Sometimes the cruel treatment of the natives by the Spanish settlers was avenged upon the Jesuits. This was the case with a band of Guapalaches, who, coming on Father Espinosa in a wood, attacked and massacred him and all his Indians, and, having cut his body into pieces, left it for the wild beasts to eat. Upon another occasion Father Mendoza fell into an ambuscade, from which he might have escaped had not his horse sunk in a miry stream. Long he defended himself with an Indian shield, but at length was stretched upon the ground and left for dead. During the night he revived, and dragged himself up to some rocks; but the Indians in the morning, following up his trail, came on him praying in a loud voice. They told him that he served a blind God, or at best a powerless God, as He did nothing to defend His servant; then, after torturing him cruelly, they despatched him, and, taking out his heart, said: ‘Let us see if his soul will take the road to heaven.’ These savages do not seem to have been genuinely interested in finding out what became of the soul after the dissolution of the body, for they sat down and made a hearty meal of two young Indians who accompanied the unlucky priest. But they had heard their victim say that when he baptized them it purified their souls, and the last words of Father Mendoza had been to recommend his soul to God. I often wonder if the Christians of to-day, their creed so firmly fixed by the martyrdoms of simple folk, who held their faith without perhaps much reasoning on it, know what they owe to men like Father Christopher Mendoza, slain by the Indians in the Paraguayan woods. Your ancient martyr, fallen out of fashion and forgotten by the Christians of to-day, should have his homage done to him, if only by the chance writer, who in his studies for some subject of no interest to the general world comes on his trail of blood; for martyrdom, no matter how obscure, forgotten by the people of the faith for which the martyr suffered, is a slur not only on the faithful, but on the faith itself. In 1636 occurred the second invasion of the Paulistas, which induced Father Montoya, accompanied by Father Diaz Taño, to go to Europe to seek protection for the Indians both from the King of Spain and from the Pope.
The Mamelucos burst into the province of Tapé,[106] and, as the mission of Jesus-Maria (one of the few left undestroyed at the former invasion) was most exposed, Father Romero asked permission of the Governor of the River Plate[107] to make some trenches to defend the place. The Governor consented, but the storm burst on the mission before the defences were in a fit state to defend. The mission priests Antonio Bernal and Juan Cardenas were in the front ranks encouraging the Indians, and both were badly wounded. Fathers Mola and Romero went about ministering to the wounded, but escaped themselves. At last, the Mamelucos having set fire to the church, capitulation became inevitable, and the chief part of the Indians were led away in chains. The same fate would have overtaken the mission of San Cristobal, where father Romero had retreated with some fugitives from Jesus-Maria, had not the people and their priest retreated hastily upon the mission of Santa Ana. But even there they were not long in safety, and had to undertake another perilous journey down the river Iguai. Here a party of passing Mamelucos fell into an ambuscade, and were hewn in pieces, presumably before the Lord. The Mamelucos pushed their advance so far that Father Montoya had given orders that all the missions of that province should be burned. The inhabitants, who trusted him quite blindly, were just about to begin to burn their houses, when an order from the Provincial stopped them from doing so till he himself appeared upon the scene. He arrived, and, gathering up the scattered Indians as far as he was able, left them for safety in some of the missions which had not been destroyed, and set off himself to ask for help from the Governor of Paraguay.
Finding no help either from him or from the Governor of the River Plate, he went to Corrientes, and was received almost with contumely. Then, desperate, he equipped an army of the mission Indians, and advanced to fight the Mamelucos; but they had retreated into Brazil, and were beyond his reach. Seeing that nothing was to be hoped from the Spanish Governors, he sent a box of papers in a ship going to Portugal, and laid his case before the Council of the Indies. Montoya and Charlevoix relate that the box was thrown into the sea near Lisbon by some enemy of the Jesuits, but providentially was washed up by the tide, and, being found miraculously, was taken to the King of Spain. Whether this happened as it is written, who shall say? But, in distress, when have good men (before the time of the encyclopædists) been without a miracle to sustain their cause? In the next year (1637) Father Montoya and Taño started upon their mission to Europe, and a new field was opened to Montoya in which to show his talents on the Indians’ behalf.
