fulfilled their obligations with the Spaniards but now the colonial officials had transgressed the bounds of a “moral economy” that had previously guided Spanish-Guaraní relations.45 Above all, the Guaraní, with their well-trained militias, were not submissive or powerless. They had the means to wage a war against the Spanish and the Portuguese, even though they were not well equipped. Although the Guaraní traditionally had aligned themselves with the Spanish, they were willing to fight against them on this occasion. There appears to be no evidence of the Guaraní playing one European power against another, as sometimes was the case of Amerindians in North America. The Guaraní at San Juan Bautista asserted their ethnic and cultural identity by looking to their ancestors and common past.This strong sense of identity, distinct from the Europeans and other indigenous groups in the region, including those Guaraní in the Province of Paraguay, was rooted in the land that was sacred to them because it contained their ancient burial grounds, and it was based partly on their collective memories of their ancestors who had been enslaved by the Paulistas. Nevertheless, the Guaraní reconstructed their own history of the founding of the reductions in terms of a vision: God had sent a Catholic saint, Saint Michael Archangel, from heaven to the Guaraní and told them

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where to search for a priest and where to build their reduction. The Guaraní invoked God, a popular saint, and the Holy Spirit as spiritual guardians to protect them, to legitimate their claim of the mission towns and lands, and, in the case of the Holy Spirit, to justify a cruel war against the Portuguese if God’s will were not respected. The religious references and symbols suggest that religion was an important aspect of their daily lives; but more significantly, by framing their arguments in Catholic terms, their ideas may have gained more acceptance by the Spaniards. It was a strategy that served to protect them from accusations of adherence to their traditional native religious beliefs, similar to Guaman Poma de Ayala.46 Their assertion that “hell is a good place for the Portuguese” indicates that the Guaraní were familiar with the Catholic concepts of heaven and hell. Some of the mission Indian artists themselves had drawn vivid illustrations of heaven and hell in Guaraní catechisms published in the Jesuit missions.47 In their letter, they do not refer to any of their traditional guardian spirits. Either Christianity had altered some of their traditional beliefs and practices through extended contact in the missions or, conversely, the Guaraní were deliberately trying to protect them by hiding them from the Spaniards and missionaries. A form of verbal resistance in these letters was to torment their enemies with insults. The Guaraní of San Juan Bautista reminded the Portuguese that they had made ashes out of their relatives. For both the Guaraní and the Europeans, being denied the right to give their own relatives a proper burial was a serious insult. For centuries, the Tupí-Guaraní may have used these kinds of verbal insults in warfare with one another and other indigenous groups. Now they used this psychological warfare against the Spaniards and Portuguese. The Guaraníes’ most important form of self-representation was as loyal subjects of the Spanish king who rendered him important services because of their love. In exchange, the Guaraní, like all royal subjects, expected some protection or compensation for their services.They hardly expected banishment from their homeland and loss of their ancestral lands to the Portuguese. Still, the mission Indians did not personally blame the king.As was common in other rebellions in Spanish America, they thought of him as a divine king—evidently in purely European terms, for the Guaraní had no word or concept for king in their own language.They believed that he was a good, holy king who had been deceived by the Portuguese, their mortal enemies. This, too, was an important strategy intended to avoid Spanish reprisals. This is the context in which chief Nicolás Ñeengirú of Mission Concepción and the corregidores from San Luis, San Nicolás, San Borja,

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San Lorenzo, San Miguel, and Santo Angelo wrote similar letters of protest to the governor of Buenos Aires in 1753.They explained to Spanish officials that they had attempted to relocate on more than two occasions but could not find suitable sites for their missions. They pleaded with the Spaniards not to make war on “us poor Indian Christians.”48 They expressed the same disbelief that the “good Holy King” could want to do them harm. They accused the Portuguese of cattle rustling, of murdering five Indian ranchers, and of enslaving their women and children.The Guaraní also could not understand why Spain would want to exchange their seven magnificent towns and land for the single town of Colônia do Sacramento.49 Ñeengirú, in his letter, complained about Commissioner Altamirano’s inability to communicate or to understand the Guaraníes’ desires. Altamirano, he asserted, had only told them to take their things and go out into the forest to search for their sustenance.The end result of this, Ñeengirú warned, would be the dire impoverishment of these Guaraní.50 The mission Indians perceived Father Altamirano as Portuguese rather than Spanish because he wore secular clothing as the Portuguese did in Río de Janeiro rather than the traditional black robes of the Jesuits.51 Clothing was an important visible symbol for the Guaraní.The indigenous people naturally were suspicious of the priest’s intentions because of his layman’s clothing. It reminded them that he represented outside authority. Spanish officials were not convinced by these Guaraní letters. The Marqués de Valdelirios, the Spanish envoy in charge of the boundary commission, and others thought the Jesuits, not the Guaraní, had written them because they believed that Guaraní were incapable of composing such fine manuscripts. Like most Europeans, they were unfamiliar with the writing ability of the Jesuit-educated mission Indians. They were also more inclined to suspect the Society of Jesus because the Guaraní had been such “obedient” Indians.The Jesuits themselves had promoted this myth, which ultimately worked against them.52 The Marqúes de Valdelirios, the governor of Buenos Aires and captain general of the Río de la Plata, José de Andonaegui, and the Portuguese captain general of Rio de Janeiro, Gómez Freire de Andrada, met on the island of Martín García in the Río de la Plata on July 15, 1753, to determine how they would proceed.They declared the Guaraní to be rebellious and made preparations for war with them.53 In response, in Spain, the king ordered a junta of theologians to study whether the sword or the cross had conquered the Guaraní, and whether Spain could legally oblige them to give up their lands and leave their missions. The Portuguese and Spanish Crowns jointly decided to back the use of force against the Indians. For the initial military campaign, Governor Andonaegui was to advance on

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the territory belonging to the seven reductions via the Rio Negro and the Uruguay River, intending to cut off their supplies and reinforcements from the Paraná reductions, while Gomes Freire de Andrada and his troops were to proceed westward and northwestward from its new base at Rio Pardo.54 The Jesuit superior at Candelaria still argued against forcing the Indians off their lands. He thought the mere presence of well-armed troops might convince the Guaraní to relocate to new sites.55 The Guaraní, however, still persevered to defend their territory.56 Jesuit commissioner Altamirano, while touring the mission of Santo Tomé, responded by threatening them with excommunication. Hearing of this pronouncement, a group of Guaraní from San Miguel left to search for him.They first broke into their warehouses to take yerba maté, clothes, tobacco, and other supplies.Then they asked the Guaraní from other missions to join them.The priest at San Miguel warned Altamirano of the impending threat to his life. In the middle of the night, Altamirano and his assistant, Father Alonso Fernández, fled from mission Santo Tomé to Santa Fe and then back to Buenos Aires escorted by sixty to eighty militia soldiers from Spanish towns.57 Altamirano later described the Guaraní from the missions of San Miguel and San Nicolás as “totally nuts.”58 He also noted that the Indians from these missions had shouted at him in the churchyard, threatening to take his life and throw him into the river.59 Before departing the missions west of the Uruguay River, Altamirano distributed axes, knives, plows, clothing, and other gifts among more “loyal” mission Indians from San Cosme, Santo Tomé, San Lorenzo, San Borja, and Santos Reyes de Yapeyú. The native troops from San Miguel followed the surveying party but never caught up with it. They continued to inquire about Altamirano’s whereabouts, however. The Jesuits feared that the numerous Guaraní fugitives already residing in Buenos Aires would harm him.60 On safely arriving in Buenos Aires, Altamirano offered to exempt the Guaraní from tribute payment for ten years if they agreed to relocate. But this represented small compensation for the loss of mission lands, homes, churches, and other communal property. Commissioner Altamirano attempted to settle the rebellion peacefully, if the Guaraní were willing to comply with the terms of the treaty. Otherwise, he threatened to use force. He issued orders to the missionaries: burn any existing gunpowder and refrain from buying additional supplies; stop manufacturing lances; seize any arrows made of iron, and other weapons; keep the Indians “obedient”; punish anyone who wanted to protect the “troublemakers”; encourage the Indians to relocate; break all sacramental cups, so the Indians could not use them for purposes of idolatry; report back to him about the Indians’

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intentions; and finally, if they were unable to relocate the Indians by August 15, 1753, he ordered all priests to flee for their lives and to refrain from administering the sacraments.61 Most Jesuits complied with Altamirano’s orders. However, the Guaraní coerced several missionaries not to abandon them. At Santo Tomé, for instance, the Guaraní took away the Jesuits’ horses so the missionaries could not leave, except on foot. A few priests also remained at their missions of their own volition to administer the sacraments, hear confessions, and assist the sick and wounded. Despite rumors to the contrary, none ever participated in battles or ordered the Guaraní to fight. A few actually became virtual prisoners of the Guaraní. One fearful Jesuit suffered a nervous breakdown, and others had nightmares during the ordeal.62 According to the Father Superior in Candelaria, “We no longer govern, they [the Guaraní] do, and we obey.”63 On September 9, 1753, during the Sunday sermon at Mission San Nicolás, the Guaraní shouted at the priest as he translated letters from the governor of Buenos Aires and a Jesuit from a mission across the Paraná River.They told the priest to be quiet, that they did not want to hear anything more on political matters, and that they only wanted to hear spiritual messages from him. Forasteros (Indian migrants, most likely from other missions) went to the pulpit, ripped the letters from the Jesuit’s hands, and twisted his arm.The Jesuit asked other parishioners to help him, but none intervened. Later, the Guaraní burned the letters in the churchyard.64 When the Guaraní learned that troops from Buenos Aires, Corrientes, and Santa Fe were preparing to make war on the seven missions, a group of about one hundred armed Guaraní from various towns traveled to Candelaria and asked to speak to Father Altamirano. Jesuit superior Nusdorffer told the group that the solution was out of his hands because Altamirano had already departed for Buenos Aires.To pacify them, he gave them yerba maté, tobacco, and beef.65 The Guaraní returned home to defend their families and communal interests. There was further intercommunity action. The Guaraní in the seven missions utilized information from fugitive Guaraní spies residing in Santa Fe, Córdoba, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires to keep track of the local militias.66 On February 22, 1754, a group of three hundred Indian soldiers from missions San Luis, San Lorenzo, and San Juan Bautista attacked a small Portuguese settlement on lands belonging to one of the missions in Río Pardo in Rio Grande do Sul. Although the native troops sacked the Portuguese huts, they suffered a military defeat when thirty of them were killed.67 The Guaraní then resorted to writing their own war leaflets and hand-

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bills as propaganda against the Europeans. Their leaflets, which they distributed to all the missions, called on the mission Indians west of the Uruguay River to make war on the Spaniards. In one war leaflet, the Guaraní described the Marqués de Valdelirios as the Marqués Yabaú (the ugly marquis).68 The creation of nicknames was a form of native resistance and part of a war of words.69 These leaflets evidently were anonymous documents. None have been preserved in the archives. Their anonymity, of course, served to protect their authors.The use of war leaflets by these native people is another example of a transculturative process. Never before had the Guaraní engaged in the use of war leaflets with the intent to discredit their enemies and persuade others of their right to remain on their lands.They had learned to fight the Europeans on their terms. Some Guaraní west of the Uruguay River in Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, Santo Tomé, San Francisco Xavier, Concepción, Apóstoles, Santa María la Mayor, and other missions did join forces against the intrusion of Spanish and Portuguese militias into mission territory because they also suffered losses due to the Treaty of Madrid. One Guaraní repeatedly struck his long bow on the ground, complaining that the Spaniards had sold the Indians and their lands for only four thousand pesos, referring to the amount the Jesuits had received from Altamirano. He accused the missionaries of being “deceitful tricksters, liars, and swindlers.”70 The Guaraní told them to return the money because his people would rather die than leave their lands. Cacique Ñeengirú concurred that the Jesuits who received 4,000 pesos at each of the seven missions had betrayed their cause.71 At Mission Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, two native leaders, Don Rafael Paracatú and Santiago Caendi, deposed their corregidor because he disliked war.They then freed all their women in the coty guazú because they feared the Jesuits intended to send them to work as servants or slaves in Spanish towns. Later, they went to their priest and told him that from now on, he would only take care of the cross and run the mission. Seizing the keys to the warehouses, they distributed yerba maté, tobacco, knives, plates, fine cloth, cotton cloth, and other items among their followers.The mission Indians at Santos Reyes de Yapeyú held the Jesuits as hostages and treated them like criminals after they attempted to escape on two occasions. The mission Indians ordered their priests to go barefoot just like Jesus Christ and the Apostles. The mission Indians observed with resentment that the Jesuits had not practiced humility, contrary to Catholic teachings. They also gave them fifty to sixty lashes, tossed them into their quarters, and denounced them. It is difficult to assess how severe a whipping this was. Evidently these attacks were not disabling or lifethreatening, because the priests continued to administer the sacraments

Map 8. The Río de la Plata, 1754 (By permission of The British Library. Add Ms 17769 R.)

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and hear confessions from the sick.72 Corregidor Ñeengirú intervened to end the mistreatment of the Jesuits.73 Under Paracatú’s leadership, the mission Indians at Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, joined by others from Nuestra Señora de Bororé y La Cruz, San José, Candelaria, and Santos Martires, attempted to prevent four hundred Spanish militia soldiers from marching across mission territory.Too poorly armed, they failed; Paracatú and fiftyfour Indians were captured and later imprisoned in Buenos Aires. There, they worked in the construction of the church. One by one, however, they slipped back to their mission.74 During a second attack on the Portuguese in Rio Pardo in present-day Rio Grande do Sul in 1754, five hundred Guaraní under Captain Sepé Tiarajú’s command suffered a defeat. Nine Guaraní were killed, including a lieutenant from San Miguel. Forty others were wounded.75 Under a truce flag, Portuguese militias lured fifty-three Indian soldiers into the fort by offering them food and drink. When the Guaraní got intoxicated, the Portuguese seized their weapons and put them into irons. For several days, they refused to feed the prisoners.They then loaded them on a boat. On board, the mission Indians managed to get a knife away from the ship’s cook and revolted, but the Portuguese killed thirty-nine of them. The remaining fourteen were tried, released, and sent back to their missions on foot, fully clothed.76 The Portuguese apparently spared their lives because they had offered no resistance, unlike the others. Map8Her The Spanish and Portuguese spent the entire next year preparing for a major campaign against the Guaraní insurgents. Because many Spaniards and mestizos were reluctant to volunteer, Governor Andonaegui drafted blacks and free mulattos from Buenos Aires. Potentially, there were many native soldiers other than Guaraní who could have been sent to the mission frontier.The governor, however, prohibited indigenous soldiers from joining the Spanish forces because he did not want his troops either to have much sympathy with the Guaraní or to face an uprising.77 The joint military campaign, however, faced many delays, partly due to the inclement weather, including continual rains, flooding, and freezing temperatures.78 Portugal also blamed the Jesuit Altamirano for Spain’s failure to hand over the seven missions.79 In the meantime, the Guaraní built cannons out of bamboo to use against the Spanish and Portuguese troops. Even women armed themselves with bows, arrows, clubs, lances, and sticks. Some offered to fight alongside their spouses if necessary. The Minuanes, Charrúas, Guenoas, and other indigenous groups south of the missions also exchanged information with the Guaraní about their approaching enemies.80 Finally, late in 1755, the Spanish and Portuguese joined forces near the headwaters of the Rio Negro, and advanced north

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and northwest toward the mission territory of the seven reductions. In early 1756, Spanish and Portuguese forces numbering more than 3,000 marched toward the ranch of the Mission San Miguel.The Guaraní troops numbered about 1,300.The joint European forces thus outnumbered the Guaraní by more than two to one. The bamboo cannons and four pieces of regular artillery proved to be no match for the thirty pieces of artillery in the European possession.81 On February 7, 1756, Spanish troops killed Captain Sepé Tiarajú in a minor skirmish. 82 The Guaraní evidently had no other military leader comparable to Captain Tiarajú.83 They chose Ñeengirú as their new military commander. Ñeengirú was a great orator, but he did not have combat experience. Therefore, most of the contingents of native soldiers followed the orders of their individual caciques from each mission.84 This response, along with the use of bows, arrows, and lances instead of firearms, proved disastrous against the Europeans.85 Andonaegui later declared that 1,511 Guaraní soldiers died on the battlefield at Caaíbaté on February 10, 1756, and 154 Guaraní were taken prisoner. Among the Spanish, three soldiers died and ten were wounded. Only one Portuguese soldier perished and thirty suffered wounds.86 In response to the news that the invading armies had occupied Monte Grande, the lieutenant left in charge of San Miguel ordered all the inhabitants, particularly the women and children, to flee. Guaraní defenders from the missions of Santo Tomé, San Borja, San José, and San Carlos gathered to wait for the approaching armies.When the soldiers from San Borja and Santo Tomé passed by the hundreds of dead bodies strewn on the battlefield of Caaíbaté, however, they withdrew to their missions. Frustrated, the Guaraní from Santo Angelo killed most of their sheep and then destroyed the tile roof of their priest’s house as acts of revenge.

Repercussions of the Rebellion In spite of their defeat, many Guaraní were still determined to defend their lands. Two thousand men from San Miguel, San Nicolás, La Cruz, and Santo Angelo, armed with firearms and bows and arrows, formed a half-circle using wagons and artillery at one of the ranches at San Miguel. They confronted the enemy, killing several Spaniards. Eight Guaraní died. On May 11, these allied Indian soldiers evacuated the Guaraní from San Miguel. The Jesuits accompanied the refugees to Piratini where they planned to live in the open air.When the Guaraní in the other six reductions heard of the events in San Miguel, nearly half abandoned their missions, escaping into the forest.According to a letter written by Father José

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Cardiel, only 14,000 were relocated, and the remaining 16,000 fled into the hills on their ranches, refusing to abandon their lands.87 Those who stayed were obliged to pledge their obedience to the Spanish. Little is known about their day-to-day experiences under the military occupation of their missions.According to the Jesuits, the soldiers raided the Guaraníes’ fields and lived off their cattle. Across the river, Yapeyú lost twenty-four thousand head of cattle to the two armies.88 As with all occupying armies, the soldiers established sexual relations with many of the indigenous women, although there were no reports of rape.89 A Jesuit from San Miguel led three hundred families to settle in missions west of the Uruguay River, but most of the Guaraní did not want to leave and remained on their lands. They chose to stay in what they thought would become Portuguese territory. The Spanish and Portuguese governors temporarily detained two of the Jesuits, Father Enis and Father Balde, who had accompanied the Guaraní, but two weeks later released them. Spanish minister Ricardo Wall also ordered eleven Jesuits banished from the province, but Pedro de Cevallos declared them innocent. Although word arrived from Spain blaming the Company of Jesus for the rebellion, it is apparent that the Guaraní had acted independently, even though they had shared some common interests with the Jesuits in wanting to preserve the missions. Ultimately, the Guaraní had made their own decision to protect their territory and fight a defensive war.90 Interrogations of Guaraní caciques in San Borja and Santo Tomé further revealed that the Guaraní knew of the king of Spain’s order to relocate but had remained loyal to their own cause. Nicolás Ñeengirú addressed a letter to Governor Andonaegui on April 16, 1756, in which he reiterated the reasons for the rebellion. He expressed disbelief that the king had ordered the transfer of the mission territory to the Portuguese, their traditional enemies. He explained that he and others from Concepción had armed themselves to defend the territory of the seven missions because even some of the Spaniards from Paraguay did not believe that the king wanted to hand over these lands to the Portuguese. He described himself as the king’s “humble servant” and a “poor Indian,” who always had been loyal to the king and willing to carry out his wishes.91 Governor José de Adonaegui gave the vast majority of the Guaraní insurgents clemency but ordered them to turn over all their weapons within fifteen days. He also made it illegal for the Guaraní to gather with Indians from other missions. Unlike during the Comunero Revolt in Paraguay (1721–35) and that of Túpac Amaru II in the Peruvian highlands (1780–82), in which the leaders were publicly executed to dissuade other

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creoles, mestizos, and Indians from rebelling against the crown, the Jesuits only banished Nicolás Ñeengirú from Concepción to the nearby mission of Santísima Trinidad and confiscated his personal belongings.92 There were probably no public executions of Guaraní leaders because capital punishment was not practiced in the Jesuit missions. The Guaraní, furthermore, took no Jesuit lives during the war. Sepé Tiarajú had already perished in battle.The crown evidently was lenient because Spain did not want to provoke further rebellion.The Guaraní from the seven towns had suffered enough, losing their relatives in battle, as well as their lands, homes, and other resources to the Portuguese. Following the rebellion, the Guaraní who remained in their missions also faced the military occupation of their towns and, later, forced relocation to other missions east of the Uruguay River. While being escorted across the river by Spanish troops, some Guaraní fled into the forest to live independently. Others went to work on Spanish ranches or in the extraction of yerba maté in the fields belonging to the seven missions, along with the Guaraní from missions west of the Uruguay River.93 Martín Tuama, a Guaraní peon from the mission of Santo Angelo, was arrested with two creoles, one from Córdoba and another from Tucumán, who deserted from the troops sent to Santo Angelo after working five months on the frontier without pay. Although Tuama was not declared a deserter because he had not been employed in the services of the king, he was held prisoner at San Juan Bautista.94 More males than females fled the missions, leaving the elderly, women, and children to be taken captive by the occupying armies. Of a group of forty-eight people, eight were men, thirteen were women, and twentyseven were young adults, children, or infants.95 Sometimes entire families were relocated to new Spanish towns. For instance, seven families from San Lorenzo and San Miguel were taken to settle in the newly established village of San Fernando de Maldonado in what is today Uruguay.96 Governor Andonaegui allowed the war refugees to take only what they needed to survive along the road.Their cattle, their cloth, and all the rest of their goods were confiscated by the occupying troops. Don Pedro Cevallos Cortés y Calderón replaced Andonaegui as governor of the Province of Río de la Plata in 1756. He took charge of the Spanish occupation forces, used Indian prisoners and Guaraní-speaking priests, Jesuit and Mercedarian, to search for Guaraní who had fled and persuade them to return to the missions west of the Uruguay. The priest at San Nicolás could not convince the Guaraní there to move to other missions.They abandoned their lands only under force. Many threw rocks at the three hundred soldiers sent to move them, as women and children

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took refuge in the church.At least four Guaraní died in the confrontation. Many others fled to a site called Rosario, established by the refugees from Mission San Miguel. Although many Guaraní had been displaced due to the rebellion, several thousand remained on the mission ranches of their own towns. More than two thousand Guaraní from San Miguel, for example, stayed on their mission ranches and came under Portuguese authority. Nearly 700 others, however, went to Mission Concepción, 480 to Mission Santa Rosa, and 431 to Mission San Cosme and Damian. Similarly, more than 1,500 Guaraní from San Nicolás resided on their mission ranches; 1,357 lived at Mission Apóstoles; 864 at Santa María La Mayor; 353 at Jesús; and 147 at San Ignacio Guazú. More than 1,000 Guaraní from San Juan Bautista lived on their mission’s ranch. Nearly 900 Guaraní relocated to San Ignacio Miní; 857 lived at Mission Santos Martires; and 764 lived at the mission capital of Candelaria. By 1757, 14,284 Guaraní were relocated in other missions west of the Uruguay River.97 Before the Spanish could turn over the territory of the seven reductions to the Portuguese in exchange for Colônia do Sacramento, there were more delays. A serious earthquake occurred in Lisbon and the Portuguese were not ready to occupy the missions. Neither Spain nor Portugal trusted each other’s good will to transfer the territory. Gomes Freire demanded the removal of all of the Jesuits to the other side of the river for having “incited” the Indians to rebel. He claimed that instead of teaching religion, the Jesuits had taught the Guaraní the arts of war.98 Spain, in turn, wanted to reconstruct seven entirely new towns for the Indians before turning over the mission territory to Portugal. Despite Spanish opposition, Gomes Freire departed the missions for the Fort of Río Pardo, taking with him seven hundred native families and more than 150,000 head of cattle.These seven hundred families comprised several thousand Indians, the equivalent of an entire mission. Don Pedro de Cevallos protested. Gomes Freire ordered two hundred families to return to their missions, but the other five hundred voluntarily followed the Portuguese army. Before they abandoned their towns, Gomes Freire most likely had assured them that they would be better off settling in new towns in Rio Grande than enduring military occupation of their missions. Unlike the Spaniards, he denounced the confiscation of the Indians’ material and personal possessions. The Portuguese also won the Guaraníes’ favor by visiting them in their homes and giving them gifts of clothing. The Guaraní families who followed the Portuguese army established several new villages in Rio Grande. These included Estreito, San Nicolás de Rio Pardo, Cachoeira do Sul, Guarada Velha de Viamão (today Santo

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Antônio da Patrulha), and Aldeia dos Anjos (Gravataí). Once settled, in exchange for beef rations they worked as peons on neighboring ranches and in the construction of forts, barracks, and arsenals. Some engaged in cattle rustling to sustain themselves and their families, much to the dislike of their Portuguese neighbors. By 1763, the village of dos Anjos alone numbered more than 3,500 Indians.99 Pedro de Cevallos searched for other refugees, but more than one thousand men, women, and children never returned to the missions. Many joined other indigenous groups, such as the Minuanes, and planted new fields.They also took with them beef cattle, horses, mules, and sheep from the missions to raise. Other Guaraní, especially children, died in epidemics that broke out in all the missions during the years immediately following the end of the war.100 For example, out of a total of 90,545 inhabitants living in the thirty missions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, 7,414 died in the epidemic of 1764.The following year, another 4,615 died of disease, which lowered the total mission population to 85,266.101 Even these epidemics were less devastating than those that occurred in the early 1730s. Nevertheless, more than six thousand Guaraní adapted to the new missions.102 And more than seventeen thousand returned to their homes in the seven missions across the Uruguay River, beginning in 1761 following several years of abandonment.A new Bourbon king, Charles III, had come to power, and that year annulled the Treaty of Madrid that had proved so unfavorable to Spanish interests.103 The territory of the seven missions and Colônia do Sacramento was confirmed to Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1777.104 According to the Jesuit census of 1762, 11,084 Guaraní from the seven towns still resided in other towns in that year. The vast majority of families resided at missions Itapuá, San José, San Francisco Xavier, San Ignacio Miní, Santos Martires, Trinidad, and Jesús.105 But by 1764, the reconstituted seven missions had a total population of 21,209. According to this census, 6,519 inhabitants who originally lived at the seven missions never returned to them. They remained in their newly established homes in missions west of the Uruguay River and north of the Paraná.106 Most Guaraní preferred a mission setting, rather than establishing new villages or joining neighboring indigenous groups. Several thousand, however, fled to Brazil.

The Guaraní Rebellion from a Comparative Perspective The history of the Guaraní rebellion offers both striking similarities and contrasts to its counterparts in other regions of Spanish America. A comparison of the Guaraní War with the Pueblo rebellion in Franciscan

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missions in New Mexico in 1680 in particular will provide some valuable insights into the characteristics of these two rebellions. The Guaraní and the Pueblos shared certain cultural patterns, although they inhabited different types of natural habitats. Both indigenous groups were horticulturists who supplemented their diets with hunting, gathering, and fishing. Both had monogamous and polygamous marriage patterns prior to missionary contact. Following the arrival of the Spaniards, the Guaraní and Pueblos endured forced labor under encomienda, Franciscan missionary rule, and Jesuit control in the case of the Guaraní. New Mexico, like Paraguay, was a fringe area of Spanish America where there was an overwhelming native presence and an insignificant Spanish population. The Pueblo and Guaraní cultures and traditions had remained strong in the two regions in the face of Spanish domination. Similarly, Spaniards and the Indians borrowed elements from each other’s cultures, as the different peoples met in conflict and accommodated themselves to the other’s presence. This led to extensive cultural hybridity, the blending of traditions, cultures, and beliefs, which is still evident today in Paraguay and New Mexico. The church controlled a large proportion of the native population in the two regions. From 1581 to 1680, the Franciscans provided the impetus for the colonization of New Mexico, while in Paraguay, the Franciscans were present beginning in the 1540s, while the Jesuits operated from 1588 until 1768. Both the Franciscans and Jesuits recognized the importance of the conversion of Indian youths and created generational conflicts within the native societies. The Franciscans in New Mexico, however, placed little emphasis on learning the Puebloan languages.Their most frequently cited excuse was the difficulty and diversity of New Mexico’s native dialects.107 The Franciscans also often suffered from personnel shortages in contrast to their Jesuit counterparts in the Río de la Plata.The Jesuits, by contrast, received some pertinent training in foreign languages. The Jesuits taught their Guaraní converts to read and write in their native Guaraní language. The native Guaraní language was spoken throughout the province of Paraguay, which facilitated the learning of this language by the missionaries.Along with the economic successes and religious consequences of the Jesuit missionary efforts in Paraguay, the importance given to the study of native languages by the Jesuits helps to explain why the Guaraní negotiated with the missionaries and sought their guidance, rather than harming them. From examining the Guaraní letters, Jesuit accounts, and other sources written at the time of the rebellion, historians can better reconstruct the historical events of the War of the Seven Reductions and approximate a native perspective. Many documents from

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the period of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in contrast were destroyed during the rebellion. Although we have no native Pueblo sources, a crucial distinction between the two rebellions is that the Pueblos were not caught between two European rivals wanting to transfer ownership of the mission territory from one to the other, and in the process dislocating them. The Pueblos also had different intentions from the Guaraní with regard to what they wanted to achieve by rebelling.The Pueblos sought to drive the Spanish out of New Mexico. Prior to the outbreak of the revolt, they had suffered from years of severe drought, meager maize production, Apache attacks, and a decade of abuse by the Franciscans and settlers. Consequently, the Pueblos murdered 21 friars and 380 settlers in the colony.108 In contrast, the Guaraní War was a conservative Indian rebellion. The Guaraní wanted to maintain prevailing conditions in the missions and keep their lands, not rid them of missionaries and Spanish rule. These native people remained firmly convinced that if only the king knew, he would redress their grievances, as had been the case with many eighteenthcentury rebellions. In this the conflict differed dramatically from the confrontations between the Guaraní and the missionaries in the seventeenth century and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.The Guaraní directed their anger at some Jesuits, especially the crown’s representative, but there was no loss of clerical life. The Guaraní responded primarily to external influences, changes in international politics, especially the loss of their lands; not the mission system itself. The Guaraní inhabited a borderland, which posed different problems for the Jesuits and their Guaraní converts. Jesuittrained Guaraní militia soldiers and officers confronted Portuguese and Spanish troops only after they had marched on mission territory. The Pueblos were successful in driving the Spanish out of New Mexico. In contrast the Guaraní suffered a serious military defeat against better organized joint military forces that invaded their territory. They also lost their land, many lives, material goods, and cattle, and endured forced relocation and military occupation. Although the Pueblos could not halt European expansion in their territory indefinitely, the Europeans who came in the early eighteenth century could not take the Pueblos for granted. Unlike in other peripheral areas, such as Paraguay, the Pueblos in New Mexico were no longer subjected to forced labor under the encomienda in the eighteenth century. The Spaniards also reduced tribute requirements significantly for the Pueblos.What accounts for the success of the Pueblos and the utter defeat of the Guaraní? The premature death of Sépe Tiarajú may have been a deciding factor in the Guaraní War.The Pueblos appear to

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have had effective military leadership under Popé, although historians will never be able to reconstruct how these indigenous people had planned their revolt. Equally important, the small Spanish population in New Mexico lacked a single presidio. The late-eighteenth-century rebellions at the missions in Alta California were not comparable to the Guaraní War because the indigenous peoples in California were nonsedentary, unlike the agricultural Guaraní. At the California missions of San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Miguel, San Gabriel, and Santa Cruz, small numbers of hunters and gatherers aimed violently to eliminate from their territory all the Spaniards, including the friars, several of whom they poisoned or murdered.109 In this respect, the Alta California Indian revolts more closely resembled the confrontations between the Guaraní shamans and the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century than the contemporaneous Guaraní War. Similar to the Túpac Amaru II rebellion, the Guaraní War was regional in scope and long in duration; it lasted more than three years. Some acts of the collective violence were directed against their own native elites who were perceived as collaborators with the Spanish. But it promised no imagined return to a utopian native past, as did the conflict in Peru. No cacique mestizo by the name of José Gabriel Túpac Amaru came forth to try to restore conditions as they had been before the arrival of the Spanish in the New World. The Guaraní War was not composed of multiethnic coalitions; it was strictly a native rebellion. In the Andean revolts, mestizos, Indians, and creoles played an important role.The locus of debate in Peru concerned the forced distribution of goods in Andean native villages, new taxes, the need for judicial reform, and abusive practices of authorities, especially corregidores. Creoles and mestizos primarily sought relief from excessive taxes.Andean native peoples, above all, wanted an end to tribute and forced labor under the mita system.110 Similarly, in the Comunero Revolt of 1781 in New Granada, Spanish creoles, Indians, mestizos, and mulattos protested against Bourbon fiscal reforms and did not seek to rid themselves of Spanish rule. These comuneros were primarily concerned with rising taxes and royal monopolies, particularly on tobacco and liquor. Indigenous people played a lesser role in this revolt; they sought relief from excessive tribute payments, forced labor demands, and extractions from the clergy. The creole leaders of the Comunero Rebellion shouted “Long Live the King,” “Death to bad government.” As in the late-eighteenth-century rebellion in Quito, as described by Anthony McFarlane, the insurgents wanted to avoid any suggestion of disloyalty toward the crown and sought to legitimate their rebellion with claims of loyalty to

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the king.111 Like the Guaraní, the comuneros were convinced that if only the king knew of their situation, he would alleviate their grievances, as the fountainhead of justice in the Spanish colonial world.112 Except for its size and duration, the War of the Seven Reductions in certain ways resembled the short-lived revolts in eighteenth-century Mexican villages.The Guaraní wanted to keep the status quo or had specific grievances they wanted the Spanish to address. In colonial Mexico, women led the attacks and were more visibly aggressive than men in at least one-fourth of the more localized rebellions examined by William B. Taylor.113 Women were more noticeable than men apparently because their spouses were frequently away when these village uprisings occurred. The Guaraní War took on the characteristics of a regional rebellion, in which Guaraní soldiers fought against Spanish and Portuguese colonial militias in minor skirmishes and in a major battle far from the reductions so as not to allow the troops to enter and occupy any of their mission territory. It was better to fight out in the open than to allow the missions to be destroyed or wait for a siege. The Guaraní soldiers and officers fought a defensive war, away from their homes but on their own land. The Guaraní men also sought to protect their women and children from these invading troops. Mexican colonial villages were not militarized in contrast to the Jesuit reductions.The historical contexts were quite distinctive. The evidence presented above illustrates that the Guaraní did not live up to the stereotypical image of docile mission Indians, always obedient to the Jesuits and loyal to the crown.These native peoples questioned Spanish and Portuguese policies, put up resistance, and defended their lands. Although the Guaraní were defeated in battle, they did not lose all aspects of their native culture.The Guaraní professed to be Catholics; yet, a close scrutiny of the historical documentation from this period shows that syncretic religious elements were evident. These syncretic beliefs served to provide the Guaraní with a common sense of identity and allowed them to resist the Europeans better. They could also deal better with their dislocations once they were defeated on the battlefield. Following the expulsion of the Jesuits, many of these native people emigrated from the reductions to the lower Río de la Plata and Brazil, where they clung to their native culture as they intermingled with the Spanish and Portuguese.

Chapter

The Guaraní in the Aftermath of the Expulsion of the Jesuits

5

On February 28, 1768, the Guaraní cabildantes from Mission San Luis explained in a letter to the Spanish governor in Buenos Aires, Francisco de Paula Bucareli y Ursúa, that only the Jesuits would look after their needs, not the parish priests, since the Jesuits had lived with them from the very beginning and knew how to get along with them.They expressed concern that if the Jesuits left, their towns would no longer prosper or even continue to exist (see Appendix 3).They explained,“Our children are now in the forest.When they return to the town, and do not see the parsons, the sons of San Ignacio, they will go off into the forest to lead a bad life. Already the people of San Joaquín, San Estanislao, San Fernando, and Timbó have dispersed.”1 Their letter is one of ten Guaraní texts written in 1768.2 These letters are elite documents. On this occasion, nevertheless, elite viewpoints most likely did not differ substantially from those of native commoners. The Tobatí-Guaraní left temporarily from the northern reductions of San Joaquín and San Estanislao. Most apparently left to work in the extraction of yerba maté.3 According to the governor of Paraguay, Carlos Morphy, who was in charge of the expulsion of the Jesuits in northern Paraguay, the corregidor and cabildo of Mission San Joaquín informed him that the Tobatí-Guaraní were content with their new missionaries. Morphy, however, may not have accurately described their reactions, because the governor sought to impress the crown with the news that the expulsion of the Jesuits in Paraguay went smoothly, without any kind of resistance or massive flight. Spanish officials, however, were not impartial observers. The bureaucrats had their own hidden agendas in expressing certain points of view that may have served to advance their careers.The bishop of Buenos Aires, Manuel Antonio de la Torre, also remarked that the Tobatí-Guaraní

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“rejoiced” because of the news.4 De la Torre never toured the mission region himself to observe the natives’ reactions. Thus, he was writing to please other clergymen who welcomed the banishment of their competitors for Indian souls.5 The Tobatí-Guaraní were more prone to leave in greater numbers because only recently they had settled in reductions.With a population of 1,805 in 1769, San Joaquín was founded in 1746. San Estanislao, which had two thousand inhabitants, was founded in 1750 (refer to Map 2). The Tobatí-Guaraní were more sensitive to their own cultural autonomy and identity because they had vivid memories of life before the Jesuits. At the thirty missions of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, by contrast, the Guaraní had lived under Jesuit rule in missions for several generations.The bulk of these people remained in reductions under the guidance of secular administrators and Franciscan, Mercedarian, and Dominican missionaries for the duration of the eighteenth century.6 With the exception of the Guaraní letter from Mission San Luis, the Guaraní appeared to have felt unconcerned about the expulsion, or more likely, they did not fully understand the implications of their departure during that first year (1768). As early as 1769, however, the Guaraní suffered from the effects of the expulsion and expressed their discontent with the changes in royal policies. Many reacted by abandoning the reductions in increasing numbers. As a consequence of epidemic disease and flight, the Guaraní missions experienced further significant losses in the native population during the period from 1770 to 1800 (refer to Figure 5 on the evolution of the mission population). Earlier studies of the Guaraní did not adequately contextualize the lives of the Guaraní that fled the reductions; Guaraní reactions to the expulsion are viewed below within a context of changing church and state relations.

The Context of Church and State Relations Beginning in the 1750s, the Portuguese and Spanish Crowns had attempted to curb the power of the church, their foremost institutional rival. Supported by capable ministers, the Bourbons attacked the few remaining checks on the royal prerogative that they had inherited from the Hapsburgs. By the Concordat of 1753, the King of Spain Fernando VI had obtained from the papacy the right of patronato universal, or appointment of all bishops and certain other higher clerics to all prebends, canons, and benefices with the exception of fifty-two that were reserved for the Pope.7 The decision to expel the Jesuits was the Iberian crowns’ most decisive action in church matters during the eighteenth century.8

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Despite this drastic measure, however, the church continued to function as a highly privileged institution. It had vast financial resources derived from its urban and rural real estate, income from tithes, stipends, and other investments. The Jesuits were primary targets because they were considered ultramontane, meaning that they normally supported the Pope against nationalistic tendencies within the churches in Spain and Portugal.9 The fact that the Jesuits served as confessors to members of royal families, as late as 1754 in Spain and other countries, was another source of resentment.10 Confessors did more than listen to the confessions of sins of the members of royal families. They were a combination of political agents, theologians, priests, advisors, and ecclesiastical administrators.11 The influential Portuguese minister Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (later known as the Marqués de Pombal), in particular, was suspicious of the Jesuits because of their influence over the Portuguese royal family. He barred them from entering the palace and serving the royal family in this capacity. Another major reason for the suppression of the Jesuit order was economic. Pombal believed the church hindered Portugal’s colonial prosperity.12 Pombal, in his relentless campaign against the Jesuits, cited the attempt on the life of King José I on September 3, 1758, as a final pretext to expel them from Portugal and its overseas empire. On April 20, 1759, King José I sent a letter to Pope Clement XIII (1758–69), reiterating various accusations against the Jesuits. He blamed them for the attack on his life.Although the Pope did not want the king to expel the entire order from Portugal, a law of September 3, 1759, declared that they be expelled from the Portugal and its empire.13 Other opponents of the Jesuits authored an anonymous pamphlet entitled Histoire de Nicolás I: Roy du Paraguai et Empereur des Mamelus (History of Nicolás I, King of Paraguay and Emperor of the Mamelucos) (1756) in hopes of discrediting the religious order.14 This work contended that the Society of Jesus had its own army of six thousand men, and a Jesuit ruler, Nicolas I, the “King of Paraguay and Emperor of the Mamelucos,” who on July 27, 1754, was crowned with all the pomp of a royal coronation. Nicolás Ñeengirú II was associated with this particular rumor, rife in Europe, that the Jesuits operated a state within a state in Paraguay. No proof was ever uncovered to substantiate these harmful rumors. However, hearsay derived from the reputation of a Guaraní chief and allegations that the Jesuits had incited the Guaraní to rebel played a vital role in the expulsion of the Jesuits. The direct cause of the Jesuit expulsion was the belief that they had instigated the Hat and Cloak Riots that took place in Madrid on March

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23, 1766. Madrileños rose up on this occasion against the unpopular decree of March 10, 1766, forbidding them the use of long capes and common broad-brimmed hats and prescribing instead the French wig and three-cornered hats. This uprising coincided with poor harvests and excessive food prices, especially for bread, oil, and wine. Charles III, nonetheless, blamed the Jesuits for these violent riots and used the circumstances as a pretext to expel the Jesuits from his territories.15 Scholars may never know his exact motivations because the first part of a report by the committee preparing the expulsion has disappeared from the archives. In Charles III’s own words, the king said that he was “moved by weighty reasons, conscious of his duty to uphold obedience, tranquillity and justice among his people, and [was also acting] for other urgent, just, and compelling causes, which he was locking away in his royal breast.”16 The king of Spain was influenced by events in neighboring countries, especially Portugal, under Pombal’s influence, and France, which had expelled the Society of Jesus in 1764 following a financial scandal involving a Jesuit procurador in the Antilles.17 Charles III issued a decree of expulsion on February 27, 1767, banning the Jesuits from Spain and its overseas territories and confiscating the Order’s movable and immovable property.18 From the outset, secularization had been the intended royal policy in the New World. The crown entrusted regular orders with the evangelization of native peoples with the idea that the members of these orders would eventually be replaced by the secular clergy. Missions were never expected to endure forever.According to a royal order of September 5, 1766, Charles III ordered the bishop of Paraguay to remove the Jesuits from their missions and replace them with secular priests.19 The ecclesiastics in Asunción, however, did not carry out this decree because of a shortage of priests in the province. Missions under the spiritual guidance of regular orders thus endured in more remote regions, such as Paraguay. The crown had issued similar orders in other parts of Spanish America, such as Durango in northern New Spain, as early as the 1740s.20 Missions, however, were only being established for the first time in Alta California, beginning in 1769, and secularization in that region did not begin until after Mexican independence.

The Expulsion of the Jesuits from the Río de la Plata Several days after the signing of the decree of expulsion, the Spanish minister Conde de Aranda declared that “all the missions administered by the Company of Jesus in America and the Philippines would fall under the jurisdiction of a governor appointed by the king who would reside in the

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capital of the missions.”21 His order also stipulated that “it would be beneficial to allow some Spaniards to reside in the missions so as to foment reciprocal commercial relations.”22 Equally important, the decree stated that the new missionaries would only be in charge of the spiritual well-being of the Indians. Newly appointed criollo administrators were responsible for the temporal affairs of the missions.While the expulsion of the Jesuits had a chilling effect on the church and Latin America’s social, cultural, and economic life; for the Guaraní, the departure of the Jesuits initiated a period of uncertainty and instability in the missions.23 In 1767, Conde de Aranda entrusted the execution of Charles III’s order of expulsion in the Rio de la Plata to the governor in Buenos Aires, Francisco de Paula Bucareli y Ursúa. An entire year lapsed before the Spanish governor and his troops acted against the Jesuits. Bucareli had to develop a careful plan of action to expel the Jesuits while at the same time avoiding another native rebellion. He could not simply order the removal of the Jesuits without taking into account that the Guaraní had waged a major rebellion more than a decade earlier. In September 1767, in anticipation of the impending arrests, Bucareli ordered the Jesuit superior of the missions to send a Guaraní chief and corregidor from each of the thirty missions in the region of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers to meet with him in Buenos Aires. The colonial governor had several reasons for issuing this order. First, he wanted to know if the Jesuit superior obeyed him. Then, he wanted to see how the native people would react to this measure, as well as “to free them from slavery and the ignorance in which they live.”24 More importantly, if necessary, he wanted to take the native elites as his hostages when the time arrived when he had to arrest the Jesuits and establish a new system of administration in the missions.25 Bucareli, moreover, used the opportunity to bribe the Guaraní chiefs and corregidores. In November 1767, after the Guaraní caciques representing the thirty missions had arrived in Buenos Aires, Bucareli wined and dined them and had them dressed in fine Spanish clothing. He treated them like Spanish nobles or men of great distinction to ensure their cooperation and to avoid a possible uprising. The bishop of Buenos Aires sang a Mass for these Guaraní in the main cathedral. On November 4, 1767, following the service, the principal religious, military, and civil authorities in the province attended a special dinner held in the Guaraní chiefs’ honor at the fort of Buenos Aires. In spite of this display of gifts and goodwill, however, Bucareli thought that he had failed to win their confidence and friendship. The Jesuits, he contended, had instructed the Guaraní not to believe anything he might tell them.26 To the contrary, according to a letter of March 10, 1768, in the Guaraní language from the sixty corregidores and caciques to

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King Charles III, these men expressed gratitude toward Bucareli and shared his views (see Appendix 4). Had the Jesuits instructed them not to say much about conditions at the missions, it is certainly not apparent in this text. The chiefs and corregidores in fact complained that they were obliged to perform hard labor under the Jesuits.They thanked the crown for offering to send new priests and stated that they were pleased that the governor was planning to “put an end to our misery and life as slaves.”27 The tone of the letter was conciliatory. The native elites accommodated themselves to the expectations of the Spaniards by expressing a willingness to learn Spanish and the Catholic religion, as well as their happiness with their new European clothing.Above all, the chiefs and councilmen looked forward to having one of their children enter the Catholic priesthood. A Guaraní Catholic priest may have signified that they could regain more of their autonomy. Guaraní cabildantes at Mission San Luis, by contrast, had claimed in a separate letter of February 28, 1768, that “we are not slaves.”28 It is highly unlikely that those temporarily visiting Buenos Aires knew the contents of this letter. One way to interpret this contradictory evidence is that the caciques and cabildantes in Buenos Aires had been under the influence of Bucareli for several months and were writing to please the governor, the king, and his ministers. At Mission San Luis, however, the members of the cabildo were influenced by the Jesuits and may have been the priests’ most devoted followers. Bucareli also visited Nicolás Ñeengirú at Mission Santísima Trinidad and treated him in the same fashion as he did other leaders from the missions. On September 16, 1768, he presented him gifts of fine Spanish clothing and brought him and his family to Buenos Aires to forestall resistance.29 By concentrating on the native elites to obtain their approval, the Spanish governor appears to have been successful in retaining the loyalty of the principal Guaraní caciques and cabildantes. More importantly, however, the Guaraní did not rebel simply because the decree to expel the Jesuits did not directly affect the Indians’ subsistence. Only fifteen years earlier, the Guaraní also had experienced a serious military defeat at Caaíbaté.30 Several Guaraní were preoccupied with the everyday affairs of their missions in that first year following the expulsion.At Mission San Miguel, lieutenant corregidor Don Valentín Ybariguá asked Governor Bucareli to send more horses so that the Guaraní ranch hands could round up the cattle.31 Others pursued their self-interests and tried to take advantage of the change in administration. In September 1768, Don Chrysanto Tayuaré, for example, asked Bucareli’s permission to visit Buenos Aires and to be

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named the new corregidor of his mission.32 One text suggests that some Guaraní experienced an easy transition to life under new missionaries. In August 1768, the lieutenant corregidor of San Miguel, Don Valentín Ybariguá, welcomed the new priests in a brief note to Francisco Bruno de Zavala, a Spanish official under the command of Bucareli. Ybariguá explained that “with the help of the priest, they [the residents of San Miguel] are happy,” implying that they had good jobs and enjoyed a good lifestyle. Another cacique, Don Christobal Arirá of Mission Itapuá, wrote a letter of introduction on behalf of himself and his family, most likely with the hope of being named corregidor or to another position in the cabildo.33 Their behavior was not unusual.Whenever a new priest arrived at a mission, some Guaraní welcomed the opportunity to become his loyal followers. These individuals knew where power lay and what the crown wanted. Accordingly, the cabildantes and caciques expressed certain attitudes and displayed particular behaviors, such as gift giving, which were accommodating to the Spanish. Sebastián Joseph Oguendá, the corregidor of Mission Corpus Christi, cooperated with the missionaries in incorporating the Guayanas, a Gé-speaking people, into their mission, according to his letter to Bucareli in 1768.34 Oguendá thanked God and King Charles III for bringing them these people “who happily left the forest to be baptized” and for the priest who found them in “the land which protected them as a nation near the great water,” referring to the Iguazú waterfalls.35 Don Chrysanto Tayuaré claimed he taught the Spanish language to many young native women and offered to say a rosary for the governor.36 Several Guaraní caciques also wrote letters to demonstrate their loyalty. Chief Juan Antonio Curiguá, for example, thanked the Spanish “for giving us this humble land where our houses stand” on behalf of the “poor men, women, and children” in the mission.37 By “poor” (poriahú) in the Guaraní language, the chief was not referring to the poverty of his people but “poor” in the sense of humbleness, submission, or bowing down to someone who was superior. Curiguá perceived mission land not as something the native people always had owned since before the arrival of the first Europeans, but as property granted to them by the Spaniards, which they recognized had belonged to the king of Spain. As expressed in this letter, the Guaraní came to accept European ideas and attitudes toward land and private property by the late eighteenth century.The Guaraní, in addition, provided the Guayanas with gifts of land and calves within the boundaries of their own mission territory, as well as constructed a road so the Guayanas could visit the mission.38 Gift giving was another strategy of accommodation employed by the Guaraní. Benito Fañuira, a Guaraní from

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Mission Yapeyú, sent the governor in Buenos Aires twenty loaves of bread (mbuyape) as a present. According to a Spanish official, Pedro Chaguari, Ignacio Guaiuri, Cornelio Yaicha, and Luis Ariapa also traveled by boat to Buenos Aires from Yapeyú to present the governor with exotic birds.39 Argentine anthropologist Guillermo Wilde notes that these practices of gift giving suggest that reciprocal relationships were still important to the Guaraní.Thus, there was more Guaraní cultural continuity, rather than disruptions, at the time of the Jesuit expulsion.40 With the possible hostages (the principal chiefs and corregidores) under his authority in Buenos Aires, Bucareli apprehended all the Jesuits, first those in the colegios in Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Santa Fe, Corrientes, and Asunción, and then the ones in the missions.41 On May 24, 1768, he set off on the expedition, accompanied by three companies of cavalrymen, sixty grenadiers, and two hundred militia soldiers from Corrientes, as well as missionaries from the Dominican, Franciscan, and Mercedarian orders.42 It took the governor and his officials less than four months to take captive all the Jesuits in the Río de la Plata. At each mission, Spanish authorities conducted the expulsion in an orderly manner. Usually at night, a single soldier knocked on the doors of the priests’ living quarters, requesting to say his confession.When the missionaries opened the door, armed troops entered their quarters along with Spanish authorities, either the colonial governor, military officers, or a judge. The soldiers then gathered the Jesuits into a large room where the judge read them Charles III’s decree of expulsion. The soldiers took away their keys to their offices, quarters, warehouses, and the church.43 To prevent the Jesuits from destroying alleged incriminating evidence, Spanish authorities prevented the missionaries from packing their personal belongings. Despite their fears, Bucareli and his men only found catechisms, Bibles, and the usual personal belongings of the Jesuits. In November 1767, at Mission Yapeyú, however, some of the Jesuits burned their writings, apparently after hearing the news of their expulsion. Cacique Don Chrysanto Tayuaré notified Bucareli that a Jesuit had ordered an elderly man, Ignacio Javier Taorí, to hide five books under his poncho and take them to the kitchen, where a Jesuit threw them into a fire, making sure that all the pages had burned. In July 1768, Spanish authorities investigated this book burning.44 It is not difficult to understand the motivation of this cacique Don Chrysanto Tayuaré.A cacique of Yapeyú but not a cabildante, he may have thought he had more to gain by denouncing the missionaries who were soon leaving the missions anyway. A few Guaraní, especially those who were chiefs and not members of the cabildo, wanted to exercise more political power. However, none of the

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mission Indians who witnessed the book burning ever testified against the Jesuits. Of course, it is extremely doubtful that they would have known anything about the Jesuits’ private writings. Since the missionaries had burned their journals, Spanish authorities did not have enough evidence to charge the Jesuits with subversion.45 From the missions, the Jesuits traveled by wagon or in boats along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers to Buenos Aires, where they were kept isolated from all outsiders and under armed guard for three weeks at a monastery before being shipped across the Atlantic to the port of Cádiz in Spain. One elderly Jesuit, however, remained at Mission Apóstoles because he suffered from poor health.The novices also could choose either to join other religious orders or leave with the other exiles.46 It is unclear whether any novices remained, but most of the exiled Jesuits eventually settled in the papal states in Italy.

