Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 1 of 2

by Robert Grant Watson

CHAPTER XVI.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JESUITS IN PARAGUAY.
1608-1648.

The town of Buenos Ayres, once permanently established, soon became a considerable place; and that notwithstanding its incommodious and unsafe harbour. Forty years after its foundation (1620) it was declared a separate colony, which was to comprise all the regions in La Plata below the confluence of the Paraguay and the Paraná. It likewise became the seat of a bishop, and in fifty years from its foundation numbered as many inhabitants as Asuncion. The colony of Tucuman had been founded in 1564, but it did not, like Paraguay, have the advantage of river communication with the ocean, nor did it benefit by the direction of a master mind such as that of Irala. Notwithstanding this, the jurisdiction of the governor of Tucuman was in 1596 extended over Paraguay. The governor deputed a very able substitute to administer the latter province in the person of Hernando Saavedra, whose capacity for administration is considered to have been only surpassed by that of Irala.

1608.

Saavedra, after much exploration in the territories inhabited by the native tribes, deemed that it would be better to attach rather than to weaken or exterminate them, and that for this purpose it would be advisable to use every means for converting them to Christianity. For this end he appealed to the court of Spain, and in 1608 Philip III. took the memorable decision of issuing the royal letters-patent to the Order of Jesus for the conversion of the Indians of the province of Guayrá, which district comprised both banks of the upper Paraná to the east of Asuncion. In this region the towns of Onteveros, Ciudad Real, and Villa Rica had been founded as early as 1554 by Don Ruy Diaz de Melgarejo.

1610.

Two Jesuit priests reached Asuncion in 1610, the modest vanguard of a formidable army. From the very date of their arrival they displayed the usual zeal of their order, and the first reduction was established on the upper Paraná. It was called Loreto, and the neighbouring natives were invited to resort thither, to receive instruction and to become members of the community, which was entirely under Jesuit control. As others of the order arrived, other reductions were formed. On reaching Asuncion the earliest Jesuit Fathers found the colony distracted by rivalries and controversies between the secular and the religious authorities. The first bishop of Paraguay was a Franciscan.

The policy which had been initiated and pursued by Irala of incorporating the natives with the governing body had fallen into at least partial disuse. Although the natives of Paraguay had not to complain of the same harsh treatment from their Spanish conquerors as had the Peruvians, their condition still left much to desire. They were not slaves in name, nor could they be purchased or sold, but they were nevertheless compelled to labour in the interest of others who had no responsibility for their care or support. The priests, as befitting their character, were willing and anxious to better their condition; but the colonists were loth to permit their interference in secular matters. Still their presence was not without its result, if only in its leading to its being considered more respectable to treat the natives as human beings rather than as the lower animals. Such being the state of society on the arrival of the Jesuits, whose professed object was the redemption of the natives, their coming was by no means welcomed by the colonists.

Asuncion was, however, for the meantime spared, for the scene of action of the first Jesuit Fathers was at some three hundred miles’ distance in the three settlements above mentioned. Of these settlements, and of the reduction of Loreto, scarcely a vestige now remains. The early settlers suffered so much from the natives and from the hostile Portuguese, that the province was abandoned. Twice was the site of Villa Rica changed, and the present town of that name dates from 1678. The Fathers then descending the river, established themselves in the district of Misiones, on the left bank of the Paraná, a district which is at the present day, and has long been, in dispute between Brazil and her neighbour. The early success of the Jesuits in converting the natives was very remarkable; but it may be as well to remember that it is the Jesuits themselves, and not independent writers, who have chronicled the fact. The Paraguayans, they say, not only embraced the faith, but voluntarily entered the reductions, and accepted the rule of the spiritual teachers. Before their coming the name of the foreigner had been terrible. The Spaniards, disappointed in finding gold, had taken possession of the territory, forcing the Paraguayans to a lot of unrequited drudgery. The Jesuits, however, had come to live and to die amongst them, seeking nothing for themselves but to be allowed to teach the arts of civilization and to show the way to paradise. It is not surprising that the contrast between their ways and those of their secular countrymen should have won the natives’ confidence. Indeed, as one of the conditions granted by the crown to the founders of the reductions was that these were to be free from all colonial control, the Paraguayans would at first sight seem to be the gainers by entering them. It was one of the principles of the order that the natives should not be subjected to unrecompensed labour.

It is somewhat remarkable that whilst the system and labours of the Jesuits in Paraguay are spoken of by most Protestant writers with almost unqualified praise, they are denounced in unmeasured terms by their Catholic rivals the Franciscans. It is not to be questioned that the early members of the order—the immediate disciples of Loyola—were actuated in their mission by no other motive than the most self-sacrificing and disinterested zeal; but these men were succeeded by others of a different stamp, and as time wore on the Jesuit rulers of Paraguay might enjoy a life of indolence and luxury. During the first twenty-five years of their mission they founded no less than ten towns; but the historian Azara points out that these twenty-five years precisely coincides with the time when the Portuguese furiously persecuted the natives in order to sell them into slavery. The frightened fugitives took refuge in the region between the Uruguay and the Paraná, and crowded into the Jesuit towns. During the following hundred years or more only one other town was established. Thus it appears that Portuguese rapacity had not a little to do with the establishment of Jesuit rule at Paraguay.