Whilst Father Montoya was in Spain, the Provincial appointed Father Alfaro to take his place. He fell on troublous times, for the Mamelucos were preparing to attack the three remaining missions in the province of Guayrá.[108] As they were not defensible, it was agreed to evacuate them, and to retreat into the provinces upon the Uruguay. When they were just about to start from Santa Teresa, where the inhabitants of the other missions had been collected, the Mamelucos appeared just before Christmas. The Indians were driven off as slaves, and the Mamelucos, with their usual sense of humour, attended Mass as penitents on Christmas Day, with candles in their hands, and listened to the sermon in an edifying way. The priest reproached them for their cruelty, and they, after listening devoutly, gave him the liberty of two choir boys, and quietly left the church.
At length the Jesuits, rendered desperate by the perils to which the mission Indians were exposed, armed several bands of Indians and attacked the Mamelucos. But, as was to be expected, the half-armed Indians were always worsted by the well-armed and disciplined Paulista bands, and then the Jesuits took the supreme resolve to evacuate Guayrá entirely, and place the Indians in safety between the rivers Paraná and Uruguay.
Formed into three great companies, the Indians started on their second exodus. Although the difficulties were less than in the voyage down the Paraná, still, to march several thousand Indians just emerged from savagery, accompanied by their women and children, and charged with all their possessions, through a wild country, where they were exposed to the attack of a well-armed enemy upon the way, was not an easy task. Father Christobal Arenas formed them into three divisions, leading the first himself; but the Provincial seems to have done most of the organizing, for Charlevoix says that ‘to his courage, prudence, and inalterable kindness,’ the success was due.[109]
Courage and prudence and inalterable kindness are the three virtues which have most moved the world; perhaps the last has been most efficacious, and one would hope that in the future it would be the only one of the whole three required.
Twelve thousand Indians, not counting women and children, were thus led into a territory[110] between the rivers Uruguay and Paraná, rich, fertile, and, as the distance between the rivers is not above some five-and-twenty miles, defended in some measure, and easily rendered almost impregnable.
No one can see the heart of man, and, even if God sees it, He never tells us what is there, so that we are obliged to judge of actions as we find them, and leave the search for motives to omniscients. On the face of it, the Jesuits, both those who led the Indians down the Paraná and those who headed them in this migration to the Mesopotamia between the Uruguay and Paraná, were not impelled by thought of gain; and if a Jesuit must of necessity have some dark scheme behind the smallest action of his life, these men concealed it so deep down within their souls that all the researches of their keenest enemies have not been able to throw light on it. But, even settled in their new homes, the Indians were defenceless against the Mamelucos, as it was a state maxim of the Spanish court that the Indians should never be allowed the use of guns. This was a wise enough precaution, without doubt, for the Indians of the Encomiendas, who lived amongst the Spaniards and owed them personal services; but arms for the Indians of the missions were a necessity of life. Therefore, before he started for Madrid, the Provincial impressed upon Montoya to approach the Council of the Indies and the King, and represent to them that it was impossible to guarantee the existence of the reductions against the Mamelucos unless the Indians were allowed to provide themselves with arms. So Father Montoya, though he was charged to press for various reforms, was most especially impressed upon this point. He was to tell the King that the Indians were not to be allowed to keep their arms themselves, but that they would be kept by the Jesuits, and served out to the Indians in case of an attack; then, that the arms would not cost a penny to the treasury, but be all paid out of the alms collected for the purpose by the Company; lastly, and this was a true stroke of Jesuit policy, that, to instruct the Indians how to shoot, they would bring from Chile certain Jesuits who in the world had served as soldiers. One sees them brought from the frontiers of Araucania, and from the outposts of the trans-Andean towns, half sacristan, half sergeant, instant in prayer, and yet with a look about them like a serious bull terrier—a fitting kind of priest for a frontier town, and such as could alone be found amongst the Jesuits.
About this time (1639) the third invasion of the Mamelucos took place, and Father Alfaro, who had been left in charge of the missions on the Uruguay and Paraná, was shot by a Mameluco with a crossbow, and fell dead from his horse. The Governor of Paraguay, on hearing of it, marched with an army, and, having killed two or three hundred of the Mamelucos, took the rest prisoners, and carried them back to Asuncion. There, to the disgust of all the Jesuit historians, he menaced them with the wrath of Heaven and let them go. The feelings of a churchman, when his own privilege is thus usurped, may be compared to those of a strict game-preserver who sees his coverts poached. It is not so much the damage that is done as the personal insult and the humiliation which he suffers in his pride.