Guaraní Flight Judging native responses to the expulsion of the Jesuit by their feet, which may be more important than their words, several thousand Guaraní in the thirty missions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers abandoned the reductions. Ann Wightman stresses the importance of migration as a form of native resistance in her excellent study, Indigenous Migration and Social Change:The Forasteros of Cuzco, 1570–1720 (1990). She observes that most studies on indigenous migration tend to view Indian flight mainly as a result of other developments within colonial history. She treats Indian migration as both a consequence and cause of historical change. In other words,Wightman views migrants as historical actors who played an active role in the transformation of indigenous society under Spanish colonialism.47 Wightman’s approach is useful for understanding the significance of Guaraní flight from the missions. Guaraní flight appears to have been a consequence of the reorganization of the missions, as well as one of the main causes of their eventual decline. The historiography on Guaraní migration is thin. In an article,Argentine historian José M. Mariluz Urquijo has already demonstrated that following the expulsion, the vast majority of the Guaraní fugitives did not return to the forest but rather left to work in towns and ranches of the Río de la Plata and Brazil.48 Anthropologist Branislava Susnik notes in her study of thirteen missions following the expulsion that 55 percent of the fugitives were males and 45 percent were females.49 More recent research by Argentine scholars Ernesto J. A. Maeder and Alfredo Bolsi, by contrast, shows that mortality played a more significant role than migration in the

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decrease in the mission population during the late eighteenth century.50 In nearly every census that contains data on Indian deaths and fugitives, the number of deaths was higher than the number of individuals who fled from the missions. There were exceptions. At Missions San Luis and San Miguel, for example, far greater numbers of Guaraní fled from these missions than died in certain years, such as 1798.51 Immediately following the expulsion, during the four-year period 1768 to 1772, there was a substantial rise in migration to towns and the countryside in the Río de la Plata and southern Brazil. At the eve of the expulsion, the thirty missions of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers had 88,864 inhabitants.52 By 1772, this total figure had declined to 80,956.53 This figure represented a serious and continuing decline of nearly eight thousand mission Indians. Of course, the missions always had been subject to wide population fluctuations.Their departure, however, did not necessarily mean that the Guaraní never returned to the missions. On the contrary, many returned several months later after traveling to Buenos Aires to sell their surplus produce and goods. There they remained for several months on the outskirts of the city, working as peons, artisans, and domestic servants, especially near the port of Las Conchas where the mission ships arrived. These travelers usually took as long as six or seven months before returning to their towns.54 As evidenced in the single letter of Diego Guacuyú, a native from Yapeyú, to the Spanish governor in Buenos Aires, the Guaraní appeared to have been attracted by better economic opportunities elsewhere and freedom from providing compulsory labor in their communities. Diego Guacuyú asked Governor Bucareli for permission “to go anywhere I want to.”55 He explained that he “would like to go to a place where I could work and be paid for the work I do so that all my earnings do not go just to the community.”56 Guacuyú also expressed concern over the rapid economic decline of Mission Yapeyú. He noted that “there are five persons who guard the warehouse but there is not much inside them.There was a small distribution of goods among the Indians, but many poor Indians did not receive anything . . . but they did not complain.”57 Diego Guacuyú was a bit of a character because, unlike other literate Guaraní, he apologized to the governor for “giving him such a headache.” His letter suggests that during the late eighteenth century, as the Guaraní were coming more and more into contact with Spanish colonial society, some adopted more of a European attitude toward labor. By contrast, the caciques and members of the cabildo of San Luis stated that they did not like “the Spanish custom of each one working for him-

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self, instead of helping one another in their everyday jobs.”58 These contradicting statements may be interpreted by concluding that the Guaraní experienced a conflict of values during the late eighteenth century, as a consequence of their contact with Spanish colonial society. By requesting the governor to leave the missions, Diego Guacuyú’s letter also indicates a loss of personal initiative on his part. The vast majority of the Guaraní who fled the missions never requested permission to leave. They simply left even though it was illegal, although some returned later. Spanish troops also captured and returned several Indians to the missions.59 In 1769, Spanish officials in Buenos Aires ordered that the Guaraní fugitives be returned to the missions and required that they be paid 6 silver pesos per month for the services they thus far had rendered. Later, Spanish officials published notices in various towns, offering the fugitive men and women amnesty for six to eight months for having left the missions or for having committed any crimes that may have impelled them to leave and not return to their homes. Given the continuing decline in the mission population during the late eighteenth century, these measures proved to be ineffective. By 1801, the total population of the thirty missions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers had declined dramatically to 45,639, which represents a loss of 35,317 or 43.62 percent in comparison to the 1772 population figure of 80,956.60 Of course, there were regional variations. The mission population in the department of Candelaria rose close to 50 percent in a single year from 13,390 in 1779 to 19,580 in 1780.61 At the Mission La Cruz in the southern region the population remained relatively stable during the last three decades of the eighteenth century. In 1801 it had 3,238 inhabitants. At other missions, in contrast, the native population had seriously declined. On the eve of the expulsion, Mission Jesús, for example, which is located north of the Paraná River, had 2,999 inhabitants.62 By 1801, only 1,036 Guaraní resided there, the mission having lost nearly twothirds of its population. San Ignacio Guazú, the first reduction founded by the Jesuits, similarly lost more than half of its population by 1801; in that year it had a total population of 712. Guaraní from San Ignacio Guazú apparently were more inclined to abandon their town due to growing encroachments by settlers. Governor Lázaro de Rivera y Espinosa’s census of the Province of Paraguay in 1799 reveals a growing Spanish, mestizo, and black presence in several missions closest to Asunción. At San Ignacio Guazú, for instance, approximately 25 percent of the population was nonindigenous in 1799. At Santa María Nuestra Señora de la Fe 13 percent was non-Indian, and at the missions of Santiago, Santa Rosa, and San

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Cosme and Damián nearly 5 percent.63 The presence of Spaniards, mestizos, and blacks in these missions suggests that these ethnic groups were occupying indigenous lands and that miscegenation was on the rise.64 The population pyramid for Mission La Cruz in 1801 further suggests that there was a tendency for adult males, especially between the ages twenty and thirty-five, to abandon the reductions.65 In that year, there were 52 males and 109 females between the ages of twenty and twentyfour in the town. Among those who were between the ages twenty-five and twenty-nine, there were 103 males and 185 females. Finally, among those between the ages thirty and thirty-four, there were 116 males and 150 females.66 Since cattle ranching was a primary economic activity of the southern mission region, perhaps these male fugitives abandoned their town temporarily to work as ranch hands for the Spaniards. According to the census of 1801, of the 725 fugitives that fled from Mission Jesús north of the Paraná River, 479 or 66 percent were males.67 Eleven fugitives were caciques or their wives, representing a relatively high incidence of flight among native elites, given that there were twenty-six cacicazgos. It suggests that this institution was weakening at the end of the colonial era.As in the time of the Jesuits, caciques left the reductions even though they had special privileges. Among the fugitives were twelve widows and seventy-four widowers.Widowers comprised nearly 10 percent of the entire fugitive population, which illuminates why there were always more widows than widowers in the reductions. Nearly all the 244 females either had fled with their spouses or were female children who accompanied their parents. In a few instances, Guaraní women had abandoned their spouses or were single women accompanied by other relatives. The average age of the fugitive population was 36.7. The migration patterns from Mission San Ignacio Guazú were slightly distinctive in that for certain age groupings there were more males than females, according to its population pyramid.68 Among its residents between the ages twenty and twenty-four, there were forty-three males and thirty-five females; among those between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine there were thirty-four males and eighteen females; and sixteen males and twenty-nine females between the ages thirty and thirtyfour. The 1801 census of San Ignacio Guazú indicated that there were fourteen fugitives in that single year. Their average age was twenty-nine. The number of widows appeared greater than the number of widowers. At San Ignacio Guazú, for example, there were forty widows and ten widowers. Migration, again, appears to have been a determining factor in explaining why there were always more widows than widowers in the reductions.69

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Epidemics of influenza and measles may have motivated many Guaraní to flee. In 1778, at Mission Santa María de Fe, for example, more than 603 Guaraní of both sexes and of all ages died. In the years 1786–87, many indigenous people at the missions of Apóstoles, San José, Santo Tomé, La Cruz, and Yapeyú also died from a widespread epidemic that first affected the Charrúa native population in the province and then later spread among the Guaraní. At Mission Apóstoles, an epidemic of measles (la Mancha) took 81 lives, although 183 people recovered.Those that survived had developed an immunity to this disease. In 1797, some Guaraní, especially children, received inoculations for measles or smallpox. Miguel de Ubeda, a Spanish physician, inoculated sixty-three patients at Santa Rosa. All the patients briefly came down with a fever and other symptoms of a disease, but then fully recovered. Ubeda did not describe in detail the cowpox type of inoculation he used to build up the Indians’ immune systems.70 Evidently he exposed the native people to someone who was ill. These inoculations, however, did result in some Guaraní deaths at other missions. A physician noted that even though these treatments were usually quite beneficial and that he used the same procedures as were being used in Europe, a Guaraní girl died at the mission of San Miguel following her inoculation.71 Of 126 mission Indians who were inoculated at Yapeyú, 15 also died as a result of being exposed to a virus intentionally.72 Although fear of the spread of epidemics may have been a motive for abandoning the reductions, many Guaraní also fled temporarily in response to Chaco Indian raids, particularly at the missions south of the Tebicuary River. Due to the fragmented historical record, it is extremely difficult to estimate the numbers of Guaraní who decided to reside permanently in Spanish towns, in newly founded villages in more remote areas of the Río de la Plata, or those who joined neighboring tribes. Guaraní fugitives may have also wanted to be free-wage laborers.73 The growth of the littoral of the Río de la Plata in the late eighteenth century, due to the decree of free trade of 1778, which authorized direct trade between Buenos Aires and select Spanish ports and permitted intercolonial trade, appears to have created some new opportunities for the Guaraní that were not available in earlier decades. Bourbon commercial reform resulted in increased economic activity in the region, especially the rise in the export of hides to Europe, although there were periods of ups and downs, and regional differentiation in the Río de la Plata.74 At the same time, the Guaraní appear to have abandoned the missions primarily due to the economic decline of their own towns. Cattle censuses for the missions reflect a sudden decline in the early 1770s and only a slight recovery in the early 1780s.75 In 1772, primarily as a result of cattle

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rustling by other Guaraní, Spaniards, and Portuguese, there were only 342,481 head of cattle in the thirty missions, representing a dramatic decline from the 698,353 head of beef cattle in the thirty towns at the time of the expulsion.76 By 1783, this figure had risen to 573,420 in only twenty-three missions, and may have totaled as many as 600,000 in all the Indian towns.77 This sector of the mission economies never fully recovered during the post-Jesuit period. Yerba maté production, however, nearly tripled during this period. Unlike in the times of the Jesuits, there were no restrictions on mission exports of yerba maté to Buenos Aires and other Spanish towns. Between the years 1781 and 1789, the missions sent an annual average of 30,000 arrobas (760,500 pounds) to Buenos Aires. The yerba maté, however, was inferior in quality, since most shipments were comprised of yerba de palos, rather than caáminí. The administrators apparently failed to have the Guaraní plant new seedlings of yerba maté, so that by the beginning of the 1790s, yerba maté fields became somewhat depleted.78 Throughout the region of the Upper Río de la Plata, yerba maté production expanded dramatically. Bourbon commercial reforms served as a catalyst in stimulating growth in this sector of the regional economy.79 Indian flight, in addition, was a means to escape social constraints in the missions. Several caciques from Mission Candelaria, for example, regularly abandoned their town because they were punished for being thieves and revoltosos (troublemakers). Spanish officials suspended Vizente Tiribe, the lieutenant corregidor of Apóstoles, from his job because he was at Candelaria along with other Guaraní for more than six months and neglected his duties. Many other indigenous people left their towns and went to other missions, which, according to Spanish officials, caused notable harm to the mission economies because these men and women no longer worked in the communal fields or on their own private plots of land.80 Most Guaraní fugitives appear to have left the missions to work as peons in the Spanish countryside. Guaraní peons, or conchavados (hired hands), usually received a monthly salary of 6 pesos. Ysidro Caseres of Santa María La Mayor, for example, worked on an estancia (ranch) outside Buenos Aires near Luján. Some were carpenters. Three single Guaraní males, Lorenzo, Tadeo, and Esteban, from Mission San Borja lived in the household of a Doña Sebastiana Delgado in Buenos Aires along with one of the Spanish administrators from the missions, Don Francisco Antonio Cavallero.81 Several entered military service in the Province of Buenos Aires. Bernardo Paraguallo of Mission Corpus Christi, for example, worked on the frontier as a blandengue (a member of a cavalry). Often in the company of other Amerindians, a number of Guaraní worked in

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brickmaking, public works projects in the city, and on small plots of land as a means of earning a living, avoiding tribute payment, and being arrested and returned to the missions.82 Nevertheless, several Guaraní fugitives, such as Miguel Cayut, Miguel Cuaraichu,Ygnacio Antonio Antunez, Francisco Xavier González, Presidario Santiago Yacuri Pasquala Arachiyu, and María Rosa Arichu, were apprehended and returned to their towns. Most migrants, however, eluded authorities because they preferred to work off the missions as free-wage laborers. The impetus to have the Guaraní fugitives returned to the missions did not originate with Spanish officials in every instance. In 1798,Ana María Martínez, a Guaraní woman from Mission Loreto, for example, solicited the return of her husband, Miguel Cavañas, who was in Montevideo.83 Not all the Spanish in the Río de la Plata were pleased with the policy of returning the Guaraní to the missions because they desired to exploit their labor. Tomás Estrada, a Spanish official at Colonia del Sacramento, explained in a letter to the viceroy in Buenos Aires, Don Nicolás de Arredondo, that the Guaraní from the missions “were very practical people.”84 He observed that many individuals would have to leave his jurisdiction, which would cause notable harm to Spanish interests. In response to the viceroy’s decree of March 16, 1790, to round up and return the Guaraní to their missions,Vicente Ximénez, the alcalde of the village of Concepción del Uruguay in Entre Ríos, complained that “there are no other peons in the area, other than the Indians.”85 Ximénez remarked that “the quality of these people [referring to Guaraní] is well known.”86 The Guaraní, particularly males, greatly outnumbered the Spaniards in Concepción del Uruguay by a ratio of more than three to one. There were approximately 309 Guaraní, including 68 women, and only 100 criollos in this village.87 The Spanish Crown employed nearly one hundred Guaraní from the missions of Corpus, Trinidad, and Ytapuá to cut firewood along the coastal areas of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers and to transport it by boat to the port of Las Conchas west of Buenos Aires. Firewood was in great demand in Buenos Aires because the colonial city was situated in the pampas and not surrounded by any wooded areas.88 Many of these Guaraní who worked in the firewood industry of Buenos Aires were fugitives from the missions.They received monthly wages, as well as rations of beef, yerba maté, tobacco, salt, candles, and soap.Those Guaraní who chopped wood received only 30 reales per month. Those who worked as boatmen and transported wood along the river received 4 pesos. Guaraní riverboat captains received 7½ pesos. While working in Buenos Aires, Guaraní from the missions often encountered other Guaraní from the reductions. After

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working for the crown for nearly six months at a time, the Guaraní returned home from the port of Las Conchas on ships belonging to various missions.89 Several Guaraní artisans, musicians, and their families settled in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, where they continued to practice their skills. A Guaraní musician from San Carlos, Cristóbal Pirioby (1764–94), taught music to several members of the porteño élite. Once arriving in Buenos Aires, Pirioby changed his Guaraní name to José Antonio Ortiz, perhaps to gain greater acceptance by the members of the colonial elite. He was among the few exceptional Guaraní, along with Pasqual Areguaty and his sons, who learned Spanish.90 Although the details of his life story are rather thin, they are, nevertheless, revealing in that they show that some Guaraní fugitives apparently lost a sense of their native identity or underwent a more thorough process of Hispanization, once they abandoned their family members at the missions to settle in Spanish cities. Had he not been a talented musician and teacher, it is doubtful that Pirioby would have found acceptance by some of the members of the porteño elite. Guaraní female migrants worked as seamstresses, cooks, bakers, laundresses, and domestic servants.91 A few appear in the censuses of Buenos Aires and its hinterland in 1778, 1779, and 1794. Ignacia Vri and her daughter of Mission San José were among those who resided in the city.92 Although the historical record is fragmented, the available data on Guaraní migrant women suggests that a number of them led rather humble lives in Buenos Aires.Teodora (no last name cited), for example, was a widow who owned only one skirt and apparently little else of value at the time of her death. One of Teodora’s friends, however, Rosa Boyri, was employed as a baker.Teodora died a violent death. She was stabbed with a kitchen knife in a room she rented in a house. Authorities suspected that she had been killed by another Guaraní migrant, a peon and widower, Juan Felix Tapary, after she refused to marry him. Although suspected of the crime, Tapary denied any knowledge of Teodora’s death and was released.93 In another criminal case, a woman from Mission San José had left her husband and met a mulatto whom she told authorities was her husband after she was apprehended at the port of Las Conchas, near Buenos Aires. Intendant Francisco de Paula Sanz sent her back to Mission San José in a boat in chains to prevent her from escaping along the way.94 In a separate case tried in Buenos Aires in 1802, the two children of a female Guaraní fugitive named Jacinta Maniga were returned to Mission San Ignacio Guazú even though their father was a “noble” Spaniard and their mother had abandoned them. The children were sent back to reside in the place of birth of their mother because she never was legally married to the

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Spaniard. The social status of the mestizo children was not derived from the father but the mother who was an “Indian.”95 At the time judicial authorities were trying this case, the two children were working in the service of the local parish priest at San Ignacio Guazú, Father Pedro Blas de Noseda. Spanish authorities determined that the priest could no longer employ these children, along with numerous others in that community, without properly compensating them for their services.96 Several other Guaraní migrants formed part of the poor and mendicant population in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Juan Joseph Ayaca, for example, was a blind native from Mission Santa Rosa who was arrested in 1786 for begging in Buenos Aires. Although he had been born in Santa Rosa, he grew up on a ranch in Quindy in Paraguay. He then spent several years in Corrientes before arriving in Buenos Aires. Ayaca supported himself there by begging in the streets. Spanish administrators in the missions were reluctant to pay for his food, clothing, or return trip to Santa Rosa because Ayaca had been absent from the mission since he was a child and “was useless” because of his disability.97 Another impoverished Guaraní, María Basilia Ocariyu, was a widow from Mission San Borja, whom Spanish authorities described as a “pobre miserable” (an impoverished person).98 She supported herself and her seven-year-old son in Barrio de la Residencia (present-day San Telmo) by doing odd jobs and possibly by begging. Ocariyu pleaded with authorities not to send her back to the missions. She explained that she was having her son educated so that with time she could support herself through more “honest means.”99 Ocariyu and Acaya are two examples of uprooted indigent people from the reductions. Their lives were not unique for the period in colonial Spanish American cities. Guaraní migrants also formed part of the underclass in Las Víboras, near the town of Colônia do Sacramento in Uruguay. According to the burial records from the period, out of a total of twenty-six burials of Guaraní in the cemetery of the parish of Nuestra Señora de Remedios, Las Víboras, during the years 1775–90, seventeen (65 percent) were charitable burials, which were those burials provided by the priests for the poor. Some of the deceased may not have had relatives in the area or their families were too impoverished to pay for their church burials. A priest described one Guaraní, who had died far from the parish after having wandered throughout the countryside, as “utterly poor.”100 Although Las Víboras was a multiethnic community, the Guaraní did not marry outside their own ethnic group based on the parental data in the baptismal records for this parish during the years 1772–89. According to these church records, the Guaraní adopted the Hispanic institution of compadrazgo (godparenthood) in colonial Spanish and Portuguese towns.

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Their godparenthood ties are an indication of the groups they socialized with away from the missions. Bentura Amarillo and María Ignacia Balenzuela, for example, were naturales (Indians) from the missions who became the godparents of a child born in Las Víboras in 1781. In one instance, a negro slave, Juan Narbona, became the godparent of a Guaraní infant, Mariano Josef de los Remedios, whose parents had migrated to Uruguay from Mission Santa Ana. Individuals of higher social status, Spanish colonists Don Pedro Arroyo and Mercedes Flores Rodríguez, who formerly resided in Buenos Aires, also served as godparents to a Guaraní infant in 1783. These examples demonstrate that some of the migrants’ social linkages were altered as the Guaraní became incorporated into colonial society.101 Unknown numbers of Guaraní migrated from the missions to the central region of Paraguay north of Tebicuary River in the area of Asunción. Only one infant, Juana Guayaquí, the daughter of mission Indians from Santa Rosa, however, appears in the baptismal records of the main cathedral in Asunción.102 The absence of Guaraní from the missions in the baptismal records is difficult to interpret. It does not signify that they were not present in the colonial city or that they did not have their children baptized. Many parents may have had their children baptized in their own mission towns rather than in Asunción.Yet, it suggests that Guaraní migration took place primarily in a southward direction and to Brazil. Most Guaraní who migrated to Brazil settled in the towns of São Nicolau in Rio Pardo,Villa de São Pedro,Triunfo, and Nossa Senhora dos Anjos along the fertile banks of the Gravataí River in Río Grande do Sul. At Gravataí, a Portuguese administrator was responsible for organizing all the Indian laborers. Franciscan priests looked after their spiritual needs until 1780, when secular priests replaced the mendicants.The Guaraní in Brazilian towns received rations of beef and served in the militias. Several Guaraní from dos Anjos were employed as boatmen and as manufacturers of bricks, tiles, and dishes using a kiln constructed in the town.They also constructed and worked in a mill for the grinding of cereals and manioc flour ( farinha de mandioca). The majority of males, however, worked as peons or temporary workers on ranches in Rio Grande do Sul. The type of labor done by Guaraní women is unclear, but many probably worked as domestic servants.103 There was a greater tendency for the Guaraní from the missions to marry outside their ethnic group in southern Brazil than in the area of the Río de la Plata during the late eighteenth century. According to the marriage records at the Igreza Matriz de Senhor Bon Jesus do Triunfo, 1758– 1815, only six out of a total of twenty-one marriages were celebrated

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among Guaraní couples. The total number of marriages was reduced because there was only a small Guaraní presence in this parish. The remaining fifteen marriages were celebrated between Guaraní and members of different ethnic and racial groups. In contrast to Triunfo, Nossa Senhora dos Anjos in Gravataí had a large number of Guaraní migrants from the missions. In the 1770s, there were more than 2,600 Guaraní in this town. Beginning in the 1780s, however, the Guaraní population declined to 1,362 due primarily to outward migration.The native people sought better opportunities elsewhere as wage laborers and peons. Those who remained to work on communal and individual plots of land only received rations of beef and never any monetary compensation for their labor.104 Baptismal records from the parish of Nossa Senhora dos Anjos during the ten-year period 1784 to 1794 suggests that illegitimacy rates were low among the Guaraní in Rio Grande do Sul. Of the 402 Guaraní children baptized, 355 were filho o filha natural (legitimate sons or daughters) and only 47 (approximately 11 percent) were illegitimate. These illegitimate children were the offspring of single mothers, widows, or, in a few exceptional cases, of married Guaraní women whose husbands had been absent from the village for a lengthy period of time. The high legitimacy rate (approximately 89 percent) among the Guaraní in dos Anjos suggests that most Guaraní married in the church rather than formed free unions. Many may have married in the missions before migrating to Brazil following the Guaraní War. Once in Rio Grande do Sul, however, they evidently continued to observe the Catholic ritual of baptism. These baptismal records often indicate the names of the original missions from which the parents of the children who were baptized had been born. Nearly all of the parents were from the seven missions closest to Brazil: Santo Angelo, San Miguel, San Nicolás, San Juan Bautista, San Borja, San Luis, and San Lorenzo. The identities of godparents of the newly baptized Indians tell us something about social relationships in the Brazilian community. There were a few instances in which black slaves served as padrinhos (godparents) in dos Anjos. For example, Francisco (no last name), slave of Captain José Carneiro, was the godfather to María, whose parents were from the mission of San Borja. In another case, Apollinario, a slave, and María (no last names cited) were the godparents of Antonio, a Guaraní infant who was baptized on February 19, 1790, as the son of Ygnacio Antonio and Luzia María, Guaraní from Mission San Luis.105 The Guaraní thus socialized with other nonelites and those of a different caste in Portuguese colonial towns, as evidenced in their selections of godparents for their children.

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There was a tendency for some Guaraní migrants, especially males, in the Spanish and Portuguese towns to adopt Hispanicized last names. At the village of dos Anjos, for example, marriage records indicate that Guaraní males were inclined to adopt Portuguese last names and drop the indigenous names of their fathers. Guaraní women, by contrast, maintained their indigenous last names. For example, Xavier dos Santos (a common Portuguese last name) was said to be the son of Pedro Ayegua and Secilia Yrahi (Guaraní surnames). His wife,Antonia Yaguarete, was the daughter of Aniceto Guaracay and Martina Yaguarete. Eugenhio Marques was the son of Thomas Parave and the late Izabel María (no last name cited, most likely because it was an indigenous one). Miguel Soares was the son of Gregorio Tarayú and Salome Abjaisu, and married Eufrazia Cunhagatú. Men most likely adopted Portuguese last names to a greater extent than women because they often were employed away from their village and thus had more contact with Brazilian settlers from whom they learned some Portuguese words. During baptism, each Guaraní in the missions had received a Hispanic Christian name, which probably was chosen by the priest.106 Some of the Guaraní migrants in colonial towns most likely adopted the Hispanic surnames of those Spaniards and Portuguese who served as baptismal sponsors. Haskett notes that, in Cuernavaca, members of the Indian nobility often took the surnames of prominent Spaniards.107 It is difficult to assess the significance of the changes in the Guaraní naming patterns. Possibly, they meant that the Guaraní felt a sense of cultural inferiority and sought to eliminate any obvious signs of their “Indianness.” Unlike what occurred in Mexico, there appears to be no evidence of Guaraní with Hispanic last names who added a second indigenous surname just before the coming of independence.108 Along with the impact of disease, Guaraní migration was both a cause and consequence of the decline of the former Jesuit reductions in the Río de la Plata. Guaraní flight had been apparent in the time of the Jesuits but accelerated dramatically following the expulsion. Rather than openly challenge Spanish rule, however, in response to the expulsion, the Guaraní chose strategies of accommodation and nonconfrontational forms of resistance, especially massive flight. Desertion was less risky than other forms of native resistance. Although the Guaraní were motivated by both internal and external factors, including epidemics, Chaco Indian raids, labor obligations, and new economic opportunities elsewhere, their migration patterns partly reflect the growing discontent among the native leadership and commoners with the state of the missions at end of the colonial period.

Chapter

Our Warehouses Are Empty: Guaraní Responses to the Reorganization of the Missions

6

Following the Jesuit expulsion, Spain abruptly altered the political organization of the missions in the Río de la Plata. Spanish bureaucrats devised new plans for their governance.These administrative plans, however, never achieved their desired results. By the end of the eighteenth century, the massive exodus of the Guaraní, along with periodic incursions by the Spanish and Portuguese into mission territory and administrative incompetence and corruption, ultimately led to a decline of the former Jesuit missions.1 Yet, the economic history of the missions during the post-Jesuit period was not simply one of deterioration.As a result of the Edict of Free Trade of 1778, there were some periods of economic recovery followed by decline. This was particularly noticeable in the 1780s at Mission Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, whose economy was based almost entirely on cattle raising and the exportation of hides.2 Nevertheless, by the end of the century, the conditions of the Guaraní and the missions had indeed worsened. Jesuit scholar Philip Caraman in his The Lost Paradise gives the impression that the ultimate reason for the missions’ decline was the expulsion of the Jesuits.3 Another Jesuit historian, Guillermo Furlong, however, more carefully points out that the missions continued to exist long after their departure but entered a state of decline.4 In most of the current historiography, scholars tend to blame the new Spanish administrators, most of who were criollos, for the deterioration of the missions. John Lynch, for example, contends that the administrators often benefited personally from the Indians’ wealth.5 While much scholarly attention has focused on the incompetence of secular administrators, less is known about the native reactions to the reorganization of the missions. An analysis of native texts and Spanish sources reveals that the Guaraní were not merely passive, submissive puppets before the imposition of a

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new form of government.The Guaraní asserted their rights by following a strategy of accommodation and through resistance.6 A study of their accommodation is especially important because often the Guaraní chose to collaborate with Spanish authorities by working within the channels of the colonial system. The existing native cabildo records demonstrate that cabildos made accommodation a desirable response for the majority of the Guaraní, since caciques and sometimes commoners could air their grievances to Spanish authorities. Individual Guaraní, cabildantes, and caciques expressed their discontent with the new system of government by writing petitions, particularly against those who abused power. Many responded through absenteeism from the workshops and labor slowdowns. A few engaged in cattle rustling, homicide, and theft. According to James C. Scott, cattle rustling, murder, and theft can be considered as acts of resistance depending on the intentions of the participants. For example, if peasants sought to advance their own claims to work, land, and respect, then their crimes can be considered as acts of resistance. But these acts could also be just crimes.7 Of course, deciphering human motivation across different cultures and time periods even under the best of circumstances is complex. Attributing motivations to individual Guaraní who often testified under duress using defective and incomplete evidence makes the task even more daunting or nearly impossible with any degree of accuracy. Their criminal acts, nonetheless, demonstrate that the Guaraní were not acquiescent to Spanish rule. Individual Guaraní, caciques, and cabildantes made important decisions about the fate of their own lives and those of their families, and about their communities’ lands and natural resources.

The Political Reorganization of the Missions After the expulsion, the missions depended politically on the government in Buenos Aires, which became the capital of the newly created Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776. In charge of all the missions, a secular official, a governor, at Mission Candelaria had an accountant and a legal assessor, while in Buenos Aires a general administrator oversaw both the administrative and economic life of the communities. In 1773, the Spanish governor of the Province of the Rio de la Plata, Juan José de Vertiz y Salcedo, divided the thirty missions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers into five districts, each with a cabecera (principal town). Santiago became the cabecera of the district in Paraguay, which included missions Santiago, San Cosme and Damian, Santa Rosa, Santa María de Fe, and San Ignacio Guazú. Candelaria became the cabecera for missions Santa Ana, Loreto, San Ignacio Miní, Corpus Christi, Santísima Trinidad, Itapúa, and Jesús.

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Map 9. The Jesuit Missions Divided into Five Departments, 1768–1827 (Courtesy of Alfredo Poenitz)

Concepción became the cabecera for missions Santa María la Mayor, San Francisco Xavier, Santos Mártires, San José,Apóstoles, and San Carlos. San Miguel became the cabecera for missions San Nicolás, San Luis, San Lorenzo, San Juan Bautista, and Santo Angelo. Finally, Santos Reyes de Yapeyú became the cabecera for the reductions of Santo Tomé, La Cruz, and San Borja (see Map 9).As before, Spanish policy in the late eighteenth century sought to maintain an adequate supply of labor for the Spanish and to persuade the Guaraní to settle permanently in reductions so that

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they could be converted to Christianity. Spanish colonial policy worked on the principle that Indians could best be controlled through familiar institutions.The basic Spanish system of native cabildos continued, as did the Guaraníes’ cacicazgos as the primary unit in mission society. Map9Her As during the period of the Jesuits, the members of the cabildos held many responsibilities within their communities.The corregidor assisted by his lieutenant, the two alcaldes, four regidores, the mayordomo, and other councilmen assigned labor to the workshops, community lands, and cattle ranches and was responsible for keeping the public order in the towns.The cabildo also certified whether the Spanish administrators and Catholic priests had fulfilled their obligations to the missions.8 They made recommendations to request new administrators or priests.9 The corregidor and cabildantes, moreover, collaborated with the Spanish judicial system by describing certain events that may have led to serious crimes committed by mission Indians, the weapons used, and the corporal punishment they had given the accused.10 Furthermore, the corregidor and members of the cabildos fulfilled a military function.They informed the Spanish governor of the number of troops they had ready to send, on his request, to Buenos Aires or other parts of the Río de la Plata.11 The royal decree of July 25, 1679, that allowed the Guaraní to make and carry firearms was still in effect. The Guaraní were to be instructed in the use of muskets to defend their missions and to have access to them in case of any reoccurring attacks by Chaco Indians and the Paulistas. Governor Bucareli, however, instructed the cabildantes not to allow the sale of weapons and to seize any muskets from those who were not militia soldiers.12 The cabildo named the Guaraní captains of these vessels and the crews of sailors who transported mission goods on the Paraná River to the port of Las Conchas.13 The Spanish governor, however, selected all the appointees for the important office of corregidor. In the past the Jesuits had selected the appointees who later were approved by the governor in Buenos Aires. Spanish authorities desired that their candidates be “good Christians, hard-working, and serve as an example to others and make them work.”14 The Spaniards also preferred that the members of the cabildo be literate and have some knowledge of the Spanish language. Spain attempted to impose its Spanish-language policy more vigorously during the post-Jesuit years and placed education in the hands of secular teachers rather than the missionaries. Teachers, most of whom were Spanish or criollos, did not allow Guaraní boys to speak in their native language in the mission schools and taught reading, writing, mathematics,

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and Catholic religion in the Spanish language.15 The crown ordered all instruction to be in Spanish in the Indian towns in the hope of improving their understanding of the Catholic religion and ridding them of their “rusticity.”16 The new language policy was one of the eighteenth-century Bourbon reforms. It was intended to created more cohesiveness throughout the empire. The Spanish viceroy in Buenos Aires, the Marqués de Aviles, approved the appointment of one of the first native Guaraní schoolteachers, Andrés Arano, of the mission of Apóstoles in 1801.To qualify as a teacher, Arano had to take an examination in reading, writing, mathematics, religion, and the Spanish language.Andrés Arano earned 6 pesos per month in addition to receiving the same rations as the corregidor and lieutenant corregidor. Loreto Curiano was another Guaraní teacher who taught in the school at Mission San Borja. In 1799, both the Spanish administrator and cabildantes had proposed to Governor Gabriel Avilés y del Fierro, Marqués de Avilés, that he and several other Guaraní, including Lorenzo Cambayri, Juan de Dioguaratio, Juan Climaco Gayrumba, and Don Adalberto Arípí be appointed as teachers in the mission schools. The Guaraní cabildantes described the candidates as “capable, of good conduct, literate, possessed knowledge of mathematics, understood Spanish, and could draw.”17 In addition, many Spanish teachers in the missions had indigenous ayudantes (teacher’s aides).18 Gaspar Tarupé, Eusebio Aguará, and Andrés Payon were among those who worked as teacher’s aides.19 These individuals, however, received no compensation for their labor.The best Guaraní pupils received prizes of cloth, glass beads, and other trinkets for their mothers. Their teachers and the missionaries judged their work by the quality of their handwriting or their ability to answer questions about the Catholic religion or to recite their prayers.20 Despite this new language policy, however, the vast majority of the Guaraní clung tenaciously to their own language.21 According to Father Gabriel Méndez, a missionary at Mission La Cruz, only three Guaraní in the town knew Spanish in 1800, and that was because they had been raised in Spanish towns or worked as peons for Spaniards.22 As late as 1822, a few Guaraní from the missions composed letters in their native language rather than adopt Spanish.23 The Franciscan, Mercedarian, and Dominican missionaries who replaced the Jesuits often lacked knowledge of the Guaraní language.This lack of training served as an impediment to converting all the Guaraní to Catholicism. Each mission was supposedly to have two priests to look after the spiritual needs of the Guaraní, although in reality several often had only one clergyman, except for many Franciscan missions.24 At Mission

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Santo Angelo, for example, the Mercedarians took two years to replace one of their missionaries because there was no one who knew the native language.25 The new missionaries administered the sacraments without notable differences compared to their predecessors.There were only a few distinguishing features between the religious orders.A higher percentage of the Jesuits seemed to have been of European origin in comparison to their successors.26 Most of the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Mercedarians were born either in the Río de la Plata or other parts of South America. In the past the Jesuits had required the Guaraní to attend Mass and say the rosary on a daily basis, not only on Sunday as in colonial Mexico. According to a secular official, who tended to be critical of the clergy, the missionaries who replaced the Jesuits said the Mass when they felt like it rather than according to a strict schedule.27 The celebration of a secular holiday, the king of Spain’s birthday, in the missions reflects a shift in church and state relations during the late eighteenth century. On this day, the corregidores, caciques, and cabildantes held a banquet at the casa de cabildo (town hall). Guaraní passed by a portrait of the king displayed on the front door of the church, shouting, “Long Live the King, Our Lord, Charles III,” as an expression of their devotion. Later, there was dancing in the streets and fireworks.28 Prior to the reign of Charles III, the church and state had been mutually dependent partners in the New World. The Bourbon king’s attempt to expand royal power at the expense of the church was symbolized in the hanging of his portrait on all the church doors in the missions. The tensions between church and state did not end with the expulsion of the Jesuits but continued between secular officials and members of other religious orders. At Mission Santísima Trinidad, on one occasion, fistfights broke out between the Catholic priests and the administrator. At Mission San Carlos, Father Alexandro Chaparro charged that the administrator, Don Pedro Nolasco Alfaro, had bitten him in the face and was a thief who should be taken away to Buenos Aires in shackles.Although the administrator’s superiors claimed that Nolasco Alfaro always performed his duties well, all the mission buildings, especially the church, were in disrepair and the chapels of Santa Barbara and San Isidro in utter ruins by 1790.29 Guaraní cabildantes occasionally expressed their dissatisfaction with some of the new missionaries.The cabildantes objected to the errant behavior of a Franciscan priest at Mission San Juan Bautista. Father Antonio Urbon hit Pedro Juan Caninde, a Guaraní cook, in the head, stomach, and arms with a cane because Caninde had not prepared his eggs well.30 The

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cabildantes warned the priest “not to mistreat their sons in the manner in which he had mistreated the cook, and if he were to do it again, they would inform the Viceroy” and make sure that he would be removed from his position. The next day, the Guaraní placed a horse next to the door where the priest slept and told him to go to another town.The cabildantes also informed him that they did not want to have a priest who abused them. Urbon’s beating of Caninde with a cane was severe enough that a Spanish physician treated him for his injuries. Following an investigation of this incident, the governor in Candelaria, Francisco Bruno de Zavala, removed Urbon from his position as curate of San Juan Bautista.31 At Santos Mártires, the corregidor complained about the excesses of a Dominican.32 This priest whipped and hit the mission Indians himself, which caused resentment on the part of the Guaraní. Although the crown investigated these charges of abuse, the outcome of this investigation is unknown.The Guaraní at Mission Santísima Trinidad also complained to the governor about the Dominicans for causing confusion and having continual disputes with the members of the cabildo and the administrator. According to them, the new missionaries were saying that “the Indians are not fulfilling their obligations,” but later, someone else contradicted them by asserting that “they are doing their jobs very well.”33 The division of the temporal and spiritual affairs among a secular administrator and priests when such affairs had rested entirely in the hands of one or two priests caused a great deal of conflict in the late eighteenth century. The introduction of intendants in 1784 created more confusion. The process of implementation actually began in 1782, when the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was divided into eight intendancies. In 1783 thirteen of the thirty missions south of the Tebicuary River were assigned to the Intendancy of Paraguay and seventeen to Buenos Aires.The two northern missions in Paraguay always remained within the orbit of Asunción. Intendants, appointed by the crown, had complete control of matters of justice, fiscal policies, war, and general public administration.Their responsibilities overlapped those of existing members of audiencias, viceroys, governors, and religious authorities. Relationships between the intendants also never were clearly defined.The intendants were to keep an eye on the conduct of other officials, improve the collection of revenues, resolve jurisdictional conflicts, promote agriculture, industry, and trade, and furnish reports on the conditions in the intendancy.34 Spanish intendants noted that account books kept by Spanish administrators in the missions were confusing and often in disorder. Many of these administrators also lacked experience in the management of large enterprises, such as the missions. Some evidently took advantage of their posi-

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tions and cheated the Guaraní, although evidence of fraud is always difficult to document.35 Don Simon de Sonoa, the administrator at Yapeyú, for example, was removed from his position temporarily in the early 1780s because 28,000 hides, which belonged to the mission, had disappeared. Don Juan Angel de Lazcano, the Spanish administrator for all the Guaraní missions along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers, and other officials wrote a letter on Sonoa’s behalf stating that they never received any complaints about Sonoa’s behavior. In 1780, Corregidor Felix Cure, alcalde Felix Mbacurare, alcalde Santiago Samandu, and chiefs Don Inocente Tabacá, Don Melchor Abera, and Don Ignacio Asunercá wrote a letter on behalf of Simon de Sonoa stating that since the time he became administrator, the mission Indians at Yapeyú never lacked clothing, and their ranches were well stocked with cattle.Their letter of support indicates that the members of the Indian cabildos formed alliances and collaborated with the Spanish administrators.36 Occasionally cabildantes and caciques petitioned the removal of their secular administrators. The members of the cabildo and the chiefs at Santísima Trinidad, for example, complained to the Spanish governor in charge of all the missions, Francisco Bruno de Zavala, about the poor treatment they received from their administrator, Don Juan Anguera, and the excessive amount of work he demanded. They charged that he had excessively punished their women, besides having a number of scandalous affairs with them. Francisco Bruno de Zavala informed the governor in Asunción, Joaquín de Alós y Bru, of their complaints. The final outcome of this case is unclear.37 On February 15, 1788, corregidor Pedro Arayre, lieutenant corregidor Don Vizente Tiribe, and other members of the cabildo at Mission Nuestra Señora de la Concepción petitioned Spanish authorities to have their administrator, Don Pedro Fonsela, replaced with a new one because of his incompetence.They expressed their concerns to the Spanish lieutenant governor at Mission San Carlos, Gonzalo de Doblas, by writing: If a poor person requests two yards of cloth to clothe himself, or asks for a horse . . . he (Fonsela) throws him out for the wrong reasons, and orders him to work so he can buy whatever he may need. Since his arrival, this administrator has not taken care of the sick and even doubts they are ill. . . . We have always been disposed to obey whatever you have ordered . . . remove him from this town because we want a man who knows how to do his job.38

The following day Gonzalo de Doblas recommended that Fonsela be removed from his post because he had little knowledge and limited experience to occupy that position.39 This cabildo letter from Mission Con-

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cepción illustrates how a Guaraní corregidor and other members of the cabildo were influential authorities and served as the primary intermediaries between mission Indian society and the Spanish colonial state. In a similar case, cacique Don Eugenio Mbacaro of Mission Santa Ana wrote to the Spanish governor on behalf of all the chiefs in his town to express their concern about the mistreatment of his people and the loss of the mission’s assets due to theft and the administrator’s inexperience and the cabildo that supported him. He used these words: We declare that we have received continuous bad treatment from the Administrator, Sr.Antonio de Herrera and the cabildo; well, it only has resulted in the loss of the town with the robberies that have been committed in the warehouse; they have punished the mayordomo, ordering him to do various things for him, this man Herrera, and even though we have complained to the governor . . . show courtesy and give us justice . . . and may the administrators be men of experience and not boys like they are.40

Chief Eugenio Mbacaro then described a horrible incident in which a Guaraní woman named Juana had her leg broken when a lieutenant (corregidor?) knocked her down with his horse. He asserted that even pregnant women were punished for having left Santa Ana temporarily. Guaraní women were compelled to work while pregnant and when nursing their newborn infants.41 Although caciques such as Mbacaro had relinquished some of their political power to the cabildos, many were still influential local figures in mission society.42 This suggested a political continuity with pre-Hispanic times, despite the introduction of the cabildo. The Guaraní caciques and cabildantes had a vested interest in the missions.Their livelihood and that of their families, friends, and other members of their chieftaincies to a large extent depended on the administration of their towns. If they did not collaborate with the Spanish administrators, corregidores and other cabildantes might also be removed from power or more likely, not be reappointed the following year.43 Such was the case of corregidor Don Thomas Abacatú, who refused to use corporal punishment to correct Guaraní behavior at Mission San Ignacio Guazú in 1780. Consequently, the lieutenant corregidor, Ignacio Yabe, alcaldes Valeriano Catie and Estanislao Guacuy, other members of the cabildo, and cacique Don Hermen Borepe petitioned Don Joseph Barbosa, the lieutenant governor of the Department of Santiago, to have Abacatú removed from his position for being too lax in carrying out his duties.The cabildantes cited an instance in which several Guaraní received only a verbal reprimand from the corregidor, instead of the usual lashes. In their letter, they described Abacatú as inept and unwilling to adminis-

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ter corporal punishment to those who “refused to work, were lazy, or committed other offenses.”44 Don Thomas Abacatú, they insisted, spoke out against using corporal punishment because too many people from the mission “fled to the lands of the Spaniards.”45 This Guaraní text reveals that those natives who collaborated with the Spanish as cabildantes accepted the methods that the Catholic missionaries had used to correct the behavior of the Guaraní. A few individuals, such as Don Thomas Abacatú, however, perceived these as harsh and refused to resort to them because of their harmful effects on the indigenous community. On June 30, 1780, the protector general de naturales (an official appointed to assist Indians in their suits and complaints and to prosecute or even punish directly cases of abuse of them) in Buenos Aires determined that it was convenient to remove Abacatú from power because of the complaints he received from the other members of the cabildo. The Spanish fiscal upheld his decision. Several Guaraní cabildantes and caciques sought Spanish administrators who were efficient and honest. Caciques Don Protacio Arey and Don Antonio Guaymiguaá, for example, who resided at one of the ranches belonging to Mission Yapeyú, explained in their letter to the viceroy in Buenos Aries that they wanted Don Francisco de Paula Turnien as their administrator because “no one looked after things as well as he did” and he never stole from them, unlike their current administrator, whom they wanted to have replaced.46 On March 1, 1785, Fratuoso Berapoti, the mayordomo, and all the caciques at Mission Santísima Trinidad also wrote a letter to the intendant in their native language praising their former administrator, Don Lucas Cano, and requesting that he be paid for the services he had performed for the past year and a half.They claimed that he was “a good person” and were pleased to have had him as their administrator.47 They explained that “since he left the town on 24 September 1786, everyone was sad,” and that “things were no longer going well” in the absence of a “good, prudent, and strict administrator” who served them well.48 At Santísima Trinidad, the cabildantes and chiefs petitioned the Spanish intendant and the governor of the missions to remove their interim administrator because of improper conduct.The Guaraní asserted that he had sold many of their assets and emptied their warehouses without their authorization.49 Spanish officials removed this administrator from his position and seized his assets, which consisted mainly of a large cattle ranch in Paraguay.50 The Guaraní caciques and cabildantes from Paysandú successfully had their current administrator removed from his position.51 Interestingly, in their letter, they mentioned that “gauchos never harmed their ranches because they were afraid” of the Guaraní.52 Their remark

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demonstrates that at the end of the eighteenth century the Guaraní had a separate sense of identity and were a distinct social group from the Spanish gauchos of the pampas, although in many respects, the lifestyles of Guaraní peons who left the missions may have resembled those of the gauchos. These various cases suggest that the Guaraní cabildantes and caciques were successful in negotiating with Spanish officials.The Guaraní petitioned Spanish authorities and their grievances were not ignored.

Legal Redress Corregidores, caciques, and, less frequently, native commoners expressed their grievances to Spanish officials in petitions and occasionally used the Spanish courts to redress their differences with settlers, administrators, missionaries, and other individuals. In this respect, the Guaraní elites were not unlike their equivalents in Mexico and Peru.As in Mexico and the Andean highlands, the Guaraní cabildantes oversaw local affairs in the missions and represented their community before the Spanish authorities.53 On several occasions, the Guaraní cabildantes asserted their rights to their lands, as Spaniards more frequently occupied untilled or underutilized lands belonging to the missions than in the time of the Jesuits.54 Some of these squatters were “poor Spaniards” who occupied small plots of land and owned only a few head of livestock.55 In 1780, for example, four paraguayos (Paraguayans) established ranches on lands belonging to Mission San Ignacio Guazú south of the Tebicuary River. Although some lands were rented to them, a few ranches were established without the consent of the Guaraní. By 1797, at least sixteen Paraguayans rented land from Mission San Ignacio Guazú.56 An unsigned letter of September 19, 1800, also mentioned the influx of Spaniards on lands belonging to the five missions in the Department of Santiago, including Santa Rosa and Santa María de Fe.57 While there were growing Spanish pressures to use Guaraní labor and simply steal the vast herds of cattle that once belonged to the Jesuit missions, there was not much demand for the mission lands until the end of the eighteenth century.This was a very different case from central Mexico and Peru, where there was significant pressure on the land. One conflict between a Spanish merchant, Francisco Martínez de Haedo, and Mission Yapeyú began in 1763 and endured for more than twenty-eight years. Martínez de Haedo claimed ownership of land between the Uruguay, Negro, and Queguay Rivers, ownership of cattle in this area, and the profits from the sale of hides.58 In 1773, the Guaraní from Mission Loreto south of the Paraná River and Paraguayans from Villarrica had another dispute

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over lands belonging to the missions, after they had discovered españoles (Spaniards) stealing yerba maté from their fields. Armed Guaraní soldiers from this mission had expelled several Paraguayans from their yerba maté fields several decades earlier in 1716. To substantiate their claim to their property, the Guaraní drew a map of the area. The protector de naturales supported the Indians’ claims.59 There appear to be far fewer cases of litigation initiated by the Guaraní from the missions in comparison to the Amerindians in colonial Mexico and Peru. Stern shows how Indians in Peru often engaged in litigation using the Spanish justice system as early as the sixteenth century.60 Woodrow Borah also demonstrates how the Indians in Mexico made use of the Spanish court system and had their own General Indian Court, which was established in 1592 and functioned for more than two centuries.61 Although members of the Guaraní cabildos had obtained some judicial experience in resolving disputes over ownership of land and cattle with Spaniards, the vast majority of the mission Indians had not learned to use Spanish courts to defend their rights. Neither the Jesuits nor their successors educated the Guaraní in the subject of law, or admitted them to the practice of law. In fact, it was extremely rare throughout Spanish America for an Amerindian to study law.62 There was also no evidence of Guaraní litigants using judicial skills against one another, unlike in Mexico and Peru. Thus, in comparison to Mexico and Peru, Guaraní mission Indian society appears to have been less dependent on Spanish authorities to resolve their internal differences.This, however, did not signify that the Guaraní had fewer conflicts than their counterparts in other regions of Spanish America. There probably were far fewer cases because of the type of frontier that the Guaraní inhabited. Unlike some mission frontiers, the Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay tried to segregate and protect their charges from contact with the Spanish society.This policy was apparent in that the Jesuits prohibited the Guaraní sailors from entering the port of Buenos Aires. Instead, the sailors were restricted to Las Conchas, a smaller port upriver, so as to prevent them from having contact with the porteños. Following the expulsion, however, due primarily to migration, greater numbers of Guaraní were in extended contact with Spanish colonial society. Those few Guaraní who sought legal redress in the Spanish courts relied on protectores de indios, or protectores de naturales, to write petitions in their favor.63 Under Spanish law, Indians were considered miserables (impoverished, their status was the same as minors).They supposedly were incapable of defending themselves in the courts of law.64 Widows, the poor, the aged, crippled, and seriously ill, at least in theory, were supposed

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to receive special consideration within Spanish courts.65 María Pasquala Castro, a Guaraní widow and fugitive, attempted to have her children returned to her with the assistance of the protector general de naturales in Buenos Aires in 1788.Whatever she told the protector de naturales apparently appeared in proper Spanish legal form in a petition. Castro originally came from Mission Candelaria but resided in Rincón de San Pedro north of Santa Fe. When María Pasquala Castro remarried and went to reside near the port of Las Conchas west of Buenos Aires, she had left her two legitimate children, Felix and Bernarda, in San Pedro with their grandmother who educated them. The boy attended school, learned how to read and write, and studied the Christian doctrine.The girl also received an education until the grandmother died. After her death and in their mother’s absence, the alcalde de la santa hermandad (the person in charge of a religious brotherhood) removed the two children from her home. He turned Felix over to the local priest to work as his helper and gave Bernarda to a criollo sergeant to help his wife. The judge of the audiencia in Buenos Aires ruled that the woman’s children should be returned to her “without any excuse against the conduct of the petitioner.”66 The viceroy in Buenos Aires, Marqués de Loreto, ordered that the children be returned to their mother. Local authorities in San Pedro, nevertheless, raised several questions about the mother’s improprieties, scandalous behavior, and ability to support her children. In a letter to the viceroy, they claimed that she had abandoned her legitimate husband, the late Vicente Franco, and went off clandestinely with another man to become fugitives on the other side of the river near Buenos Aires. They described María Pasquala Castro “as a widow in extreme poverty,” who had to be supported by another relative because she lacked financial resources of her own.67 The protector general de naturales verified these claims and ruled that her son remain with the priest so that he could learn a trade and receive a Christian upbringing and education.There is no mention of the fate of Bernardina. In the end, María Pasquala Castro’s children apparently were taken away because of her extreme poverty and improprieties. This case provides corroborating evidence that a number of the Guaraní migrants formed part of the underclass in rural Spanish American society in the Río de la Plata. María Pasquala Castro’s rights as a mother were not protected, and her children were taken away to work as servants for the criollos. In the 1790s, there were two other instances in which Guaraní children were removed from their communities. A female orphan child named Rita, who was described as “agile, alert, and without any relatives,” was taken from Mission San Joaquín “to be raised, educated, and to serve [a

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criollo] until the end of her days.”68 A criollo in Paraguay had asked the administrator of that mission to send him a chinita (Indian woman) to serve him.69 In one instance, the Spanish viceroy in Buenos Aires intervened to have a Guaraní girl called Catalina returned to Mission Santa María de Fe from the household of a colonel Josef Espínola in Paraguay.70 The removal of children from their families signified that the preColumbian labor mechanism of naboría was still in effect in late-colonial Paraguay. Naboría is a system of labor adopted by the Spaniards in which Amerindians provided labor perpetually, especially as domestic servants, but could not be bought or sold like slaves. Legally, they were free, but in reality they had to endure many restrictions as servants.The institution of the coty guazú probably was in a state of decline by the end of the colonial period, which may help explain why these female orphans were employed as servants in Spanish households.

Other Forms of Resistance Rebellions among the Guaraní were far and few between during the late-colonial period.There were, nevertheless, two minor confrontations at Missions Yapeyú and Santa María de Fe, respectively, in 1778 and 1789.The dispute at Yapeyú was mainly a verbal confrontation with local authorities rather than any kind of rebellion or uprising. A group of Guaraní chiefs led by Don Felix Arey and Ignacio Asurica went to speak to the lieutenant governor of the Department of Yapeyú, Juan de San Martín (the father of Argentina’s future independence leader, José de San Martín) and demanded the release of an alcalde, Don Melchor Aberá, from the jail at the nearby Mission Nuestra Señora de Bororé y la Cruz. Following his arrest, Don Felix Arey testified that even though he had spoken with San Martín “with humility” to ask for the release of their cacique, the lieutenant governor refused, stating that he was governor by order of the king. The Guaraní chiefs exchanged some harsh words with him (they did not cite these in their testimony), asserting that he did not want to carry out the orders of the crown.Arey and the other Guaraní chiefs then took matters in their own hands by having an indigenous blacksmith break the lock at the mission jail to set Aberá free. The following day, Don Juan de San Martín took thirty men to search for and arrest several of the chiefs, including Don Juan Pastor Tayuaré, Don Juan Guarina, Don Bartolome Cananu, Dan Francisco Xavier Aizuca, Don Martín Parapuy, Andrés Manduré, and others who had accompanied the chiefs the night of the uprising. Clemente Guirapotí and Pasqual Erete were also arrested for inciting their neighbors, the nomadic Minuanes, to invade and steal horses

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from the mission ranch of San Pedro, as well as stripping a Spanish capataz (overseer) of his clothes.There was no need for an extended confrontation at Yapeyú because the Guaraní achieved their immediate goal of releasing their chief from jail that night. Similar to the leaders of some revolts in eighteenth-century Mexico, the chiefs directed their anger at the representative of the Spanish state, San Martín, and the jail, which symbolized outside authority and oppression.71 The prisoners at Yapeyú were later freed because they had already spent time in prison and never posed any real threat to Spanish officials. Judges determined that these events did not constitute an actual rebellion because the Guaraní had not used firearms.The protector de naturales also ruled against Juan de San Martín because no member of a cabildo, unlike Indian commoners, was supposed to be shackled and locked in jail.72 In a similar incident, the Guaraní from Mission Santa María de Fe resented the imprisonment of their corregidor, the Spanish administrator, and several Guaraní, even though they had pilfered funds belonging to the mission. Spanish authorities identified Crisanto Tayucuy as the leader of an uprising.Tayucuy was imprisoned at the royal jail in Asunción. Unfortunately, there are too few details to reconstruct and analyze the events in greater detail.73 Guaraní women at Mission Santa María La Mayor disobeyed their corregidor and Spanish administrators by refusing to spin thread and perform other tasks that were required of them. Fifty Guaraní women complained to the corregidor and the Spanish administrator that they were sick and unable to work.The corregidor, however, evidently did not believe them. These women may have been ill, but it is more likely that they were protesting labor conditions and the ill treatment they received in the missions.74 Their motivations were not explicit in the fragmented historical documentation.What is significant, however, is that these Guaraní women took the initiative to resist through labor slowdowns, feigning illnesses, and even flight after being mistreated by Spanish administrators. Nancy Farriss notes that the existence of an open frontier enabled the Maya who were disaffected to escape the colonial regime. Similarly to the Maya, the Guaraní chose flight as a strategy for resolving their conflicts with the criollos.75

Cattle Rustling and Theft Several Guaraní, especially fugitives, committed theft and engaged in cattle rustling to sustain themselves.76 Ignacio, a Tape conchavado (hired hand) from Mission Santísima Trinidad, robbed his employer, Don Pedro

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Pablo Flores, in Paraguay. He stole tobacco, clothing, thread, a hatchet, a silver comb, and a silver bombilla.77 Clothing was the most popular item stolen by petty Guaraní thieves, since it was an indicator of social status and along with other small items could be easily resold or bartered in exchange for other goods. Ignacio’s theft appears to have been a crime, rather than an act of resistance directed toward the mission system. However, perhaps he robbed his employer as an act of retaliation for the mistreatment he had received. Other Guaraní viewed cattle rustling as a means of securing their livelihood and subsistence. For more than four years, two Guaraní migrants from Santísima Trinidad, Pedro Ignacio and his son by the same name, supported themselves by stealing calves and butchering and selling the beef in the village of Villeta near Asunción. They sold meat, grease, and soap to the villagers in exchange for pesos, corn, cotton, and other commodities.They never planted their own fields, and the villagers never suspected that they had stolen their beef. Authorities sentenced them both to six years of hard labor in shackles in public works projects in Asunción.The two, however, managed to escape from the royal jail on the day of their sentencing.78 A few Guaraní from Mission Yapeyú became cattle rustlers near Corrientes. They slaughtered cattle “because they had none to eat” and were unwilling to work in the fields or work for others as peons.79 Hunger became a problem at several missions. The cacique of the nearby mission of Santa Ana, Don Eugenio Mbacaro, explained to Spanish officials in Buenos Aires that “our women and children suffer such hunger that many leave the town to look for their sustenance, primarily in Corrientes and Ytaití, and if they return, they are punished with cruelty; this is the motive why many are afraid of being punished, and they do not return, and they wander dispersed wherever their misfortune may lead them.”80 Eight caciques, Don Ygnacio Maegue, Don Christoval Arira, Don Juan Chave, Don Miguel Mboio, Don Felipe Guarova, Don Tovais Guaibica, Don Rincizo Amambi, and Don Miguel Ybaie, also noted that when the poor were hungry and asked for food, they were given twenty-five lashes by order of the corregidor and the administrator at Mission San Juan Bautista.81 With the threat of hunger the situation of the Guaraní and the missions were in melancholy contrast to what the Jesuits and the Guaraní had achieved through the mid-eighteenth century. Many of the mission buildings were in disrepair. Their warehouses were empty. Many of their vast herds of cattle had been stolen or consumed. In 1788, the two departments of Candelaria and Santiago had 243,906 heads of beef, representing a loss of 272,465 heads of beef cattle, or nearly 53 percent of their herds, in comparison to the 516,371 heads of beef cattle that were present twenty years

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earlier.82 By 1800, nearly half of the mission population had been absorbed into the colonial societies of the Río de la Plata and Brazil or perished due to disease, which undoubtedly undermined the stability of the mission communities. In addition, many Guaraní mission Indians lacked clothing; in many places none had been distributed since the time of the Jesuits, according to some official reports.83 Under the circumstances, it is not surprising to find evidence of growing dissatisfaction among the Guaraní with the Spanish mission system. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the Guaraní, especially their communal landholding and labor practices, came increasingly under attack from governments that believed that corporate bodies constituted an obstacle to “progress.” Until then, Spanish colonial law, policies, and institutions to a certain extent had provided the Amerindians with some protection and a means of resolving their conflicts and defending their communities’ interests. The co-optative relationship that developed between the Spanish Crown and the Guaraní militias also allowed the Guaraní to preserve their traditions of warfare and empowered them. On the eve of independence, however, only two companies of Guaraní soldiers remained in the missions. Both were inadequately trained and poorly armed. One company had a single officer in command. Nonetheless, the Guaraní militias assisted the Spanish in the defense of Montevideo during the British invasions of the Río de la Plata in 1806 and 1807, in one last attempt to serve the interests of the imperial realm.84 While the Guaraní militias often defended Spanish territory, their very existence also implied that they could become potentially hostile forces against the social bases that created them, as had occurred during the Guaraní War of the 1750s. The general anarchy of the wars of independence in the Río de la Plata enabled one Guaraní soldier,Andrés Guacaraví, to rise high in the ranks of the military and command troops on his own in defense of the mission territory against Portuguese and Paraguayan incursions. The Guaraní, as a whole, continued to struggle to shape their own destinies after 1800, even though their missions further deteriorated.

Breakup of the Missions’ Labor and Landholding Practices In 1800, the Spanish viceroy in Buenos Aires, the Marqués de Avilés, decreed the exemption of three hundred Guaraní families from the obligation of providing communal labor. Each family received small plots of land, two milk cows, plenty of seeds, agricultural tools, and access to the use of the community oxen and carts.85 Thus, several thousand Guaraní mission Indians no longer were required to work communal lands used

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to feed the orphans, widows, widowers, the disabled, and the sick. It is unclear how many Guaraní actually received exemptions during that first year. At the seven missions east of the Uruguay River, 2,169 Guaraní became Indios libres (free Indians), while 10,009 remained as Indios de comunidad (Indians who were required to work the communal lands).86 This new Bourbon decree, which accelerated the process of secularization in the missions, reflects the ideals of the Enlightenment.The Spanish agenda was to turn the Guaraní into small, independent, yeoman farmers.87 Vast amounts of corporately owned properties such as the mission Indian communities, which were set apart from the rest of colonial society, became special targets of the Bourbon reformers.88 Through the distribution of mission lands, Spain hoped to achieve the assimilation of the Guaraní into Spanish colonial society. Enlightened ministers in Spain sought to create a nation of peasant proprietors and eliminate constraints on individual interests. The Bourbon reformers believed that from the labor and production of independent farmers, wealth and freedom would then emerge to the benefit of Spain.89 It was a vision of society that affected government policies on both sides of the Atlantic and was apparent in the plans Spanish officials devised for the missions in 1800. The bishop of Paraguay, Luis de Velasco, also contended that the communal system did nothing more than benefit the civilian administrators and merchants who took advantage of the Guaraní. He advocated its abolition and the dispersal of communal lands.90 What did the exemption from performing labor obligations in their communities mean to these indigenous people? John Lynch notes that prior to the decree, the Guaraní may not have had their freedom, but following it, they suffered hunger.91 The Spanish intendant, Lázaro de Rivera y Espinosa, also observed that the former Jesuit missions fell into worse disarray. Intendant Rivera noted that the Spanish viceroy, Marqués de Avilés, had no firsthand knowledge of the impact of the decree on the indigenous communities because he never toured them. Intendant Rivera’s views, those of the viceroy, along with the various letters written by the Guaraní, were submitted to the Council of the Indies for further consideration. In 1803, the Council of Indies ruled in favor of the Spanish viceroy and extended the principle to all the Guaraní in the missions.92 In certain respects,Viceroy Marqués de Avilés’s decree only gave a formal stamp of approval to developments, which had already taken place since prior to the expulsion of the Jesuits. Attracted by economic opportunities elsewhere, the Guaraní exercised their own will by fleeing from the missions in significant numbers to seek work as free-wage laborers away from the mis-

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sions. The Guaraní welcomed this opportunity because many had grown accustomed to working as peons on ranches belonging to the Spanish. By the end of the colonial period, many incorporated attitudes that they had learned from the Europeans into their own outlook. Even prior to the decree, several Guaraní caciques had petitioned Spanish authorities to leave the missions and be free of the obligation of providing communal labor. In 1791, cacique Don Diego José Asaye of Mission Santiago requested his freedom, having worked as the mayordomo, tenedor de libros de la comunidad (accountant), and alcalde.93 In that year, cacique Modesto Tarará of Mission Santo Reyes de Yapeyú made the same request to the Spanish viceroy, after serving his community for more than twenty years in different capacities.94 Once they were exempt in 1800, Guaraní such as Luis Ayuai of Mission San Francisco Xavier wrote to King Charles IV and the viceroy in Buenos Aires, the Marqués de Avilés, to express his contentment with the new Spanish policy.95 Francisco Romualdo Aranbi, Don Juan Tapi, and several others from Mission Itapuá also expressed their gratitude toward Charles IV for granting them their freedom from this labor obligation.96 The corregidor and cabildantes at Mission Santa María la Mayor, in addition, expressed their appreciation toward the Spanish for “ridding them of their oppression.”97 A Dominican friar at Mission San Carlos, Father Vicente Paz, moreover, observed that as soon as the several hundred Guaraní families were no longer required to work on communal lands, many other Guaraní made similar requests.98 The granting of this exemption to the Guaraní, nevertheless, did not mean an immediate end to all communal landholding and the mission Indian cabildos.The secularization of the missions was not accomplished with the signing of a single decree, but gradually occurred over the course of more than half a century, continuing well into the national period.The cabildo, which allowed the Guaraní to have a voice in their affairs and a channel for expressing their grievances, endured into the mid-nineteenth century, in particular among those few missions that escaped the destruction of the independence wars.99

Loss of the Seven Missions to Portugal A dramatic event, having immediate consequences for the Guaraní, accelerated the breakup of the mission Indian communities: in 1801, nearly five hundred Portuguese militia soldiers seized the territory of the seven missions, which had belonged to Spain, and was reconfirmed in the Treaty of San Ildelfonso of 1777. These were the same seven missions, which the Guaraní had risen in rebellion to defend and prevent from

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being transferred to Portugal under the terms of the Treaty of Madrid in 1750. These seven towns, however, were not taken without some resistance. Guaraní militias killed at least fifty-two Portuguese soldiers in minor skirmishes during the 1801 War of Oranges in the Río de la Plata. This conflict was the result of European developments as well as renewed tensions on the Spanish and Portuguese frontier in South America. As an ally of France, King Charles IV had been at war with Britain since 1796. France under Napoleon pressured the King of Spain Charles IV to declare war on Portugal, after this country refused to renounce its alliance with Great Britain. Spanish troops rapidly defeated the Portuguese. In the Río de la Plata, the conflict was essentially a frontier dispute.100 Embroiled in European conflicts, Spain could not prevent the expansion of the Portuguese Empire into the mission region.101 Napoleon negotiated the Treaty of Badajoz in 1801, which required Portugal to close its ports to Great Britain. Spain, in return, yielded territory conquered during the war, including the territory of the seven missions of San Miguel, San Nicolás, San Borja, San Luis, San Lorenzo, San Juan Bautista, and Santo Angelo to Don Juan Principe Regente of Portugal. Spain thus lost seven productive settlements. Later that same year, Napoleon’s brother renegotiated the treaty changing the borders of French Guyana and Portuguese Brazil. Economic losses for the Spanish missions amounted to 125,097 head of beef cattle, 37,554 horses, 7,343 sheep, 4,673 oxen, 11 cotton plantations, and goods stored in warehouses valued at 34,647 silver pesos.102 The Guaraní from the seven missions gradually abandoned the towns. The French botanist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire (1779–1853) visited Rio Grande and noted that in 1801, 14,000 Indians resided in the seven missions. By 1804, there were 12,174 Guaraní in the seven towns.103 Five years later, approximately 8,000 inhabitants resided there.104 By 1814, their population decreased to only 6,395. Rather than migrate to Spanish territory, male and female Guaraní left the seven missions between 1815 and 1822 and worked in Brazil as peons, horse tamers, and day laborers. Figure 11 is a reproduction of early-nineteenth-century-paintings of the Guaraní in Brazil done by the French artist Jean Baptiste Debret. Saint-Hilaire also observed that the Portuguese settlers took over the land of the seven missions, which had some of the best pastures in Rio Grande. The mission buildings, in addition, were in ruins, the churches were ransacked, and the herds of cattle had been consumed or stolen.105 An 1842 illustration of Mission San Miguel in Rio Grande depicts the cathedral in a dilapidated state with wild horses grazing in the churchyard, as the subtropical vegetation reclaimed the land (see Figure 12). By this period, the church at

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Figure 11. The Guaraní in Brazil as Depicted in the Early Nineteenth Century by Jean Baptiste Debret (Jean Baptiste Debret, Viagem Pitoresca e Histórica ao Brasil, 1834,Vol. l. São Paulo: Libraria Martins Editora, 1940)

Mission San Nicolás had also entirely collapsed. In the absence of a priest to administer the sacraments, the Guaraní from this village traveled to Rio Pardo to hear Mass, have their children baptized, and to get married. According to the 1854 census, San Nicolás had only 254 inhabitants. Most adult males worked as peons. Six Guaraní males were employed as musicians, two were shoemakers, one was a blacksmith, and another was a goldsmith’s apprentice. The bulk of the Guaraní families in this village, however, had become utterly impoverished, according to Brazilian authorities.106 Vecinos (residents) from Montevideo as well as Portuguese settlers had stolen the herds of cattle on the twenty-six ranches belonging to the missions.107 Fig1Her2

Figure 12. Mission San Miguel in 1842 (By permission of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. P185741)

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As could be expected, an examination of fifteen judicial cases reflects the violent tenor of life on the frontier. Seven of these cases involved homicide. In 1819, three Guaraní males killed a Portuguese settler named Antonio Rodriguez Alves, his mother, and three others who were not identified. In 1820, a twenty-year-old Guaraní single male, Pedro Dias, murdered a pardo (black or mulatto). In 1822, Pedro Erohy, a Guaraní peon, killed a capataz from his mission of San Borja.108 Two murder cases entailed domestic violence. In 1815, Gertrudes María (no last name cited), a Guaraní woman, murdered her husband, using an accomplice, another Guaraní named Francisco João (no last name cited), and who was evidently her lover. All three had worked together at a charqueada (a place where beef was salted and dried). In 1817,Tomás Arapi, a drunken Guaraní male, killed his wife, who was also a Guaraní from the missions.109 There were five incidents of assault with a knife. In one case, a Guaraní male wounded another Guaraní while both were intoxicated. In another incident, a married Guaraní woman, María Antonia (no last name cited), wounded a Portuguese soldier, after she refused to accompany him to a church celebration.The three remaining cases were all nonviolent crimes involving theft of household items and, in one instance, a horse. As in Spanish America, Portuguese authorities preferred to put Guaraní murderers to work, impose long prison sentences, or banish them from the province, rather than hand down any death sentences.Those found guilty of assault or theft were either fined, served a brief time in prison, or were deported. A few Guaraní were acquitted of their crimes for lack of evidence. Several Guaraní criminals perished in jail prior to sentencing because of the unhealthy prison conditions and the lingering judicial process. Although the motives of Guaraní murderers were often sketchy, there appeared to be a link between the excessive use of alcohol and the committing of violent crimes.The records from Río Grande also suggest that there was a higher incidence of drink-related crimes toward the end of the colonial period in comparison to the late eighteenth century. Finally, these judicial reports provide corroborating evidence that the Guaraní commingled with different ethnic and racial groups in Rio Grande, occasionally coming into conflict with them. Indeed, the breakup of the mission landholdings, new labor practices, and the loss of the seven missions led to growing miscegenation throughout the vast mission region.The Spanish viceroy Marqués de Avilés himself had encouraged intermarriage between criollos and the Guaraní as a means to accelerate the assimilation of the Indians into colonial society. Those Spaniards who married Guaraní were entitled to receive a portion

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of mission lands that were distributed after 1800.110 By 1809 and 1810, several Indians and criollos obtained titles to lands belonging to Mission Yapeyú. José Paulino Guirapotí, for example, described as a “neighbor and a rancher [hacendado],” became one of the first Guaraní to receive a land title to his property. Interestingly, these titles stated that “we were taught to live in society” (nos enseña vivir en sociedad).111 As was common throughout the Americas, however, far more Guaraní never acquired property titles for the lands they inhabited. By the mid-nineteenth century, a growing number of settlers of different ethnic and racial groups inhabited the territory of the missions south of the Tebicuary River.The 1846 Paraguayan census, although not as revealing as might be desired, reveals a growing ethnic diversity in the area. According to this census, there was a small pardo (black or mulatto) presence at several missions in the Department of Santiago.At San Ignacio Guazú, for example, 146 residents were black and mulatto slaves or libertos (freedmen) out of total population of 4,623. At Santa María de Fe, which had 2,488 inhabitants, 276 were black and mulatto slaves or libertos. At Santísma Trinidad in contrast nearly all the Guaraní had abandoned this mission by the mid-nineteenth century.112

The Rise of Andresito, a Guaraní Caudillo As if the Bourbon attacks on mission landholdings, labor practices, and the loss of the seven reductions were not enough, profound changes took place in lives of the Guaraní resulting from the collapse of Spanish rule and the chaos of the wars of insurgency. With the coming of Paraguay’s independence from Spain in 1811, the missions belonging to the two departments of Candelaria and Santiago, which included Candelaria, Santa Ana, Loreto, San Ignacio Miní, Loreto, Corpus Christi, Santiago, San Cosme and Damian, Santa Rosa, Santa María de Fe, and San Ignacio Guazú, Santísima Trinidad, Itapúa, and Jesús, became Paraguayan territory, but were coveted as well by the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. The following came under the orbit of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata: Santa María la Mayor, San Francisco Xavier, Santos Mártires, San José, Apóstoles, San Carlos, Yapeyú, Santo Tomé, and La Cruz. Also threatened by the Portuguese, the vast mission territory south of the Paraná River became ravaged by cattle rustlers, bandits, the invading armies of caudillos (strong men), and the Paraguayan cavalry.113 In 1811, José Gervasio Artigas, a gaucho caudillo and the leader of the federalist provinces, especially Uruguay, against the Province of Buenos Aires, appointed a Guaraní mission Indian,Andrés “Andresito” Guacaraví,

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general commander of the Province of Misiones.Andresito began his military career as a simple soldier in the compañía de naturales (Indian militias) of Mission Santo Tomé. He was born on November 30, 1778, at Mission San Borja but taken to Santo Tomé by his mother where he was educated at the mission school. In 1811, following Belgrano’s failure to annex Paraguay using military force, he joined the forces of Argentine General Manuel Belgrano in Montevideo, along with three hundred Guaraní soldiers. In 1812, together with other Guaraní soldiers, Andresito joined Artigas’s forces, fought against the Portuguese at Mission Santo Tomé, and eventually adopted Artigas’s surname. Andrés Guacaraví Artigas’s career followed a familiar pattern in the history of the region: the emergence of a Guaraní regional leader in times of great social upheaval, especially when the subsistence of the mission communities was threatened. Like his predecessors, Captain Sepé Tiarajú and Nicolás Ñeengirú,Andresito chose strategies of accommodation or resistance depending on the changing circumstances. He also refused to accept the terms of treaties signed by Spain and Portugal in Europe without first resorting to the use of military force.As a sign of changing times, however, Andresito formed an interethnic coalition with Uruguay’s independence leader to defend the mission territory. Between 1812 and 1815, Andresito became a regional caudillo himself by developing a large personal following. In return for his loyal support, Artigas promised Andresito autonomy and independence within his confederation.114 In 1815, under orders from Artigas, Commander General Andrés Guacaraví and nearly two thousand Guaraní soldiers under his command seized five of the fifteen missions, which now belonged to Paraguay. Scattered Paraguayan troops could not prevent his taking of these towns.115 After a series of extended battles, however, with Andresito retreating westward into Corrientes, Paraguay’s dictator, Dr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (also known as El Supremo), ordered the evacuation of the five missions in the Department of Candelaria. In the early months of 1817, Paraguayan troops crossed the Paraná River, pillaged the towns, and set fire to Candelaria.116 In 1816 and 1817, Artigas sent Andresito with his sizable Guaraní army to recover the territory of the seven missions in Rio Grande. Nearly all his Guaraní troops, however, were driven back or killed by Portuguese soldiers and settlers. In 1817, Andresito set up headquarters at Mission Apóstoles, where he planned the recovery of the mission territory that remained in Portuguese hands.Two years later, Andresito led another raid on the seven missions, but on this occasion, the Portuguese wounded and captured him and sent him to Porto Alegre. Later, the Portuguese trans-

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ferred Andresito to the island of Las Cobras near Río de Janeiro, where he died in prison in 1821 or 1822.117 Overthrown by one of his subordinates, Artigas and a small group of supporters fled into Paraguay in 1820, seeking asylum. Dr. Francia allowed him to remain and assigned the fallen caudillo a generous state pension and a parcel of land in northeastern Paraguay, near San Isidro de Curuguatay. Meanwhile, Dr. Francia made a serious attempt to control the disputed area by sending large numbers of Paraguayan cavalry to occupy the missions. The Paraguayan militias kept trade routes open and the area south of the Paraná River became a buffer zone.118 By the end of 1820, Guaraní resistance came to an end.119 Those Guaraní who remained in Paraguayan territory were required to work by Dr. Francia’s government in textile workshops to produce cloth for the manufacture of military uniforms.120 Guaraní musicians also played their instruments in the naturales musicos de la patria (native musicians of the republic), which after 1836 became known as the musicos de tropa (military bands) of the Paraguayan army. Several Guaraní artisans, in addition, were employed by the state.121 Only the former Jesuit missions north of the Paraná River were spared the physical destruction of the wars of independence.These were the ones isolated by Dr. Francia. However, even under Dr. Francia’s authoritarian rule, there were signs of growing social disorder and banditry in the countryside.122 In 1824, under the influence of nineteenth-century liberalism, Dr. Francia replaced the mendicant orders that oversaw the spiritual needs of the mission Indians with secular priests. The Guaraní failed to respond to the departure of their missionaries with any uprisings or rebellions, similarly to the period of the expulsion of the Jesuits. In 1842, Dr. Francia’s successor, Carlos Antonio López, however, introduced a new measure to divide the communal lands and cattle belonging to the towns among Indians whom the government considered to be “capable,”“deserving,” and “well-behaved.” This decree divided the few remaining Guaraní between those who could and could not own land.123 Finally, in 1848, Carlos Antonio López divested all the Indian cabildos in Paraguay. According to this decree, the Indians in twenty-one pueblos de indios (Indian towns), including the former Franciscan and Jesuit missions, were declared citizens of the Republic of Paraguay.The Guaraní thus lost all formal mechanisms for protecting their communal lands and rights. The order also signified that the Indians could be made liable for military service. Equally important, all the Indians’ communal properties were confiscated by the state without providing compensation to the Guaraní.124 This decree marked the final dissolution of the missions as corporate entities.

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In summary, despite the continual deterioration of the missions, the Guaraní attempted to defend their communities on numerous occasions without the assistance of missionaries. Whether the Guaraní cabildantes and caciques acted in the interests of the communities and families or for their own personal benefit, however, is not always clear in the historical documents. Nevertheless, it is quite apparent that the Guaraní displayed a great deal of initiative in seeking to eliminate acts of injustice and abuse in their towns. The frequency of their petitions is indicative that the Guaraní did not fit the mold of meek and docile mission Indians. The Guaraní, on the contrary, actively sought to protect their autonomy and to determine events in their local communities, often using the Spanish institution of the cabildo for their own needs. Similar to Indians in the Moxos region of the Amazon Basin, the Guaraní had learned from the Jesuits to resist new demands by secular authorities.125 These characteristics and the Guaraníes’ abilities to adapt to a changing colonial world, along with their willingness to cling to some of their native traditions, enabled many of the Guaraní to endure, but unfortunately in a sorrowful state, as their missions were plundered.

Chapter

Guaraní Cultural Resiliency and Reorientations

7

When Spanish authorities discovered that Silverio Caté, a Guaraní from Mission Loreto, had hurt the foot of another Guaraní, Christoval Aguandusu, by burying a “nail” (probably the sting of a freshwater sting ray) underground because he had taken his manioc, they asked whether he invoked the devil when he did these evil deeds. Caté replied “No. . . . I did it in the name of God.”1 Caté apparently thought that if he mentioned that he did these things in the name of God, rather than the devil, then the Spaniards might be more lenient with him. He evidently noticed that this was not the correct response. The Spaniards then asked him whether he knew that their Christian God did not want him to harm his fellow man. He replied that he understood this and that he did not ignore God’s commandments.They asked how could he do these evil deeds in the name of God? He simply answered that he knew how to harm or offend others. Caté’s testimony demonstrates that the Guaraní shamanistic practices persisted into the late eighteenth century. More than a century earlier, Jesuit missionary Antonio Ruiz de Montoya had depicted Guaraní shamans as “diggers” because several buried toads and fish spines to kill or harm others.2 Caté’s sworn statement also suggests that some Guaraní had a limited knowledge or no understanding of Catholicism and the Christian God, or felt rather indifferent about the missionaries’ teachings. Caté was sixty-two years old at the time of his arrest and a master tanner who evidently had the time and experience to learn about the Catholic faith. The assertion by some of the missionaries themselves, along with a few Spanish officials, that the Guaraní had “a limited capacity for understanding the Catholic religion,” in addition, sheds some doubt on the Jesuits’ ability to convert all of the Guaraní in the reductions.3 That statement, of course, reflects the Europeans’ own sense of cultural superiority and racial prejudices.

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To what extent could the Guaraní preserve distinctive elements of their native heritage, particularly their religion, in the face of overwhelming economic, political, social, and cultural pressures from the Europeans? How were the lives of missionaries affected by their contact with these indigenous people? Guaraní native religion did not die in the reductions but lived on within the new syncretic version created by them.4 Native texts and missionary accounts offer glimpses of more original beliefs, such as occasional references to the importance of the worship of ancestors, which demonstrate that the Guaraní retained some of their original religious practices. For the Guaraní, following old native religious beliefs and rituals provided a way for maintaining continuity with the past, as well as a separate sense of cultural identity. Nonetheless, it is quite evident even from the rather thin historical evidence that the Guaraní religious system had suffered profound Catholic influences.

Religious Adaptation in Spanish America The historiography of the religious adaptation of other Amerindians, especially in colonial Mexico, provides a context for discussing the Guaraní mission Indians’ responses to Christianity. Robert Ricard, in his classic work, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico (1933), argues that Catholic missionaries successfully converted Indians in sixteenth-century Mexico. In more recent years, however, several scholars have questioned the depth of that spiritual conquest. Nancy Farriss, Sabine MacCormack, Inga Clendinnen, and Louise Burkhart, among others, have modified our view in Spanish America. Their works suggest that this process was complex.5 Farriss, for example, describes how the Maya continued to make religious idols and practiced the cults of the Catholic saints with their own internal logic. Burkhart examines how the Franciscans failed to alter fundamentally the Nahua religion and society, primarily because of translation problems. She argues that the Nahuas became Catholic enough to adapt to the new colonial situation, but maintained the ideological and moral structures of their own society. Inga Clendinnen, Sabine MacCormack, and other scholars have analyzed indigenous understandings of religious beliefs and rituals and how these responses were interpreted differently or misread by the Europeans.6 In much of their own early historical literature, Jesuit scholars tend to argue that the members of their order successfully converted the Guaraní to Catholicism. In 1948, for example, Francisco Mateos contends that the Guaraní mission Indians became Catholics in an article.7 He accepts the missionaries’ own claims that they converted most of the Guaraní. What

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the actual Jesuits meant by conversion, however, is not often clear in their accounts. Unfortunately, we have no set of criteria to determine whether a Guaraní mission Indian had achieved sufficient knowledge of Christianity to be considered Catholic at a given time. But neither do we know the extent of peoples’ beliefs in Catholic countries, such as Spain, at this time. Indeed, one could argue that many Guaraní became Catholic simply because they identified themselves as such in their texts. Several missionaries also confirmed that the Guaraní became Catholics. Jesuit Nicolás del Techo, for example, cites instances in which the Guaraní embraced Christianity. The majority, he notes, became converted after giving up their concubines and celebrating their marriages in the church.8 Jesuit censuses indicate that on an annual basis, several thousand Guaraní said their confessions, made communion, and accepted other sacraments, such as baptism. In recent years, scholars, including Jesuits, have taken a more critical look at the religious experiences of the Guaraní under colonialism. One of the leading scholars of the Guaraní language and culture, Bartomeu Melià, S.J., for example, concludes that the reductions posed a crisis for the Guaraní. The missionaries, he notes, dismissed nearly all Guaraní beliefs and rituals as mere superstitions. Dreams and visions were important exceptions, however, because they were significant in both the indigenous and European cultures.9 The more recent studies suggest that the Guaraní retained more of their culture than the traditional historiography suggests. Argentine historian Daisy Rípodas Ardanaz, for instance, demonstrates how shamanism continued in the Jesuit missions in two articles.10 This chapter builds on this recent research to analyze further how the Guaraní developed their own version of Catholicism in the reductions and retained some of their ancient rituals and beliefs.

The Persistence of Shamanism and an Ancient Bone Cult The Spaniards referred to the mission Indians’ use of certain herbs as hechicería (harm caused by the effects of witchcraft) rather than as shamanism or an extension of the Indians’ use of herbal plants for medicinal purposes. As could be expected, the Spanish superimposed their own ideas about witchcraft and superstitions on Guaraní cultural patterns, rather than attempt to understand what these practices may have meant to the Guaraní. Several criminal cases suggest that some shamans were individuals whom the Guaraní sometimes feared. The Guaraní associated their practices with the onset of sudden misfortune, disease, or even death. However, there were other Guaraní in the reductions who devoted them-

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selves to healing using herbs.These individuals, of course, would not have been arrested. On the contrary, some Jesuits studied their use of herbs. P. Pedro Montenegro included extensive drawings of plants from the mission region in his rare four-volume work, Libro Primero y Segundo de la Propriedad y Virtudes de los Arboles y Plantas de las Misiones y Provincias de Tucuman, con Algunas de Brasil y Oriente (1710). One Guaraní suspected of witchcraft, Don Christobal Guairay, a cacique from Mission Loreto, practiced traditional methods of shamanism by symbolically blowing on his enemies; that is, he blew on flies to make them fly in the direction in which his enemies lived. When Spanish authorities asked why, he explained that “he blows on them while calling the devil and repeating the name of the individual that he wants to do harm to.”11 The wind then carries the flies to his victims,“causing maggots to grow, harming the flesh whether they be in their eyes or nose.”12 Although the Guaraní language was widely spoken in the Province of Paraguay and in Corrientes, Spanish authorities had translation problems.13 This Guaraní shaman may have actually invoked spirits rather than the Catholic concept of the devil because court interpreters may have translated evil spirits in the Guaraní language as the devil, their closest equivalent in Spanish. In the absence of a Guaraní text of these court proceedings, we will never know exactly what Guairay intended to say or what these acts may have represented in the indigenous system of thought.This case underscores the importance of the reciting of special words or chanting by the Guaraní that anthropologist Bartomeu Melià, S.J., often speaks of in his works. It is through chanting and dancing that the Guaraní shamans communicate with their spiritual world. Their gourd rattles, which are decorated with feathers, provide the rhythm for these rites. Don Christobal Guairay was the only cacique accused of witchcraft.All the remaining fourteen Guaraní men and women accused of this witchcraft in the late eighteenth century were commoners. Five of the thirteen men accused of this crime were between age twenty-six and forty-five. Only one Guaraní male was over the age of sixty.The ages of the remaining seven men who were suspected of witchcraft were not listed. Two of the females suspected of witchcraft were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.14 Three male suspects were skilled artisans, including a master weaver, a master tanner, and a shoemaker. Their training as artisans indicates that not all the accused were newly incorporated from the forest but included some who were highly acculturated men who evidently did not adopt all the Catholic practices and values as taught to them. In contrast to the witchcraft cases in England and New England, nearly all the Guaraní accused of “witchcraft” were males rather than females

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because, traditionally, men in native society had occupied the role of medicine men or shamans. Only two of the fifteen Guaraní suspects were women. The Guaraní accused of witchcraft learned their art from their elders who passed on their knowledge of shamanism to younger people in the time of the Jesuits. Silverio Caté, for example, from the mission of Loreto, learned various methods from Mariano Guiraiza, who gave him the various objects in his medicine bundle: a magnet, a sting from a freshwater stingray, a centipede, and a thorn from a coconut tree. These various objects most likely gave him a sense of “power.” Wallace notes that the touching of sacred objects in some cultures allows one to acquire the power inherent in them.15 Possibly the Guaraní shamans used these objects with the hope to halt the spread of epidemic disease, such as smallpox and measles. They may have also been used as the shamans performed special ceremonies attendant on the life crises of birth, puberty, and death. Caté had stolen a small wooden statue of Saint Joseph and a wooden figure representing death from an elder at Mission Santa Ana; he then guarded the objects in his medicine bundle. Mariano Guiraza told Caté that these various amulets made his victims fall sick or die.16 The various religious objects contained in the medicine bundle provide further evidence of the blending of Catholic and Guaraní religious traditions. Spanish authorities suspected that the accused recited special words before administering special powders to the person whom they desired to kill, as witches apparently did in Europe. They questioned Caté, but he told them that he did not have to say anything; rather, he only had to think of the name of the person to whom he wanted to do harm.17 Spanish officials and missionaries in the Río de la Plata associated the Indians’ abilities to cause people to fall ill and even die with their Catholic beliefs in the devil. Catholic missionaries thought that the Guaraní had a pact with the devil, had been deceived by him, or worked in conjunction with him to do evil.18 Both men and women occasionally used poison to harm or kill their enemies. In a case of “witchcraft,” one person confessed to mixing milk with snake oil and other ingredients to make another mission Indian deathly sick. Sometimes the Guaraní used “toad powder” (polvo de sapo), flies, and animal dung and fur from the largest of all South American rodents, the capybara, to harm their victims. Caté buried the sting of the freshwater ray in the ground near the house of the person he wanted to harm, hoping that person would then step on the venomous sting and injure himself, suffering severe inflammation and swelling of the extremities. Guaraní “witches” often mixed various ingredients in common foods, such as yerba maté, manioc, sweet potatoes, and chipá (manioc

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bread).19 In 1775, two Guaraní women, María Rosa and María Juana, from the Mission Santiago south of the Tebicuary River, were suspected of using “witchcraft” to poison their employer, Doña Lucia Alvarenga, a Paraguayan who lived in the valley of Aguiaiy. The young women mixed some natural oil from a bird called manduriá with tobacco leaves when rolling a homemade cigar for Doña Lucia to smoke.Typically, in Paraguay mestizas smoked small cigars. María Rosa sought to poison Doña Lucia Alvarenga because she had severely punished her for some unknown reason. The Spanish authorities obtained María Rosa’s confession “under duress,” meaning that they gave her several lashes.20 One mission Indian accused of witchcraft, Silverio Caté, had a human flesh fetish, which alarmed the Spaniards. Caté informed authorities in the missions that he had found the remains of a native infant who was killed by a wild dog. He kept the child’s arm in his house and distributed parts of the infant’s body to other Guaraní. Possibly, his behavior related to Tupí-Guaraní anthropophagous rituals.21 This incident suggests that these particular Guaraní from Mission Loreto may have practiced endocannibalism, in which native peoples eat the flesh of their own deceased relatives, rather than that of their enemies, primarily for religious purposes to retain some of their magic.As recently as 1963, there was a report of endocannibalism in Paraguay among the Guayakíes, who are indigenous peoples related to the Guaraní.22 Conceivably, rare instances of endocannibalism existed in the reductions without the knowledge of the Spanish, given the overwhelming number of native people in comparison to the reduced number of missionaries and secular officials. Accusations of Guaraní witchcraft followed no apparent geographic pattern; nor were they restricted to missions under the charge of a particular religious order; except that these arrests postdated the Jesuits. It is notable that all four cases took place in the 1770s, the decade immediately following the Jesuit expulsion from Latin America.This was a transitional phase in the history of the missions, and one of increased social tensions. Possibly, the religious orders that replaced the Jesuits sought to discredit their predecessors by demonstrating that witchcraft had existed in the missions administered by the Jesuits. For the Guaraní, the 1770s were a period of upheaval, as the economies of the missions declined and many began abandoning the missions in greater numbers.The absence of witchcraft accusations in the period of the Jesuits, by contrast, either suggests that the Company of Jesus was more tolerant of Guaraní ways or that the missionaries dealt with these incidents on their own without intervention from outsiders. The Franciscans, Mercedarians, Dominicans, and creole administrators brought these criminal cases to trial in the Spanish courts.

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Witchcraft has been present in many cultures. In the villages of Western Europe, witch hunting took place throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.23 In New England, the persecution of witchcraft belonged entirely to the seventeenth century, although informally witchcraft remained part of the culture well into the eighteenth and even the nineteenth century.24 In eighteenth-century England, witchcraft also remained a concern, as a number of witchcraft cases were brought to trial.25 Unlike during the witchcraft cases in New England and Western Europe, there were no executions or incidents of burning at the stake of Guaraní Indian “witches,” even those who confessed to committing murder. Due to their status as miserables (literally, miserable ones, or wards of the court), within the Spanish legal system, the Guaraní were exempt from capital punishment. They did suffer imprisonment in Spanish towns or in neighboring mission jails for several years as the courts tried their cases. The Spanish courts were more lenient because attitudes toward witchcraft had substantially changed in the eighteenth century with the advent of the Enlightenment and its emphasis on rational thought.The men who tried the Guaraní were most likely lawyers. They could see that the evidence did not add up to a serious conviction. Many books appeared in Spain attacking the belief in witches and all kinds of superstitions. It was rare even in Europe for witches or sorcerers to be condemned to death at this time.26 Many kinds of situations fostered the Guaraníes’ desire to harm others and resolve interpersonal conflicts among themselves rather than rely on other authorities and institutions in the missions. Theft of personal possessions, especially from their individual plots of land, was a cause of “witchcraft.” Silverio Caté, for example, sought revenge against certain people for robbing his fields, burning his hut, and taking his manioc. In another incident during the time of the Jesuits, Caté had a dispute with a mission Indian over the ownership of a ration of beef. Quarreling with friends and acquaintances was another common situation. Caté, for example, confessed to killing Ygnacio Ybirá, a porter, because Ybirá had refused to let him leave the main compounds of the mission one night. Cacique Guiray confessed to killing José Suirirí by putting snake venom, capybara dung, and a magnet into his maté after Suirirí “had looked at him with evil intentions.”27 He also explained that he hurt another mission Indian because he did not get along well with him during a return trip from Buenos Aires to the mission. Disputes over Guaraní women were another major motivation for poisoning enemies. One suspect resented that a mission Indian had refused to give him a woman. Evidently, there were instances in which women were freely exchanged or offered as gifts.A few

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women became victims of shamanism because they had rebuffed men who practiced this art. Cacique Don Christobal Guiray, for example, poisoned Rosa Pucú by giving her a gift of sweet potatoes that were tainted with snake venom and a stone magnet after she had refused to accept his “pretensions to communicate with her.”28 He noticed one evening that Rosa was dressed as though she was going to meet someone else. Guiray poisoned another Indian woman after he suspected that she was attracted to someone else. Adultery was the cause of witchcraft in one instance. Mathias Mendoza, a mission Indian from Loreto, claimed he had poisoned another Indian because “he had found him with his woman.”29 These various incidents demonstrate that the mission Indians sought justice by taking matters into their own hands rather than relying on the local priests and cabildo to resolve their differences. The Guaraní apparently had no other formal mechanism within their society to resolve these kinds of disputes with one another. Witchcraft cases exposed stress points within mission society. Since vastly more Guaraní were victims of witchcraft than missionaries, Spanish administrators, and criollos were, one could assume that much of the tension in mission society was among the Guaraní themselves. Worker-boss relationships were an important source of social tensions in three cases. One woman responded to an employer’s order of corporal punishment by tainting the employer’s small cigar. Guaraní peons sought to harm two of their employers. Nearly all the Guaraní accused of witchcraft, however, sought to harm other mission Indians in their communities, rather than Spaniards. Several of the accused had disputes with members of their cabildo, especially the corregidor, and other Indian officials, including a mayordormo and the alcalde de la hermandad, the head of the religious brotherhood.These cases provide evidence of factionalism within mission society. On occasion, members of the cabildo testified against others suspected of witchcraft. Don Basilio Gómez, the corregidor of Loreto, a Guaraní who adopted a Spanish name, testified that the capataz of one of the mission ranches informed the priest that many men and women were sick. The missionaries registered all the residents in the mission following the Sunday Mass and ordered the alcaldes to scrutinize the Indians’ behavior more closely to see whether they hid any religious fetishes or objects they could use to hurt others. Sunday was a day when everyone gathered in the main plaza of the mission where authorities could more easily observe native behavior. In this instance, the persecution of witchcraft cases served as a way to impose group standards and attempt to control and constrain Indian behavior.30

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Although those accused of witchcraft were imprisoned while the courts tried their cases, Spanish judges did not sentence them to serve time in prison. Instead, Spanish authorities sought to persuade other mission Indians not to follow their bad example and even to instill fear in them through public condemnation of their witchcraft practices and behavior. Spanish courts were lenient with the Guaraní because protectores de naturales, special public defenders, suspected that their use of snake oil, ground-up toads, animal dung, and other ingredients was not necessarily the cause of death of many of the mission Indians. Since the priests had burned these ingredients in the main plaza before Spanish authorities could assess them for any signs of toxicity, they thought they lacked sufficient evidence to persecute those accused.31 Possibly these remedies were effective only in the minds of the Guaraní, and the victims simply died of natural causes. Aside from these shamanistic practices, there was continuity in the manner in which the Guaraní extolled their ancestors. Although the evidence is not overwhelming, Jesuit accounts and archival records (including the native texts discussed above in Chapter 4) suggest that the mission Indians practiced the worship of bones, including those of shamans and the missionaries who replaced them. In the time of the Jesuits, when a reduction became too heavily populated, the missionaries divided the native inhabitants into two groups with the intention of establishing a new reduction. One of the difficulties the missionaries encountered was separating many of the Guaraní from their town.The Guaraní, the Jesuits noted, cried bitterly, saying that they refused to leave their native soil. Some Guaraní literally held on to the pillars of the church so as to prevent themselves from being taken away to another site. Others went to the cemetery alongside the church where they stood over the graves and asserted that they could not leave their relatives and ancestors; that they could not separate themselves from their bones.32 We have no exact way of knowing what this bone cult meant to the Guaraní. The Mbyá-Guaraní, an indigenous group that are among the direct descendants of the original mission Indians, however, still practice the worship of bones. Anthropologist León Cadogan relates that a MbyáGuaraní following the death of his niece received a message from the gods to keep her bones; the spirits ordered him to leave the village and go to another, taking her bones with him. Other anthropologists point out these native people used the bones of shamans to communicate with the spirits of the deceased and to make prophecies.33 The Guaraní mission Indians blended other native rites with Catholicism. According to a Jesuit’s description of a religious festival, the mission

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Indians decorated the large plazas of their reductions with tree branches. Along the streets, they placed some of their valuable possessions from their homes: sacks of corn, vegetables, beans, and other food staples. At each of the four corners of the churchyard, they built a simple altar; they tied birds or other animals, alive or dead, to the branches of the trees or at the foot of the four altars. Since the Jesuits did not condemn this pagan custom in his description, his letter indicates that the members of his order might have been willing to accept a Guaraní version of Catholicism to reshape gradually native ways to approximate their Christian ways.34 For the Guaraní, birds have always been key religious symbols. Anthropologists, such as Miguel Chase Sardi, tell us that they served as a link to their spiritual world or as messengers to the gods. Within the Catholic religion, however, the symbolism of a bird, the dove as the Holy Spirit, was also significant. Guaraní sculptors carved doves representing the Holy Spirit as well as other kinds of birds native to the region. Following the expulsion of the Jesuits, the Guaraní continued to construct these symbolic decorations without objections from the Franciscans, Dominicans, or Mercedarians. Other items they displayed on the altars included textiles, clothing, agricultural and other types of tools, bows and arrows, carved human figures, pieces of roasted beef, manioc cakes, and a variety of vegetables in woven baskets. Those Guaraní who lived close to the rivers placed fish on the altars. Sometimes the fish were still alive and swam around in little carved wooden canoes.35 By placing food, birds, fish, and other items on the altars, the Guaraní were making a connection with their own spiritual world within the framework of Catholicism.

A Native Priesthood The Catholic Church throughout Spanish America prohibited Amerindians from being priests throughout most of the colonial period. It did not allow them to occupy these important positions in colonial society because the clergy believed that their intellectual level was too low and that the native priests would not follow their vow of chastity.36 In this respect, the Jesuits’ reluctance to recruit Amerindians to enter their order from their missions in Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil was not unusual. Outside Europe, the Society of Jesus recruited only some seventy Japanese to become members of its religious order.The Jesuits allowed the Japanese to become Jesuits because they felt they could express some restraint in their behavior, unlike Amerindians.37 One important exception to this cultural pattern was Francisco Javier Tubichapotá, the son of a cacique from the Mercedarian mission of

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Santiago in Paraguay who became the first Guaraní Catholic priest at the end of the colonial period.38 Tubichapotá received a scholarship to attend the Real Colegio Seminario de San Carlos in Asunción.39 Before he could matriculate, however, he had to demonstrate his limpieza de sangre (purity of lineage). This he was able to do. He was born at Mission Santiago on December 3, 1775, and baptized on December 24, 1775, as the legitimate son of lieutenant corregidor Estanislao Tubichapotá and María Solome Araquí. His godfather, Diego Ygnacio Tavariyu, was another Guaraní from Santiago. Francisco Javier Tubichapotá entered the seminary at age thirteen. His own father brought him there to study and offered to pay for his room and board using funds from the mission.The royal scholarship evidently did not cover all his expenses. In 1788, governor of Paraguay Joaquín de Alós y Brú wrote that “the sons of honored chiefs should study Latin and other arts, so that once they are civilized, and versed in letters they will become useful to their fellow men.”40 In 1789, the bishop of Paraguay decreed that Francisco Xavier Tubichapotá be admitted to the Real Colegio de San Carlos in Asunción so that he could “serve as an example” to other Guaraní.41 These were some of the attitudes of Spanish officials expressed toward the creation of a native clergy. Besides learning how to read and write in Spanish and Latin, Tubichapotá completed all his studies, which were required for ordination at that time. He had studied at the Colegio Seminario de San Carlos for eleven years, from 1789 to 1800. The Jesuit provincial in Asunción, Antonio Lucema, signed a decree on November 13, 1801, stating that Tubichapotá should receive “the sacred orders” and take the examination required by the ecclesiastical cabildo in order to be fully ordained. In 1803,Tubichapotá was ordained as a priest. He was assigned to a doctrina de indios, to work among neophytes in nearby towns.42 Tubichapotá was the first Guaraní to become a Catholic priest, but his experience was repeated, although infrequently, at the seminaries. Juan Ventura Cayurí and Francisco Chuchí from the Franciscan mission of Yaguarón, for example, studied at the Colegio Real Seminario de San Carlos in Asunción at the turn of the nineteenth century.43 Don Domingo Yabacu of the former Jesuit mission of Santo Tomé also entered the Colegio Real de San Carlos in Buenos Aires in 1801. Don Gregorio José Gómez, a doctor of theology at the Real Universidad de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires and professor of philosophy at the Real Colegio de San Carlos, considered Yabacu to be a distinguished pupil.44 Don Pasqual Areguaty, corregidor of Mission San Miguel, sent his two sons at his own expense to be educated at the Colegio Real de San Carlos in Buenos Aires in 1798.

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He intended that they study theology and letters with the objective of entering the priesthood. One son, Pablo, however, decided not to become a priest: instead, he became capitán de militias in Mandisoví, Entre Rios, and later was appointed comandante militar of the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands.45 Pasqual Areguaty and all of his family were highly acculturated. In 1799, he described himself in a petition as an amante a la Religion Católica (lover of the Catholic Religion); sending his sons to study to become priests was his proof. He also explained that “this sacrifice [referring to the education of his children] was proper only of one who wanted his nation [meaning the Guaraní] to know the true religion and to erase all of the errors in which my ancestors had lived.”46 Areguaty’s motives were not altruistic, however. Areguaty sought to convince Spanish authorities of his loyalty and strong Catholic faith because he wanted to be promoted to the rank of capitán de milicias urbanas. Areguaty and his family turned to Catholicism and the Spanish language and customs as a means of improving their situation.To obtain a promotion in Spanish colonial society, one had to be a Catholic and educated, especially if one was a Guaraní from the missions. Areguaty’s words and actions suggest that members of the native élite saw benefits in having a son in the clergy. At the same time, his words signify that these Guaraní had lost a sense of some their traditional values, or suffered deculturation, as part of this process of extended intercultural contact. Areguaty, for his part, preferred to view the ancestral beliefs of the Guaraní in negative terms; he thought they were erroneous. The move to allow a native priesthood may have originated with Pope Clement XIII, who in 1766 reaffirmed the earlier decisions of the Spanish Crown, in 1697 and 1725, allowing Indians to be admitted to religious orders and to be educated in seminaries.47 In 1691 Charles II had decreed the creation of a colegio seminario in Mexico City.As part of this decree, one-fourth of all its scholarships were intended for the caciques’ sons; the actual number received, however, was much lower. The archives yield a few rare cases of the sons of caciques becoming priests in other parts of Spanish America. Don Pedro Riquelmes, the son of an Araucanian chief, became a priest in Santiago, Chile, as early as 1690.48 Three sons of Maya caciques studied at the Colegio de San Pedro in Mérida in 1786, although no Maya entered the diocesan seminary of San Ildefonso until 1793.49 The appearance of insignificant numbers of Indian priests in Spanish America reflects the Spaniards’ racial prejudices toward Amerindians, with the exception of native elites. Guaraní cabildantes and caciques had requested that their own sons enter Catholic seminaries following the Jesuit expulsion (as discussed

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above in Chapter 5). For the Guaraní, the idea of a native priesthood, along with the church, came to represent an important symbol of their autonomy. Robert Haskett, in Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca (1991), notes that a well-constructed church was a source of Indian pride in Cuernavaca because it was an indication of a community’s status as an independent political entity. The Guaraní similarly displayed a strong sense of pride in their churches. Petitions written in the Guaraní language corroborate these sentiments. In 1787, three caciques, corregidor Fernando Christomo Tamboray, Juan Tamay, and Patricio Yacuy, traveled from Mission San Cosme and Damian to see the viceroy in Buenos Aires in order to solicit the construction of a new church. In 1809 Guaraní capataz Juan Pablo Ximenez, Antonio Guararica, Christobal Barite, and Chrisanto Zuares wrote a letter to their corregidor, the cabildo, and caciques of Mission Santos Reyes de Yapeyú, and other caciques in their town to express their deep concern and disapproval over the removal of their altar from their church, the chapel of San Francisco Xavier (see Appendix 5). They identified themselves as Christians and recalled that their ancestors were among the first Christians in the region. Reminicient of their bone cult, they noted that “many of their deceased relatives were buried inside the church or in the cemetery next to it.”50 With the chapel nearby, they argued that they could look after the sculptures of their patron saints San Francisco Xavier, Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Nuestra Señora Dolorosa, and crucifix of Jesus Christ. They also asserted that since the time they were children, they had always enjoyed their chapel, and they refused to relocate it to Buenos Aires because many of them were baptized and married in it. These Guaraní pleaded not to have their chapel moved because it represented “the work of all those from the town.”51 This sense of pride or emotional attachment toward the missions lingers today among some of the descendants of the original Guaraní mission Indians. Referring to the mission ruins of San Miguel in Rio Grande do Sul, Juancito Oliveira, a Mbyá-Guaraní, recently observed, “We were able to build the church because in that time there was much agreement or understanding with Ñanderú, “Our Great Father”; we ate well, we prayed a lot, we had physical strength, but above all, we had spiritual power, and because of this, we were able to build the missions.”52 The Guaraní through their extended contact with the Europeans altered the lives of the missionaries. The Catholic missionaries, especially Jesuits and Franciscans, realized early on the importance of learning the native language to communicate with the neophytes and convert the Guaraní. Yet the priests had difficulties finding equivalents in the native

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language for certain concepts. For example, the first Jesuits to arrive in Brazil and later those who came to Paraguay and Guairá chose Tupá (thunder), a lesser figure in native belief system, to represent the Christian God. This divinity was not the most appropriate one, since he was a destructive figure, one the Tupí-Guaraní feared.53 With time, however, the Guaraní appear to have recognized Tupá as the Christian God. Sculptures carved by Guaraní artisans of God the Creator probably facilitated his acceptance by these native people. Since the missionaries could not always find other equivalents in the native language, they retained several religious concepts, such as Espíritu Santo (Holy Spirit), in Spanish. Aside from studying the Guaraní language, Catholic missionaries accepted certain customs that have native origins, including the consumption of yerba maté and manioc, the “Indians’ bread,” on a daily basis. An eighteenth-century illustration by Jesuit Father Florian Pauke, for example, depicts the Jesuits wearing their long black gowns sipping yerba maté from a gourd using a bombilla in the main plaza of their colegio in Córdoba. Jesuit interest in and utilization of Guaraní herbs for medicinal purposes is another example of their transculturation. Detailed drawings of the native flora and fauna occasionally form an integral part of the Jesuit accounts. Father José Sánchez Labrador devoted an entire volume to the study of Paraguay’s native plants and fauna. On the surface, it appears that the Guaraní gave up more aspects of their native culture than the missionaries. But important elements of their traditional native religion were present throughout the colonial era.54 The mixture of certain Guaraní traditions with Catholicism was, of course, one of change, and perhaps in some respects, not necessarily a sign of deterioration, since all cultures undergo change.The Guaraní mission Indians created their own version of the Catholic religion, which apparently better suited their needs. By studying the Catholic religion, the Guaraní learned how the Spaniards thought.This enabled them to adapt better to the new colonial milieu. The Guaraní, accordingly, could make their own ideas more acceptable to the Spaniards.This was an important strategy for survival in the process of accommodation. If the Guaraní appeared to go along with the Spaniards’ program and became Christians, they were more likely to be left alone.Their responses to Christianity closely approximated the reactions of Amerindians in other parts of the Spanish America, such as the Maya and the Tarahumara in Mesoamerica as described by Farriss (1984) and Merrill (1993) respectively, in that they incorporated Catholic saints and symbols into their belief system insofar as they complied with their traditional patterns.55 Figure 13 is a fine example of a Guaraní baroque sculpture of the Virgin Mary, which resembles religious art in

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Figure 13. Guaraní Sculpture of the Virgin Mary, Mission Santa Rosa

other areas of Spanish America. Like the Tarahumaras at the Jesuit missions in northern Mexico, the Guaraní participated in Catholic rituals, especially celebrations of holy days, with enthusiasm.56 What threatened the Guaraní was the Spaniards’ insistence on altering their social values and behavior, especially their attitudes toward their own culture, which some came to view negatively. Fig13Her

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A visitor to the village of Loreto on the Argentine border today can find that the heritage of the Jesuit mission culture still looms large, especially in the churches, main plazas, dirt streets laid out on a grid pattern, housing styles, and in the Argentine people’s celebrations of their patron saint’s day, Nuestra Señora de Loreto. Between 1822 and 1827, Don Blas Chapay, secretario del cabildo and cacique of Mission Corpus Christi, fled with his family and numerous other Guaraní from nearby missions to settle in more remote sites near Yberá lagoon in the province of Corrientes (see Map 8). In these uninhabited areas, the Guaraní established entirely new villages, naming them after Catholic saints, such as Nuestra Señora de Loreto, San Miguel, San Roquito, and Asunción del Cambaí, utilizing the Spanish institution of the cabildo and concepts of urban planning they acquired from the Jesuits.57 The story of Don Blas Chapay might best summarize the abilities of the Guaraní mission Indians to adapt to frontier culture and communities during the upheaval of the independence period in the Río de la Plata. Don Blas Chapay was a relative of Don Miguel Leon Chapay, who was among the forty-six caciques present at Mission Corpus Christi in 1759. He was also related to Don Exidio Chapay, another cacique, according to the census of 1777, when there were thirty-eight caciques still remaining at the mission.58 Known for his fine penmanship, secretario Don Blas Chapay became the village of Loreto’s first schoolteacher in the early nineteenth century. Pedro Chapay is among the living direct descendants of Don Blas Chapay. During most of his adult life, Pedro Chapay worked as a secretary to the local justice of the peace at the municipal council of Loreto in a similar position to his Guaraní ancestor. Pedro Chapay’s mother, Lydia Aquino, a widow who is well into her eighties, has five other children besides Pedro. Most have left the village to seek work in Buenos Aires. Similar to many Correntinos and Paraguayans, the Chapays speak Guaraní at home but use Spanish in more formal settings, such as at work and school. Lydia Aquino and Pedro Chapay share the physical features of the Guaraní. Both are rather short and stocky in stature, with olive skin complexions and extremely dark brown eyes and black hair. Lydia Aquino describes herself as deeply religious. She prays at a home altar in a corner of a room where she displays sculptures of Jesus, a Catholic saint, a wooden crucifix, candles, a collage of family snapshots, fresh flowers, and faded magazine photographs of a bishop and the Pope. The Christ figure is dressed in a white hand-crocheted skirt-like garment, which carefully covers Jesus’ loincloth.The small Catholic saint resembles other sculptures of Saint Roque and is dressed from head to toe in light blue satin. Every December 10, these two statues, along with other reli-

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gious images that originated from the Jesuit reductions, are paraded through the streets of Loreto in a religious procession that leads to the church where an evening Mass is held.Without fail, the Chapay children return from Buenos Aires to participate in Loreto’s patron saint’s day festivities. Following the Mass, the family celebrates the saint’s day with a dinner. In the shelter of their modest homes, Lydia Aquino and the other descendants of the Guaraní from the Jesuit missions cling to their sacred objects and make religious offerings that have some connection with the world of their ancestors.As time has passed and as their memories of their ancestors from the Jesuit missions have faded, what has remained is a hybrid culture and a syncretic Christianity that blended native beliefs and Christian ideology.59

Transculturation and Guaraní Cultural Resiliency Traditionally, historians only wrote the history of the Spanish conquest from the perspectives of the conquerors, not the conquered.Then in 1964, Charles Gibson broke important new ground in colonial Latin American historiography by examining the impact of Spanish institutions on Aztec culture in the Valley of Mexico in his monumental study, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule (1964). Of particular interest is his analysis of the structure of the native villages, the cabeceras, and the many ways the Aztecs responded to Spanish colonial domination. In more recent decades, a growing number of historians have illuminated the myriad ways in which Amerindians have shaped their own worlds in different regions of Spanish America. Rather than rely on the usual sources written in European languages, these historians have attempted to use an ethnohistorical approach to understanding processes of cultural change in Amerindian societies.They tended to utilize as many kinds of sources as possible to reconstruct the past, including material culture, archaeology, visual sources, historical documents, native texts, oral history, folklore, and ethnographies.Their strength lies in their ability to recognize the stereotypes and biases that must be taken into account in analyzing the various kinds of sources that contain information about what has happened to different cultures in the past. Many have displayed a growing interest in the body of theory on social structure and culture generated by anthropologists working in many different areas of the world.They have also recognized the value of information recorded by Amerindians themselves and make an effort to give voice to those who previously had none in history. Some have an interest in understanding cultural symbolism or take into consideration different worldviews in studying intercultural contact in relation to the general

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processes of political, economic, social, cultural, and religious change.60 For some, gender has also become an important social category of analysis. Representatives of this trend include Nancy Farriss, Inga Clendinnen, James Lockhart, and William B.Taylor, among others.61 Building on these recent developments, a number of scholars have also recognized the value of applying an ethnohistorical approach to the study of missions in the New World. By shifting our focus away from the activities of missionaries and toward Amerindians’ responses to life in missions during the colonial and national periods, they have contributed to our understanding of ethnicity and the borderlands of cultures. Common themes in their work include native resistance, rebellions, religious and cultural adaptation, demographic collapse, migration, miscegenation, and ethnogenesis, which denotes the ability of a culture to create enduring ethnic identities. As a result of their valuable contributions, historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists now have a much better opportunity to compare missions and the processes of cultural adaptation in different parts of the New World. In contrast to numerous extant studies on Amerindians in the Peruvian highlands and central Mexico, this study sought to demonstrate the need to examine the cultural interactions between the Jesuits and the Guaraní, and the kinds of relationships the Guaraní developed with the Spanish, the Portuguese, and their descendants on the frontiers of the Río de la Plata and Brazil. Unlike many earlier works, this study depicts the Jesuits not as being isolated from the Amerindians, but as being primary agents of change in native culture. In the course of conducting the research and writing, the importance of understanding the motives, goals, ideas, and attitudes of both the Catholic missionaries and the indigenous people became apparent. It also became imperative to go beyond documenting evidence of native resistance to studying cultural interactions and processes of change resulting from contact. Accommodation is another significant historical process that merited further attention. At first, accommodation appeared to be the reverse of native resistance.62 It implied that the Guaraní meekly accepted life in the missions under the control of benevolent Jesuit missionaries. One aspect of cultural survival, however, was not merely to resist the Europeans by retreating further into the forest, murdering missionaries, refusing to work, and rebelling. But by accommodating themselves to the new colonial system, the Guaraní could adopt and shape Spanish institutions, ideas, material culture, and technology to suit their own needs.Transculturation was very much implicit throughout this historical process. The Spanish and the Guaraní borrowed cultural elements from one another in order to survive in this remote province.

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European contact with the Guaraní appears distinctive; their early reliance upon Guaraní women’s labor and the elements of native culture they adopted, especially language, diet, and certain customs that to this day can be observed in Paraguay and neighboring parts of South America.The manioc, yucca, or cassava plant (manihot esculenta), for example, has its origin in northern South America and has been in use by the Tupí-Guaraní since a remote period of time.This native root became the mainstay of the Paraguayan diet and is widely consumed throughout Brazil as farinha de mandioca (manioc meal), as well as being eaten in other parts of Latin America and in tropical regions worldwide.63 However, even Nancy Farriss speaks of a “Mayanization” of the Spaniards in Yucatan; how they become assimilated into Maya culture in language, diet, and other domestic patterns.64 The processes of cultural adaptation in this peripheral region, thus, may not differ so dramatically from other Spanish borderlands, which lacked precious metals and failed to attract immigrants. Nonetheless, the study of the Jesuit reductions in Paraguay illustrates other unique features, which can be compared and contrasted to those of other borderlands in the New World. One distinct characteristic was the presence of Guaraní militias in mission society. In other parts of Spanish America, Spain relied on Spanish garrisons and presidios near missions to protect Spanish territory. In northern New Spain, for example, small numbers of Indian soldiers were stationed at the presidios and used as auxiliaries. In Paraguay, however, the Guaraní were trained and led by the Jesuits to serve the interests of the empire. This Spanish institution provided the Guaraní with a sense of continuity with their own warrior traditions and served as yet another vivid example of their transculturation. The Guaraní calvary wore European-style uniforms and carried their traditional bows and arrows, along with European muskets. One distinguishing feature of the reductions was the kind of relationship the Jesuits developed with the Guaraní. In contrast to the cicumstances of other missionary frontiers in Spanish America, the Jesuits developed a close, intimate relationship with the Guaraní, especially with the native elites. In this peripheral area of the Spanish Empire, the Jesuits inculcated Catholic values in daily church services, in the morning and afternoon, not only on Sundays. Indeed, despite a substantial Guaraní presence, the two or three churchmen at each reduction were quite influential. Ultimately, the Jesuits left a large imprint on the indigenous culture and the region in general.The influence of Catholic missionaries is evident even today and readily observable during the celebrations of patron saint’s days in many of the former mission towns in the border region of modern Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil.

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What were the basic motives of the Jesuit missionaries? What did these men in black cloth hope to achieve? One of their motives was clearly to help these indigenous people spiritually, physically, and materially. The Catholic missionaries were also inspired by the idea of converting all the Guaraní and creating prosperous and self-sufficient Christian communities.The Jesuits attempted to protect their Indian charges by speaking out against their abuse and illegal enslavement by settlers and encomenderos. The Jesuits also tried to relieve the Guaraníes’ suffering, cure their illnesses, and prevent the spread of diseases. Unknowingly, however, by resettling the Guaraní into densely populated towns and requiring them to collect yerba maté in the distant forests until they developed Paraguayan tea plantations, the missionaries perhaps contributed to the demise of the Guaraní population.Their help also implied that the Jesuits would fundamentally alter many other aspects of the lives of the Guaraní. As in other parts of the world, the Jesuits brought with them a zeal for religious conversion.65 They introduced a new economic, social, and political order in the missions that incorporated native forms.The Jesuits also carried with them Western ideas, technology, and science, as well as new attitudes toward gender, marriage, divorce, clothing, the human body, and sexuality. The introduction of Old World animals especially affected the Guaraní way of life, along with the exposure to European material culture. Like other Amerindians in the Río de la Plata, the Guaraní became heavily dependent on cattle as both a food source and an important item of trade. Guaraní arts, crafts, music, cuisine, and language were also affected by missionary contact, along with their social relations. Undoubtedly, European contact had a profound impact on the Guaraní. In many respects, life was worse for these indigenous people following the arrival of the Europeans. Not only were the Guaraní enslaved, obligated to provide forced labor in encomiendas, relocated from their natural habitats, dispossessed of their land and women, and even exterminated by the newcomers, they were also decimated by Old World diseases. But other aspects of their lives had been dramatically altered from what they had been more than two centuries earlier. A number of Guaraní men had become skilled artisans, teachers, musicians, cabildantes, militia officers, soldiers, riverboat captains, sailors, and ranch hands.Women learned to sew and continued to farm, but men became the primary textile weavers and potters in mission society.Together they performed a wide range of activities in the regional economies of the Río de la Plata and Brazil.A number of Guaraní men and women, however, formed part of the impoverished underclass in colonial cities and the surrounding countryside. Guaraní literacy was another notable feature of these missions. Similar

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to those friars who established reductions among the Guaraní in central Paraguay, the Jesuits taught the Guaraní how to read and write in their native language. Those individuals who authored or coauthored these native texts were products of the colonial world that was both Guaraní and Hispanic. Their letters demonstrate that the Guaraní placed great value on the giving of their word, as was apparent in the letter written by Nicolás Ñeengirú (see Appendix 1). Interestingly, the Guaraní continued to write letters long after the departure of these missionaries. This point lends authenticity to the Guaraní letters written in protest of the Treaty of Madrid in 1753, although it does not entirely preclude some Jesuit intervention. Building on the works of James Lockhart, Miguel León-Portillo, Bartomeu Melià, S.J., and others, this study demonstrates the value of using Guaraní native language sources to elucidate the ideas and worldview of these indigenous people.66 Although Guaraní texts do not form a great corpus of literature, in contrast to Nahuatl writings in Mesoamerica, these sources contain the voices of the Guaraní during the late-colonial period. They also convey complex messages about the impact of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism and Christianity. They let us know more about what these indigenous people believed about the colonial world around them. Above all, they shared feelings of oppression under Spanish rule. From reading these documents, one also obtains a better understanding of the Guaraní sense of community and their cultural identity. The mission cabildo records in the native language, moreover, demonstrate that Guaraní readily adapted this Spanish institution to suit their own needs. Guaraní cabildantes and caciques on numerous occasions acted as intermediaries between the Indian commoners, missionaries, and Spanish authorities to protect the interests of their communities. By shaping this institution to serve themselves, the Guaraní leaders preserved a certain degree of autonomy, despite being a part of the Spanish political regime. Caciques, moreover, retained some limited authority in the reductions. Ultimately, the Jesuits and their predecessors could not entirely impose European forms of political governance on the Guaraní. Their leaders, such as Nicolás Ñeengirú, Sepé Tiarajú, and Andrés Guacaraví “Artigas,” came forth to challenge the Spanish, Portuguese, and their descendants and to defend their land.The cabildo records also expose the real choices and decisions Guaraní elites made about their lives and the fate of their communities. In addition, they provide us with a better understanding of the Guaraníes’ changing social values and their political strategies under Spanish rule. Furthermore, these documents serve to illustrate that as a native people, the Guaraní displayed a remarkable cultural resiliency.

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But perhaps more profound evidence of cultural persistence is that the native Tupí-Guaraní language, unlike Spanish, became predominant in Paraguay and parts of neighboring Argentina. At present, Guaraní is the official language of Paraguay along with Spanish, an unusual occurrence in Latin America.There are probably more than four million speakers of this indigenous language.According to the 1992 census, 49 percent of the population of Paraguay spoke Guaraní and Spanish, 39.3 percent were monolingual Guaraní speakers, and 6.4 percent spoke only Spanish.67 In contrast, in Peru according to the 1993 census 80.3 percent spoke Spanish, 16.5 percent spoke Quechua, 3 percent spoke Aymara, and .2 percent spoke a foreign language. Paraguay, thus, has the distinction of being the only country in the Western Hemisphere where a native language is more widely spoken than a European one. Nevertheless, the Guaraní from the Jesuit missions played a less significant role in Paraguay’s creolization than the Guaraní in the Franciscan missions and the mestizos in the central region because the Jesuits chose more remote geographic locations for their reductions. These sites seemed to offer them more freedom to maneuver and isolated the Guaraní from what the missionaries considered to be corrupting outside influences. Following the expulsion of the Jesuits, the Guaraní also tended to migrate from the missions to the lower provinces of the Río de la Plata or to Brazil, rather than in the direction of the Province of Paraguay. However, the Guaraní language is widely spoken in parts of Corrientes, particularly in those remote Argentine villages where the Guaraní families, such as the Chapays, sought shelter during the wars of independence. According to several anthropologists, little remains of the “traditional” Tupí-Guaraní culture other than the Amerindian language. Greg Urban, for example, emphasizes that Paraguay is much less culturally “Indian” than Peru, although the Guaraní language has extended its scope far beyond the racial or ethnic category of “Indian.”68 Indeed, today less than 1–3 percent of the population in Paraguay is considered “Indian.” Presently, there are only three Guaraní indigenous groups, the MbyáGuaraní, Paí-tavytera, and Avá-kue-Chiripá, who inhabit small areas of the border region of Paraguay,Argentina, and Brazil (in Brazil the Paí-tavytera are known as the Kayoba, the Mbyá as the Mbuá, Kayoba, or Kayua, and the Avá-kue-Chiripá as the Nandeva).They number fewer than 25,000.69 There are 32,000 Avá-Chiriguano, 13,000 Guarayú (the descendants of the Itatines-Guaraní who migrated from Paraguay), and 8,500 Izoceños in Bolivia and parts of Argentina who speak dialects of Tupí-Guaraní.70 The Tupí along the coast of Brazil, the first to be contacted by Europeans, disappeared by the eighteenth century. Most Guaraní-speaking groups that

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inhabit the borderlands of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil reside in national colonies and missions with no titles to their lands or in small squatter communities where they are dependent on wage labor for their subsistence. From my brief but memorable encounter with the AváChiripá in a remote area in Alto Paraná near the Paraguayan-Brazilian border, one can easily appreciate that cultural survival is still an ongoing issue among the Guaraní-speaking peoples in South America.Tranquilino Román, an eighty-one-year-old village elder, commented on the status of his people, the Avá-Chiripá, at the village of Acaray-mí. He remarked: We have always had fish. Now there is no more fishing. If one comes across a river or stream, there are no fish. We have become impoverished. There is no longer any forest where we can go hunting and gathering to fulfill our basic needs.We used to have everything in the forest, including honey. Now we see that our children no longer have knowledge of these things; they only know the culture of the white man and want to live like him. This is how things are. We no longer understand one another [implying that the younger generations of AváChiripá do not know their roots]. And if someone says that we need to live according to our traditions, another individual comes forth and states that we need more than tradition to get ahead.71

Caught between tradition and modernity, the contemporary Guaraní face similar problems that their ancestors had encountered more than two centuries earlier: a clash over new social values with a dominant culture and conflicts over land, labor, religion, and the need to preserve their cultural identity and independence. But these indigenous people also face several new issues such as deforestation, the loss of hunting and fishing sites, and even suicide, which unfortunately has reached epidemic proportions among young adult Guaraní males in southern Brazil.The condition of the Mbyá-Guaraní is by far the worst because they reside in small nuclei of three to four families on private lands not belonging to them and constantly are on the move to avoid settlers.72 Christian missionaries of various religious sects have also been attempting to convert the Guaraní people to their faith. Many missionaries and state agencies have assisted the indigenous peoples with health care and education, but in doing so, these organizations have altered many of their ways and increased their dependence on them. John Hemming in his highly informative studies of the conquest of Amerindians in Brazil describes the Guaraní in the Jesuit missions in Paraguay as “Christian, loyal, docile, hard-working, and civilized.”73 He also claims that their “own culture was obliterated but they eagerly embraced Christianity.”74 In contrast to this and many previous works, this study has shown how the Guaraní still managed to retain distinctive ele-

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ments of their indigenous culture, despite the efforts of Catholic missionaries, and in face of the overwhelming political, economic, social, and cultural pressures from the Europeans they encountered. Guaraní texts, oral testimonies in judicial records, descriptions of religious festivals, and material culture offer glimpses of more original beliefs, such as ancestor worship, which provided a way of maintaining continuity with the past, as well as serving as a source of cultural identity. By the eighteenth century, the Guaraní religious system had suffered profound Catholic influences. The Guaraní mission Indians had adopted Christian first names and received the Christian sacraments and burials. Guaraní fugitives also established godparenthood ties in Spanish and Portuguese towns and the surrounding countryside. Finally, a Guaraní was ordained a Catholic priest at the end of the colonial period. In many respects, this wide range of Guaraní responses to Christianity closely resembled the reactions of Amerindians to Catholic missionary efforts in other parts of the Spanish America. Even though many of their responses appear to be familiar ones, these intricate patterns of adaptation, resistance, and accommodation had not been previously well known and documented for the Guaraní. Under the influence of Catholic missionaries, these native people had become Christian, but they remained Guaraní. In summary, this ethnohistorical study sought to uncover the broad patterns and trends that characterized the entire mission region under the Jesuits, while attempting to establish some of differences that existed at individual missions. It also intended to contextualize the lives of individual Guaraní men and women, especially those of fugitives, as well as to analyze the internal conflicts within their communities and recover their native voices, which have been absent in much of the historical literature. Further research on this subject will doubtlessly reveal more subregional differences and continue to highlight the complexities of studying intercultural contact on the frontier. Finally, by examining the colonial ethnohistory of the Guaraní from the Jesuit missions and their continuing cultural conflicts with Europeans and their descendants, this study intended to provide more historical depth and understanding of Paraguay’s hybrid culture that has descended from the Spanish and the Guaraní, within which Amerindians still struggle for survival today.

Reference Matter

Appendix

1

Letter of Nicolás Ñeengirú, Corregidor of Mission Concepción, to the Governor of Buenos Aires, José de Andonaegui, July 20, 1753

Señor Governador: Hearing the words of your letter has taken us all by surprise; we do not believe that it is in the holy heart of our King to have ordered us to move; something which is very difficult to do; and we say that these are not the intentions of our King. The Portuguese, yes, we say that because they are the enemies of our well-being, they want to mistreat us and make us relocate. It is because we have another letter from the King in which the late father of our King demonstrated his good faith, his love for us, his desire for our well-being, that we have a church, despite what we have done in times of war, and he consoles us for all of the good deeds we have performed in many places, according to his will. He looks kindly upon us he says in his letter. Because of this, he also says in his letter: I will remember you, help you, take care of you very well, and my governor will also assist you, and I have ordered him to make sure that no harm comes to you.We accordingly respond: How can it be that these two letters do not correspond to one another and are different? Our King does not make mistakes with his words. Why is it now that he wants to pressure us, to obligate us even though we are not mistaken, to make us poor, and wanting us to abandon our lands which we had worked and put all of our possessions in the hands of the Portuguese? For us to get lost for once and for all? Señor, yes, we cannot believe that he is aware of this, if he would hear our words, he would get very angry, and would not treat you well, and would not approve the order to make us relocate. We have never done anything wrong against our King, nor against you, Sir, you are aware of that. We all our hearts, we have honored your requests, and fulfilled them well. Because of our love and devotion, we have given you our goods, our animals, and even our lives. Consequently, we cannot believe that it would be in the heart of our King to repay our good deeds with ordering us to give up our lands. All of us, including our children, speak of this, while getting incredibly angry. Neglecting their work, they walk around astonished. They refuse to listen to our words, that we are the corregidor and the cabildo.

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They get angry with us. They only obey the authority of the caciques. To utter a word about relocation is already not a good thing for us to do. You know well how we are when there is a great deal of work to do and are forced to do some unpleasant job. Leave what you are doing and go there, we tell our people, who are the vassals of the King. Leave the countryside and travel far in the name of our King. Collect all your possessions, become impoverished, losing everything. So that you will hear what they have to say and witness their anger. In the same manner, Sir, listen to the words of our children, the same way we have to listen to them.They say that a long time ago our good, holy saint called Roque González de Santa Cruz, after he came to our land, and instructed us about God and also what it is to be a Christian.There was not even a Spaniard here in this land. Of our own will, we agreed that God comes first, and of course, then our King, who would always be our protector. For this reason, we humbled ourselves, became subjugated, and accepted him. The King gave his word to our ancestors and also you have always repeated to us these same words. Well, why now do you suddenly want to change your words? This land, our children say, only God gave it to us. On this land our holy teacher Father Roque González and many of our relatives have died among us. They have raised us. Only for us they got tired. Well, why do the Portuguese desire the land so much? It is not theirs. Only our hands have worked it and prepared this land. Neither the Portuguese nor the Spaniards have done such things as build a magnificent church, a nice town, ranches for our cattle, yerba maté and cotton plantations, farms; what was achieved came about from our hard work.Well, how is it that you wrongly want to take our possessions from the fruit of our own labor? They wrongly want to make fun of us.That will not happen. God our Savior would not want this. He would not know how to do such things nor is it the will of our good, Holy King.We have not done anything wrong.We have not taken anything away from the Portuguese. Never for what we have worked will we get paid. Never have our ancestors spoken to us about resettling elsewhere. They have taken care of us, yes. They have loved us always. Only now do we hear these words. Only now do they speak of terrible things about taking us away from our towns, so that we would also lose our good ways.Well, what is this? They took our ancestors from the forests for these reasons and for their happiness? They brought them together, taught them, so that now they would lose everything? Is this the reason Padre Comisario [Altamirano] came? Because of him, they are no longer what they used to be.They never were what they are now. He has wrongly upset them. He is a new priest who just arrived to our Holy Land and he does not even give us what we need. He has not grown tired of our love.Wrongfully he wants to take our towns and land, all suddenly and only in a big hurry. He wants to kick us out like rabbits in the forest or into

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the open fields as if we were snails.And far away even if the weather is bad and even if it is winter. He only wants to make us poor and it seems that he wants to do away with us.This is what they tell us:This is not the word of God. He would not want it.This is not the work of Christians.We are also Christians, children of the Holy Mother Church. We have not neglected the church or our King. Padre Comisario, yes, in the name of our King has said:Throw them out. Go far away from your forest. Seek your own subsistence. Leave your fields. Collect your things. Work there. Get tired. Feel bad and be impoverished. In this way, you will also become poor and will have compassion for us. We are not able to console ourselves because he does not know our language. He does not know how to speak to us. He does not want to listen to our words.This is what they say [referring to those in the town].After all this, time and time again they say to us:To what land do they want us to relocate to? And all of a sudden only in a big hurry to relocate us to a terrible land. Not even for three towns have they been able to find good land and it is even more difficult to find land for our animals. And our priests want to join two towns in a single area that would mean the end to us.They say that they cannot find good land or the time so that we could slowly relocate.This they do not want to give us. Consequently, they only wrongfully want us to disappear. We have written you, Sir. These are the words of all of us. They are true ones.We, the members of the cabildo, no longer have anything else to say.We cannot keep them quiet nor oppose them when they get angry. Because of this, we humble ourselves before you so that you would honor the words of the King and help us. In the first place we are all your vassals.Well, make your King understand our poverty and suffering. Send him this letter wherever he may be. May he read it himself and hear and understand our poverty and labor. For this, God our Savior and for our King we choose them to protect us.We have never offended them so as to want to lose us. In this we confide in your good will that you take pity and mercy on us.And that later every one of us will obey your good will. Secondly, for love of God, in case you do not believe that these are our true words, you can see with your own eyes and they will tell you the truth.We very much need to have you do this.And since we need you, we hope that you come.And that even God our Savior will hear the words of the poor. Finally, Sir, in my town of Concepción, it is not so bad, even though there is suspicion. It is not on the other bank of the Uruguay River.With all of this, we have two ranches in that land and two yerba maté plantations. Consequently, in wanting to seize that land, all of us in this town would become impoverished. Until now we have been searching for some good land and we have not been able to find some.That great cacique Nicolás Ñeengirú is my true ancestor with whom a long time ago at the beginning Father Roque González had entered this land.The words of the faith of God touched him,

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revered him, and loved him very much. From my town he traveled to the other bank of the Uruguay to establish two towns all with my children and relatives. They have desired and requested that I express in this letter what their impoverishment and hard work mean.All of us every day we pray before God and we confide much in him. May that same Savior give you a good heart and a long life and may God protect you eternally ever after so that you could help us well. Concepción, July 1753. Nicolás Ñeengirú, corregidor. Source: AHN, Legajo 120j, exp. 40.Translation into English by author. Also published in Spanish in Mateos,“Notas y textos,” 569–72.

Appendix

2

Letter of the Corregidor Miguel Guaiho of Mission San Juan Bautista, 1753?

Although we have heard the notice which has been given to us (which they have spoken to their priest about) and we have heard about the will of our good, Holy King, even with all this we do not believe that this may be the will of our good, Holy King, or we do not treat it as such.This certainly has to be a thing of the Portuguese, who are very bad, and know how to lie a great deal. First of all, God himself has given these lands to our poor ancestors: after this God himself sent from heaven his vassal San Miguel [as the town of San Luis is a colony or division of the town of San Miguel, they more or less have the same tradition of the Holy Archangel appearing before them] who made our ancestors know God’s will: Search for someone who will look after your spiritual well-being [a priest who resembled San Ignacio, the founder of the Company of Jesus]. San Miguel then told them to construct a cross in the lands of our poor ancestors and said: this way you will reach your eternal wellbeing. After that, he told them to seek a spot where the sun sets towards the horizons, and look for what I have told you, and after saying that, San Miguel Archangel disappeared. Our ancestors complied with what the Saint had asked; three caciques spoke and in the company of some of their vassals, and after a great deal of work, they went to Buenos Aires with great hopes of finding a priest and our ancestors brought him to this land, and showed him to his vassals with great jubilation. The first thing this priest told our grandfathers was that this was God’s place. . . . This our good Holy King Philip V confirmed for us in the year 1716 on his holy paper using these words: confide only in me, and do not be made a fool by some Portuguese, . . . who sin a great deal. Because of this, for you, and for the great love which I have for you I sent my Captain General [referring to the arrival of Don Bruno Mauricio de Zavala, who came to see the Governor of Buenos Aires in 1717], and his Excellency ordered that royal decree be posted in all of the mission towns in which the King expressed his gratitude to all of the Guaraní nation, for having chased the Portuguese out of Colônia do Sacramento and prom-

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ised the Indians his royal patrimony. And since the decree was published with a great solemnity of bugles, drums, and other instruments, there are many Indians in each of the towns who remember the great love the Catholic Monarch Philip V has for them in their kind memory, and they displayed these great feelings when they heard the news of his death, well while they performed the funeral rites in the towns, many Indians whipped themselves (without ordering them to) as ordered by my Captain General to be our defender and free them of their false testimonies or lies. At the same time the King sent the priests of the Company of Jesus who carried our souls to God, they taught us all good doctrine, and good customs with much effort, and they baptized our children and taught them to be good. Our poor souls and bodies are nothing because the Portuguese may have spilt their blood: Jesus Christ himself is the one who has spilt his sacred blood for us; and because of this we search for him. This second person is the one with his sacred blood who has freed us, and looking at this, no way can we hear that the Portuguese bother us.This is our land and it is something they do not need: our poor land is the site of the Holy Sacrament, and the Holy Spirit is here, and will cause a cruel war. We do not ask for help here. Remember, remember well Portuguese, we made ashes out of your fathers at Colônia, only a few fled, three thousand of us went because of the great love we had for our good, Holy King, and the priests. We did not have any regrets about shedding our blood for the love of God.You see here, for having complied with what God had asked San Miguel to do, the Saint favors us. Father Superior, if some priests come in canoes among the Portuguese, we would advise them to remove themselves from them because it is not good if there is a war going on between them. Under no circumstances do we want the Portuguese on our lands, not even Spaniards, not even those who came to fix the limits on our lands because we will get incredibly angry with them. They should know what we will do with them because we never get tired of fighting: it is not our war, as it is for the Spaniards, God helping us and because of his love we do not leave him, or will not return on foot behind the poor Portuguese. God himself has given us this land; our Holy King who loves us so much and for the love we have for him, and because we are the children of the Holy Mother Church, he is among us for our defense, and we are at his disposal so he could care for us: it is not good for us to hear for no reason the bad they have caused or how they offend the customs or belongings of our Holy Church (this is said because the Portuguese are very offensive to the Guaraní, and because of the atrocities they have committed against the Guaraní nation at the beginning of their conversion they thought of the Portuguese as enemies of the Church . . . ) no matter how much the missionaries tell them that they are Christians like the Spaniards and that our kingdom is Portuguese; Holy Father Superior, you have come to fulfill the will of our Holy King or

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you are here for the love of our Holy King, because of this we want you to know that we will not leave these, our poor lands, which God himself has given us, for any reason whatsoever. The Portuguese have no need for these lands for we are in charge of them for God, and those in his place, and our Holy King, fulfilling his holy words, and his holy will we have gone to Paraguay to humiliate the Paraguayans, and subjected and make them obey the King, who made the peace. [The Indians are referring to the Indians who by order of the King defeated the Paraguayans, who killed a Spanish Governor and rebelled against the King in time of the Governor Antequera.] Also for the reverence we have for our good Holy King, there should be a house for the priests, we went to Montevideo to build a fort. Not only did we do this for the reverence of our King, but we also built in our poor land a very large and lovely house of God with a tall and beautiful bell tower where there is a great view.All this we have done for the reverence we have for our good Holy King who stands in place of God, and the Holy Spirit who shines a great deal, also we have built a very good house for the priests; and even better than what they had before, all for reverence towards God and our good, Holy King.We have also made our poor houses into good ones and with lovely arcades and covered walkways made of stone, making everyone understand by these actions that we are the vassals of our good, Holy King, whose holy will has always been fulfilled, without failure. Oh good, Holy King, you should have been in Buenos Ayres when we were building that fort! We would have thrown ourselves on the ground before your holy feet, to kiss them, to show the great reverence we have for you, and because we know that you love us a great deal, good Holy King. We do not want to leave this land. The seven towns cannot hear the word Portuguese.After all the hard work we have done, we should enjoy it, it is not good for the Portuguese to enjoy it: this is our poor land, which is something the Portuguese do not need. Maybe they are looking for the road to Hell; that is the place where they should go.We, your poor vassals, have always prayed for forgiveness, therefore, Holy King, may your compassion always continue with us. Source: “Carta de indios de San Juan Bautista,” AS, Estado 7426.Translated into English by author.

Appendix

3

Letter from Mission San Luis to the Governor of Buenos Aires, February 28, 1768

May God protect you because you are our father, we say this on behalf of the cabildo, and all of the chiefs, along with all the men, women, and children of the town of San Luis. The corregidor Santiago Pindó and Don Pantaleón Cayuari with the love, which we profess, have received written requests for birds to be sent to the King.We regret that we are unable to send them because the birds live in the jungle where God created them and they fly away from us when we approach them. Even though we are subjects of God and our King and are always trying to accommodate him in whatever he may command; having gone to rescue Colônia [do Sacramento] three times; and working to pay tribute, and asking now that God send you and to our King the most beautiful of all birds, which is the Holy Spirit, to illuminate you and so the Holy Angel will protect you. Because of this, we all have confidence in you, we say, of Señor Governador, with tears in our eyes, we humbly ask you to allow the holy fathers of the Company, sons of San Ignacio, to continue to live always among us and that you present this idea to our good Holy King in the name and love of God. All of the men, women, children in the town ask this with tears, especially the poor. We do not like having a parish priest.The Apostle Saint Thomas, representative of God, spread the faith in this land among our ancestors, and these parish priests are not interested in us.The fathers of the Company of Jesus are among us. They have taken care of us from the very beginning; they taught our ancestors, baptized them, and protected them on behalf of God and the King of Spain. Because of this, we do not want other parish priests. The fathers of the Company of Jesus know how to get along with us, and we with them, we are happy serving God and the King.We are willing to pay more tribute in yerba maté if this is what you wish. Well, Señor Gobernador, whose kindness we do not doubt, listen to these pleas from poor individuals like us, and act upon them.

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Also, we are not slaves, nor do we like the Spanish custom of each one working for himself, instead of helping one another in their everyday jobs. This is the plain truth, we say, and if you do the contrary, this town will soon be lost, and the other towns too, lost for you, the King and for God, and we will fall under the power of the devil [or evil spirit, Aña]. And then, at the hour of our death, who will we have to help us? Absolutely no one. Our children are now in the forest.When they return to the town, and do not see the parsons, the sons of San Ignacio, they will go off into the forest to lead a bad life. Already the people of San Joaquín, San Estanislao, San Fernando, and Timbó have dispersed.We know this and tell you because the cabildo will not be able to restore this town as it was [established] for God and the King. Consequently, kind Governor, do what we ask. And may Nuestro Señor assist you and give you continuous grace.This and nothing else we have to tell you. San Luis, February, 28, 1768.Your poor children, the entire town and cabildo. Source: San Luis Misión, “Copia en Guaraní del Memorial de la misión de San Luis, rogando permitir a los Jesuítas permanecer,” February 28, 1768. Modern copy from the papers of Senõr Woodbine Parish, MG 1992.Translated by author.

Appendix

4

Guaraní Letter to King Charles III, Buenos Aires, March 10, 1768

We give thanks to God and to your Majesty, our good Holy King. May God give you good health and all the pleasures and happiness so that you can help us, your poor vassals, in whatever way possible. We, the thirty corregidores and thirty caciques of the missions, all appear to be of confidence; we kneel down before your Majesty, and kiss your feet, saying may God protect you, and for us to fulfill your wishes with pleasure, and with all of our hearts. We place this letter in the hands of your Majesty. We have already witnessed our good Holy King that God has lightened our way because of the pity he has taken upon us; he has taken us away from a life of hard work. . . . with great pleasure we receive in the name of God and your Majesty, our good Holy King, the shaman priests which you give us to look after our souls, saying Mass every day and teaching us Christian doctrine and the holy life of our Father. We give repeated thanks to His Majesty for having sent His Excellency and Captain General D. Francisco de Paula Bucareli, who has carried out all of your just commands, for the love of God and for love of your Majesty, helping us with pity because of our poverty; he has demonstrated this to the public by giving us clothing, treating us well, calling us gentlemen, making us all happy. This holy deed of your Majesty we received from the hand of God with all humility; our King, those past mistakes that we made are forever gone, we are forgiven for the love of God and our good Holy King. On November 4, the day of San Carlos, the Bishop [of Buenos Aires] sang a Mass for us in your Majesty’s honor; the Governor had us there with great pleasure . . . and after the holy Mass, he took us to the fort, and when it was time to eat, we sat at a table where they fed us; the good Bishop was there along with the priests, and the most important men. Everyone was fulfilling the wishes of the Governor, who represented your Majesty; He himself . . . fed us, and made us content in every way. As though he was His Majesty, we took His Excellency to all of our towns,

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to the comfort of all of your vassals;Your Majesty, our good holy King, we do not see you, but it is as though we can. . . . He himself, in person, should put our towns in order, in name of your Majesty, to put an end to our misery and life as slaves. With the arrangements of your Majesty, we are very content that our children should deserve the priesthood. Every one of us should learn the Spanish language, and after learning it well, with the will of God, we will try to see your Majesty; May God protect your holy grace for many years. Buenos Aires, March 10, 1768. The corregidores and caciques kneel before you with all humility at the feet of His Majesty . . . Cacique Ponciano Mbiti Cacique Miguel Quarasipucu Cacique Mathias Zuiriri Cacique Xavier Guapi Cacique Juan Paragua Cacique Ignacio Caracara Cacique Celestino Mbacato Cacique Eusebio Areguati Cacique Miguel Caypu Cacique Romualdo Ybarasa Cacique Phelipe Sant. Cañui Cacique Franco. Xr. Cheracu Cacique Thomas Guirarague Cacique Joseph Ignacio Cuyasy Cacique Ignacio Nepiñey Cacique Pedro Tacurari Cacique Leandro Añengara Cacique Raimundo Guariacu Cacique Juan Numbay Cacique Jacob Arari Cacique Joseph Acemomba Cacique Juan Baut. Guirapepi Cacique Diego Asiyu Cacique Basilio Gomez Cacique Maximiliano Chepota Cacique Bona Ventura Yabacu Cacique Isidro Ndare

Corregidor Nicolás Yaracui Corregidor Santiago Pindo Corregidor Martin Payre Corregidor Phelipe Sant.Airuca Corregidor Domingo Guarapi Corregidor Pedro Mbacapi Corregidor Juan Bapt. Cava Corregidor Fran. X. Porangari Corregidor Francisco Curayu Corregidor Athanasio Manuel Corregidor Damaso Mbiri Corregidor Pedro Curimande Corregidor Thomas Guarumbare Corregidor Pedro Tayubai Corregidor Francisco Cambare Corregidor Miguel Yeguaca Corregidor Esteban Acaraoba Corregidor Cornelio Mingu Corregidor Miguel Aberanda Corregidor Sebastian Oquendu Corregidor Juan Paracatu Corregidor Nazario Guayuyu Corregidor Melchor Chabi Corregidor Angelo Yapari Corregidor Joseph Chirima Corregidor Blas Namandigua Corregidor ———

Source: Francisco Javier Brabo, Colección de documentos relativos a la expulsión de los Jesuitas de la Républica Argentina y del Paraguay en el Reinado de Carlos III (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de José María Pérez, 1872), 102–6.Translation by author.

Appendix

5

Guaraní letter regarding transfer of the Chapel San Francisco Xavier, 1809

To the Corregidor, Cabildo, and Caciques: We sons and daughters place ourselves in your presence by means of this letter to consult with you, having learned only a short time ago that our chapel [altar] of San Francisco Xavier will be transferred from where it is located. Now that we know this, if some orders should arrive for us, we cannot do anything without your knowledge; for you are the ones who are our superiors.Therefore, we are consulting with you, Señores.Within the next few days, the order should arrive from Buenos Aires. Someone will bring this order to the town, to you, the members of the cabildo, to transfer our chapel. We discovered this from our neighbors. First of all, we already had known that from the beginning, our first ancestors in these places became Christians, because they taught us about the holy church, since we were children; that we ought to have a church for the providence of God, our Holy Mother Church, they declare, may God have mercy on us. For this same reason, our church cannot be moved to another location. And also for a long time up until now, there are many bodies buried in the cemetery and even inside the church.Therefore, it is not possible to abandon these. For these reasons, we ask you Señores of the cabildo to leave the chapel where it is. . . .The church is the work of our sons in the town. As it is ours, and it is known that we have taken care of it . . . we even built it; for it does not even have a single piece of wood that is not good, nor even straw or tiles, which are not good. Should you carry out our request, we would still have a church in this little town. The patron saints San Francisco Xavier, Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Nuestra Señora Dolorosa, and Señor Crucificado, all brought from the town, and which are the works of the sons of the town, and the church will be here for us to look at and be taken care of. By looking after these, later God will look after these poor sons of ours. . . .We notify you not to let them take away our chapel, if they want a chapel, neighbors will build one where they want and they will work for them. We will not work with them. For this reason, we have a chapel, San Francisco Xavier, our patron saint

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for a long time. Now we know what they think when they construct a chapel and when they are finished they will name it chapel of Saint Bentura, saying that our lands are the lands of blacks, not even new Christians, or reducidos; in a short time, we became Christians a long time ago.We have not changed the name of San Francisco Xavier; . . . the poor have built a church in which we have baptized our sons, gotten married, and if we die, we bury our dead within the church or in the cemetery where our children are buried; all of this is the pure truth; we have put our names down in making this request to you Señores, and for the sake of God and Nuestro Señor. . . . Paysandú, 27 February 1809, Capataz Juan Pablo Ximenez,Antonio Guararica, Chrisanto Zuares, Procurador Christobal Barite. Source:ANA, SH, vol. 209.Translated by the author.

Glossary

Alcalde A municipal official who served as justice of the peace. Alférez real A lower-ranking member of a town council. Alguacil Bailiff. Arroba Unit of weight equal to approximately 25 pounds. Audiencia High court of justice. Bandeirante Participant in slave-raiding expeditions against Indians in Brazil. São Paulo was the most common origin. See Paulista and Mameluco. Cabecera Head village of a mission district. Cabildante Member of a town council. Cabildo Town council. Cacicazgo An aboriginal polity that assumed the form of a chiefdom. Caudillo A strong leader. Cofradía A lay religious brotherhood. Comisario Someone charged with carrying out an assignment; commissary. Corregidor A magistrate, primary officer of a town council; primarily responsible for the recruitment of Indian labor in this context. Coty Guazú Women’s shelter and orphanage. Creole American-born person, especially one taken to be of Spanish descent. Criollo A person of primarily Spanish descent born in America. Curandero Healer, conjurer; often a shaman. Curuzuyá Nurse or physician; literally means “those of the cross.” Don, Doña Nobleman or woman of distinction; a title commonly used in colonial Latin America. Encomendero Grantee of an encomienda. Encomienda A grant (usually given to a Spaniard) of the right to receive tribute and/or labor from a group of Indians. It carried the obligation to Christianize the Indians. Gaucho A cowboy, usually of Indian and Spanish ancestry, in the Río de la Plata. Guáras Regional-ethnic communities of the Guaraní.

206

Glossary

Hechicería Witchcraft. Indian, Indio, or natural Descendant of the indigenous population living under Spanish rule; a major social and ethnic category in Spanish colonial law. Indians were tribute payers, legal minors, and usually associated with a corporate community known as a pueblo de indios. Intendente Intendant, chief adminstrator of a large district or intendancy. Mamelucos A Portuguese term referring to the offspring of European and Indian parents. Mayordomo Steward. Misión In the eighteenth century, the term referred to the land, province, or kingdom where missionaries preached.The word also referred to the journey of clerics for the purpose of converting heretics and gentiles, or for the instruction of those who were faithful, and the “correction of vices.” Mitayos Forced labor. Naboría A system of labor adopted by the Spaniards in which Amerindians provided labor perpetually, especially as domestic servants, but could not be bought or sold like slaves. Legally, they were free, but in reality they had to endure many restrictions as servants. Originarios Those who were subjected to encomienda. Padre Provincial Jesuit head of a geographic area in which the Society of Jesus was represented. Padrón Census. Pardo Person of mixed racial heritage, usually black or mulatto. Patronato Real Royal patronage over the church.The right to nominate for church offices and supervise church administration. Paulista An inhabitant of or referring to São Paulo. Porteño A resident of Buenos Aires, a port city. Procurador Trade representative or an agent who promoted the interests of an organization or a community. Protector de indios An official appointed to assist the Indians in their legal suits and complaints and to prosecute or even punish directly cases of abuse of them. Also known as Protector de naturales. Pulpería Country store and tavern. Recopilación The great compilation of Spanish colonial law published in 1681. Reducción A town into which Amerindians were aggregated for administrative and religious purposes; also refers to the process by which the Indians were resettled into these towns. Secularization Conversion of doctrinas administered by the regular clergy into parishes administered by the secular clergy. Tuvichá Chieftain.

Notes

Abbreviations AGI AGN AGPC AHN ANA ANRJ ARSI AS BM BNP BNRJ MG NE SH SJ

Archivo de las Indias, Seville Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires Archivo General de la Provincia de Corrientes Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid Archivo Nacional de Asunción Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro Archivum Romanum Societatus Iesu, Rome Archivo General de Simancas British Library Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris Biblioteca Nacional, Río de Janeiro Manuel E. Gondra Collection, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin Sección Nueva Encuadernación Sección Histórica Sección Judicial

Introduction 1. Mateos, “Cartas de indios cristianos,” 570–72. There are different spellings of Ñeengirú in the documentation. Rather than conform to the spelling of his surname in the historical literature, I utilized the spelling of his surname based on his own signature on letters from the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid. 2. “Carta de Francisco Bruno de Zavala,” Mission Yapeyú, 1768, AGN, IX 6– 10–7. 3. Mateos, “Cartas de indios cristianos,” 570–72. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid.

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Notes to Pages 5–6

6. “Recurso de la Provincial del Paraguay de la Compañía de Jhs . . . en causa de la execución y resultas del Tratado de Límites entre España y Portugal,” ARSI, Prova. Paraquariae, Paraq. 13, Roll 156, the Pius XII Memorial Library, Vatican Film Library, Saint Louis University; Golin, Sepé Tiarajú; Becker, Un mito jesuítico. Becker argues that the myth served the Jesuits’ needs because it demonstrated that a conspiracy had existed against them in Europe and the members of the religious order were in no way responsible for the suppression of the Society of Jesus. He argues that the anti-Jesuit myth of Nicolás I was of Jesuit origin rather than European. Perhaps the myth later was used to serve their needs; however, at the time of the rebellion, the notion of a Jesuit state within a state appears to have been a damaging rumor. Decades later following the expulsion, as late as 1792, another rumor abounded in Paraguay that one Jesuit remained at Mission San Carlos. Cooney, Economía y sociedad, 214. 7. According to the anonymous text Historia de Nicolás I: Rey del Paraguay y Emperador de los Mamelucos, Nicolás Roubiouni was born in the village of Taratos, Andalucía, in 1710. After becoming a Jesuit, he traveled to the Río de la Plata, where he proclaimed himself king of Paraguay. Then on June 27, 1754, Nicolás was crowned emperor of the mamelucos (a person of mixed parentage; the offspring of European and Indian parents) in São Paulo. On July 16, 1754, it stated that Nicolás led an army of six thousand men into this city with all the pompousness of a king who had just defeated his enemies. Becker, Un mito jesuítico, 56, 168–72. 8. The Protestant press in Holland published an article in November 1755 stating that some persons from the court of Spain had seen a coin minted in Paraguay displaying the bust of Nicolás I. In Madrid, Father Carlos Gervasoni, the representative of the Province of Paraguay, offered a reward to anyone who could show him such a coin, but no one could ever find one. Mateos, “El tratado de límites,” 373; Mateos, “La guerra guaranítica y las misiones del Paraguay,” 280. 9. J. Daniel Rogers points out that in many studies of culture contact, scholars too often assume that process of interaction is primarily motivated by the objectives of the more powerful intruders. Rogers, “Social and Material Implications,” 73–75. 10. Caraman, Lost Paradise. 11. Service, Spanish-Guaraní Relations; Service and Service, Tobatí, xxii, 283. Service was referring to the adaptation of the Guaraní in the Franciscan missions who were subjected to provide forced labor to the Spanish in encomiendas (a grant usually given to a Spaniard of the right to receive tribute and/or labor from a group of Indians). Service and Service fail to analyze Guaraní culture systematically, although these scholars made an important contribution to the literature by analyzing the Paraguayan encomienda. Their argument that “even such things as mythology, folklore, superstitions, and folk medicine failed to reveal anything of certain Guaraní origin” in contemporary Paraguay is not convincing. 12. Gibson, Aztecs Under Spanish Rule. 13. For an elaborate discussion of the recent trends in the field of mission history, see the excellent collection of essays in Langer and Jackson, New Latin American Mission History. Several of these articles document the various ways in

Notes to Pages 6–12 209 which indigenous peoples have altered as well as maintained their ways of life in missions in different regions of Spain’s New-World empire. 14. Farriss, Maya Society. 15. Arouet de Voltaire, Candide, 136–37. 16. Ibid. 17. Secondat, Spirit of Laws, 36–39; Secondat, Ouevres completes de Montesquieu, 416; Aveling, Jesuits, 275. 18. Southey, “Tale of Paraguay.” Fairchild, Noble Savage, 212–13. 19. Southey, “Tale of Paraguay.” 20. Ibid., 517, st. 8, 531. 21. Trigger, Natives and Newcomers, 14. 22. The image of the noble savage had its heyday between the years 1750 and 1830. Its portrayal was not limited to Amerindians in the New World but was also applied to African peoples and South Sea Islanders. Southey’s depiction of the Guaraní in “A Tale of Paraguay” was not unlike the colonizing discourse in literature about Africans. As did some of the portrayals of the Guaraní, the Europeans perceived Africans as children and as peoples who lacked qualities that characterized the ideals of white European civilization.They also viewed the African jungle as virgin territory that lacked culture and history and was in need of missionaries to bring the native peoples “civilization.” Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 1:110, 117. 23. Cunninghame Graham, Vanished Arcadia. 24. Matenczyk, “R. B. Cunninghame Graham,” 98, 161–72. 25. Cunninghame Graham, Vanished Arcadia, xii, 204. 26. Ibid., 285. 27. Berkhofer Jr. notes in Images of the American Indians that the convention of the noble savage was often used as a polemical device to criticize European society. He traces the history of the noble savage back to the period of the late Renaissance and the writings of Michel de Montaigne (1533–92),“On Cannibals” and “On Coaches.” Montaigne uses the Tupinambá, the northern “relatives” of the Guaraní along the coast of Brazil, to criticize social inequality and poverty in France. Montaigne, “Of Cannibals,” 153, 159; Berkhofer, White Man’s Indian, 75; Keen, Aztec Image in Western Thought, 157–62. 28. See the excellent essay by Saeger, “The Mission and Historical Missions,” 393–415; Ganson, “Like Children Under Wise Parental Sway,” 399–422. 29. Axtell, “Ethnohistory,” 1–13. 30. Nash, Red,White, and Black, 4. 31. David Block uses the term “mission culture” to describe the formation of a new society in the Moxos region in lowland Bolivia under the Jesuits. Block, Mission Culture on the Upper Amazon, 1–2. 32. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 6; Spitta, Between Two Waters, 2–3. 33. Garavaglia, Mercado interno y economía colonial, 35–46. 34. Techo, History of the Provinces of Paraguay, Tucuman, Rio de la Plata, Paraná, and Uruaica and something of the Kingdom of Chile, 693. 35. Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 1:17, 22. By “sign,”

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Comaroff and Comaroff appear to be referring to “the unspoken authority of habit,” or customs that they contend “may be as effective as the most violent coercion in shaping, directing, even dominating social thought and action.” 36. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 62; Dirks, Eley, and Ortner, Culture/Power/ History, 3–45. 37. Within a power network, he asserts that there are points or focuses of resistance present, which “are spread out over time and space at varying densities, at times mobilizing groups or individuals in a definite way.” Foucault, History of Sexuality, I:92–97. 38. Ruiz de Montoya, Tesoro de la Lengua, 126, 378. 39. Brandes, Power and Persuasion, 4–5. 40. Spanish missionaries also applied the Roman alphabetic script to Nahuatl in Mexico, but the Nahuas, unlike the paperless Guaraní, understood the concept of record keeping and had a tradition of writing in pictographs and ideograms. Lockhart, Nahuas After the Conquest, 326–35.

Chapter 1: Early Encounters 1. The search for an authentic or “traditional”Tupí-Guaraní culture may be a bit futile. It implies that a culture would remain static and not undergo change like other societies or that there would not be significant regional variations among the various Tupí-Guaraní groups. Sinopoli, Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics, 83. The Frenchmen André Thevet and Jean de Lery and the German explorer Hans Staden left detailed accounts of the Tupinambá and other indigenous peoples they encountered along the coast of Brazil in the 1500s. Chroniclers who visited the Río de la Plata wrote extensively about the newly discovered native peoples. Ulrich Schmidel, a German explorer on Pedro de Mendoza’s expedition to the Río de la Plata, described the first European encounter with the Cario-Guaraní in Historia del descubrimiento del Río de la Plata y Paraguay (1567). Ruy Díaz de Guzmán described the Avá-Chiriguanos in his epic poem, “La Argentina.” 2. José Proenza Brochado found the existence of two ceramic subtraditions: one, Guaraní, in southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina, and the other, Tupinambá, in eastern and northeastern Brazil. Another variation would be AváChiriguano pottery, which has definite Andean influences. Proenza Brochado, “Ecological Model of the Spread of Pottery,” 267, 321, 345, 404. Proenza Brochado’s work challenges the traditional notion that the Tupí and the Guaraní were a homogeneous cultural group, despite linguistic evidence and other cultural indicators to the contrary. He raises questions about the use of the term “TupíGuaraní.” For many years, outsiders have imposed a cultural scheme on these various indigenous groups in Brazil, Paraguay, and the Río de la Plata. Despite differences in the ceramic traditions of the Tupí and the Guaraní, common patterns still exist that justify treating these various indigenous groups as a single cultural entity. These include political, economic, and social organization, religious traditions, material culture, and warfare. Recognizing such commonalities does not, however, preclude the necessary recognition of cultural and linguistic differences among the various Guaraní-speaking groups, which are evident even today.

Notes to Pages 17–20 211 Recent work on the subtleties of cultural identity suggests that researchers should at least attempt to present more nuanced studies, and be sensitive to the variations in the cultural traditions among these various indigenous groups. 3. Alvear, “Relación geográfica e histórica de las misiones,” 5:586. 4. Métraux, “Guaraní,” 3:69. 5. Means, “Note on the Guaraní Invasions of the Inca Empires,” 482–84; Nordenskiold, “Guaraní Invasion of the Inca Empire,” 103–21. 6. Monteiro, “Os Guaraní e a História do Brasil Meridional Séculos XVIXVII,” 478. Monteiro accepts Pierre Clastres’s figure of 1.5 million, which is much higher than John Hemming’s estimate of approximately 30,000 in 1500. Hemming, Red Gold, 492. Estimates of Tupí-Guaraní population on the eve of the conquest are only based on guesswork, not documentary evidence or scientific methods. William M. Denevan notes that there are few hard data available for determining the indigenous population of Amazonia, and consequently any figure arrived at is only an educated guess. Denevan, “Aboriginal Population of Amazonia,” 205–34. 7. Alvear, “Relación geográfica e historica de las misiones,” 5:586. 8. According to an early chronicler, “Guaraní” meant “a warlike people.” “Descripción del Río de la Plata,” Asunción, 1580[?], MG 744. 9. Turra Magni, “Guaraní: Guerreiros,” 229–31; Clastres, Society Against the State. 10. Susnik, El rol de los indígenas, 1:11–15; Susnik,“Ethnohistoria del Paraguay,” 465–66; Schmitz, “People of the Missions.” 11. Léry, History of a Voyage, 153, 159–61; Métraux, “Guaraní,” 133. 12. It is generally believed that women were the primary potters in their societies. Coil hand-building was the method they used to make water jars, cups, bowls, large funeral urns (yapepó), and cooking pots. Staden, True History of his Captivity, 140–42; Léry, History of a Voyage, 74, 161; Sinopoli, Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics, 99; Simons, “Pottery from the State of São Paulo, Brazil,” 459–72; Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 10–51; Fernandes, Organização social dos Tupinambá, 113–15; Schaden, Aspectos Fundamentais da Cultura Guaraní, 40. 13. Turra Magni, “Guaraní: Guerreiros,” 229–31. 14. Susnik used the technique of up-streaming to reach this conclusion. Susnik, El rol de los indígenas, 1:29. 15. Léry, History of a Voyage, 153; González Torres, Cultura Guaraní, 120. 16. Jesuit missionary Antonio Ruiz de Montoya referred to “a woman who took the life of her child in her womb” as Omembiguiepe oiucabáe. Ruiz de Montoya, Tesoro, 107. 17. Schmidel, Relatos de la conquista, 44–45; Staden, True History, 129. 18. Hultkrantz, Study of American Indian Religions, 22. 19. Wallace, Religion, 56. 20. Owens, “Historical Geography of the Indian Missions,” 76. 21. Wilbert, Tobacco and Shamanism in South America; Métraux, “Guaraní,” 89. 22. Léry, History of a Voyage, 145; Staden, True History, 130; Métraux, La Religion des Tupinamba, 28, 53–84. 23. Ruiz de Montoya, Tesoro, 107.

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24. Techo, History of the Provinces, 718. 25. Shapiro, “From Tupá to the Land Without Evil,” 126–39. 26. Léry, History of a Voyage, 134–35; similarly in North America, Europeans who encountered Amerindians during the sixteenth century often concluded that they lacked God and religion. Jaenen, Friend or Foe, 41–42. Sabine MacCormack, however, points out that some sixteenth-century missionaries believed that Amerindians had knowledge of Christianity long ago and only needed to be reinstructed in the faith. MacCormack, “Limits of Understanding,” 96; John W. O’Malley in his recent study, The First Jesuits, noted that the natives in Brazil “had no concept of God whatsoever.” O’Malley, First Jesuits, 79. 27. Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle, 38. 28. Léry, History of a Voyage, 136; Métraux, La Religion des Tupinambá, 8, 16, 24. 29. Ruiz de Montoya, Tesoro, 209; Métraux, La Religion des Tupinambá, 45; Hultkrantz, Study of American Indian Religions, 102; Cadogan, “Aves y almas de difuntos,” 149–54; Meliá, “La tierra-sin mal de los Guaraní,” 491–507. 30. Techo, History of the Provinces, 718. 31. Ibid. 32. Thevet, La cosmographie, 84–85; Lery, History of a Voyage, 136; Schaden, “Fases da aculturação religiosa dos Guaraní,” in his Aculturação Indígena: Ensaio, 103–43. 33. Léry, History of a Voyage, 172–76. Schmidt,“Nuevos hallazgos prehistóricos del Paraguay,” 81–103, 132–36. 34. Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 53. 35. Ruiz de Montoya’s definition of the land without evil differed from that of twentieth-century French anthropologist Hélène Clastres. Clastres, La tierra sin mal, 63. This work has been recently translated into English as The Land Without Evil: Tupí-Guaraní Prophetism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995). Other anthropologists stress the importance of this concept in Tupí-Guaraní culture. See Shapiro,“From Tupá to the Land Without Evil,” 126–39. Meliá points out that few Tupí-Guaraní migrations have been documented. One, of course, could not expect that migrations among a nonliterate people would generate any type of historical documentation. Meliá, “La tierra-sin-mal de los Guaraní,” 491–507. 36. See the excellent article by MacCormack, “Limits of Understanding,” 96. 37. According to the Brazilian sociologist Florestan Fernandes, warfare was a central motivation of Tupinambá society but subordinated to the religious system, which was the major determining influence on the culture as a whole.Warfare, he states, constituted the most important cause of mortality in native society before the arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil in 1500. Fernandes, Função social da guerra na sociedade Tupinambá. 38. Arens, Man-Eating Myth, 21.Anthony Pagden supports Arens’s conclusions by stating: “Although Professor Arens’s argument is based solely on printed sources, which are easily available in English, his hypothesis, in so far as it applies to the Amerindians, also holds true for the large body of documentation material on cannibalism. I, at least, have not found a single eye-witness account of a cannibal feast nor, indeed a single description which does not rely on elements taken from classical accounts of anthropophagy.” Pagden, Fall of Natural Man, 217.

Notes to Page 22 213 Donald W. Forsyth strongly criticizes Arens’s analysis of the accounts of Hans Staden, Jean de Lery, and others concerning Tupinambá cannibalism. In “Three Cheers for Hans Staden:The Case for Brazilian Cannibalism,” he asserts that Arens only used selective data and ignored data that contradicted his thesis to present his revisionist interpretation of Tupinambá cannibalism. Forsyth,“Three Cheers,” 17, 31; Moreover, Peggy Sanday strongly refutes Arens’s conclusions by citing direct eyewitness reports of cannibalism, including a vivid account by a missionary in New Caledonia. Sanday also analyzes the current literature on the subject and presents rather convincing arguments to substantiate its existence by using psychological insight. One of her more persuasive points is that within the Amerindian mind, there was a lesser distinction between the categories of man and animals in nature than among the Europeans who have always considered themselves as superior over the animal kingdom. In fact, some Amerindian groups such as the western Guaraní, the Avá-Chiriguanos, believed that they eventually evolved into animals after death. For them, the hunting of another man may have been similar to the hunting of a deer. Learning how to hunt and conduct warfare with other indigenous groups was at the center of the socialization process for all males. Beginning in childhood, boys carried bows and arrows.There was a strong tie between warfare and adapting to their natural environment. Native Americans observed and copied the behavior of animals to learn how to hunt and fight against their enemies in order to survive. Alone or in groups, young men fought with warriors from other villages with the mentality of the hunter after his prey. Sanday, Divine Hunger, 9–10. 39. Sardi, “Avaporú,” 16. Ruiz de Montoya tells us in Arte, Bocabulario, Tesoro, Catecismo de la Lengua Guaraní that avaporú is the Guarani word for “eating of human flesh.” Fernandes, Organização social dos Tupinambá, 10; Fernandes, Função social da guerra; Martin del Barco Centenera, author of the early seventeenthcentury epic poem “La Argentina” (1602), described the Chiriguanos as “bloody cannibals” who ate their enemies in his description of the origin of the Guaraní. Barco Centenera, La Argentina, 1. Interview with Dr. Pedro Inácio Schmitz, S.J., Instituto Anchietano de Pesquisas, São Leopardo, Rio Grande do Sul, April 1991; Schmitz, Arqueologia do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, 94–95. In addition, there is a similarity between the early European descriptions of the cannibalistic practices among the Tupinambá along the coast in Brazil and among their relatives, the AváChiriguanos in Bolivia, during the sixteenth century. Moreover, according to a conversation with Brazilian scholar Dr. Laura de Mello e Souza of the Universidade de São Paulo, anthropologists in Brazil had interviewed an elderly Tupí woman who told them that when she was young and pretty, warriors would bring her human fingers to eat. It is unclear how the Jesuits succeeded in ending the Guaraní custom of eating their captives in the missions. A few scholars attribute the end of cannibalism to the introduction of beef cattle in the missions, which is not a convincing argument. Other scholars, such as the late Paraguayan archaeologist José Antonio Perasso, contend that symbolically it was substituted through the Catholic Mass. This controversial and complex issue is going to remain unresolved because of the lack of historical evidence. 40. Vega, Royal Commentaries, I:443.

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41. Sardi, “Avaporú,” 16–66. 42. Vega, Royal Commentaries, I:444. 43. This is the estimate of chronicler Ruí Díaz de Guzmán, Historia Argentina del Descubrimiento, 1:77. In 1533, Cabot returned to Spain with news that a conquest of Peru would be a rewarding venture. Meanwhile, Pizarro carried out the conquest of Peru via Panama, not the Río de la Plata. 44. Necker, Indios Guaraníes y Chamanes Franciscanos, 219. 45. Susnik, El indio colonial, 1:10–11. 46. Ruiz de Montoya, Tesoro, 90. 47. “Relación de las cosas que han pasado en la provincia del Rio de la Plata, desde que prendieron al gobernador Cabeza de Vaca,” MG 725L; Service, SpanishGuaraní Relations, 36;Téllez de Escobar, “Relación de las cosas que han pasado en la provincia del Río de la Plata,” 1:270. 48. Susnik, El rol de los indígenas, 1:76–78. 49. Velázquez, “La población del Paraguay en 1682,” 137. 50. For studies of the Franciscan missions in Paraguay, see Necker, Indios Guaraníes y Chamanes Franciscanos; and Duran Estrago, La presencia Franciscana en el Paraguay, 1538–1824. 51. Maeder, “Analogas y diferencias entre las reducciones guaraníes franciscanos y jesuitas,” 91–100. 52. We have no census figures for determining the decline of the native population in the province during the early colonial period. In 1639, more than one hundred years since the founding of Asunción, Jesuit Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya noticed an imbalance in the sexual ratio in the town. He observed that Asunción had fewer than four hundred vecinos (residents), and ten women per every man.There was an excess of women and children because many adult males had lost their lives in frontier wars with Indians. Perhaps there was only an appearance of an imbalance because males worked in the rural areas, away from the town. Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 16; Martín del Barco Centenerao explained the imbalance in the sexual ratio due to civil unrest and Indian wars.“El Paraguay o Río de la Plata,” 16th century[?], MG 954. Alfred Métraux mentions that by the end of the sixteenth century, there were only three thousand Indians remaining within a radius of 21 miles (7 leagues) around Asunción. Métraux, “Guaraní,” 77. 53. To end this abuse, Governor Ramírez de Velasco and Governor Arias de Saavedra (Hernandarias) issued ordinances in 1597, 1598, and 1603. Guaraní males were required to work four days per week instead of seven. Females were given 4 ounces of cotton to spin each week. Guaraní children and the elderly were to be exempt from forced labor under the encomienda. Chávez, “Las ordenanzas de Ramírez de Velasco, Hernandarias, y Alfaro,” 108.The fact that the same ordinances were repeated indicates that the encomenderos did not comply with the law.The remoteness of the colony and its relative poverty made it nearly impossible for the crown to eliminate the mistreatment of the Guaraní. 54. Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, Book 6, Title 17, Law 13. 55. “Carta de Martín González, clérigo, a S. Majestad en que trata cosas del obispo,” Asunción, June 27, 1556, MG 725f.

Notes to Pages 27–34 215 56. “Relación de las cosas que han pasado,” MG 725L; Fogel, “Process of Identity Reconstitution and the Guaraní Mobilizations,” 8–9. 57. Nathan Wachtel in The Vision of the Vanquished:The Spanish Conquest of Peru through Indian Eyes, 1530 to 1570 (1977) shows how the Spaniards uprooted Andean peoples by taking them from their villages to work for them in their haciendas, as part of his discussion of the economic and social destructuration of Peru. He concludes that the colonial Spanish system was based on violence, even though the Spaniards made use of indigenous institutions. According to Wachtel, the Andean peoples represented a reserve of labor, a resource to be exploited by the Spaniards. Wachtel, Vision of the Vanquished. 58. Recopilación de las Leyes de las Indias, Book VI, title 2. 59. Francisco de Alfaro, “Hordenanças fechas por el Señor Licenciado don Alfaro de Su Majestad de la real Audiencia de la Plata para la governación del Paraguay y Río de la Plata y ciertos concernientes,” Asunción, October 11, 1611, MG 1419a. 60. Cabildo de Villarrica del Espíritu Santo, “Carta representando la imposibilidad de aplicar las ordenanzas de Alfaro,” March 26, 1612, MG 1436. 61. Fray Juan Alonso de Guerra, “Carta . . . a S.M. pidiendo mercedes para el obispado de Santa Fe,” April 2, 1566, MG 15.

Chapter 2: The Footprints of Saint Thomas 1. González Torres, Cultura Guaraní, 253–54; Lozano, Historia de la conquista del Paraguay, Río de la Plata,Tucuman, 1:452–64; Furlong Cardiff, José Cardiel, S.J., y su Carta-relación, 139. For a detailed discussion of Guaraní religious adaptation in the late eighteenth century, please see Chapter 7 below. 2. Techo, Historia Provinciae Paraquariae Societatis Jesu, 724. 3. Astrain, Jesuítas, Guaraníes y encomenderos, 84. 4. P. Francisco Retz, Soc. Jesu, “Paraquariae Provinciae Soc. Jesu cum adjcentib . . . Ann. 1732,” Gondra Collection, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin, dated maps, #2808; Cardiel, Compendio de la história del Paraguay, 41. 5. The names of the 1,571 individuals that were born between 1550 and 1749 have been catalogued. Information for 247 of these individuals, however, is incomplete. See Storni, Catálogo de los jesuitas. 6. Block, Mission Culture, 106. 7. Mörner, Political and Economic Activities, 169; Poenitz and Poenitz, Misiones, Provincia Guaranítica, 11. 8. “En las missiones de los Guaranís y Tobatines, que son 33 pueblos, hay los sarcedotes siguientes,” 1763,Vatican Film Archives,ARSI, Prova. Paraquariae 6, Roll 152.The number of Jesuits in the reductions fluctuated slightly. In 1710 there were sixty-two priests and four coadjutores. In 1734 there were seventy-nine priests and five coadjutores.Vatican Film Library, ARSI, Catalogos Anual Prova. Paraq. 1710, 1732, Paraq. 7, Roll 152. 9. Ibid., ARSI, Missiones Guaraníes Paranenses, Uruguayenses, Catalogos

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Refum Pronvincie Paraq. 1753, Paraq. 6, the Pius XII Memorial Library,Vatican Film Library, Saint Louis University, Roll 152. 10. Ricard, Spiritual Conquest of Mexico, 287. Ricard states that the mendicant orders had a low opinion of the spiritual capabilities of the Indians. 11. Cartas Anuas de la Provincia del Paraguay, 1637–1639, fol. 65. Some Jesuit scholars claim that there was no paternalism in the missions. However, the historical evidence suggests that it guided the relationship between the missionaries and the Indians. It was a more benevolent form of paternalism than that experienced by black slaves. 12. Charlevoix, History of Paraguay, 1:262. Cardiel wrote that the Indians were like children because they only thought about eating, playing, and sleeping. Cardiel, Carta-relación, 150. 13. Ibid., 263. 14. “Carta de Antonio Sepp, S.J.,” 1755 Coleção de Angelis, BNRJ, I-29,4,105. 15. Techo, History of the Provinces, 719. 16. “Carta Anua de la Provincia del Paraguay, Chile y Tucuman, Año 1609,” ARSI, Prova. Paraquariae, the Pius XII Memorial Library, Vatican Film Library, Saint Louis University, Roll 153; Hernández, Organización social de las doctrinas Guaraníes, 1:385. 17. Owens, “Historical Geography of the Indian Missions,” 182, 186. Ernesto Maeder notes that Arapizandú and other caciques might have been subjected to encomiendas. Maeder, “Las encomiendas en las misiones jesuíticas,” 122. 18. Caraman, Lost Paradise, 48. For similar reasons, the Guaycuruans requested missionaries in the Chaco during the early 1740s. Saeger, “Another View of the Mission as a Frontier Institution,” 493–517. 19. Furlong Cardiff, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaraníes, 107–32. As in the Spanish colony of La Florida, the Catholic missionaries established their reductions in or near Indian villages, rather than immediately implement a policy of resettlement. Hann, History of the Timucua Indians and Missions, 168. 20. Felipe III,“Real cédula aprobando protección acordada a los misioneros de Jesús,” Madrid, November 20, 1611, MG 1431. 21. Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 48–51, 83–84; Alvear, Relación geográfica e historica, 5:634. 22. Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe, 180–81. Louise André Vigneras traces the myth of Saint Thomas, the Apostle of America, back to the year 1493, prior to conquest of Mexico and Peru. He notes that missionaries looked for some common ground that would facilitate the conversion of Amerindians. In other parts of Latin America, a bearded white man was said to have preached a doctrine similar to the gospel.Vigneras, “Saint Thomas, Apostle of America,” 82–90. 23. Ibid., 186. Syncretism refers to a combination of two or more cultural or religious traditions, in this case, between the cosmological beliefs of the Amerindians and Christianity. Lorenzen, Religious Change and Cultural Domination, 10. Syncretism also has different meanings for different authors.According to Melville J. Herskovits, for example, syncretism is one form of reinterpretation and reconciliation of two or more cultural systems. Syncretism has also been defined as “the

Notes to Pages 37–38 217 tendency to identify those elements in the new culture with similar elements in the old one, enabling the persons experiencing the contact to move from one to the other, and back again, with psychological ease.” Burger, “Syncretism, An Acculturative Accelerator,” 103–5. Tedlock in Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, critiques syncretism and points out the flaws of traditional approaches to the study of religious adaptation. William B. Taylor also does an excellent critique of the literature on religious adaptation in his award-winning book, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico, 53–62. 24. Lafaye, Quezatcóatl and Guadalupe, 255. Ruiz de Montoya himself referred to Saint Thomas as the apostle of the “indios y negros,” not meaning the Native Americans or African slaves in the New World, but the Indians in India and the Ethiopians in Africa.The Jesuits saw a connection between that Saint Thomas and the one in the New World. Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 86–101. 25. “Memorial del pueblos Guaraní de San Luis a Bucareli que no les quite los Padres Jesuítas,” translation, in Hernández, El extrañamiento de los jesuitas del Río de la Plata, 368. 26. There appears to be some question over the extent to which Mexican creoles, mestizos, and Indians believed in this myth of Saint Thomas–Quetzalcóatl during the late eighteenth century. Unlike the Mexican version, the myth in Paraguay played no apparent role in the formation of an American consciousness at the time of independence. 27. Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe, 157. 28. Ibid., 58. 29. William B.Taylor notes that Mexican peasants used the same depreciative terms that the Spaniards had used to refer to them.Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages, 117. 30. Martini, “Los guaraníes y los sacramentos,” 214. 31. Techo, History of the Provinces, 772; Ruiz de Montoya recorded a similar statement by another shaman:“The evil spirits have brought these men who with their doctrines want to take away our good customs and the way our ancestors lived. They always had many women, many servants and the freedom to choose them as they would like. Now they want to tie us to a single woman. It is unreasonable for this to happen.They want to remove us from our lands, and take our lives.” Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 57. 32. Techo, History of the Provinces, 755. 33. Ibid., 723. 34. Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 264. 35. According to Ruiz de Montoya, the founding of the missions in Paraguay was done at the cost of shedding the blood of seven of his fellow Jesuits. The Guaraní might have been responsible for four of these deaths. These included Roque González, Juan del Castillo, and Alonso Rodríguez.These three Jesuit martyrs were beatified in 1934 and canonized as saints in 1988. Father Cristóval de Mendoza was killed by Guaimicaru and other “infidels,” from Ibia, a location near San Miguel. Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, “Petición para que a los indios de las

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Notes to Pages 38–41

misiones jesuíticas se permita el manejo de armas para la defensa contra los Portugueses,” Lima, November 4, 1644, MG 431a; “Relação do martírio e morte do padre Christóval de Mendoza a 26 de abril de 1635, redigida pelo Padre Francisco Xímenez,” 1–29–1–48, Manuscritos da Coleção de Angelis in Jesuítas e Bandeirantes no Tape, 1615–1641, with an introduction by Jaime Cortesão (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca Nacional, 1969), 3:101–3. 36. “Testimonio de Pablo Arayú,‘reducido,’ en la reducción de la Candelaria,” November 10, 1631, and “Testimonio de Guirayú, cacique ‘reducido,’ en la Candelaria, November 10, 1631,” in Lienhard, Testimonios, cartas y manifiestos indigenas, 320–24. 37. Techo, History of the Provinces, 750. 38. “Los acontecimientos en las reducciones de la sierra del Tape,” in Documentos para la historia argentina, 20:579. 39. “Reducion de la Natividiad de Nuestra Señora; del estado que tenía cuando llegó el enemigo y del efecto qu causó en todas las demas reduciones la fama de su llegada y daño que hizo en las destruidas,” in Jesuítas e Bandeirantes no Tape, 1615–1641, 3:215. 40. Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 79. 41. Jaenen, Friend and Foe, 56. 42. Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins’s concept of reproduction and transformation fits the Guaraní case well during the early contact period. By imitating the Jesuits, the shamans altered their own practices. But unlike the Hawaiians who clubbed Captain Cooke to death and the British seamen that sailed away from the island of Hawaii, the Guaraní shamans were unable to eliminate all the Spaniards in Guairá and Paraguay. The missionaries were determined to save Guaraní souls even if it meant the loss of a few of their own lives. Sahlins, Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities. 43. “Suplemento de Annua pasada del año 1614,” in Documentos para la historia argentina, 20:93. 44. “Misión del Paraná de San Ignacio,” in Documentos para la historia argentina, 20:93–95; Techo, History of the Provinces, 723; Fogel, “Process of Identity,” 26–41. 45. Cartas Anuas de la Provincia del Paraguay, 1637–1639, fol. 68 (p. 137); Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias mandadas Imprimir, Libro 1, tit. 1, ley 19; González Torres, Cultura Guaraní, 93–94. William B. Taylor describes how Amerindians’ long hair and the style in which it was combed were regarded as important distinctions between Indians and non-Indians in eighteenth-century Mexico. Spanish officials supported Indians in their preference for long hair partly because dress and appearance were convenient distinctions between these two social groups. Some Indians in colonial Mexico cut their hair to pass as nonIndians and avoid tribute payment.Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 234–35. 46. Stern, “Early Spanish-Indian Accommodation in the Andes,” 37–38. 47. “De los dos misiones, y reducciones de Nra. Sr. de Loreto, y S. Ignacio en la Provincia del Guayrá”;“Novena Carta del P. Provincial Pedro de Oñate, Misión del Paraná de San Ignacio, 1616,” in Documentos para la historia argentina, 20:30, 83– 86. 48. “Carta de Padre Juan de Escandón al Padre Andres Burnel,” Madrid, July

Notes to Pages 42–45 219 18, 1760, AHN, Sección Jesuita 120, doc. 84. Hereafter this manuscript will be cited as “Carta de Padre Escandón.” “História da Transmigração,” 5–411. 49. “Recurso de la Provincia del Paraguay de la Compañía de Jesús, a tribunal de la verdad,” pt. 2, visit of Manuel Querini Provincial, April 2, 1751,Vatican Film Library, ARSI, Paraquariae 13, Roll 156. 50. “Nuevo plano para las misiones,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,43; Cardiel, Carta-relación, 145. 51. Cunninghame Graham, Vanished Arcadia, 182. 52. Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 175–81. 53. Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 152. 54. Muratori, Il cristianesimo felice nelle missioni de’ padri della Compagnia di Gesú nel Paraguai, 65–66. 55. A few of these reductions were divided into two or later rejoined into one. Mission Santa María de Fe and Mission Santiago south of the Tebicuary River in Paraguay were examples of reductions in which the Guaraní from one reduction in the province of Itatín were relocated southward and divided into two separate towns by 1659. Furlong Cardiff, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaraníes, 132. 56. “Ydea del Estado antiguo y moderno de la América Meridional,” AHN (Madrid); “Cartas y documentos sobre los tratados de límites de América entre España y Portugal y sucesos que acaecieron con este motivo; Documentos sobre las Misiones del Paraguay, Sección Jesuita, Leg. 120, doc. 7;“Representac.n. q haze al Rey N.S. en su Real Consejo de las Indias al P. Prov.l de la Comp. de Jesús en la Prov.a del Paraguay,” Buenos Aires, April 23, 1752, doc. 38. 57. Monteiro, “From Indian to Slave,” 105–27; Monteiro, Negros da Terra, 83– 84; Morse, Bandeirantes;Taunay, História das bandeiras paulistas. 58. “Ydea del Estado antiguo,”AHN (Madrid),”Cartas y documentos sobre los tratados de límites”; Documentos sobre las Misiones del Paraguay, Sección Jesuita, Legajo 120, doc. 7;“Representac.n. q haze al Rey...,” Buenos Aires, April 23, 1752, doc. 38. See also Alvarez Kern, “Escravidão e Missões no Brasil Meridional.” 59. Recopilación de las Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (1681) Libro 6,Título 3, Ley 15. In 1639 Philip IV declared the freedom of the Indians who had been captured. Felipe IV, “Cédula real reprimendo las invasiones de los Paulistas y declarando la libertad de los indios robados y vendidos y modo de castigar a los autores de los malones,” Madrid, September 16, 1639, MG 1034c; Crespo, “Sobre las molestias.” 60. Serving as a procurador was a demanding position, which required extensive knowledge of accounting, market values, and exchange rates. Procuradores were expected to forward all dispatches between the overseas empire and Rome and other European cities. See Alden, Making of an Enterprise, 304–5; Rouillón Arróspide, Antonio Ruiz de Montoya y las reducciones del Paraguay, 279–85. 61. Charlevoix, History of Paraguay, 1:409. 62. In São Paulo, Guaraní slave masters referred to the Indians not as slaves, but as their children, in a paternalistic manner. María do Prado, for example, in her will, declared that she did not own any captive slaves but only “ninety souls of the native heathen, as is the common practice, whom I have always treated as my children, and in the same form I leave them to my heirs.” Monteiro,“From Indians to Slaves,” 114.

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Notes to Pages 46–49

63. Gadelha, As missões jesuíticas do Itatim, 236. Following their abandonment in the mid-seventeenth century the Itatín-Guaraní were relocated to the reductions of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers. 64. Charlevoix, History of Paraguay, 1:409, “Representac.n. q haze al Rey...,” Buenos Aires, April 23, 1752, doc. 38. 65. Pestilence evidently had not been such a serious problem in this area where plenty of animals always abounded for the Indians to hunt. Cartas Anuas de la Provincia del Paraguay, 1637–1639, fol. 70 (p. 139). 66. “El Padre Antonio Ruiz Misionero Apostólico que vivío y murió . . . en la conquista espiritual del Paraguay . . . explica la causa de estas enfermedades (in collecting yerba in Maracayú),” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,3,50. 67. Ibid., fol. 69v. 68. Owens, “Historical Geography of the Indian Missions,” 238–40. Owens relied on the Cartas Anuas for the years 1635 to 1637. His population figures for the years 1624–36 do not coincide exactly with other Jesuit reports of the number of Guaraní who relocated from Guairá. Once the missions were relocated, however, the Jesuits may have brought many new Indians into the recently founded missions, which would account for these numeric differences. Owens reports that of some 12,900 families, 5,563 Indians died in the epidemics of 1634– 36. 69. Felipe IV approved Antonio Ruiz de Montoya’s petition to arm the Indians on November 25, 1642. Felipe IV, “Cédula real al Virrey del Peru dando contestación de Antonio Ruiz de Montoya de la Compañía de Jesús, sobre que a los indios de la provincia del Río de la Plata se les permita manejar armas de fuego,” Zaragoza, November 25, 1642, MG 431b and 1016. 70. “Relacão da derrota sofrida pelo bandeirantes em Mboboré, escrita pelo Padre Claudio Ruyer,” San Nicholás,April 6, 1641, 1–29–1–93, in Cortesão, Jesuítas e Bandeirantes no Tape, 1615–1641, 3:345–68;Techo, History of the Provinces, 791. 71. Ruiz de Montoya, Tesoro, 8. 72. Radding, Wandering Peoples, 212–14; Deeds, “Indigenous Responses to Mission Settlement in Nueva Vizcaya,” 89. 73. Maeder, “Pasividad Guaraní?” 159–62. 74. Velázquez,“Organización militar de la gobernación y capitania general del Paraguay,” 42–43; Techo, “Exposición al governador Andrés de Robles sobre el peligro en que se encuentran las misiones con los frecuentes ataques de los portugueses,” San Ignacio del Tababiré, May 10, 1676, MG 1037. 75. José Sánchez Labrador, S.J., “El Paraguay Natural,” ARSI, Paraquariae 16, p. 263. 76. Colección general de documentos;Warren, Paraguay, 101–9. 77. José Herrera y Sotomayor, “Carta a S. M. en que presenta los inconvenientes del cumplimiento de la real cédula sobre la extracción de cien familias de indios del Paraná y Uruguay,” Buenos Aires, 2 Janaury 1683, MG 603. 78. “Carta de Padre Alexandro Balaguier, Superior de las Reducciones del Paraná y Uruguay,” September 24, 1682, San Nicolás,Vatican Film Library, AGI, Colección Sevilla, Secular Audiencia de Charcas, 74–6–40, Roll 9. 79. José de Garro, “Carta a S. M. sobre incumplimiento por parte de los

Notes to Pages 49–53 221 Jesuítas de la Real Orden sobre la extracción de las mil familias de indios,” Buenos Aires, November 16, 1681, MG 602. 80. Maeder, Los problemas de límites, 19; Bermejo de la Rica, La Colonia del Sacramento, 24. In the appendix to his work, Rafael Carbonell de Masy lists all the various occasions the Guaraní militias assisted Spanish authorities. He has estimated that during the course of the colonial period, 45,791 Guaraní served Spanish interests. Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural, 355–61. 81. “Memorial del Padre Francisco Burges, Procurador General de la Compañia de Jesús en la provincia del Paraguay,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis I-29,3,50; Ford Bacigalupo, “Bernardo Ibáñez de Eschavarri,” 475–94. For more details of this important rebellion, see Saeger,“Origins of the Rebellion of Paraguay,” 215– 29; and López, Revolt of the Comuñeros, 1721–1735. This rebellion was primarily anti-Jesuit and economic in origin, similar to an earlier uprising in the province led by Bishop Bernardino de Cárdenas in the 1640s. Similar incidents between the Jesuits and settlers took place in Brazil during the seventeenth century. Leite, História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil. 82. By the end of the seventeenth century, the native population subjected to encomienda had declined. According to Bishop Faustino de Casas’s census of 1682, the encomienda population was 7,398.The total population of Paraguay was reported to be 38,666. The native population in the Jesuit reductions in contrast was increasing significantly. In 1702, for example, the Guaraní population in the Jesuit reductions was 89,501.“Número de las doctrinas, familias, almas, baptismos y ministerios del Paraná,” 1702, MG 985e;Velázquez, “La población del Paraguay en 1682,” 128–49. 83. “La guerra entre los hechiceros y los cristianos,” in Documentos para la historia argentina, 20:592. 84. Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural, 204. 85. By the late-colonial period, each encomienda tended to consist of only a few Indians, with the exception of the encomienda of a widow in Yaguarón. Although the number of Indians subjected to encomienda had declined, it must have still been a profitable source of labor.This is evident in the amount of resistance encomenderos put up in 1779, when Governor Agustín Fernando de Pinedo recommended to the crown that the system be abolished. The members of the cabildo of Asunción insisted that it continue, since they Indians were “lazy and inclined to steal.” Cabildo de Asunción, “Carta a su Majestado en que no se pide incorporación a la corona de todas las encomiendas de indios en la provincia del Paraguay,” 1778, MG 560.

Chapter 3: Daily Life 1. McEwan, Spanish Missions of La Florida, xv; Hann, History of the Timucua Indians, 263. Milanich, “Laboring in the Fields of the Lord”; Costello and Hornbeck, “Alta California: An Overview,” 1:313; Jackson and Castillo, Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization, 40; Axtell, Invasion Within, 47. 2. Langer and Jackson, “Colonial and Republican Missions Compared,” 289. Parejas, Historia de Moxos y Chiquitos a fines del siglo XVIII, 45.

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Notes to Pages 53–55

3. Maeder cited the figure of 95,089 for the year 1750. Maeder,“La población guaraní de las misiones jesuíticas,” 17, 44. 4. Carbonell de Masy, “Guaraní Settlement,” n.p. 5. Ibid. 6. “Catálogo de la numeración annual,” MG 1703e.The years 1733 and 1741 were selected based according to the availability and quality of data. 7. “Catálogo de la numeración annual de las Doctrinas del Rio Paraná y Uruguay, 1741,” Vatican Film Archives, Saint Louis University, ARSI, Provincia Paraquariae, Paraq. 13, Roll 156. The total population in the thirty towns in this later year was 76,960. In 1745, three hundred Indians fled to the forest from Mission Santa María de Fe, because of a serious plague. Even though the Jesuits searched for them for four or five years, they could never find more than a few. Bernardo Nusdorffer,“Carta a S. M. sobre las reducciones de indios que tiene a su cargo la Compañía de Jesús,” Buenos Aires, August 30, 1745, MG 488. Migration also contributed to the decrease in population. Political developments, such as the Comunero Revolt in Paraguay, also severely affected the mission Indian population. As many as six thousand Guaraní soldiers and officers left the reductions for an extended period of time to put down this creole rebellion. For a brief time, there was so much tension between the Paraguayan criollos and the Jesuits that the king of Spain decreed that the civil jurisdiction over all of the missions be transferred to Buenos Aires. Moreover, groups of cattle rustlers from the south of Brazil exhausted the cattle reserves of the Vaquerías del Mar and Pinares, after more than thirty years of planning to allow the cattle to multiply. Carbonell de Masy,“Guaraní Settlement”; Maeder,“Pasividad Guaraní,” 19;“Padrón del pueblo de la Sn. Trinidad, año 1735,” AGN, IX, 17–3–6. “Declaración de la verdad.” “Autos de las hostilidades de los indios guenoas (Charruas, Bohanes) contra los guaranís,” 1705–08, BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,3,70. 8. According to Noble David Cook,Amerindians seemed to die in these types of colonial regimes as rapidly as those who were subjected to forced labor in other areas of the New World. Cook, Born to Die, 5. 9. Francisco Burges, “Número de las doctrinas, familias, almas, baptismos y ministeriors de Paraná del año 1702,” MG 985e. 10. “Catálogo de la numeración,” 1733, MG 1705e. 11. Sepp, Viagem, 133; “Preámbulo que cosa sea la línea divisora . . .” AHN, Seccíon Jesuíta 120j, doc. 79. 12. Recopilación de Leyes de las Indias, Libro 6, tit. 1, ley 7. 13. Maeder,“La población guaraní,” 29. Maeder argues that the infant mortality rates were as high in the missions as in Europe at the time. I conclude that they were much higher in the missions. We evidently do not have sufficient data to compare infant mortality rates in the missions with the Spanish population in the province. Jesuit censuses were taken frequently, but this was not the case for the rest of the province. 14. In eighteenth-century Germany, for instance, infant mortality rates per thousand varied: from approximately 300 in southern Germany, 200–250 in central Germany, and 150 in northern Germany. The high infant mortality rates in

Notes to Pages 56–58 223 southern Germany are attributable to mothers not breastfeeding their babies or providing them with cow’s milk as a substitute. Morel,“Care of Children,” 201–2. 15. Baptismal registers exist for Mission San Ignacio Guazú for the years 1792 to 1815 and for Mission Santa Rosa during the years 1754 to 1864 and 1792 to 1853.There are no baptismal, marriage, and burial records for other missions. 16. Sepp, Viagem, 186–87. 17. “Algunos cosas que se observan y han de observar para atajar las viruelas,” 1738, BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, Seção de Manuscripts, I-28,33,2; Furlong Cardiff, José Cardiel, S.J. y su Carta-relación, 134–35. 18. One Jesuit, Father Sigismundo Aperger, published a medical book entitled Breve tratado de medicina (1720[?]) in the printing workshop of the mission of Loreto but, unfortunately, no copy has survived. “Introducción,” in Yapuguay, Sermones y exemplos en Lengua Guaraní; see also Furlong Cardiff, Origenes del arte tipográfico en América, 127–49. 19. “Carta de Padre Escandón.” 20. Cook, Born to Die, 208. 21. “Recetas medicinales del Paraguay: obra del R. Padre Sigismundo Aperger, Jesuita y Misionero,” followed by other medical recipes, no date listed, 77 folios, BM, ADD 27,602. 22. The historical literature on the Jesuit missions in Paraguay is vast. Pablo Hernández, S.J., in his comprehensive two-volume work, Organización social de las doctrinas Guaraníes (1913), examines the general political, economic, and social structure of the Jesuit missions. Hernández helps us understand the internal organization of the missions, but not how the Jesuits and the Guaraní exercised authority in their communities. Philip Caraman, S.J., in The Lost Paradise (1975) briefly sketches what life was like for the Jesuits and the Guaraní. He describes the physical layout of the missions, the priests’ and Indians’ houses, and the diseases that afflicted the Amerindians. Caraman asserts that “If the Indians had any capacity for management, the Jesuits proved unable to develop it. Caraman, Lost Paradise, 155. The evidence, however, does not support his culturally insensitive statement. Indeed, cabildos proved to be viable institutions throughout the latecolonial period. Jesuit scholar Guillermo Furlong Cardiff’s study, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaraníes, is a well-researched, classic account of these Jesuit missions. Jesuit scholars, such as Hernández, however, express little understanding of native cultures, and even tended to accept the racial prejudices of the original Jesuit missionaries toward the Guaraní. For example, Hernández assumes that the missionaries needed to eliminate Tupí-Guaraní cannibalism, polygamy, and other “vices.” Furlong Cardiff’s work, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaraníes, by contrast, is one of the most informative studies on the Jesuit missions to date, along with the more recent work of Brazilian historical archaeologist Alvarez Kern, Missões: Uma utopia política, and the valuable works by Argentine historian Ernesto J. A. Maeder. 23. Washburn, History of Paraguay, 1:99, 107. 24. Koebel, In Jesuit Land. 25. Hemming, Red Gold, 466. 26. Schwaller, “Clergy,” 145.

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Notes to Pages 58–62

27. Gadelha, As missões jesuíticas do Itatim, 260. 28. Plá, El barroco hispano-Guaraní, 44.The word cacique is an Arawak term, and there is no apparent Guaraní equivalent for cacicazgo, although chiefdoms were the basic unit of Tupí-Guaraní societies. 29. Farriss, Maya Society, 228. 30. Ibid., 241. Of course, we may never know how many chiefdoms existed prior to the arrival of the Spanish and disappeared early on. 31. “Matrícula del Pueblo de Corpus Christi, 1759,” AGN IX 17–3–6; “Empadronamiento del Pueblo de Corpus, 1777,”AGN IX 17–3–6.These towns were selected because they contained the most complete data for the period under study. 32. “Libro de Bautismos de Santa Rosa, 1754–1763”; “Censo de Santa Rosa, November 17, 1784,” ANA NE vol. 254, Only eighteen of the cacicazgos are listed;“Pueblo de Santa Rosa,” no date, ANA NE, vol. 153;“Censo de Santa Rosa,” 1794, ANA NE, vol. 96, fols. 22–45; “Censo de Santa Rosa, 1799,” ANA NE vol. 66; “Censo de Santa Rosa de Lima, December 19, 1801,” AGN IX 18–2–6. 33. Maeder, Misiones del Paraguay, 74. 34. Alvarez Kern, Missões, 30; Robert Haskett offers many insights into understanding the functions and roles of Indian cabildos in his study Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernacava. Block also stresses the continuities in the political structure of missions in his work and stresses the idea of indirect rule in Mission Culture on the Upper Amazon. 35. This also appears to have been the case in Cuernavaca. Haskett, Indigneous Rulers, 123. 36. Alvarez Kern, Missões, 50–52; Hernández, Organización social, 1:108; Cardiel, Carta-relación, 137. Similarly in Alta California, Indian leaders were coopted by the friars. See the excellent discussion of Indian leadership by Hackel, “Staff of Leadership,” 347–76. Unfortunately, the destruction of many of the cabildo records from the period of the Jesuits does not allow the contextualization of how these Catholic missionaries and the Guaraní made decisions and resolved conflicts in their communities. In his study of the Franciscan reductions among the Guaraní in Paraguay, Louis Necker argues that the corregidor did not have much autonomy. He depicts them as the “simple passive assistants of the administrators who give out all the orders.” His argument however is not entirely convincing, since they could negotiate with the administrators of the missions or with outside authorities. The missionaries were also dependent on them to carry out their orders. The Guaraní, in addition, had the capability of deposing their own corregidores. Of course, there was a limit to their authority because missionaries could have them replaced. Necker, Indios Guaraníes y Chamanes Franciscanos, 184. 37. Furlong Cardiff, Cartografía histórica argentina; “Mapa compuesto por un indio Guaraní y en el que se consignan las estancias de algunas reducciones, 1720?,” in Furlong Cardiff, Cartografía jesuítica del Río de la Plata;Williams, Rise and Fall of the Paraguayan Republic, 9; Harley and Woodward, “An Alternative Route to Mapping History,” 6–13; Harley, Maps and the Columbian Encounter. 38. “Breve relación de lo sucedido en la provincia de la Plata . . . Bernardo Nusdorffer, S.J.,” August 14, 1752, BM ADD 13979; Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural en los pueblos Guaraníes, 304–5.

Notes to Pages 62–65 225 39. A few scholars have contended that the system of production was “communistic.” See Alvarez Kern,“O processo histórico platino”; and Mörner,“La vida económica de los indios en las reducciones,” 22–34. 40. Owens, “Historical Geography of the Indian Missions,” 64–65; Alvarez Kern, Missões, 74. 41. Cardiel, Carta-relación, 137–51. 42. One avenue of inquiry to understand the effects of missionization on gender is to examine the ways in which missionary contact affected the division of labor in mission society. For an analysis of missionary contact on mission Indians in northern Mexico, see the excellent essay by Deeds,“Double Jeopardy,” 255–72. 43. Muratori, Il cristianesimo felice nelle missionei de’padri della Compagnia di Gesú nel Paraguai, 89; José Cayetano Paravicino, “Carta a S. M.,” MG 1035a; Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural en los pueblos Guaraníes, 106–7; Paucke, Hacía allá y para acá, 190–91. 44. Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 17. Sahlins was referring to hunting and gathering societies, but many of his descriptions appear to fit the Tupí-Guaraníes. 45. “Carta de Padre Escandón.” 46. Juan Villegas, S.J.,“Evangelización y agricultura en las reducciones jesuíticas del Paraguay,” Paper presented at the 49th Congress of the Americanists, Quito, Ecuador, July 7–11, 1997. 47. Cardiel, Compendio, 54–55; Paucke, Hacía allá y para acá, 321–22. 48. The Guaraní from the missions of Loreto and Santa Rosa grew the best caáminí in the region. Those from the missions closer to Asunción, that is, San Ignacio Guazú, Santa Rosa, Santa María de Fe, Santiago, and Itapúa, bartered their yerba maté with the criollos in Asunción and Villa Rica in exchange for cloth, cotton, hides, mules, and some imported items from Spain. On occasion, the mission Indians traded their high-quality yerba maté for cattle in Corrientes.The missions sent approximately 300 arrobas (7,605 pounds) of tobacco to sell in Buenos Aires, along with other products the Indians made, such as cotton cloth and candle wicks. “Testimonio de Don Martín Gutiérrez, January 26, 1735,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,4,46; Juan Vázquez de Aguero,“Carta a José Patiño sobre el estado de los pueblos de las misiones del Paraguay de la Compañía de Jesús,” Buenos Aires, March 25, 1736, MG 1705f. Exempt from sales taxes, tithes, and special taxes, the Jesuit yerba maté plantations were more profitable than those managed by the Paraguayan settlers. See López, “Economics of Yerba Mate,” 499–507; Blinn Reber, “Commerce and Industry in Nineteenth-Century Paraguay,” 29–54. 49. “Testimonio de Padre Vencesalo Chrisman, cura del pueblo de San Ignacio Miní, August 8, 1707”; “Testimonio de Padre Henrique Matheis, Corpus Christi, August 9, 1707”; “Testimonio de R. P. Pedro de Medina, Cura y Vic. del Pueblos de San Joseph 1707”;“Testimonio de Hernando Silvestre Gonzáles, 1707,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angeles, I-29,3,64. 50. Maeder, Misiones del Paraguay, 160. 51. “Resumén del Ganado, 1768,” BNRJ, Col. Angelis I-295,42; Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural en los pueblos Guaraníes, 286–87; Sepp, Viagem, 153; “Carta del Provincial Joseph de Maço, 1701,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I29,3,47. The inventories reveal that in the case of Yapeyú even though the num-

226

Notes to Pages 65–68

ber of cattle were still sizable and able to support the mission population, their numbers had declined by 1768. 52. Sepp, Relación de viaje a las misiones jesuíticas, 216. 53. Borges Franco, Scaramella, Lopes de Paula, and Santos, Pesquisas arqueológicas realizadas, 13–22. Ponjade, “Misión de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria,” 153–89. 54. Sepp, Viagem, 69, 128; Father Antonio Sepp made use of native plants such as garlic, tobacco leaves, mint, and lemon juice to treat parasites, thinking that worms could not withstand anything bitter. Furlong Cardiff, Antonio Sepp S.J. y su “Gobierno temporal,” 32. It is extremely difficult to assess the quantity and quality of the mission Indian diet. Jesuit economist Rafael Carbonell de Masy has estimated the caloric intake to be 2,494 per person per day using Jesuit accounts and mission inventories, based on an average of 4.318 members per family, a reasonable figure for determining the average family size. Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural, 102–8. 55. Recopilación, Libro 6, tit. 17, ley 6. Maeder estimates that as many as 17,000 Guaraní abandoned the missions during the mid-eighteenth century. Indian flight was especially important between 1734 and 1739, when migration reached a peak. According to the Jesuit census of 1735, as many as 3,094 Indians left the missions in that single year. Many probably fled to avoid epidemics. Once off the missions, some were taken captive and killed by hostile tribes. The Guenoas, for instance, killed a Tape Guaraní named Joseph, from the Jesuit reduction of San Francisco Xavier, as he was traveling near Montevideo. Indigenous groups in Uruguay, such as the Bohanes and Charruas, also killed three Tapes from missions San Luis, Concepción, and San Francisco Xavier. Maeder, “La población Guaraní,” 19; Maeder, “Pasividad Guaraní?” 162–63. At Mission Santísima Trinidad in 1735, there were 120 fugitives out of total mission population of 1,837. All were males between the ages of 16 and 50. The average age of the fugitives was 26.6 years. Except for five widowers, all fugitives were married. Forty-three of the migrants had abandoned their wives. It is difficult to assess the significance of this outward migration because occasionally fugitives returned to the missions several months or a few years later. “Padrón del pueblo de la Santísima Trindad, 1735,” AGN IX 17-3-6. 56. “Autos de las hostilidades de los indios guenoas (Charruas, Bohanes) contra los Guaraníes,” 1705–1708, BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,3,70. 57. “Proceso al indio Luis por robo,” 1755, ANA, Sección Judicial, vol. 1735, fols. 1–10. 58. “Proceso a Cristobal indio por matar a otro indio del mismo nombre, 1752,” ANA, Sección Judicial, vol. 1434, fols. 1–20. 59. “Gonzálo Doblas al Gov. Intendente Francisco de Sans Paula,” Concepción, August 15, 1787, AGN IX 22–8–2. 60. “Padrón de 1744,” Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Documentos para la Historia Argentina, X:676. 61. Ibid., X:683. 62. Ibid., X:371, 374, 489. 63. Ibid., X:489.

Notes to Pages 68–77 227 64. Juan Vázques de Aguero, “Carta a José Patiño,” MG 1706. 65. Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 165. 66. Ibid., 166–69. 67. Sepp, Viagem, 246–47. 68. Cardiel, Compendio, 92–93; Cardiel, Carta-relación, 138–39. 69. Ibid. 70. Sinopoli, Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics, 100; Plá, “Missionary Workshops,” in Paradise Lost, n.p. 71. Juan Vázquez de Aguero,“Carta a José Patiño informando del estado de los pueblos de las misiones paraguayas a cargo de la Compañía de Jesús,” Buenos Aires, May 16, 1735, MG 1706. 72. “Carta de Padre Escandón.” 73. Escandón,“Suplemento de la censuras,”AHN, Sección Jesuita, 120j, doc. 75. 74. Cardiel, Carta-relación, 151. 75. Plá, “Missionary Workshops,” n.p. 76. Maeder,“La población del Paraguay en 1799,” 63–86; MG 1705e and MG 1664. 77. Maeder, “De las misiones del Paraguay a los estados nacionales.” 78. Alvarez Kern, “Sociedad barroca e missões guaranís,” 454. 79. Sepp, Viagem, 131. 80. Juan Vázquez de Aguero, “Carta a José Patiño,” MG 1706. 81. Cardiel, Declaración de la verdad, 294–95. 82. “Catálogo de la Numeración Annual, 1742.” 83. Cardiel, Carta-relación, 145, 174. In 1740, the number of widows was 5,332 and the number of widowers was 366. “Numeración annual, 1740,” ARSI, Paraquariae 13, Roll 156; “Catálogo de la numeración annual de las doctrinas, 1724,” ARSI, Paraquariae 13, Roll 152; “Catálogo de la numeración annual de las doctrinas, 1747,” ARSI, Paraquariae 7, Roll 156, Paraguariae 11, fol. 246; for a discussion of recogimiento (cloisters), see Lavrin’s excellent article,“Female Religious,” 189–90.The coty guazú may have served as an institution to which female criminals were sent for punishment. Mission jails were reserved for men only. However, Jesuit sources did not indicate whether Guaraní women who committed serious crimes were placed in these institutions. 84. Cardiel, Declaración de la verdad, 380. 85. “Colección de dibujos de ladrillos de la iglesia mayor de Trinidad,” L. Mesquita de Cáceres of the Dirección de Turismo,Asunción, Paraguay; Perasso, El Paraguay del siglo XVIII en tres memorias. 86. Brandes, Power and Persuasion, 1–4, 33. 87. Bernal, Cathesismo de la lengua Guarany y Castellana, 1:410–11. 88. “Carta de Padre Escandón.” 89. According to Jesuit censuses, the Indians took the Eucharist at least once a year. In 1747, for example, they gave communion 128,154 times. The mission population in that year was 91,681 in thirty towns. “Catálogo de la Numeración Annual de las Doctrinas del Rio Paraná y Rio Uruguay año de 1747,” Vatican Film Library, Saint Louis University, ARSI, Prova. Paraquariae, Paraq. 11, Roll 156, fol. 246.

228

Notes to Pages 77–80

90. Cardiel, Carta-relación (1747), 173–74; Preiss, A música nas missões jesuíticas nos séculos XVII e XVIII. 91. ARSI, Paraquarie 13, Roll 156; Brabo, Inventarios de los bienes hallados a la expulsión de los jesuítas. 92. Brandes drew on the work of Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), in viewing dance as a narrative in which people tell a story about themselves. Brandes, Power and Persuasion, 186. 93. Cardiel, Carta-relación, 165–67; Massare de Kostianovsky,“El arte dramático en las reducciones jesuíticas.” 94. Ethnohistorians have not examined how the Tupí-Guaraní maintained order in their societies prior to European contact.The evidence of pre-Hispanic cultural patterns of this nature is nonexistent because we have to rely on archaeological evidence. Without this knowledge and given the fragmented historical record, it is extremely difficult to assess the roles of Guaraní alcaldes in determining the severity of the Jesuit regime. 95. Sepp, Relación de viaje a las misiones jesuíticas, 221–22. 96. Cardiel, Carta-relación, 140. 97. Recopilación, “De los reducciones y pueblos de indios,” Libro 6, tit. 3, Ley 15. 98. “Carta de Padre Escandón.” 99. “Preámbulo que cosa sea la línea divisora,” AHN, Sección Jesuita, 120j, doc. 79. 100. Carlos II, “Real cédula sobre que incorporarase en la corona . . . ,” Madrid,April 30, 1668 MG 565e.“Apuntes sobre las cuentas de los tributarios que se hizo . . . 1751 por orden del Padre Provinicial,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I29,4,87; Rivarola Paoli, La economía colonial, 126. 101. Ibid.; “Preámbulo, Que cosa,” AHN, Seccíon Jesuíta, doc. 79; Obispo del Paraguay José de Palos,“Carta a S. M. sobre misiones,”Asunción, July 6, 1726, MG 1145. 102. “Breve relación de lo sucedido en la Provincia del Paraguay del Río de la Plata,” 1754[?] AHN, Sección Jesuita, 120j, doc. 15. 103. Magnus Mörner mentions that on occasion, a few of the Jesuits withheld distributing food to small numbers of mission Indians as a means to punish them and control their behavior. Mörner, “La vida económica de los indios en las reducciones jesuitas,” 27. 104. Sepp, Viagem, 146–47. 105. Ricard, Spiritual Conquest of Mexico, 98–99. 106. “Cédula de 28 Diz. 1743.” BNRJ, Seção de Manuscritos, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,4,85; “Reparos que se han hecho,” AHN, Leg. 120j, Exp. 92, fols. 3–4. 107. José Cayetano Paravicino, “Carta a S. M. dando informe de la visita pastoral hecha a todos los pueblos de la provincia,” Asunción, November 21, 1744, MG 1035a. 108. Cardiel, Compendio, 202. 109. Ibid., 202–3; “Preámbulo que cosa sea la línea divisora,” AHN, Sección Jesuita, 120j, fols. 95–96. 110. Recopilación, Libro I, tit. 6, ley XXX; Plá, El barroco hispano-Guaraní, 49.

Notes to Pages 80–88 229 111. Unsigned draft about the cedula, December 28, 1743, BNRJ, Coleção de Angeles, I-29,4,85. 112. “Cédula Real disponiendo se ponga in práctica lo propuesto por el Arzobispo de Mexico, a find de conseguir que se destierren los diferentes idiomas que se usan en los dominios y solo se habla el castellano,Yo el Rey, Aranjuez, May 10, 1760,” ANA, NE, vol. 62, fols. 99–104. 113. Ibid. 114. “Preámbulo que cosa sea la Línea Divisora,” AHN, Sección Jesuíta, 120j, doc. 79. 115. “Visita de Joseph Cayetano, Obispo del Paraguay, November 21, 1744,” AGI, Audiencia Charcas, 76,4,49; unpublished notes of Carlos Leonhardt, S.J., Archivo Provincial de Buenos Aires de la Compañía de Jesús. 116. “Milicias de Indios, 1770–1786, Compañía de Indios Naturales de Buenos Aires, destinados al servicio de S. M. en el Real Fuerte de San Carlos,” AGN IX 14–7–16. 117. Bernardo Nusdorffer, S.J., “Segunda parte de los sucedido en las Doctrinas después que salió de ellas el Pe. Luis de Altamirano para Buenos Ayres,” 1753, BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, Seção de Manuscritos, Roll 31846, Defensa de los Jesuítas 1.2.34, Guerra de los Guaraníes, 8.2.25, fol. 17. 118. Brítez Fariña, Historia de la cultura Guaraní, 17–19. 119. Yapuguay, Sermones y exemplos en lengua Guaraní. 120. Phelan, “Authority and Flexibility,” 47–65.

Chapter 4: From Resistance to Rebellion 1. Bernardo Nusdorffer, “Relación de todo lo sucedido en estas Doctrinas en orden a las mudanzas de los siete Pueblos del Uruguay desde San Borja hasta San Miguel,” April 12, 1753,Ytapuá, “Tercera parte de la relación de lo sucedido en estas doctrinas, 1754,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, 1, 2, 34, pt. 3, fol. 16. 2. Mateos,“Avances portugueses y misiones españoles,” 459–504; Mateos,“La guerra guaranítica,” 75–121; Mateos, “Pedro de Ceballos,” 313–75; Mateos, “Nuevos incidentes en las misiones del Paraguay,” 135–92; Mateos,“La anulación del tratado de límites con Portugal de 1750,” 523–64. 3. Kratz, El tratado hispano-portugués de límites de 1750 y sus consecuencias. Caraman briefly sketches the major events of the Guaraní War in The Lost Paradise (1975). Armani in Cittá di Dio e Cittá del sole outlines the major events of the 1750s. 4. See the excellent articles by Couto, “Os conflictos como as reduções jesuíticas da província do Paraguai,” 173–83; Cuoto, “O Tratado de Limites de 1750 na perspectiva portuguesa”; “O Brasil pombalino,” 113–31. 5. Porto, História das Missões Orientais do Uruguai. See also the works of Golin, Guerra Guaranítica como os exercitos de Portugal e Espanha destruíam os Sete Povos dos jesuítas e índios guaranis no Rio Grande do Sul, 1750–1761; and Sépe Tiaraju. 6. Alexandre de Gusmão e o Tratado de Madrid (1750). 7. Silveira Several, Guerra Guaranítica. 8. Hemming, Red Gold, 470.

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Notes to Pages 89–94

9. According to Steve Stern, perhaps as many as 100,000 people lost their lives in the Tupac Amaru II rebellions of 1780–82. Stern, “Age of Andean Insurrection,” 35. 10. Boxer, “Missionaries, Colonists, and Indians in Amazonia,” 113–14; Davidson, “How the Brazilian West Was Won,” 61–106. 11. Poenitz and Snihur, La herencia misionera, 86. Poenitz and Snihur note that the treaty also affected some lands belonging to Mission Apóstoles. 12. “Tratado firmado en Madrid a 13 de enero de 1750 para determinar los límites de los Estados,” 5:195–211; Archivo General de la Nacion, Buenos Aires, 2:5–15; Maeder, “Los problemas de Límites,” 5–40. 13. Manuel Quirini, “Misiones de indios que tiene actualmente la provincia del Paraguay de la Compañía de Jesús, Córdoba, August 1, 1750,” MG 1664. Aurelio Porto notes that the native population in the seven reductions grew from 26,403 inhabitants in 1745 to 29,305 by 1753. Porto, História das Missões Orientais do Uruguai, 2:195. 14. “Catalogo dell anno 1751,” in Ibanez de Echavarri, Regno Gesuitico del Paraguay, 13–14; a 1752 Jesuit map of the region also showed that the total population of the seven reductions was 29,199.“Mapa de la Governación del Paraguay y Buenos Aires, 1752,” in Furlong Cardiff, Cartografía jesuítica del Río de la Plata, 78, no. 23. 15. “Representacn q hace el Rey N. S. en su R. L. Consejo de las Yndias el P. Prov.l. dela Comp.a de Jesús,” AHN, Sección Jesuita, Leg. 120j, doc. 28. 16. “Carta del P. Bernardo Nusdorffer al P. Comisario,” in Instituto Geográfico Militar, Documentos relativos, 3. Hereafter this source will be cited simply as Documentos relativos. 17. “Informe a V. M. y remite copia de una representación de los Religiosos de la Compañia de Jesús sobre los incombenietes de la entrega de unos Pueblos de Indios Guaraníes a la Corona de Portugal,” Lima, June 30, 1751, AS Estado, Leg. 7450. 18. Bernardo Nusdorffer,“Breve relación de lo sucedidio en la Provincia de la Plata sobre la entrega de los siete pueblos de Yndios Guaranís que el Rey Católico ha mandado hace a la Corona de Portugal . . . a Lope Luis Altamirano Comisario del Rey y de Padre General de la Companía . . . , Mission Yapeyú,August 14, 1752, BM ADD MS 13,979. 19. “Carta de Padre Pedro de Lozano, March 14, 1751, Córdoba,Tucuman, and “Carta del Provincial José de Barreda,” Códoba, July 19, 1953, in Documentos relativos, 32–35. 20. “Joseph Quiroga de la Compañia de Jesús al Com. Joseph de Carvajal y Lancaster,” Buenos Aires, April 14, 1751, BM, ADD MS 13,979. 21. “Relación sobre la Execución del Tratado de Límites se rompieron en la corte de Lisboa y pasaron a la de Madrid, sobre los religiosos Jesuitas haver hecho Poderosos,” BM, Mss. Span e. 1, fols. 32–44. 22. Nusdorffer, “Relación de todo lo sucedido,” April 12, 1753,Ytapuá, “Tercera parte de la relación de lo sucedido en estas doctrinas, 1754,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, 1, 2, 34, pt. 2, fol. 9. 23. Ibid., pt. 1, fols. 17–18.

Notes to Pages 94–101 231 24. Ibid., pt. 2, fols. 32–33. 25. Ibid., pt. 1, fol. 16. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., pt. 2, fol. 30. 29. José de Palos, Obispo del Paraguay, “Carta a S. M. sobre su visita a los pueblos desde Jesús hasta Asunción,” Asunción, October 28, 1724, MG 1039a; Consejo de Indias, “Informe del fiscal sobre la visita de Fray José, Obispo del Paraguay,” Madrid, November 23, 1725, MG 2039b. 30. Escandón, “História da Transmigração dos Sete Povos Orientais,” 92–93. 31. Cahill, “Taxanomy of a Colonial ‘Riot’: The Arequipa Disturbances of 1780,” 285. 32. Nusdorffer, pt. 1. 33. “Relación de la Execución del Tratado de Límites se rompieron en la corte de Lisboa y pasaron a la Madrid...,” BM MSS Span e, 1, fols. 32–44. 34. “Breve Relación de lo sucedido en la Provincia del Paraguay del Río de la Plata” (1754[?]),AHN, Sección Jesuita, Leg. 120j, doc. 15; Nusdorffer, pt. 2, fol. 30. 35. Nusdorffer, pt. 1, fols. 1-15. 36. Nusdorffer, pt. 1, fols. 29–32. 37. Ibid., pt. 1, fol. 40; Escandón, “Transmigração,” 124–27. 38. “Breve Relación de lo sucedido en la prov. del Río de la Plata,” BM, ADD 13,979, fol. 17. 39. Nusdorffer, pt. 2, fols. 8–9; Cardiel, Compendio, 121. 40. AS, Estado 7426.This letter from the Archivo de Simancas was undated but most likely was written in late 1752 or in 1753, because Father Bernardo Nusdorffer refers to it in his year-by-year account of the Indian rebellion. Modern Guaraní linguists do not doubt the authenticity of these native texts. Because the Guaraní continued to write letters in their native language long after the expulsion of the Jesuits, there is no reason to suspect that the authors of these letters were not the Guaraní. Of course, the cabildantes were probably influenced by the missionaries, who also opposed the Treaty of Madrid. 41. Mateos, “Notas y textos,” 547–72. 42. Nusdorffer, pt. 1, fols. 1–15. 43. AS, Estado 7426. 44. Maeder notes that some four thousand Guaraní troops had been sent to defend Colônia do Sacramento in 1735–36. Maeder, “Pasividad Guaraní?” 162. 45. Robert W. Patch points out that the concept of “moral economy” exists in all societies. It occurs when the exploiter goes beyond what is regarded as moral, then the exploited has the right to take the proper steps to restore the status quo, including rioting, rebellion, and revolution. Patch raises the issue of how people of different cultures who spoke separate languages communicated with one another in Latin America. Each group had a different vision of the world, which affected how they defined what is “moral.” See Patch, “Culture, Community, and ‘Rebellion,’ ” 67;Thompson,“Moral Economy of the English Crowd,” 76–130. 46. Adorno, Guaman Poma, 21. 47. See Furlong, Orígenes del Arte Tipográfico, 127–49.

232

Notes to Pages 102–5

48. “Carta de los indios del pueblo de San Luis al Gobernador de Buenos Aires,” July 18, 1753,AHN, Sección Jesuita, Leg. 120j, doc. 99. 49. Mateos,“Notas y Textos,” 547–72. 50. Ibid. 51. “Memorial que el Pe. Provl. de la Prova. del Paraguay presentó al Señor Comisario Marqués de Valdelirios,” Córdoba, July 19, 1753, AHN, Sección Jesuita, Leg. 120j, doc. 35, fol. 2. 52. Cardiel, Compendio, 120. 53. Ibid.; “Segunda conferencia celebrada en la isla de Martín García entre el Marqués de Valdelirios,” March 24, 1754, in Documentos relativos, 177. 54. “Copia de carta escrito por el Gral D. M. Gomes Andrada a los Caciques y comandantes de los Pueblos reveldes,” in Documentos relativos, 188; a letter by Gomes Freire de Andrada, dated February 9, 1756, in Carvalho e Melo, República Jesuítica Ultramarina, 13.The outcome of this theological junta is unclear.According to Jorge Coutu, Spain and Portugal had signed a secret treaty on January 17, 1751, agreeing to use force against the Indians in case of any resistance. He cites a Spanish royal order of August 24, 1751, authorizing the use of force to evacuate the Jesuits and the Indians from the area east of the Uruguay River. Couto, “Os conflictos como as reduções jesuíticas,” 176, 179. 55. Nusdorffer, pt. 3, fol. 23. 56. “El Padre Altamirano a D. José de Andonaegui sobre el estado de los pueblos y obstinación de sus habitantes en no abandonarlos,” Buenos Aires,August 31, 1754, in Documentos relativos, 214–15. 57. Escandón,“Transmigração,” 130; Nusdorffer, pt. 1, fol. 38. 58. “Carta de Luis Altamirano al Excmo. Señor Don Josef Carvajal,” Santo Tomé, January 28, 1753,“Notas del Archivo General de Indias del Padre Carlos Leonhardt, S.J.,” Archivo Jesuítico de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Colegio de San Miguel; Alden, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil, 92. 59. Ibid. 60. Nusdorffer, pt. 2, fol. 9. 61. Ibid., pt. 2, fol. 19. 62. Ibid., pt. 2, fol. 45. 63. Ibid., pt. 2, fol. 37. 64. Ibid., pt. 2, fol. 28. 65. Ibid., pt. 2, fol. 44. 66. Ibid., pt. 2, fol. 47. 67. Ibid., pt. 3, fol. 2. 68. Ibid., pt. 2, fol. 46. 69. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 282. In Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages,William B.Taylor uncovered a similar pattern in rebellions in eighteenth-century Mexican villages in which the Indians used Spanish expletives, often applied to Indians, to insult colonial authorities who posed a threat to the communities’ well-being. The insurgents in Mexico, however, did not distribute leaflets as one of their strategies to resist the Spanish. 70. Nusdorffer, pt. 2, fol. 24. 71. “Reducciones del Paraná y Uruguay,”ARSI, Paraquarie 13, Roll 156.

Notes to Pages 107–8 233 72. Nusdorffer, pt. 3, fols. 7–8, 25–26. 73. Henis,“Diario Histórico de la Rebelión,” 5:520. 74. Escandón,“Transmigração,” 238, 244, 276–78.According to Jorge Couto, 230 Indians were killed, 72 were taken captive, including cacique Rafael Paracatú. See Couto,“Os conflitos com as reduções,” 180. 75. Nusdorffer wrote that Sepé Tiarajú managed to escape on foot, but in an account translated by him, the Indian reported that Tiarajú had been killed. 76. “Relación de lo que sucedió a 53 Indios del Uruguay, 1755.” AHN, Sección Jesuíta, Leg. 120j, doc. 56; “Cartas en Guaraní tomadas por el Coronel José Joaquín de Viana,” in Documentos relativos, 229–33. 77. “Cartas de José de Andonaegui,” Buenos Aires, May 18, 1753, fols. 16–17; May 22, 1753; June 20, 1753.The governor ordered them to appear in the main plaza, taking with them any arms they may have in their possession. If not, the blacks and mulattos faced the heavy penalty of two hundred lashes plus four years of banishment and heavy labor at the presidio and plaza of San Felipe de Montevideo without salary. 78. Henis,“Diario Histórico,” 536;Alden, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil, 91– 92. Political changes in Portugal and Spain also played a role in the delays. By this time, two key architects of the Treaty of Madrid, Alexandre Gusmão and José de Carvajal y Lancaster, had died, respectively in 1753 and 1754. Opponents of the Jesuits found themselves occupying key positions in government. Following the coronation of Portuguese king Dom José I, Sebastián José de Carvalho y Mello became the new minister of the interior. Ricardo Wall replaced José de Carvajal y Lancaster as the chief Spanish minister.Through Wall’s influence, a Dominican, rather than a Jesuit, was assigned to serve as the king’s confessor. Poenitz and Snihur, La herencia misionera, 90. 79. Escandón,“Transmigração,” 281–83. 80. “Apuntes de Meliá,” 18; Pérez, “Los indios infieles de la Banda Oriental,” 222–23. 81. Ibid., 296; Leonhardt, “Traducción de las Cartas Anuas de la Provincia del Paraguay de la Compañía de Jesús, 1756–1762” (Buenos Aires: Colegio de Salvador, 1928), now kept at the Archivo Provincial de Buenos Aires de la Compañía de Jesús, Colegio Máximo de San José. 82. Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, Campaña del Brasil:Antecedentes Coloniales, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Gmo. Kraft Ltd., 1939), 2:203–4. 83. Escandón,“Transmigração,” 308. 84. Cardiel, Breve relación de las misiones, 180. 85. Henis,“Diario Histórico,” 477, 536, 538. 86. Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, Campaña del Brasil, 2:205–7. Barba, Don Pedro de Cevallos, 37. Barba states that 144 Guaraní were wounded. Tau Golin relies on the account of Gomes Freire de Andrada, who claimed that of 1,700 Guaraní soldiers, 1,500 died in the battle and 154 were taken prisoner. Of the three thousand Spanish and Portuguese soldiers, there were four deaths and forty wounded. Golin, A Guerra Guaranítica como os exercitos de Portugal e Espanha, 579. Hemming notes that 1,400 Indians but only three soldiers from the allied forces died, and twenty-six soldiers were wounded. Hemming, Red Gold, 472–73. According to

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Notes to Pages 109–12

Jesuit father Henis, nearly six hundred Guaraní soldiers died on the battlefield at Caaíbaté on February 10, 1756, and one hundred fifty were taken as prisoners.The Spanish and Portuguese had lost only five men, but thirty were wounded. The remaining Guaraní fled into the hills and eventually returned to their missions. However, Father Henis was not at the battle; he was nearby at Mission San Miguel. Henis,“Diario Histórico,” 547. 87. “Carta del Padre José Cardiel al P. Cardiel Novat sobre los indios y perjuicio que les causó con el tratado,” San Borja, June 5, 1758, AHN, Sección Jesuita, Leg. 120j, doc. 78. Cardiel stated that there were 30,702 inhabitants in the seven reductions. 88. “Carta de Nicolás de Clordury á don Pedro de Ceballos,” San Nicolás, January 8, 1760,AGN IX 11–6–2. 89. Don Pedro de Cevallo claims he “took extra care to avoid any offenses to God . . . in treating the women.” Ibid.“Carta de Nicolás de Clordury to Don Lucas Infante, San Nicolás, May 1758”; “Carta de Nicolás de Clordury to Don Pedro de Cevallos, San Nicolás, October 19, 1760.” 90. Henis,“Diario Histórico,” 554; Escandón, Transmigração, 329–45. 91. “Carta de Nicolás Ñeengirú al gobernador de Buenos Aires,”April 16, 1756, AHN, SJ, vol. 120j, no. 58;“Apuntes de Meliá.” Meliá points out that the translations of the Guaraní texts of Nicolás Ñeengirú varied because some were translated by the Jesuits and others by Don Pedro Joseph Villanueva, a Spanish soldier. 92. “Carta de Bucareli al Conde de Aranda, dándole cuenta de lo ocurrido en su viaje al Salto Chico del Río Uruguay,” in Brabo, Colección de documentos relativos, 176– 77. 93. Carta de Nicolás de Clodury á Don Pedro de Cevallos, San Nicolás, February 2, 1759; San Nicolás, February 22, 1759; San Borja, May 18, 1759;AGN IX 11–6–2. 94. Ibid., testimony by a friend of Martin Tuama, a peon from San Miguel, November 18, 1757. 95. Ibid., “Relación de las Personas de Indios que el Capitán Dn Juan Jph de Pando á conduziendo a la costa del Río Uruguay en el Paso de la Concepción,” San Nicolás, March 17, 1758.Another group of twelve captured Indians consisted of one man, three women, and eight children; ibid., February 22, 1758. None of their ages were listed. 96. González Rissotto,“La importancia de las misiones jesuíticas,” 203. 97. Escandón, Transmigração, 369–87, 431–32. 98. “Relación sobre la Execución del Tratado de Límites,” fol. 42. 99. Escandón, Transmigração, 350; Moacyr Flores,“A Transmigração dos Guaranis,” 82–85; Neis,“A Aldeia de Nossa Senhora dos Anjos,” 77. 100. The Guaraní were cared for in hospitals in all seven towns.Anonymous document signed April 15, 1758, San Nicolás; according to a military deserter from Corrientes, more than thirty Guaraní passed the Monte Grande en route to Montevideo.They had with them cattle and had planted new fields. Quartel de San Lorenzo, September 23, 1757,AGN IX 11–6–2. 101. Hernández, Organización social de las doctrinas Guaraníes de la Compañía de Jesús, 2:11.These figures are based on documents he found in the Coleção de Angelis, Biblioteca Nacional, Río de Janeiro,VIII.50.

Notes to Pages 112–18 235 102. “Catálogo de la Numeración de las Doctrinas del Río Paraná,” Buenos Aires, December 17, 1765, MG 592. It is difficult to assess the impact of the Guaraní War on the mission communities because the indigenous population cited in the Jesuit censuses fluctuated from one year to the next. 103. Ibid.; Escandón, Transmigração, 411–12, 430–32, 436. The Treaty of Pardo, signed on February 12, 1761, annulled the terms of the Treaty of Madrid. See Couto, “O Brasil pombalino,” 5:126–27. 104. Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 108. 105. AHN, Leg. 120j, Exp. 82.“Numeratio Papulorum Paranensiuym anni 1762,” ARSI, Paraquarie 13, Roll 156. 106. “Catálogo de la Numeración de las Doctrinas,” 1765, MG 592. 107. Norris,“Franciscan Reform Effort.” 108. Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, The Corn Mothers Went Away; Knaut, Pueblo Revolt of 1680; What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680?; Frank, “Demographic, Social and Economic Change in New Mexico,” 41–72. 109. Castillo, “Native Response to the Colonization of Alta California,” 1:377– 94. See also Jackson and Castillo, Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization, 74–77, 80. 110. O’Phelan Godoy, La gran rebelión en los Andes, 43; Golte, Repartos y rebeliones; Stavig,“Conflict,Violence, and Resistance,” 213–33. 111. McFarlane,“Rebellion of the Barrios,” 197–254. 112. Phelan, People and the King. 113. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion, 116.

Chapter 5: The Guaraní in the Aftermath of the Expulsion of the Jesuits 1. Hernández, El extrañamiento de los jesuitas del Río de la Plata, 364–69; Misión San Luis,“Copia en Guaraní del Memorial de la misión de San Luis,” February 28, 1768, copy from the papers of Señor Woodbine Parish, MG 1992;“Carta al Exmo. Señor Conde de Aranda . . . Pueblo de San Luis,” BM,Additional 32,605, fols. 37– 42. 2. In publishing this letter, Jesuit scholar Pablo Hernández gave the impression that the Guaraní truly missed them rather than treated their departure with indifference, which may have been the reaction at first of some of the mission Indians. By ignoring or overlooking the remaining Guaraní manuscripts, scholars have presented a monolithic view of the indigenous response to this important event. Argentine historian Julio César González criticized Hernández for only giving this impression. González, “Notas para una historia de los treinta pueblos de misiones,” 324. 3. “Informe sobre la preocupación que tomó para el extranamiento de los Regulares,” Thomas Ortiz de Landazurri, March 10, 1769, AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 611. 4. Manuel Antonio de la Torre, “Carta a Fray Julián de Arriaga en que cuenta la expulsión de los jesuítas,” Buenos Aires, October 3, 1768, MG 1072a. 5. Carlos Morphy, “Carta a S. M. sobre precauciones que ha tomado de los indios de San Estanislao y de San Joaquin,” Asunción, April 9, 1769, MG 586;

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Notes to Pages 118–19

Consejo de Indias, “Informe del Fiscal sobre tributos de los indios de San Estanislao y San Joaquín,” Madrid, March 17, 1769, MG 588; Consejo de Indias, “Oficio en que transmite a S. M. la representación relativo al tributo que se debe imponer a los indios de las reducciones de San Joaquín y San Estanislao,” Madrid, April 13, 1769, MG 587;Tomás Ortiz de Landázuri,“Dictamen por la Contaduría Real a los señores del Consejo de Indias sobre el tributo de los indios de las reducciones de San Joaquín y San Estanislao,” Madrid, March 10, 1769, MG 1294;Torre Revello,“Informe sobre misiones de indios existentes en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII,” 106. 6. Ibid.; Furlong, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaraníes, 696. 7. Richard Herr, Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain, 11–14; Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 188. 8. Callahan,“Spanish Church,” 34–50; Mörner,“Expulsion of the Jesuits,” 157; Farriss, Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico. 9. Mörner, Expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America, 3, 8, 13–14. For more than a century, churchmen in Paraguay and Brazil had struggled with settlers and officials over Indian policies, justifying their actions on the grounds that they were protecting the Indians against exploitation. In both regions, settlers claimed the Jesuits sought to control the Indians’ labor only to enhance the wealth of their order.These conflicts over Indian policies and anti-Jesuit feelings on behalf of the colonists led to virtual civil wars and the temporary expulsion of the Jesuits from settlements in Brazil during the seventeenth century, and in Asunción, Paraguay, during the Comunero Revolt in the early eighteenth century. Felipe V, “Real Cédula al obispo del Paraguay sobre los límites de los pueblos de misiones,” Madrid, February 11, 1724, MG 2100a. Pike, Conflict Between Church and State, 11; “Parecer del Doctor Don Tomás Verjon de Cabildes, Fiscal de su Magestad en la Real Audiencia de Lima,” 1657, Fondo Gesuítico al Gesu di Roma,Vatican Film Library, St. Louis University, Roll 232; Francisco Bucareli y Ursúa,“Carta a Julián de Arriaga encargándole de lo que juzgue conveniente acerca del descubrimiento de minas de oro por Salvador Cabañas y ampuero en las haciendas de Paraguarí, secuestrados a los regulares de la Compañía de Jesús,” Aranjuez, June 6, 1771, MG 1087b. 10. Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 29–31; Aveling, Jesuits, 257. 11. Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 188. 12. Portugal had enjoyed an export boom during the 1750s, but by the end of that decade, this started to decline.The reconstruction of Lisbon following a devastating earthquake and the Guaraní War had been expensive. Pombal thus was eager to seize the wealth of the Jesuits to increase the size of the royal treasury. See Hemming, Red Gold, 479; Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 254–55; Engstrand, “Enlightenment in Spain,” 436–46. David Brading points out that there are problems in using the Enlightenment as one of the reasons for the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish America. There were but a few enlightened individuals in position of influence during the reign of Charles III. Brading, First America, 498. 13. Reagan, “Role Played by Gomes Freire de Andrade,” 198–99; Alden, “Economic Aspects of the Expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil,” 53; Hemming, Red Gold, 473–79.

Notes to Pages 119–23 237 14. Histoire de Nicolas I: Roy du Paraguai et Empereur des Mamelus, x; Reagan, “Role Played by Gomes Freire de Andrade,” 9, 132–80; Caraman, Lost Paradise, 274. 15. Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society, 29. 16. Mörner, “Expulsion of the Jesuits,” 156. 17. Aveling, Jesuits, 277. 18. Pastor, History of the Popes, 37:48–62. 19. Carlos III, “Real Cédula al Obispo del Paraguay sobre separación de los jesuítas,” San Ildefonso, September 5, 1766, MG 307. 20. Deeds, “Rendering Unto Caesar,” x-xi. 21. Conde de Aranda,“Adición a la instrucción sobre el extranamiento de los jesuitas de los Dominios de S. M.,” Madrid, March 1, 1767, BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,5,32. 22. Ibid. 23. Mariluz Urquijo, “Los guaraníes después de la expulsión de los jesuitas,” 324–30. 24. “Carta del Gobernador de Buenos Aires al Conde de Aranda,” September 4, 1767, quoted in González, “Notas para una historia,” 280. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., 282. 27. Brabo, Colección de documentos relativos, 102–6. 28. “Copia en Guaraní del Memorial de la Misión de San Luis . . . ,” February 28, 1768, MG 1992. 29. González, “Notas para una historia,” 296–97. 30. Similarly in northern New Spain, the Yaqui Indians did not rebel following the Jesuit expulsion in 1767. In 1740, the Yaquis had rebelled against the Jesuits and the Spaniards because of increased labor demands. According to historian Evelyn Hu-Dehart, the Yaquis accepted the expulsion of the Jesuits calmly because they were not dependent on missions, both economically and morally, and had other viable options available to them. She notes that the expulsion proceeded in a quiet and orderly manner when the Jesuits were replaced with secular priests. As in the borderlands of northern New Spain, the Jesuits in Paraguay were replaceable; mendicant orders followed in their place, along with secular administrators. Hu-DeHart, Missionaries, Miners and Indians, 95–96.Anthropologist Guillermo Wilde also concludes that the crisis of the 1750s was still in the mindset of the Guaraní at the time of the Jesuit expulsion.Wilde, “La actitud Guaraní ante la expulsión de los jesuítas,” 163. 31. “Thente. Don Valentín Ybariguá al Sr. Gov. Francisco Bucareli,” San Miguel, August 13, 1768, AGN IX, 6–10–7. 32. “Carta de Cacique Don Chrsto. Tayuaré al Exmo. Sor. Don Francisco de Paula Bucareli,”Yapeyú, September 18, 1768, AGN, IX, 6–10–7. 33. “Don Christobal Arirá al Sr. Don Francisco de Paula Bucareli,” Encarnación de Ytapuá, August 10, 1768 [?], AGN, IX, 6–10–7. 34. Machón, “La última reducción del Alto Paraná,” 7–48. 35. “Corregidor del Corpus, Sebastian Joseph Oguendá, al Exco. Sr. Capn. Genl. y gov.r Dn. Francisco de Paula Bucareli y Ursua,” Corpus, December 19, 1768. Courtesy of Professor Jorge Francisco Machón, Misiones, Argentina.

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Notes to Pages 123–26

36. “Don Chrsto. Tayuaré to Francisco de Paula Bucareli,” Yapeyú, July 23, 1768, AGN IX 6–10–7. 37. “Juan Antonio Curiguá al Sr. Gov. Don Francisco Bucareli,” exact mission unknown, March 4, 1768, AGN, IX, 6–10–7. 38. This letter is significant not only because it describes the early contact between the Guayanas and the Guaraníes, but also because Oguendá refers to his people as his “many mbyá” (people). This raises the possibility that the Guaraníspeaking people known today as the Mbüá in eastern Paraguay, northern Argentina, and southern Brazil are among the direct descendants of the Guaraníes from the Jesuit missions. This evidence supports the earlier work of the anthropologist León Cadogan, who published the historical recollections of the MbyáGuaraní of the “Kechuítas,” the Jesuits. Cadogan, Ayvu Rapyta. 39. “Francisco Bruno de Zavala al Ex. Sr. Dn. Francisco de Bucareli,” La Cruz, December 28, 1768, AGN, 6–10–7. This was not a Guaraní text, but it further demonstrates that a number of the mission Indians were accommodating to the Spaniards. 40. Wilde, “La actitud Guaraní ante la expulsión de los jesuitas,” 165–68. 41. González, “An Executor who was Better than his Fame,” 164–67; and González, “Notas para una historia,” 282. 42. “Carta del Manuel Antonio Obispo de Buenos Aires al Exmo. Sor Dn Dr. Julian de Arriaga,” Buenos Aires, October 3, 1768, MG 1072; Bruno, Historia de la iglesia en la Argentina, 6:128. 43. “Relación de la expatriación de los jesuitas . . . escrita en Roma por el Padre Gaspar Xuarez, uno de los expulsos,” n.d., BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I29,5,48. 44. González, “Notas para una historia,” 298. 45. “Carta de Don Chrysanto Tayuaré a Excm. Sor Don Franco. de Paula Bucareli y Ursua,”Yapeyú, July 23, 1768, AGN, IX 6–10–7. 46. Ibid. 47. Wightman, Indigenous Migration and Social Change.Wightman cites various reasons for Indian migration in Cuzco. Many sought to avoid epidemic disease, tribute payment, the constant demands for their labor, and the intolerance of the church.Wightman states that the Peruvian peoples did not flee from Spanish control, nor did they choose to live in isolation. 48. Mariluz Urquijo, “Los guaraníes después de la expulsión de los jesuitas,” 323–30. 49. Susnik, El indio colonial, 3:28–30, 51, 58–60. 50. Maeder and Bolsi, “La población de las misiones después de la expulsión de los jesuitas.” 51. Ibid., 149. The 1778 census of the eight missions in the Department of Candelaria also indicates that more Indians fled from those towns than perished. According to the census, 1,146 deserted the missions and 967 perished that year. “Juan Valiente, Estado q. manifiesta el número de Yndios Exemptos de Tributos,” Candelaria, March 8, 1778, AGN IX 17–6–3. 52. “Catálogo de la Numeración Annual de las Doctrinas del Rio Paraná, Numeración Annual de los Pueblos del Uruguay,” 1767,ARSI, Paraquaria 13, Roll

Notes to Pages 126–28 239 156. Other sources indicate that at the time of the expulsion, the missions of the region of the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers had a total of 97,383 inhabitants.“Estado que manifiesta . . . Catálogo de las familias, según el Padrón de este año de 1768,” Coleção de Angelis, BNRJ, I-29,5,42. Maeder lists the figure of 88,828 in his demographic studies. Maeder, Misiones del Paraguay, 55. 53. “Empadronamiento de los Treinta Pueblos de Misiones, por el Coronel Don Marcos de Larrazabal, 1772,” AGN, IX, 18–8–5. According to my figures, there were more Indians at the mission of Yapeyú than listed in this document: 3,397 rather than 3,322, which raises the total population of the thirty missions from 80,881 to 80,956. 54. “Carta de Francisco de la Riba Herrera, Buenos Aires, September 26, 1769,” Coleção de Angelis, BNRJ I-29,5,40. 55. “Diego Guacuyú to Exmo. Sr. Dn. Franco. de Paula Bucareli,” Yapeyú, September 26, 1768, AGN, IX, 6–10–7. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid. 58. Hernández, El extrañamiento de los jesuitas, 364–69; “Copia en Guaraní del Memorial de la Misión de San Luis...,” February 28, 1768, MG 1992. 59. “Carta de Francisco Bruno de Zavala a Francisco de Bucareli,” La Cruz, December 28, 1768, AGN, IX 6–10–7. 60. Susnik notes that the population of the thirteen missions under the jurisdiction of Paraguay declined by almost 50 percent. Susnik, El indio colonial, 3:49. 61. “Juan Valiente, Estado que manifiesta el Número de Almas que existen en cada Pueblo, Departamento de Nuestra Señora de Candelaria,” Concepción, September 1780. AGN, IX 30–2–3; Maeder and Bolsi, “La población de las misiones después de la expulsión,” 143–44. 62. “1768 census,” BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, 1–29,5,42. 63. Maeder, “La población del Paraguay en 1799,” 75. He notes that in 1799 the Spanish and creole population constituted 5.3 percent of the mission population, mestizos and pardos comprised another 1.6 percent, and that only .3 percent were black slaves. Maeder, Misiones del Paraguay, 65. 64. Census of the Province of Paraguay about 1790 in González, Proceso y formación de la cultura paraguaya, 1:120–21. According this census, 4,533 whites and mestizos lived in the towns. 65. Susnik, El indio colonial, 3:28–30, 51, 58–60. 66. “1801 Padrón, en el real Corona . . .” AGN IX 18–2–6. 67. “Padrón del Pueblo de Jesus,” AGN IX 18–2–6, 1801. 68. AGN IX 18–2–6. Of all the reductions, San Ignacio Guazú had the most complete set of censuses in the eighteenth century. Missions La Cruz and Jesús were randomly selected among several censuses.To arrive at these figures for the number of males and females, I had to distinguish between the sexes using their first names. One has to assume there were some inaccuracies in using this method to determine the sexual balance. 69. “Matrícula deste Pueblo del Corpus Christi,” 1759, AG IX 17–3–6. Several 1801 mission censuses indicate the indigenous peoples’ ages. However, these figures probably were inaccurate because the mission Indians may not have

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Notes to Pages 129–30

known their exact age. Census takers probably did not consult baptismal records, as did a few Jesuits who listed the date of birth of their converts on at least their censuses of Mission Loreto in 1759. 70. “Relación de las observaciones practicadas en este Pueblo de Santa Rosa por el Inoculis a Dr. Migule de Ubeda, nombrado para el Departamento de Santiago por el Sor. Govor. Intend. de esta Prova. del Paraguai Don Lazaro de Rivera,” October 6, 1797, ANA, SH, vol. 169. 71. “Manuel de Lassarte y Esquibel al Virrey Marqués de Loreto,” San Miguel, October 13, 1785, AGN IX 11–6–2. 72. “Unsigned letter, no. 158 del Ten. Gov.,” Yapeyú, January 17, 1797, AGN IX 18–6–5. If properly administered, the patient developed a minor case of the illness, then recovered, and developed immunity to the disease. Jerry W. Cooney claims that the campaign of inoculations at Santa Rosa and other missions was successful. Cooney, Economía y sociedad en la Intendencia del Paraguay, 223–25. 73. Saeger, “Another View of the Mission as a Frontier Institution,” 502–3; Susnik provides us with a general profile of those who left these towns using censuses from thirteen towns. She attributes Guaraní flight to various factors, including the possibility of finding subsistence more easily outside of the missions, and the desire to become free laborers, to avoid epidemic diseases, and to avoid ill treatment in the missions. Susnik, El indio colonial del Paraguay, 2:44–45; “Diego Guacuyú al Exmo. Sr. Dn. Franco. de Paula Bucareli,” AGN, IX, 6–10–7. 74. Garavaglia, “Economic Growth and Regional Differentiations,” 51–90. Garavaglia points out that approximately 22 percent of all the hides exported through Buenos Aires to Europe came from the missions during the years 1781– 90; Brabo, Inventarios; Inventario, Corpus, 1783 AGN IX 22–8–2; Inventario, San Francisco Xavier, 1786 AGN IX 22–8–2; Inventario San Juan Bautista, 1791 and 1792, AGN IX 17–3–6. Inventario, San Ignacio Miní, 1783, AGN IX 22–8–2; Inventario, Jesús, 1784 AGN IX 22–8–2. 75. Maeder uses mission inventories to demonstrate the rise and decline of the number of cattle in the various missions and departments during the late eighteenth century. Maeder, Misiones del Paraguay, 150–53. A separate cattle census for the Department of Candelaria indicates that in 1778, there were only 63,318 head of beef cattle.“Juan Valiente, Estado que manifiesta los Ganados y demás animales que tienen los ocho pueblos,” San Carlos, 1778, AGN IX 17–6–3. 76. Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural, 286–87. Carbonell de Masy relies on Brabo’s Inventarios for his figures. Although incomplete, there are other statistics that indicate a decline in cattle raising in the missions. According to a report by Intendant Joachim Alos, October 20, 1788, there were 516,371 head of beef cattle in the Departments of Santiago and Candelaria (thirteen mission towns) at the time of the expulsion. By 1769, there were only 412,169. By 1788, the figure declined to 243,006.AGI,Audiencia Buenos Aires, 123,1,15;“Papeles de Sevilla,”Archivo Provincial de Buenos Aires de la Compañia de Jesús, San Miguel. 77. “Causas que han influído en la decadencia de los pueblos de Misiones; Estado de los Pueblos el año 1772,” (no signature) BNRJ Coleção de Angelis, I29,5,73. 78. Maeder, Misiones del Paraguay, 162–63. Mission statistics are incomplete

Notes to Pages 130–32 241 during the first decade following the expulsion. However, they still show a general pattern of expansion.At Mission Jesús in southern Paraguay, for example, they rose from 36 tercios (6,788 English pounds or 778 arrobas; one tercio equals 188 pounds) in 1767 to 591 tercios in 1771 (111,108 pounds or 4,382 arrobas) to 400 tercios (75,200 pounds or 2,966 arrobas) in 1783. At Mission San Juan Bautista in what is today Brazil, yerba maté production rose from 105 tercios (19,740 pounds or 778 arrobas) in 1771 to 400 tercios (75,200 pounds or 2,966 arrobas) in 1783.At Mission Corpus Christi in what is today northern Argentina, 64 tercios (12,032 pounds or 474 arrobas) of yerba maté were exported in March 1767. By 1770, this figure rose to 110 tercios (20,680 pounds or 815 arrobas). The following year in 1771, it expanded to 370 tercios (69,560 pounds or 2,743 arrobas). Finally, in 1783, it reached a total of 530 tercios (99,640 pounds or 3,930 arrobas).These towns were selected randomly from available statistics. Not all yerba maté was destined for Buenos Aires. Unknown quantities were consumed by the Guaraní themselves. “Razón de la descarga de yerba y tobaco que condujeron los Barcos de Misiones, 1767,” AGN IX 6–10–7; AGN IX 17–4–5; “Administración Gral. de Guaranís, Entradas y ventas de los enseres y massa comun año 1772–1773,” AGN IX 17–5– 1; AGN IX 12–1–4;“Libro de entradas, 1782–1783,” AGN IX 17–5–2. 79. Whigham, Politics of River Trade, 110–12. 80. “Gonzálo Doblas al Gov. Intendente Francisco de Sans Paula,” Concepción, August 15, 1787, AGN IX 22–8–2. 81. “Padrón de la ciudad y campaña de Buenos Aires,” 1778 (incomplete census) AGN IX 9–7–6;“Padrón de la ciudad y campaña de Buenos Aires,” 1779 AGN IX 9–7–6;“Matrícula de los vecinos, Buenos Aires, 1794,” AGN IX 9–7–4. 82. “Diego Cassero al Fiscal del S. M., y Prot. Gral de Naturales,” Buenos Aires, March 29, 1790;“Carta firmada por Francisco Balcarce,” Frontera de Lujan, May 8, 1790, AGN IX “Misiones padrones, 1735–1802,” 17–3–6; “Noticia de los Yndios Guaranís de los Pueblos de la Provincia del Paraguay, y demás de las misiones del Uruguay y Paraná,” AGN IX 17–3–6. 83. “Narsario Paraguá Yndio oriundo del Pueblo de Santiago, Informe el Adm. Gen. de los Pueblos de Guaranís,” Buenos Aires, November 10, 1798, AGN IX 30–6–3. 84. “Tomás Estrada al Excmo. Señor Don Nicolás de Arredondo,” Colonia del Sacramento, March 31, 1790, AGN IX 17–3–6. 85. “Carta de Vicente Ximenez, Sr. Alcalde de la Villa,” April 21, 1790, Misiones Padrones, 1735–1802, AGN IX 17–3–6. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid. 88. Socolow, Merchants of Buenos Aires, 85. 89. “Juan Gregorio Espinosa,Adm. General de los Pueblos de Yndios Guaranís al Senrs. Juez Ofez Rs,” no date, correspondence shows the year 1770/1771, AGN IX 17–3–4. 90. Monzón, “Un profesor indígena de música,” 142–46. 91. “Narsario Paraguá Yndio oriundo del Pueblo de Santiago,” Buenos Aires, November 10, 1798, and “Carta firmado por Manuel Cayetano Pacheco al Excm Señor, Buenos Aires, November 13, 1798,” AGN IX 30–6–3.

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Notes to Pages 132–34

92. “Padrón de la ciudad y campaña de Buenos Aires,” 1778 (incomplete census) AGN IX 9–7–6;“Padrón de la ciudad y campaña de Buenos Aires,” 1779 AGN IX 9–7–6;“Matrícula de los vecinos, Buenos Aires, 1794,” AGN IX 9–7–4. 93. “Juan Felix Tapary de San Cosme de las Misiones,” 1791, APBA, 5.5.79.3. Court officials neglected to mention her last name probably because it was a Guaraní name and too difficult for them to spell. 94. “Exped. sobre conducir á una India al Pueblo de Sn Josef á donde parece está su marido,” Buenos Aires, March 20, 1787, AGN IX 22–8–2. 95. The status of children born to mestizos is a complex subject, which needs further investigation. In New Spain, for instance, the first generation of children born to the caciques’ daughters took on Spanish status. But as more extralegal uions became prevalent, especially among nonconquistador Spaniards, then the term mestizo emerged, which was a label connotating illegitimacy. By the seventeenth century, the situation became more complicated. 96. “Carta de Pedro Antonio Duran al Excmo.Virrey Gov. y Capn. Gral. de las Provincias del Río de la Plata,” Santa María de Fe, May 22, 1802, AGN 18–3–1; “Carta de Benito Tirapi, Corregidor, y Administrador Manuel Gomez al Sor. Tente. Gov.,”AGN 18–3–1;“Villota, Buenos Aires, June 10, 1802,”AGN 18–3–1. 97. “Adm. Gral. de Misiones Santa Rosa, Dept. de Santiago, El Apoderado gr. de Misiones sobre si ha de socorrer con lo que necesite para su manutención y vestir al Indio ciego llamado Juan Joseph Ayaca,” Diego Cassero, Buenos Aires, September 26, 1786, AGN IX 17–3–4. 98. “Maria Basilia Ocariyu,Yndia Guaraní viuda, Estevan Rodríguez,” Buenos Aires, November 28, 1798, AGN IX 18–2–4. 99. Ibid. 100. “Nuestra Señora de Remedios, Las Víboras, Uruguay, Entierros, 1775– 1790,” parish records microfilmed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. There was a gap in the records for the years 1782– 1783. The Catholic priests gave the indigent deceased natives a Mass in which fewer religious songs were sung.They then had the deceased buried in the last row of the cemetery.The relatives of the nonindigent deceased Guaraní had sufficient assets to pay for the church services in currency or cattle or were in debt to the church. The cost of burials for adults ranged between 10 and 20 pesos. A couple from Yapeyú owed 4 pesos for the burial of their infant son. A Guaraní adult male owed 18 pesos for the burial of his wife. There appears to be no evidence of the existence of cofradías. Only three of the deceased were infants. Seventeen were males, and only eight were females. 101. “Registros parroquiales, Parroquiales Nuestra Señora de Remedios, Las Víboras, Bautismos, 1771–1794, Colonia, Uruguay,” microfilms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah. José Antonio Vera and María Josefa Fernández, who were described as “Indios naturales de Yapeyú,” baptized their daughter in the parish in Las Víboras. 102. “Libro de Bautismos, 1763–1804, Catedral, Asunción, December 30, 1793,” Archivo de la Curia Metropolitana de Asunción. Guayaquí refers to an indigenous group related to the Guaraní that exist today in Paraguay. 103. “Noticia particular do Continente do Rio Grande do Sul,” and “Sebastião

Notes to Pages 135–40 243 Francisco Beltamio ao Illmo. ex. Sr. Luís de Vasconcelos e Souza, January 19, 1780, Rio de Janeiro,” ANRJ Vice Reinado. “Correspondencia com o Governador do Continente do Rio Grande,” January 17, 1780–December 30, 1780, Cod. 104, vol. 2; “Relação das Despezas que sejazem em cada hum anno.” Villa de N. S. dos Anjos, Porto Alegre, October 10, 1779, Cod. 104, vol. 1; “Indios Guaranys no Provincia do Rio Grande do Sul, Antonio Pinto C. ao Vice Rei Conde De Arambiya, February 21, 1768,” ANRJ Capitania do Rio Grande do Sul, Cod. 807, Memorias, vol. 11; Neis, “A Aldeia de Nossa Senhora dos Anjos,” 70–99. 104. Ibid. 105. “Gravataí, Indios, Bautismos (Aldeia dos Anjos), 1783–1816,” Curia Metropolitana, Porto Alegre. I selected the ten-year period of 1784–93.The year 1783 was incomplete. 106. Lockhart, Nahuas After the Conquest, 117–30. 107. Haskett, Indigenous Rulers, 150. 108. Ibid., 158. Haskett views this change in name patterns as a reawakening of indigenous pride in Cuernavaca. Lockhart mentions that certain Nahuas with Hispanic names added a second indigenous surname. Lockhart, Nahuas After the Conquest, 130.

Chapter 6: Our Warehouses Are Empty 1. Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, 1782–1810, 185–93; Maeder, “Las misiones guaraníes y su organización política,” 343–55. Mission Santa María de Fe had as many heads of cattle in 1790 as it had fifty years earlier.The same was true for Mission San Cosme y Damian.Williams, Rise and Fall, 12. 2. Poenitz, “La economía de Yapeyú post-Jesuítico,” 386–88. 3. Caraman, Lost Paradise, 272–96; Saeger, “Guaycuruan Reductions,” 494. 4. Furlong, Misones y sus pueblos Guaraníes, 1610–1813. 5. Ibid., 702; Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, 191–92; White, Paraguay’s Autonomous Revolution, 26–27. 6. In Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974), Euguene Genovese states that accommodation enabled slaves to assert their rights. He suggests that accommodation might best be understood as “a way of accepting what could not be helped without falling prey to the pressures for dehumanization, emasculation, and self-hatred.” Genovese, Roll Jordan Roll, 598. Christine Pelzer White argues that it is important to study everyday forms of collaboration as well as everyday forms of peasant resistance. Pelzer White,“Everyday Resistance, Socialist Revolution, and Rural Development,” 56. 7. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 36, 291. 8. “Carta de Mayordomo Fratusoso Berapotí, Hupígua rete oroe ore Cabildo Mayordomo haé Caziques opacatu,”Trinidad,August 18, 1791,ANA, NE, vol. 143, fol. 7; “Carta del Cabildo de Trinidad pidiendo el pago de sueldo de su administrador, 1773,” AGPC, Sección Judicial, vol. 1313; Carta del cabildo de Corpus, July 19, 1781, AGN IX 17–5–2; “Copia del certificado dado por el corregidor y cabildo del Pueblo a favor del Pueblo de Santo Angelo a favor del P. José Ignacio Miño quien sirvió como compañero de cura desde el 17 de octubre de 1784 hasta

244

Notes to Pages 140–41

el 17 de octubre de 1786, cumpliendo con su obligación,” October 26, 1786,AGN IX 17–8–4 9. “El cabildo hace presente al governador interino y solicita un nuevo compañero de cura,” Santo Angelo, July 13, 1787, AGN IX 17–8–4. 10. “Carta del Corregidor Don Nazario Guayuyu, Tente Juan Numbay al Señor Don Francisco Bruno de Zavala, Muy Señor mio Tupatanderaari angá,” “Testimonio de la causa criminal contra Don Lorenzo Tayuaré por haver muerto a su muger Doña Tecla Yatí,” February 16, 1776, AGN IX 32–1–7;“Proceso contra Andrés, Indio de San Estanislao por muerte a su mujer Josefa, Alabado, el Santissimo Sacramento Tupa ñande,”“Carta del Corregidor Don Epitoval Maira,” December 18, 1770, ANA, SJ, vol. 1501, fols. 1–62. 11. “Carta del Corregidor Don Cornio Tacaca, Ygnacio Naranda, Teniente, Luis Guiray, Alcalde,” Santa María La Mayor, April 8, 1761, “Tupa q tanderaro anga,” Carta del Corregidor Antonio Abiaru, Tente. Pasto Paica, Santos Maryres, April 16, 1761, and “Oroipicymani anga, Mburibicha aguiyetei catuete, al gov. Don Pedro de Cevallos del Corregidor Santiago Paraca,” La Cruz, April 25, 1761, in “Colección de documentos en idioma Guaraní correspondientes a los Cabildos de indígenes de las misiones jesuíticas del Uruguay desde el año 1758 al 1783, Misiones del Uruguay, Documentos manuscritos autográfico en Guaraní,” Biblioteca del Museo Mitre, Buenos Aires, 14.8.18. 12. “Ynstrucción a que se deberan arreglar los governadores, Francisco Bucareli y Ursua,” Buenos Aries, January 15, 1770, AGN IX 17–5–5. 13. “Lista de los Yndios que Conduce de Tripulación el barco del pueblo de Jesús,” June 4, 1772, “Colección de documentos en idioma Guaraní,” Biblioteca del Museo Mitre, 14.8.18. 14. Susnik, El indio colonial del Paraguay, 2:39. 15. “Francisco de Bucareli,” Buenos Aires, March 5, 1767, BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,5,41; González, “Notas para una historia de los treinta pueblos de misiones,” 144. 16. “Instrucción á que se deberan arreglar los Governadores Ynterinos,” 1770– 1771, AGN IX 17–4–5; Cédula Real,“A los Presidentes y Audiencias, Arzobispos y Obispos de las Indias sobre dotación de Maestros para las escuelas,” November 5, 1782,ANA SH vol. 65. Beginning in the 1750s, Portuguese officials in Amazonia changed their language policy toward the use of lingua geral. See Urban,“Semiotics of State-Indian Linguistic Relationships: Peru, Paraguay, and Brazil,” 319–20. In 1727, Portugal outlawed the use of Tupí in Brazil. Pagden, European Encounters with the New World, 119. 17. “Carta al Excmo. Señor Sr.Virrey Marqués de Aviles de Januario Tiraparé,” San Francisco de Borja, October 28, 1799, AGN IX 18–2–4; “Andrés Arano natural de este Pueblo de Apóstoles,” March 24, 1801, AGN IX 18–2–3. Caraman claims that “the Indians’ inability to master mathematics prevented them from supervising any construction work.” Caraman, Lost Paradise, 227. 18. “Joaquín de Soria al Virrey sobre los Maestro de Primeras Letras,”AGN IX 18–2–3. 19. Zuretti, “La enseñanza, las escuelas y los maestros,” 156.

Notes to Pages 141–44 245 20. “Fray Blas Rodríguez y el Maestro de Escuela Don Estanislao Panela,” Pueblo de San Carlos, November 12, 1795, AGN IX 18–2–1. 21. Like the Maya, perhaps, the Guaraní viewed their language as a symbol of their cultural identity and resistance to Spanish rule. See Farriss, Maya Society, 111. 22. “Carta del Fr. Gabriel Méndez, del Pueblo de la Cruz, July 16, 1800,”AGN IX 18–2–3. 23. “Resumen del primer extracto,” AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 323 1799[?] “Carta en Guaraní de Nicolás Aripy, 1821,” “Carta en Guaraní de José Martim Gomez, Corregidor de Loreto,” 1822. Courtesy of Professor Jorge Francisco Machón from the Archivo General de la Provincia de Corrientes. 24. “Curas que sirven en los diez y siete pueblos de Misiones de esta Intendencia,” n.d.,AGN IX 31–5–4;“Estado que manifiesta el número de Doctrineros que se hallan empleados en los Pueblos de Misiones de Indios Guaranís,” Buenos Aires, December 21, 1776,AGN IX 17–3–6;“Resumen del primer extracto,”AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 323, 1799[?]. Saeger notes a similar pattern of absenteeism among the clergy in the Abipón and Mocobí missions in the Chaco region following the Jesuit expulsion. Saeger, Chaco Mission Frontier, 38. 25. “Carta del R. P. Provincial de la Merced,” June 22, 1791, AGN IX 7–2–3. 26. Storni, Catálogo de los jesuitas de la provincia del Paraguay. 27. Gonzalo de Doblas, “Memoria histórica,” 5:54. 28. Ibid., 5:113; Alvear, Relación geográfica e histórica de Misiones,” 5:692–93. 29. “Cierto suceso que presidió Teniente Cura Don Francis Roxas de haverlo herido el primero [administrador] en la riña que tuvieron,”Trinidad, February 13, 1790, ANA, SH vol. 152, vol. 1; 1793, AGN IX 32–4–8. 30. “Sor Teniente Gov.or Pedro Juan Caninde, Aba cotabava y de San Juan Bapta peg. Ñemomiri,” in “Exped. formado sobre el castigo dado por el Religioso de San Franco. Fray Antonio Urbon q haze de Cura del Pueblo de Sn. Juan Bapt. al Indio Caninde,” Manuel de Zasarte y Esquibel, San Nicolás, September 5, 1788, AGN IX 31–5–4. 31. Ibid. 32. “Cartas de los corregidores de Trinidad y Santos Mártires, 1769,” BM, ADD 32,605, fols. 99–102. 33. Ibid., fol. 97. 34. “Carta al Excmo. Señor Lazaro de Rivera,” Asunción, October 21, 1799, MG 1698; Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, 1782–1810, 47–49, 185–95; Poenitz and Poenitz, Misiones, Provincia Guaranítica, 71–74. 35. Ibid., “Sumaria Ynformación que hazen los Padres sobre la decadencia de los Pueblos,” Franciscan Fray Josse Mariano Aguero, Fray Josse Martínez, and Fray Roque Duarte, Buenos Aires, June 28, 1774, BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,5,60. There is another reference to their corruption in a letter by Antonio Antigl. de Arcos y Matas to the Marquéz de Aviles in which he stated that the administrators sold yerba maté in the marketplace for more than double the price figured in the account books. Asunción, October 10, 1799, AGN IX 18–2–3. 36. “Informe de Lorenzo Thomas Cayon, Madrid, October 24, 1786,” AGI, Audiencia de Buenos Aires, Consejo de Indias y Ministerios, Carta y Expedientes,

246

Notes to Pages 144–47

Expedientes sobre el govierno arreglo y manejo de los pueblos de indios Guaraníes y Tapes, 1769–1803, Audiencia de Buenos Aires 323. 37. “Correspondencia de Francisco Bruno Zavala a Don Pedro Melo de Portugal, Candelaria, May 24, 1795,” AGN IX, 18–2–1. 38. “Ynstancia del Corregidor y Cavdo. de dho Pueblo solicitando Adm. Don Pedro Fonsela, Corregidor Cavod. cotava Concepn. pegua,” February 15, 1788, AGN IX 22–8–2. 39. Ibid., “Carta de Gonzalo de Doblas,” February 16, 1788. 40. “Presentación del Cacique de Santa Ana contra su Administrador,” n.d., BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I-29,5,47. 41. “Presentación del Cacique del Santa Ana, Correspondencia de Juan Valiente,” Candelaria, October 20, 1775, BNRJ Coleção de Angelis, I-29,5,57. 42. Another cacique from Mission Santa Ana named Pasqual and an Indian commoner, Mateo Inaniga, also informed the Spanish governor in charge of all of the missions and the viceroy in Buenos Aires that “the town was empty.” The Guaraní from mission Santa Ana had fled from the town to escape disease and avoid excessive labor demands.“Ynstancia del Cacique de Santa Ana expondiendo la deserción y miserias que padecen los Yndios,” Buenos Aires, March 10, 1778, AGN IX 7–6–5. Susnik notes that there was much political agitation on the part of caciques during this period in the thirteen missions she studied in Paraguay. Susnik, El indio colonial, 3:26–27. 43. Gonzalo de Doblas, “Memoria histórica, geográfica, política y económica sobre la provincia de misiones de indios Guaraníes” (1785), in Pedro de Angelis, Colección de obras y documentos, 5:167. 44. “Carta en Guaraní del cabildo y caciques, San Igancio Guazú, 1780 al Thente. Gov. Don Joseph Barvosa,” AGN IX 30–2–3. Interior, Leg. 9, Exp. 13. 45. Ibid. 46. “Carta de los Caciques Don Protasio Arey y Don Antonio Guaymiguá al Exmo. Señor,” Paysandú, February 5, 1799. 47. “Hupigua rete oroé ore Cavildo Mayordomo hae Casiquez opacatu co Tava Ssma. Trinidad,” March 1, 1785, Fratuoso Berapoti, Mayordomo, ANA, NE, vol. 143, fol. 7. 48. Ibid. 49. “Correspondencia de Joaquín de Alós a Francisco Bruno de Zavala sobre el cavildo y caciques del Pueblo de Trinidad se quejan de la mala conducta,” Trinidad, January 19, 1792, Asunción, ANA SH vol. 152, fol. 1. 50. “Correspondencia entre Joaquín de Alós y Francisco Bruno de Zavala,” March 17, 1789, ANA SH vol. 152, fol. 1. In another incident, the Guaraní complained that their administrator had lent cattle and wagons belonging to their mission to other settlers. See AGN IX 32–4–8. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid. 53. Stern, Peru’s Indian Peoples, 92–96. Haskett, Indigenous Rulers; Gibson, “Indians Under Spanish Rule,” 368–75. 54. “Gonzalo de Doblas al Sr. Virrey Don Nicolás de Arrendondo,” Buenos Aires, June 30, 1791, AGN IX 30–4–6.

Notes to Pages 147–52 247 55. “José Espínola al Ex. Sor Virrey Marqúes de Aviles,” Santa Rosa, September 19, 1800, AGN IX 18–2–3. 56. “Don Francisco Piera representa que algunos Paraguayos se havían poblado en tierras del Pueblo de San Ignacio Guazú,”AGN IX 37–2–3;“Carta de José Espinola,” February 21, 1801, AGN IX 18–2–3. Other disputes over land were mentioned in the previous chapter. 57. “Carta del 19 de setiembre de 1800 al Subdelegado Don José Espínola,” Buenos Aires, AGN IX 18–2–3. 58. “Año 1786,Tierra en Yapeyú de las antiguas misiones del Uruguay,” ANA SJ vol. 1358.Touron, Rodríguez, and de la Torre, Evolución económica de la banda oriental, 24–32. 59. “El Administrador General de los Pueblos de Misiones Don Juan Angel Lazcano contra Don Josef Manañz de Velasco por haver beneficiado porción de hierva en los herivales del Pueblo de Loreto,” AGN IX 40–2–5. 60. Stern, Peru’s Indian Peoples, 114–35. 61. Borah, Justice by Insurance. 62. Ibid., 300. Borah mentions one exceptional case of an Indian lawyer in Tlaxcala, Mexico. 63. Ibid., 443. 64. Aguirre, “Aspectos de la administración de justicia,” 29–34. 65. Borah, Justice by Insurance, 10–13. 66. “María Pasquala Castro India sobre que se le entreguen su hijo y una hija que sacó el Alcalde de la Hermandad del Rincon de San Pedro,” 1788, AGN IX 31–5–4. 67. Ibid. 68. “Carta de Juan Baptista Ribarola al Sor. Dn. Gregorio Larrea,” San Joaquin, October 13, 1792, ANA SH vol. 385 II, doc. 7. 69. Ibid., October 8, 1792. 70. “Carta de Pedro Antonio Duran al Sr. Comte. d. Fulgencia Miguel Pereira,” Santa Rosa, August 4, 1802, ANA NE vol. 1147, fol. 16. 71. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion, 115. 72. “Sumaria contra Clemente Guarapoti y Pasqual Erete,Yapeyú,” AGN IX 32–1–7; “Carta en Guaraní de Feliz Arey, Juan Pastor Tayuaré and Ignacio Azurica,”Yapeyú, November 21, 1778, AGN IX Criminales 1778a, Leg. 12. 73. “Chrisanto Tayucuy, preso en esta Real Carceleria,” Asunción, November 13, 1790, ANA, SH vol. 152, no. 1; Susnik, El indio colonial del Paraguay, 2:42–44. 74. “Clemente Josef Silva de Lara,Administrador interino del Pueblo de Santa María La Maior al Sr.Tente. Gov. Don Manuel de Lasare y Esquibel,”AGN IX 30– 4–6, exp. 25. 75. Farriss, Maya Society, 67–78. 76. According to James C. Scott, pilfering can be a coping mechanism and a means of survival. Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 34–35, 265–72. 77. “Proceso contra Ignacio, indio Tape,” 1778, ANA SJ vol. 1654. The same Ignacio from Mission Santísima Trinidad may have become a cattle rustler ten years later. See “Proceso contra el Indio Ignacio,” 1789, ANA SJ vol. 1540. 78. “Proceso contra los indios Pedro Ignacio e Hijo,” 1790,ANA SJ vol. 1438.

248

Notes to Pages 152–55

79. “Informe sobre los procedimientos de los vecinos de Yapeyú en la jurisdicción de Corrientes,” June 17, 1796, AGN IX 37–2–3. 80. “Presentación del Cacique del Santa Ana.” 81. “Representación de los Caciques del Pueblo de San Juan manifestando los apuros de aquel vencindario,” December 5, 1773, BNRJ, Coleção de Angelis, I29,5,55. 82. “Estado de los Ganados, Joachim Alós, Asunción, October 20, 1788,” AGI, Seville, Audiencia ded Buenos Aires, 123.1.15. 83. White, “Political Economy of Paraguay,” 425–26. 84. “Copia de la carta del Coronel Don Bernardo de Velasco al Señor Governador Intendente,” 1807, ANA vol. 20, fol. 70. 85. “Carta de Ignacio Ximenez al Don Francisco Rodrigo,” Santa Ana, 1800, AGN IX 18–2–3; “Carta de Francisco Rodrigo al Sr. Marqués de Avilés,” Candelaria, September 24, 1800;“Nómina de los Naturales de este Pueblo de San Juan Bautista, 1800,”AGN IX 18–2–3; Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, 193. 86. “Estado que demuestra todos los intereses y número de Indios de los siete Pueblos de Misiones Guaraní que ocupan los Portugueses en nuestro territorio Español desde que lo invadieron en el mes de Agosto del año de 1801, Informe de Miguel Lastarría, Madrid, December 31, 1804, Colonia Orientales del Río Paraguay o de la Plata, Reorganización y Plan de Seguridad Exterior de las muy interesantes Colonias Orientales del Río Paraguay o de la Plata,” Colonias Orientales del Río Paraguay o de la Plata, BNP, Fonde Espanol 170. 87. Brading, First America, 511. 88. Farriss, Maya Society, 356. 89. Brading, First America, 511. 90. White, “Political Economy of Paraguay,” 432. 91. Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, 193–94. 92. Ibid.; González, Don Santiago Liniers, 59. 93. “Carta de Don Diego Josef Asaye al Exmo. Señor,” Santiago, n.d.,AGN IX 18–2–3. 94. “Cacique de Yapeyú, Modesto Tarará, solicitando se le exima de las pensiones comunes que sufren los de su clase en Misiones,” 1791, AGN IX 30–4–6. 95. “Carta de Luis Ayuai al Ex. Sr. Don Carlos IV, Exmo. Sr.Virrey Sr. Marqués de Gaviles de Buenos Aires, en Guaraní . . . enonde beiuyuane,” November 20, 1800,“Cartas de varios Cabildos de Yndios Guaranís de algunos de sus individuos y curas de sus respectivos pueblos que manifiestan el júbilo y dan gracias por la variación de su gobierno opresivo en comunidad y por otras providencias particulares del Exmo. Sor. Marqués de Avilés, siendo virrey de Buenos Aires,” BNP, Fonde Espagnol 171. 96. “Carta de Francisco Romualdo Aranbi, Cacique Don Juan Tap, Bathothe. Ananandey, Diego Choc, and Vicente Nayre al Sr. Marqués de Avilés,” September 21, 1800, ibid. 97. “Carta al exmo Sr. Virrey, Ore Corregidor hae Cavdo. de Tava, Eugenio Ynombre, Josef Antonio Eusqua, Corregidor,Vizente Arybiz,Thente. Corregidor,” Santa María la Mayor, October 20, 1800, ibid. 98. “Carta de Fr. Vicente Paz al Exmo. Sor. Virrey de Buenos Ayres,” San

Notes to Pages 155–60 249 Carlos, June 23, 1800. AGN IX 18–2–3. A Spanish administrator also noted that the Guaraní were content and even that a few had left the missions to gather wood in the hills for the construction of new homes. “Carta Pedro Pasqual Gómez al Sr.Virrey,” San Miguel, September 17, 1800, AGN IX 18–2–3. 99. “Nómina de los individual elegidos al cabildo de Santa María la Mayor,” 1809, ANA, Colección Río Branco, I,29–21–31, doc. 37. 100. “Int. Gov. Francisco João Roscio Joaquim, Felix de Fonçeca,” S. Nicolas, November 22, 1801,ANRJ Capitanía do Rio Grande do Sul, Code 749. Hemming claims that the Guaraní helped the Portuguese, rather than resisted them, as a means to “free themselves from the slavery in which they lived,” most likely referring to their desire to be free of the obligation of providing communal labor. Some Guaraní families, however, from Mission San Borja crossed the Uruguay River to Santo Tomé in 1802. “Carta del Teniente Governor de Yapeyú,” Santo Tomé, February 2, 1802, AGN IX 18–3–1; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 109. “Razón que manifiesta las armas que hay en los Pueblos,” Sebastian Machón, San Miguel, July 1, 1798, AGN IX 18–2–4. 101. Frakes, “Governor Ribera and the War of Oranges,” 489–508. 102. “Informe de Miguel Lastarría, Madrid, December 31, 1804, Colonia Orientales del Río Paraguay o de la Plata, Reorganización y Plan de Seguridad Exterior de las muy interesantes Colonias Orientales del Río Paraguay o de la Plata,” BNP, Fonde Espagnol 170.According to Frakes, economic losses amounted to 175,554 head of cattle. Ibid., 492, 502. 103. “Informe de Miguel Lastarría,” BNP, Fonde Espagnol 170; Saint-Hilaire, Viagem à Provincia, 352. 104. “Povo de S. Luiz, 16 de agosto de 1809, Illmo. e Exmo. Sor. Vice Almirante Gor. Paulo Joze da Silava Gama, Francisco das Chagas Santos,” in “Documentos interessantes, 1801–1820 existentes inéditos no Arquivo Histórico do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Territorio das Missões e Provínica Cisplatina,” in Revista do Museu Júlio de castilhos e Arquivo Histórico do Estado de Río Grande do Sul 1 (January 1952): 419. 105. Saint-Hilaire, Viagem a Provincia, 352. 106. Arquivo Histórico do Municipio de Porto Alegre, Relatorio do Vice Presidente da Provincia de São Pedro de Rio Grande do Sul, Patriero Correado Camara (Porto Alegre:Typographia do Mercantil, 1857), 25–26; Relatorio pelo Presidente da Provinica de São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre:Typ. do Jornal, 1862), 39; Andrade Neves, “Mappa Geral do indios da Provincia,” n.p. 107. “Informe de Miguel Lastarría,” Madrid, December 31, 1804, BNP, Fonde Espagnol 170. 108. Arquivo Publico de Porto Alegre, Proc., No. 129, maço 5; No. 189, maço 8; No. 156, maço 6; No. 131, maço 5; No. 70, maço 3; No. 151, maço 6; No. 137, maço 5; No. 175, maço 7, exp. 33; No. 69, maço 3; No. 94, maço 4; No. 92, maço 3; No. 103, maço 4; Proc. No. 60, maço 2; Proc., No. 46, maço 2; No. 143, maço 6. 109. Arquivo Público de Porto Alegre, No. 129, maço 5; No. 70, maço 3. 110. “Feliciano del Corte,Thente Gov. de Concepción, al Marqués de Avilés,” Santo Tomé, December 22, 1800; “Respuesta del Marqués de Avilés,” January 19, 1801, AGN IX 18–2–3.

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Notes to Pages 160–64

111. “Títulos de propriedades de Yapeyú,” 1809 and 1810, ANA, NE, vols. 1171–72. 112. Williams, “Observations on the Paraguayan Census of 1846,” 432. Santa Rosa had 1,320 inhabitants, including 70 slaves. San Cosme y Damian had 1,288 inhabitants, including 52 slaves. The two northern missions of Tarauma, San Estanislao and San Joaquín, respectively had 2,761 and 1,719 inhabitants. Each of these had a small black population. San Estanislao had 40 slaves and San Joaquín had 121. Along the banks of the Paraná River in southern Paraguay, Nuestra Señora de Ytapuá (Encarnación) had 530 inhabitants, including 5 slaves. Mission Jesús had 304 inhabitants with 3 slaves. 113. In 1804, for example, a Guaraní named Apolinario Cuyaqui murdered Diego Taracuy, a lieutenant alguacil (policeman) at Mission Corpus Christi by inflicting four stab wounds. In 1808, Juan Bautista Aro, a natural (Indian) from Mission La Cruz, choked fourteen-year-old Ramon Mbarayua to death, using horse reins. The Guaraní teenager worked on a farm belonging to cacique Don Damazo Yrabe, who suspected that harm came to the young man after he failed to return to his house following a cattle round up.“Real Audiencia, Criminal contra el Indio Apolinario Cuyaqui por muerte del Tente,” Alguacil Diego Taracuy, 1804,ANA, SJ, vol. 1665;“Sumaria hecho a Juan Bapta.Aro, natural de este Pueblo de la Cruz,” January 8, 1808,ANA, SJ, vol. 1513. See also Williams,“Deadly Selva,” 13; Poenitz and Poenitz, Misiones, Provincia Guaranítica, 147; Celedonio José del Castillo, “Oficio al Supremo Poder Ejecutivo en Buenos Aires dando cuenta de sublevaciones de los indios en la juridicción de Misiones,” San Francisco de la Costa del Río Miriñay, October 18, 1813, MG2042ac. 114. Poenitz and Poenitz, Misiones, Provincia Guaranítica, 106, 111, 151. 115. Furlong, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaraníes, 704–5; Williams, Rise and Fall, 46. 116. Williams, “Deadly Selva,” 19. 117. Poenitz and Poenitz, Misiones, Provincia Guaranítica, 168, 185; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 110; Maeder, “Los últimos pueblos de indios Guaraníes,” 212. 118. Williams, “Deadly Selva,” 19–24. 119. Machon, Misiones después de Andresito, 159. 120. “Unpublished notes of John Hoyt Williams about the missions following the expulsion of the Jesuits.” 121. Romero, “El Dr. Francia y sus bandas militares de musicos guaraníes,” 56– 62. 122. For an analysis of the crime patterns in Paraguay during the reign of Dr. Francia, see Huston, “Folk and State in Paraguay.” 123. Whigham, “Paraguay’s Pueblos de Indios,” 178–80. 124. Williams, Rise and Fall, 132–33. 125. Block, Mission Culture on the Upper Amazon, 123.

Chapter 7: Guaraní Cultural Resiliency and Reorientations 1. “Indios hechiceros Matias Mendoza, Don Christoval Guiray, and Silberio Caté,” AGN, IX 32–1–6.

Notes to Pages 164–66 251 2. Ruiz de Montoya, Conquista espiritual, 54–55. 3. Cardiel, Compendio, 53, 95; “Carta del Gob. Intendente del Paraguay Dn. Lázaro de Ribera al Excmo. Sor. Don Eugenio de Llaguno Amirola,” Asunción, December 22, 1797, ANA, SNE, vol. 3383, fols. 72–85. 4. Anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace’s emphasis on the creation of new religions helps us understand the historical dimension by which the Guaraní blended and reinterpreted Catholicism in the missions. He notes that new religions are constantly being born, and that “they are composed for the most part of pieces and patterns of older, more routinized, more conservative religions.” Wallace recommends that scholars use caution when using the term religion, which he contends “cannot be taken uncritically to imply one single, unifying, internally coherent, carefully programmed set of rituals and beliefs.” He notes that “the religion of a society is really likely to be a loosely related group of cult institutions, and other, even less well-organized special practices and beliefs.” A religion, he notes, is not equally followed nor understood by all of the members of a society. Wallace, Religion, 3–4. Hugo G. Nutini also states that hundreds of unrecorded syncretic syntheses have occurred in many places around the world, from the jungles of South America to Africa and the Pacific Islands, which resulted from contact situations or the collisions of different cultural traditions. Nutini uses the concept of syncretism in contrast to Burkhart, Tedlock, Clendinnen, and other scholars who have critiqued this approach. Nutini, Todos Santos in Rural Tlaxcala. 5. Farriss, Maya Society; Burkhart, Slippery Earth. 6. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests; Sabine MacCormack discusses two different dimensions of the concept of conversion. One is conversion by persuasion.This model, implemented by some missionaries in the early decades of evangelization, implied only the acceptance of a set of beliefs and religious observances. It contained an element of tolerance toward pagan beliefs and stressed that missionaries needed only to clarify the natives’ understanding of the concept of God.The second view of conversion incorporated the elements of the first view but also required the acceptance of alien customs and values. It was also more authoritarian. MacCormack, “Heart Has Its Reasons,” 443–66; MacCormack, Religion in the Andes. Jorge Klor de Alva presents a typology for understanding the variety of Aztec responses to Christianity. Under the heading of accommodation, he provides a lengthy list of possibilities, which helps one to understand the Guaraní responses to Catholicism. De Alva, “Spiritual Conflict,” 345–63; Lorenzen, Religious Change and Cultural Domination, 1–15. In an excellent article, Lance Grahn examines how the Guajiro in New Granada rejected Christianity. Grahn, “Chicha in the Chalice.” 7. Mateos, “Notas y textos,” 550. Maeder, in “La evangelización entre los guaraníes según el testimonio de los misioneros cronistas de la Compañía de Jesús” (1979), also concurs that many Indians were converted to Christianity and that the natives benefited from this change in their religious beliefs. Maeder, “La evangelización entre los guaraníes,” 35–48. 8. Techo, History of the Provinces, 755. 9. Meliá, El Guaraní, 8:107–16.This is a vast literature on the Guaraní religious

252

Notes to Pages 166–73

experiences in the twentieth century written primarily by anthropologists. See the introduction by Bartomeu Meliá in O Guaraní.These anthropological studies are valuable for providing some insights into Guaraní adaptation during colonial times. 10. Rípodas Ardanaz, “Pervivencia de hechiceros en las misiones guaraníes,” 199–217; and Rípodas Ardanaz,“Movimientos shamanicos de liberación,” 245–75. 11. “Indios hechiceros Matias Mendoza, Don Christoval Guiray, and Silberio Caté,” Loreto, 1775, AGN, IX 32–1–6. 12. Ibid. 13. “Recurso de la Provincia del Paraguay de la Compañía de Jesús . . . ,” pt. 2, ARSI, Paraquaríe 13, Roll 156. 14. Ibid., place of location not cited but it was near the Spanish town of Villarrica in Paraguay, 1770, ANA SJ 1501; “Causa criminal contra los Indios Andrés Sepe y Marcelo Naguati,”Atirá.This case involves a Guaraní woman from the former Jesuit missions. 1778, ANA SJ vol. 1782. 15. Wallace, Religion, 60–61. 16. “Indios hechiceros Matias Mendoza, Don Christoval Guiray, and Silberio Caté.” 17. Ibid.; ANA SJ 1435, fols. 103–17; ANA SJ vol. 1782; ANA SJ, vol. 1501. 18. Ibid. 19. “Proceso contra Indios Francisco, Ignacio y Domingo por hechicería,” 1770,ANA SJ, vol. 1501.These Indians were referred to as “Indios Misioneros,” no exact name of mission cited. 20. Regrettably, the numerous worm holes in the manuscript made it impossible to determine the final outcome of this “witchcraft” case. “Proceso contra María y María Juana Indias . . . haver hechisado a su ama,” ANA SJ vol. 1435, fols. 103–17. 21. “Indios hechiceros,” AGN IX 32–1–6. 22. See Clastres, “Guayakí Cannibalism,” 308–21. 23. Henningsen, Witches’ Advocate, 18;Trevor-Roper, European Witch-craze. 24. Demos, Entertaining Satan, 387. 25. Beattie, “Criminality of Women in Eighteenth-Century England,” 83; Hoffer and Hull, Murdering Mothers. 26. Caro Baroja, World of the Witches, 214. 27. “Indios hechiceros,” AGN IX 32–1–6. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Demos, Entertaining Satan, 308–9. 31. “Indios hechiceros Matias Mendoza, Don Christoval Guiray, and Silberio Caté,” AGN, IX 32–1–6. 32. Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural, 182–83. 33. Clastres, Land Without Evil, 12–13, 91–92. 34. Meliá, “La creátion d’un langage chrétien dans les réductions des Guaraní au Paraguay,” 32. 35. Ibid., 113; Alvear, “Relación geográfica e histórica de Misiones,” 692–93.

Notes to Pages 173–76 253 36. Hernándes, Organización social, 2:36–38; Ricard, Spiritual Conquest of Mexico. 37. O’Malley, First Jesuits, 60. 38. Brunet, “Las ordenes religiosas en los treinta pueblos Guaraníes,” 92. Brunet focuses primarily on the Mercedarian personnel in the missions rather than missionary methods or possible failures. Franciscan scholar Luis Cano and Dominican author Rubén González also focus on the ecclesiastical roles of the members of their orders. Cano, “Las ordenes religiosas en los treinta pueblos Guaraníes,” 123–33; González, “Las ordenes religiosas en los treinta pueblos Guaraníes,” 219–36. 39. Goddard and Bragdon, Native Writings in Massachusett, 1:xv, 5–14; Monzon, “Los Guaraníes y la enseñanza superior en el periódo hispánico,” 350–59. 40. “Correspondencia de Joaquín de Alós,” 1788,ANA, Sección Histórica, vol. 152, no. 3. 41. “Carta de Francisco Antonio Báez, cura de Santiago,” Paraguay, October 22, 1788,“Carta de F. Luis Obispo, Asunción, January 18, 1789”;“Carta de Joseph Balcazar de Casajas [?] sobre Francisco Xavier Tubichapotá,” October 20, 1801, “Carta de Joseph Bolinazarde and Antonio Lucema,” November 13, 1801, Colegio Seminario de San Carlos, 1746–1819; Archivo de la Curía Metropolitana de Asunción. Francisco Xavier Tubichapotá was ordained and became a priest in a parish in the interior of Paraguay. 42. “Certifico yo el Presvitero Dn. Franco. Xavier Tubichpotá,Yndio natural del Pueblo de Santiago,” Buenos Aires, June 7, 1803, AGI, Audiencia Buenos Aires 124.211 43. “Carta de Joseph Joaquin de Goyburu al Sr.Adm. del Pueblo de Yaguarón, Don Martin Joseph de Yegros,” April 29, 1812, ANA, SH, vol. 209. 44. “Con Gregorio José Gómex, Bachiller en ambos Dros. Doctor en Sagrada Teología,” Buenos Aires, June 9, 1803, and “Carta del Rector interino y Vice Rector en propriedad del Rl. Colegio de Sn. Carlos, Bernardo Antonio Díaz,” Buenos Aires, August 9, 1803, AGI Audiencia Buenos Aires 124.2.11; unpublished notes of Carlos Leonhardt, S.J., Archivo Provincial de Buenos Aires de la Compañía de Jesús. 45. Poenitz, “Misiones y los Guaraní-misioneros en Entre Rios,” n. 4. 46. “Instancia de Dn. Pasqual Areguati, Corregidor del Pueblo,” San Miguel, November 17, 1799, AGN, IX 18–2–4. 47. Olachea, “Sacerdotes indios de America,” 371–91. 48. Ibid., 372–74. Francisco Xavier Tubichapotá was not one of the cases cited by Olachea. 49. Farriss, Maya Society, 231. 50. “Carta de Diego Cassero al Sr. Gov. Intendente Sanz,” Buenos Aires, March 14, 1787, AGN IX 17–3–4;“Orependeray poriahu oroñemoi anga,” Carta de capataz Juan Pablo Ximenez,Antonio Guarasico, Procurador Mayor Christoval Barite, and Chrisanto Zuares to the Corregidor Cavildo, and Caciques, Paysandú, February 27, 1809, ANA, SH, vol. 209. 51. Ibid.

254

Notes to Pages 176–84

52. Oral testimony of Juancito Oliveira, in Pelotas, Rio Grande dol Sul, Brazil, August 1990; Haskett, Indigenous Rulers, 70. 53. Clastres, Land Without Evil, 9–10. 54. In her study on Peru Sabine MacCormack notes that elements of native religion were present throughout the colonial period. MacCormack, Religion in the Andes. 55. Farriss, Maya Society. 56. Merrill, “Conversion in Northern Mexico,” 143–44. 57. Susnik, Los aborigenes del Paraguay, 321. 58. “Matícula deste Pueblo del Corpus Christi, 1759,”“Empadronamiento del pueblo de Corpus, September 30, 1777,” AGN IX 17–3–6; Maeder, “Los últmos pueblos de indios Guaraníes,” 209. 59. These home altars were not known in the Jesuit missions, but probably grew in importance as secularization advanced in the nineteenth century. For a study of home altars in Mexico, see the excellent essays by Ramón A. Gutiérrez, Salvatore Scalora, and William H. Beezley in Home Altars of Mexico, 96. 60. Axtell, “Ethnohistory of Early Americans,” 110–44; Trigger, “An Archaeology as Native History,” 414; Simmons, “Culture Theory,” 1–14; Trigger, “Ethnohistory,” 258. 61. Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests (1987); Lockhart, The Nahuas After the Conquest (1992); Nancy Farriss, Maya Society Under Spanish Rule (1986); Karen Spalding, Huarochirí: An Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule (1984); Powers, Andean Journeys: Migration, Ethnogenesis, and the State in Colonial Quito (1995); Saignes, Caciques,Tribute, and Migration in the Southern Andes: Indian Society and the Seventeenth Century Colonial Order (1985); Jones, Maya Resistance to Spanish Rule: Time and History on a Colonial Frontier (1989);Wachtel, The Vision of the Vanquished: The Spanish Conquest of Peru through Indian Eyes, 1530–1570 (1977); Haskett, Indigenous Rulers (1986); Stern, Peru’s Indigenous Peoples (1982); Ramírez, The World Upside Down: Cross-Cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Peru (1996); Wightman, Indigenous Migration and Social Change (1990). 62. For a useful discussion of the concept of accommodation, see Sweet and Nash, Struggle and Survival in Colonial America, 211–13. 63. After the Portuguese had learned how to cultivate this starchy, tuberlike root from the Tupí along the coast of Brazil, they took this knowledge and planting materials to their West African colonies from which manioc became diffused throughout tropical Africa. Ross, “Diffusion of the Manioc.” 64. Farriss, Maya Society, 9. 65. The Jesuits tried to carry out similar work in other parts of the world. For a discussion of their goals and motivations in China, see Spence, To Change China. 66. Lockhart in The Nahuas After the Conquest provides us with a model for studying processes of cultural adaptation, especially linguistic change, among literate Amerindians in the New World. Lockhart suggests a four-stage process of change and adaptation in the use of Nahuatl, the language spoken by the southern branch of the Aztecs. Ideally, one would have liked to compare and contrast the linguistic adaptation of the Guaraní to the Nahuas in Mexico using Lockhart’s framework. However, unlike Nahuatl, which has been the subject of study for

Notes to Pages 185–86 255 more than twenty years, the study of classical Guaraní is in its infancy.Thus, only preliminary conclusions about linguistic change could be reached. 67. Corvalan, “El dilema del bilinguismo en el Paraguay,” 16–19. Urban, “Semiotics,” 320–23. 68. Urban, “Semiotics,” 320–23. 69. Instituto Paraguayo del Indígena, Censo y estudio, 48. 70. Perasso, Los Guarayú, 5–6; Mihoteck, Comunidades, territorios, 127, 131. According to a 1986 estimate of the Tupí-Guaraní population, there were between 60,000 and 80,000 Avá-izoceño chiriguanos and guarayos in Bolivia. Riester and Zolezzi, “Informe de SENALEP,” 206–7. 71. Testimony of Tranquilino Román, an Avá-kue-Chiripá village elder, April 23, 1991, Acaray-mí. Interview with author courtesy of the Centro de Estudios Antropológicos, Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción. 72. Rehnfeldt, “Ethnohistory of the Caaguá (Guaraní),” 1–5. For an excellent analysis of the continuing Guaraní struggle for survival, see Reed, Prophets of Agroforestry. 73. Hemming, Red Gold, 463–64; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 106–8. 74. Hemming, Red Gold, 463–64.

Selected Bibliography

There are several excellent bibliographical guides to the extensive literature on the Guaraní and Jesuit missions in the border region of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. The most comprehensive one was compiled by Jesuit anthropologist Bartomeu Meliá, S.J., Guaraníes y jesuitas en tiempo de las misiones: Una bibliografía didática (Santo Angelo: Centro de Cultura Missioneira; Asunción: Centro de Estudios Paraguayos “Antonio Guasch,” 1995). Another valuable resource is O Guaraní: Uma bibliografía etnológica by Bartomeu Meliá, S.J., Marcos Vivicios de Almeida Saul, and Valmir Francisco Muraro (Santo Angelo: Fundames, Centro de Cultura Missioneira, 1987). This bibliography lists 1,163 citations, including the works of sixteenth-century chroniclers, Jesuit accounts, nineteenth-century travel literature, and the ethnohistorical, anthropological, and archaeological studies of the mission region that have been published in Latin America and Europe. Bartomeu Meliá provides an impressive introduction to this vast literature. Hugo Storni, S.J., has compiled an extensive guide to the Jesuits who came to the Río de la Plata during the colonial period, Catálogo de los jesuitas de la provincia del Paraguay (Cuenca del Plata), 1585-1768 (Rome: Institutum Historicum, S. I., 1980). An excellent starting point for scholars interested in the period of the breakdown of the missions is Alberto A. Rivera’s bibliography, “Las misiones de Guaraníes: Bibliografía de la época post-jesuítica, 1768–1830,” Documentos de Geohistoria Regional (Resistencia) 8(1989). This work includes an introduction by Argentina’s leading historian on the subject of the Jesuit missions, Ernesto J. A. Maeder. Another valuable guide is José Brunet, O. M.,“Documentos mercedarios en el Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, Argentina,” Anacleta Mercedaria (Rome) 5(1986): 197–270. Unfortunately, there are no equivalent guides for the Franciscan, Jesuit, and Dominican archives in Buenos Aires, which are not housed at the AGN and appear to be in disarray or are restricted. The Calendar of the Manuel E. Gondra Manuscript Collection at the Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas at Austin is another indispensable guide for the study of the history of the Río de la Plata, especially colonial Paraguay.This collection contains more than twenty thousand pages of manuscript sources. Most are typewritten copies of original documents found primarily at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, including a few eighteenth-century Guaraní cabildo records from the Jesuit and Franciscan missions. Pablo Pastells’s multivolume annotated guides

258

Bibliography

to manuscripts in the Archivo de las Indias in Seville are also indispensable for conducting research on the Jesuit missions. Guaraní texts are widely scattered throughout archives and libraries in Spain, France, England, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, and the United States.These include grammars, dictionaries, catechisms, vocabularies, cabildo records, and a few letters from individual Guaraní. The majority of these texts were written in the Jesuit reductions, although a few letters have been preserved from Franciscan missions in Paraguay. Francisco Mateos, S.J., published the Guaraní letters written at the time of the War of the Seven Reductions in “Notas y Textos,” Missionanal Hispánica 6 (1949): 547–92. Bartomeu Meliá, S.J. has compiled a valuable guide to many of these texts,“Fuentes documentales para el estudio de la lengua Guaraní de los siglos XVII y XVIII,” Suplemento Antropológico 5(1970): 113–61. He discusses this literature in greater detail in La lengua Guaraní del Paraguay: Historia, sociedad y literatura (1992). Several Guaraní letters also appear in Martin Lienhard’s edited work, Testimonios, cartas y manifiestos indigenas: desde la conquista hasta comienzo del siglo XX (1992), although a few are actually Jesuit accounts, not letters authored by the Guaraní. It is my hope that the more than one hundred Guaraní cabildo records that I uncovered in various archives will be published in the near future, along with their translations, so that scholars will take a greater interest in the Guaraní language, history, and culture.

Manuscripts Argentina Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires. Sala VII, Doc. Div, vol. l; Sala IX: vols. 6–10–7, 7–2–3, 7–7–7, 9–7–6, 11– 6–2, 12–1–4, 14–7–16, 15–2–2, 16–2–7, 17–3–4, 17–3–6, 17–4–5, 17– 5–2, 17–5–5, 18–2–1, 18–2–3, 18–2–4, 18–2–6, 18–3–1, 18–5–2, 18– 6–5, 18–8–5,18–8–6,18–8–7, 22–6–4, 22–8–2, 24–4–6, 25–6–3, 25–7– 6, 30–2–2, 30–2–3, 30–2–7, 30–3–8, 3–4–6, 30–6–3, 31–5–4, 31–6–7, 31–7–6, 32–1–6, 32–1–7, 32–2–1, 32–4–8, 32–5–1, 34–2–2, 34–9–7, 36–9–6, 37–2–3, 40–2–5;Tribunales Criminales, 1C. Archivo Jesuita de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, San Miguel. Leonhardt, Carlos, S.J., “Traducción de las Cartas Anuas” and “Notas del Archivo General de las Indias.” Archivo de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, La Plata. Audiencia de Buenos Aires, vols. 5.5.66.10; 5.5.78.15; 5.5.79.3; 5.5.79.24; 7.2.102.2. Archivo de la Provincia de Corrientes, Corrientes. Sección Judicial, vols. 120, 125, 140. Museo Mitre, Buenos Aires. “Colección de documentos en idioma Guaraní correspondientes a los cabildos de indígenes de las misiones jesuíticas del Uruguay desde el año 1758 al 1785.” Mss. 14.8.18, 37 folios.

Bibliography 259 Brazil Arquivo da Curia Metropolitana, Porto Alegre. Baptismos, Gravataí, Indios, 1765–84, 1784–1816; Baptismos, Rio Pardo, 1774–83; Casamentos, Triunfo, Indias e Escravos, 1758–1815; Casamentos dos Indios d’Aldea dos Anjos, 1777–1811. Arquivo Histórico do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre. Assuntos Religiosos, Maço AR-12. Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro. Capitanía do Rio Grande do Sul, Code 749. Arquivo Público do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre. Sumarios, 1770–1816, maço 1, 1, A. 37; Proc., No. 46, maço 2; Proc. No. 60, maço 2; No. 143, maço 6. Proc., No. 129, maço 5; No. 189, maço 8; No. 156, maço 6; No. 131, maço 5; No. 70, maço 3; No. 151, maço 6; No. 137, maço 5; No 175, maço 7, exp. 33; No. 69, maço 3; No. 94, maço 4; No. 92, maço 3; No. 103, maço 4. Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro. Seção de Manuscritos, Coleção de Angelis, Mss. 1.2.34. I-28, 34, 58; I29,3,36; I-29,3,48; I-29,3,51; I-29,3,64; I-29,3,63; I-29,3,69; I-29,3,70; I29,4,86; I-29,4,92; I-29,4,93; I-29,4,94; I-29,4,96; I-29,4,98; I-29,4,106; I29,5,25; I-29,5,46; I-29,5,51 to I-29,5,83; I-29,7,95; I-29,7,97; I-29,7,121. Instituto Histórico e Geográfico do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre. England British Library. Additional Mss. nos. 13979, 13980, 13985, 17603, 17606, 17610, 17613, 17665, 17705, 21262, 27601, 27602, 32102, 32605. Egerton Mss. no. 2431. Stowe 1075. France Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Espagnol 170, 171. Italy Archivum Romanum Societatus Iesu, Rome. (Also, the Pope Pius XII Memorial Library,Vatican Film Archives, Saint Louis University) microfilm rolls 152–56. Provinciae Paraquariae 6–11, 13, 16–19. Paraguay Archivo de la Curia Metropolitana, Asunción. “Libro de Bautismos, 1763–1804,” Catedral de Asunción. Archivo Nacional de Asunción. Sección Histórica, vols. 47, 61, 62, 65, 67, 72, 76, 127, 129, 133, 136, 139, 142, 143, 144, 149, 152, 155, 159, 160, 163, 169, 172, 173, 176, 177, 184, 189, 191, 193, 196, 205, 206, 209, 360, 370, 377, 381, 385, 600; Nueva Encuadernación, vols. 3, 10, 13, 20, 62, 66, 68, 71, 88, 96, 97, 98,143, 145, 151, 153, 163, 179,

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Index

Abortion, 19 Accommodation, 4, 29, 35, 39, 46, 47, 50, 52, 136, 138, 177, 181, 187 Administration of reductions, 27, 57–56, 121, 122, 143. See also Power; Social control Adultery, 19, 171 Alcohol, drinking rituals, 18–19 Agriculture, 18, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 45, 61–64, 84, 143 Ancestor worship, 19, 37, 94–95, 98, 100, 165, 172, 175, 176, 180, 187, 192, 193, 195, 198 Andresito (Andrés Guarcurarí Artigas), 161–62 Archaeology, xi, 14, 17, 22, 58, 63, 65, 72, 180, 181, 213n, 223n Artisans, 11, 27, 34, 61, 62, 63, 68–71, 73, 78, 79, 84, 96, 126, 132, 162, 167, 177, 183 Artwork, 68–70, 75–76, 82, 177 Asunción, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 34, 35, 36, 47, 48, 49, 59, 63, 65, 72, 93, 120, 124, 127, 134, 143, 144, 151, 152, 174 Autonomy, 10, 14, 31, 40–41, 46–47, 51, 52, 78, 83, 118, 122, 161, 163, 176, 184, 224n Baptism 38, 39 Baptismal records, 133–36, 166, 223n, 240n Blacks, 27, 80, 107, 127, 128, 135, 159, 160, 203, 206, 216n, 233n, 239n, 250n Blacksmiths, 68, 150, 157. See also Artisans

Bone cult, 19, 95, 166, 172, 176. See also Ancestor worship Brazil, 12, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 27, 29, 30, 31, 35, 37, 45, 51, 88, 89, 93, 98, 112, 116, 125, 126, 134, 135, 153, 156, 157, 173, 177, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 209n, 210n, 212n, 213n, 221n, 222n, 236n, 238n, 241n, 244n, 254n Buenos Aires, 1, 2, 29, 31, 37, 41, 49, 50, 59, 64, 65, 67, 70, 81, 83, 89, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 117, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155, 160, 170, 174, 176, 179, 180, 191, 195, 198, 200, 201, 202, 222n, 225n, 240n, 241n, 246n Caaíbaté, battle of, 4, 8, 108, 122 Cabildantes, 14, 52, 57–62, 71, 72, 76, 78, 83, 97, 98, 117, 122, 123, 138, 140–47, 155, 163, 175, 183, 184, 231n Cabildos, 12, 27, 28, 41, 57–61, 71, 72, 78, 96, 97, 98, 117, 122, 123, 124, 126, 138, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, 151, 155, 162, 163, 171, 174, 176, 179, 184, 191, 193, 198, 199, 202, 221n, 223n, 224n, 257 Caciques, 1, 4, 19, 24, 25, 34, 35–38, 40, 41, 46, 47, 49, 52, 57–62, 67, 72, 76, 79, 81, 83, 94, 96, 97, 98, 105, 108, 109, 115, 121, 122,

286

Index

Caciques (continued) 123, 124, 126, 128, 130, 138, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 150, 152, 155, 163, 167, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176, 179, 184, 191, 193, 195, 200–201, 202, 216n, 224n, 233n, 242n, 246n, 250n. See also Ñeengirú, Nicolás Cacicazgos, 58–59, 140, 205, 224n Cannibalism, 22–23, 51, 169, 212n–213n, 223n Carvalho e Melo, Sebastião José (later known as Marqués de Pombal), 119–20, 236n Catechism, 27, 28, 43, 62, 76, 77, 101, 258 Cattle, 2, 7, 10, 36, 53, 61, 62, 64–65, 91, 92, 95, 102, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 128, 129– 30, 137, 140, 144, 146, 147, 152, 156, 157, 160, 162, 183, 192, 213n, 222n, 225n, 226n, 234n, 240n, 242n, 243n, 246n, 250n. See also Cattle rustling Cattle rustling, 10, 102, 112, 130, 138, 151–52 Charles III (King of Spain), 81, 112, 120–22, 123, 124, 142, 200, 236n Children, 6, 8, 18, 19, 25, 26, 27, 28, 38, 40, 41, 44, 45, 50, 55, 61, 62, 63, 76, 77, 78, 79–81, 94, 98, 102, 108, 110, 112, 116, 117, 122, 123, 128, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 149, 150, 152, 157, 170, 176, 179, 180, 186, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 198, 199, 202, 203, 209n, 214n, 216n, 219n, 234n, 242n Christianity, 2, 5, 8, 22, 25, 30, 34, 36, 39, 43, 44, 53, 71, 101, 140, 165–66, 173–80, 184; and native priesthood, 173–176; native understanding of, 39, 77, 80, 100–101, 102, 164–73, 180, 186, 187, 192, 193, 196, 202, 203, 251n; early rejection of, 38–39. See also Conversion; Religion; Shamans; Syncretism Churches, 3, 5, 26, 27, 37, 39, 41, 45, 53, 62, 71, 75, 76, 77, 79, 83, 87, 92, 94, 95, 96, 98, 103, 107, 111, 113, 199, 121, 124, 135, 142, 156, 166, 172, 179, 180, 191, 192, 193, 194,

196, 202, 203, 242n; as symbols of political autonomy, 8, 95, 176 Clothing, 19, 25, 29, 36, 39, 41, 42–43, 44, 56, 61, 64, 65, 71, 74, 77, 78, 92, 93, 102, 103, 111, 121, 122, 133, 144, 152, 153, 173, 183, 200 Colônia do Sacramento, 1, 49, 89, 91, 100, 102, 111, 112, 131, 133, 196, 198 Communal property, 62, 78, 82, 103 Comunero Revolt of New Granada, 115–16 Comunero Revolt of Paraguay, 49–50, 59, 62, 109, 222n, 236n Conversion, 34, 37–40, 71, 76–77, 87, 93, 113, 166, 196, 216n; See also Christianity Corporal punishment, 38, 47, 50, 65, 76, 78– 79, 105, 140, 146, 171 Cotton, 3, 18, 19, 21, 25, 29, 41, 43, 61, 63, 70, 73, 91, 92, 105, 152, 192, 214n, 225n Coty guazú, 41–42, 61,62, 73–74, 78, 92, 105, 150, 205, 227n Culture, 5, 6, 11–12, 14, 17–18, 30, 40, 42, 43, 44, 46, 52, 57, 58, 65, 76, 79, 83, 95, 166, 168, 170, 177, 178, 179, 208n, 209n, 210n, 212n, 217n, 223n; persistence of native, 5, 9, 29, 77, 84, 164–73; and cultural identity, 39, 40, 68, 100, 116, 118, 132, 147, 165, 184, 186, 187, 211n, 245n Dance, 11, 19, 20, 41, 76, 77, 228n Demography. See Population Diseases, 26, 36, 46, 51, 53, 56, 64, 66, 112, 118, 129, 136, 153, 166, 168, 183, 223n, 238n, 240n, 246n; dysentery, 46; measles, 46 129, 168; smallpox, 129, 168; typhus, 46. See also Epidemics Diet, 11, 17, 18, 23, 29,56, 65, 84, 113, 182, 226n; malnutrition, 26 Divorce, 19, 51, 183 Dominican Order, 118, 124, 141, 142, 143, 155, 169, 173, 233n, 257

Index 287 Dress. See Clothing Economy, 26, 61–68, 84, 92, 100, 130, 137, 156 Encomienda 17, 25–28, 31, 35, 50, 72, 113, 114, 183, 205, 206, 208n, 214n, 216n, 221n Enslavement. See Slavery Epidemics, 17, 26, 39, 44, 46, 53, 56, 59, 66, 84, 112, 113, 129, 136, 168, 182, 220n, 226n, 238n, 240n; of measles, 46, 129, 168; of smallpox, 129, 168; of typhus, 46. See also Diseases Ethnic soldiering 11, 47. See also Militias Families, 2, 6, 7, 18, 19, 23, 27, 42, 49, 51, 56, 58, 62, 63, 67, 72, 74, 78, 83, 94, 96, 104, 109, 110, 111, 112, 119, 122, 123, 132, 138, 145, 150, 155, 157, 163, 175, 180, 185, 186, 220n, 226n, 249n Firearms, Guaraní adoption of, 4, 45–47, 140, 182. See also Militias Flight from missions, 67–68, 83, 110, 125– 36, 150–51, 156, 238n, 246n, 249n. See also Fugitives Franciscan Order, 26, 28, 31, 36, 40, 43, 48, 53, 65, 67, 72, 79, 81, 118, 124, 134, 141, 142, 162, 165, 169, 173, 174, 176, 185, 208n, 214n, 224n, 253n, 257; in New Mexico, 112–14 Fugitives 38, 55, 65–68, 81, 83, 97, 103, 104, 110, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 149, 151, 187, 226n, 249n. See also Flight from missions Gift – giving, 25, 35, 53, 87, 93, 103, 111, 121, 122, 123, 124, 170, 171. See also Reciprocal relations Guarcurarí Artigas,Andrés, 161–62 Guaraní: as active participants in rebellion, 93–111; Cario – Guaraní, 23–25; confinement of to dormitories or asylums, 41–

42; contact with missionaries, 36, 72–75; disparity in population between the sexes, 73, 128, 214n; female religious adaptation, 43–44, 72–73, 74–75, 76; female shamans, 20, 167; men, 8, 24, 28, 38, 41, 43, 44, 46, 51, 55, 56, 57, 59, 70, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 98, 108, 110, 112, 116, 119, 123, 127, 136, 145, 163, 167, 168, 170, 171, 183, 187, 198, 200, 227n; men and work, 18, 28, 49, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 83–84, 122, 126, 129–132; perceptions of missionaries, 37–38, 75–76, 102, 105, 122; perceptions of Spaniards, 25; view of the Portuguese, 101; view of the king of Spain, 100–102, 109; women, 8, 11, 19, 20, 21, 24–25, 26, 27, 28, 36, 37, 38, 41–42, 43, 44, 45, 49, 50, 55, 56, 57, 61, 62, 63, 68, 73, 77,78, 83–84, 98, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110–111, 112, 116, 123, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136, 144, 145, 151, 152, 163, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 183, 187, 198, 214n, 217n, 227n, 234n; women and work, 11, 18–19, 24, 25, 28, 42, 45, 62–63, 67, 70, 74, 132–34, 151, 182, 183; women’s status, 24, 84. See also Artisans; Coty guazú; Labor; Militias; Sailors; Shamans Guaraní War, 51, 87–116; and repercussions of the rebellion, 108–12; from a comparative perspective, 112–16 Homicide, 8, 10, 23, 38, 40, 49, 50, 65, 96, 97, 102, 104, 107, 108, 114, 115, 132, 138, 156, 159, 161, 164, 168, 169, 170, 181, 197, 217n, 226n, 233n, 250n Horses, 25, 27, 61, 65, 96, 104, 112, 122, 143, 144, 145, 151, 156, 159, 250n Hospitals, 56, 71, 83, 234n Housing, 18, 19, 27, 28, 45, 53, 55, 58, 61, 71, 72, 75, 78, 92, 96, 108, 123, 132, 168, 169, 197, 223n; and matrilocality, 19, 75; and

288

Index

Housing (continued) patrilocality, 19, 27–28, 55. See also Coty guazú Hunting, 18, 22, 28, 36, 38, 39, 55, 62, 63, 65, 69, 80, 113, 115, 170, 186, 213n, 220n Infanticide, 19 Infantilization of Indians, 6–9 Jesuit Order, 1, 30–34, 140, 142; as administrators of reductions, 11, 12, 52, 53, 57–61, 63, 148; adoption of native traditions by, 31, 35, 36; celibacy of, 36, 38; conflicts with settlers, 49–50; cultivation of yerba mate by, 64; expulsion of, 9, 117–25, 236n; medicinal knowledge of, 56–57; missions, role of, 37–39, 45; native perceptions of, 2, 37–38, 75–76, 83, 102, 105, 122; perceptions of native cultures, 2, 4, 9, 20, 34, 96, 103, 164; portrayal of in The Mission, 7–8; request for missionaries by, 35; request to arm the Guaraní, 45–47; resistance to the Treaty of Madrid, 91–93; role of in the Guaraní rebellion, 97–98, 102–10 Kinship, 17, 19, 72. See also Cacicazgos; Families Labor, 18, 26, 28, 48, 50, 51, 52, 59, 61, 63– 71, 115, 126–27, 131–35, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 147, 150, 151, 152, 153–55, 159, 182, 186, 192, 193, 194, 205, 206, 225n, 233n, 236n, 237n, 238n, 246n, 249n; abuse of, 26–28; as a cause of mortality, 26, 222n; conflicts over, 28, 48, 186; and European work habits, 63, 126–27. See also Artisans; Children; Encomienda; men and work under Guaraní; women and work under Guaraní;Yerba maté Land, including disputes over, 1, 2, 3, 8, 26, 27, 46, 49, 53, 60–61, 62, 65, 66, 67, 71, 77,

78, 83, 84, 89, 91, 93, 94–95, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 108, 109, 110, 114, 116, 123, 128, 130, 131, 135, 138, 140, 146, 147–48, 153–62, 170, 183, 184, 186, 191– 97, 203, 206, 217n, 230n; concept of a land without evil, 21–22, 212n Languages, 1, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 22, 28–29, 43, 71, 76, 79, 80–83, 87, 98–102, 113, 121, 123, 140–41, 142, 146, 166, 167, 175, 176, 177, 182, 183, 184, 185, 201, 231n, 244n, 245n, 254n, 258; Jesuit reluctance to teach Spanish, 80–81; and war leaflets, 105 Literacy, 81–83, 98, 183 Livestock. See Cattle Marriage, 17, 19, 25, 26, 51, 53, 55, 56, 75, 113, 134–36, 159, 166, 183, 223n; and monogamy, 19, 38 Mapmaking, 60–61 Marqués de Pombal, 119–20, 236n Martyrs, Jesuit, 38, 40 Medicine, 11, 12, 56–57, 77, 84, 166, 177, 208n; and native herbs, 11, 56–57; European medical techniques, 11, 56–57 Mercedarian Order, 110, 118, 124, 141, 142, 169, 173, 253n Mestizos, 12, 17, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 95, 107, 110, 115, 127, 128, 133, 185, 217n, 239n, 242n Mexico, 5, 25, 36, 37, 47, 58, 120, 136, 142, 147, 148, 151, 165, 175, 178, 180, 181, 210n, 216n, 217n, 218n, 225n, 232n, 247n, 254n; and rebellions in New Spain, 113–16 Migration, 10, 17, 29, 53, 65–68, 83, 110–12, 125–36, 148, 156, 181, 212n, 222n, 226n, 238n, 246n, 249n. See also Flight from missions; Fugitives; Relocation Militias 1, 4, 8, 11, 41, 45–47, 49, 50, 51, 61, 73, 81, 84, 97, 100, 103, 104, 105, 107–8,

Index 289 114, 116, 124, 134, 140, 153, 155, 156, 161, 162, 175, 182, 183 The Mission (film), 7–8 Mission foundations, 1, 31–46; dates of, 48 Mulattos, 27, 80, 107, 115, 132, 159, 206, 233n Music, 11, 20, 40, 68, 76, 183. See also Musicians Musicians, 1, 34, 61, 70, 71, 77, 78, 81, 132, 162, 183, 216n. See also Music Naming patterns, 68, 81, 136, 187, 243n Ñeengirú, Nicolás, 1–5, 8, 58, 101, 102, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 119, 122, 161, 184, 191– 94, 207n, 234n; original seventeenth– century ancestor of, 35, 46 Nusdorffer, Bernardo, S.J., 34, 92, 104

Religion, 251n, death rituals in, 20–22, 39, 51; native, 20–22; persistence of native, 5, 10, 101, 116, 165–73; and reinterpretation of Christianity, 39–40, 172–73. See also Christianity; Conversion; Shamans; Syncretism Relocation, 2, 9, 10, 44–46, 49, 109, 110–11, 114, 191 Reorganization of the missions, 138–47, 153–60; at independence, 160–63 Ruiz de Montoya,Antonio, S.J., 22, 39, 43, 45, 81, 164, 211n, 212n, 213n, 214n, 217n, 220n

Parasites, 65, 226n Paternalism of missionaries, 34, 216n, 219n Payaguá, 23, 94 Personal appearance, 1, 40–41. See also Clothing Population, 72, 73, 93, 112, 115, 160, 183, 185, 211n, 220n, 222n, 226n, 227n, 230n, 235n, 239n, 250n, 255n; decline of native, 26, 27, 35, 112, 118, 126, 127, 128, 129, 135, 153; of missions in times of the Jesuits, 52–54, 112; and mortality, 73, 125, 212n; and infant and child mortality rates, 55–56, 222n; and mortality rates compared to European rates, 55 Power, 12–13, 37, 38, 52; structure of in the missions, 57–61 Pueblo Revolt of 1680, 112–15

Sailors, 64, 70–71, 81, 140, 148, 183 Saints, 44, 68, 71, 76–77, 82, 165, 168, 176, 177, 198, 202, 203; Saint Thomas, 30, 36– 37, 198, 216n, 217n; Saint Michael the Archangel, 95, 100–101 Schooling, 42, 61, 71, 76, 78, 79–83, 140, 141, 148, 149, 161, 179 Shamans, 19–20, 25, 37–40, 43, 51, 77, 83, 95, 115, 164, 166–173, 218n Slavery: black, 78, 107, 134, 135, 160, 216n, 217n, 239n, 243n, 250n; Indian slave–raiding, 10, 11, 17, 22, 25, 27, 28, 31, 35, 44–46, 50, 51, 64, 78, 89, 97, 98, 100, 105, 121, 122, 150, 183, 199, 201, 205, 206, 219n, 249n Smallpox, outbreaks of, 129, 168. See also under Diseases; Epidemics Social control, 76–79; and banishment, 38 Spanish settlers’ abuse of Indians, 27–28, 89, 114, 143, 146, 163, 183 Syncretism, 37, 116, 165, 180, 216–17n, 251n

Rebellions, 25, 47, 48–50, 59, 87–116, 150– 51. See also Comunero Revolt of Paraguay; Guaraní War Reciprocal relations, 19, 24–25, 35, 94, 121, 124

Tiarajú, Captain Sepé, 4, 97, 107, 108, 110, 114, 161, 184, 233n Trade, 10, 29, 45, 49, 50, 62, 63, 64, 70–71, 77, 82, 89, 93, 129, 130, 137, 143, 162, 225, 240n, 241n

290

Index

Transculturation, 11–12, 28–29, 84, 105, 177, 180–82 Treaty of Madrid, 1–2, 4, 8, 83, 89–91, 98, 105, 112, 156, 184, 231n, 233n, 235n Treaty of San Ildefonso, 112 Treaty of Utrecht, 49 Tribute, 25, 27, 62, 71, 79, 91, 92, 93, 103, 114, 115, 131, 198, 205–6, 208n, 218n, 238n Tubichapotá, Francisco Javier, 173–74, 253n Túpac Amaru II rebellion, 89, 95, 109, 115, 230n Tupí, as auxiliaries, 17, 18, 20, 44–45, 46, 210n, 213n Tupí – Guaraní, 6, 12, 17, 19, 20–23, 30, 36, 37, 72, 101, 169, 177, 182, 185, 210n, 211n, 212n, 213n, 223n, 224n, 225n, 228n, 255n. See also Cannibalism; Guaraní; Languages Tupinambá, 20, 22, 209n, 210n, 212n, 213n

Urban planning, 52, 53, 71–72, 91, 179; alterations in physical space, 71 Uruguay River, reductions along, 1, 12, 13, 35, 37, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 55, 64, 66, 87, 89, 90, 92, 97, 103, 105, 109, 110, 111, 112, 118, 121, 125, 126, 127, 131, 133, 134, 138, 147, 154, 160, 161, 193, 210n, 220n, 226n, 232n, 239n War of the Seven Reductions. See Guaraní War Weapons, 4, 23, 25, 29, 35, 45, 63, 71, 96, 103, 107, 108, 109, 140, 173, 182, 213n Yapuguay, Nicolás, 81, 82 Yerba maté, 2,3, 7, 12, 13, 28, 30, 50, 51, 61– 64, 65, 70, 73, 79, 91, 92, 93, 103, 104, 105, 110, 117, 130, 131, 148, 168, 177, 183, 192, 193, 198, 225n, 241n, 245n