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

by Robert Grant Watson

The career of the Jesuits, however, was not destined to run on with uniform smoothness. A governor of Paraguay was appointed whose policy and interest were not in unison with theirs. Cespedes was married to a Portuguese lady, whose sympathies were rather with her man-stealing countrymen than with the people ruled over by her husband. During his visit at Rio de Janeiro on his way to his government, Cespedes, it is said, so far fell into the hands of the Brazilians as to make a bargain with them by which he was to assist them in kidnapping those whom he had been sent to govern and protect. He resolved to pass by land to Asuncion. The first point he reached within Spanish territory was Loreto, on the banks of a tributary of the Paraná. There the Jesuits awaited his coming with joyful anticipation, which was soon to be changed to dismay. The estates of the Señora Cespedes in Brazil were in need of labourers, and the conscientious governor made a pact with the slave-hunters to facilitate their operations on condition of receiving six hundred of their captives. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the missionary establishments of Guayrá should have fallen an easy prey. The early neophytes were carried off by thousands and sold into slavery. Having no protection to look for at Asuncion, the remainder fled, to the number of twelve thousand. The Fathers accompanied them until they were, as they thought, at a safe distance in the region now known as Misiones. In their new reductions the Jesuits continued their work of proselytizing, and, after the dismissal of Cespedes, tried various means of acquiring influence at Asuncion. Nor were they unsuccessful. The natives not unnaturally preferred their rule to that of the civil authorities, and consequently the reductions grew powerful. The result was that the government became jealous, and that the Franciscans, headed by the bishop, took means to rid themselves of their successful neighbours and rivals.

The Jesuits appealed to Spain and likewise to the Pope, with the result that their representative obtained for them a royal grant, which rendered the missions independent of the government of Paraguay. They were likewise permitted to provide the natives with firearms, to be used in self-defence. When the next raid was made by the slave-hunters, they were so well received that, though they were a thousand in number, few escaped to tell of their surprise and defeat. The missions were no more troubled by men-stealers from Brazil.

1644.

But the Jesuits had still to contend with the rival ecclesiastics of Asuncion. The Bishop of Paraguay, Cardenas, was at this time a prominent figure. He is said to have hated the Jesuits with a fervour which is seldom more evoked than in religious animosities; but he by no means confined his attention to them. It was an age when all men dreaded the curse of Rome, and Cardenas was nothing loth to use this terrible weapon. Amongst others who fell under his ban was Hinostrosa, the governor of the colony, who had ventured to differ from him upon some matter which does not appear. The people were scandalized at the governor’s disgrace; and in fear of a tumult the bishop withdrew from the capital. He was followed by the penitent governor, who sought and obtained the removal of the anathema. The bishop having now the civil as well as the spiritual power virtually in his hands, lost no time in making it felt by the Jesuits. They were prohibited from preaching within Asuncion, and their schools were closed. But if the governor was subdued by the ecclesiastical authority, the Viceroy of Charcas and his council were not. The governor of Paraguay was severely reprimanded for having submitted himself to an arrogant prelate, who was in turn denounced, and was compelled to retire for some years from Asuncion.

1648.

On his return to that city, the governor died; and as in this emergency the choice of a successor lay with the people, the Bishop Cardenas was now elected to rule in his stead. Once more he was in possession of full power, and once more he lost no time in proclaiming his determination to use it for the expulsion of the Jesuits. Having, under threats of excommunication, collected a large crowd of people capable of bearing arms, he demanded the surrender of the Jesuits’ College. In vain its rector protested that his order exercised their rights under a royal grant. The doors were forced open, and the priests and neophytes were driven out. These having been brought to the river, were placed in boats and cast adrift without sail or oar. The college was then sacked, and the statues of Loyola and Xavier dragged from their pedestals. This violence was the natural prelude of the bishop’s own fall. He was summoned for trial before the Grand Council of Peru, and finally deposed from all authority.

The deposition of Cardenas was the signal for the recall of the Jesuits, and for some time to come they were masters of the situation. There still existed, however, continual jealousy and discord between them and the Franciscans; and the civil authorities were disposed to side with the latter. The Jesuits nevertheless applied themselves with undiminished earnestness to acquire power in Asuncion. By establishing and controlling the schools, they obtained the direction of the rising generation; and the missions were by this time rich and nourishing. Outside the reductions the natives preferred the Jesuit rule to that of the civil authorities, as the former repudiated slavery; whilst within the reductions the servitude to which they were subjected was disguised under another name. It was labour for the common benefit.

The systems of the Spanish governors and of the Jesuit Fathers, respectively, were widely different, and require some explanation. From the first advent of the former a mixed race gradually sprung up. The Spaniards brought with them few if any women, and if a certain proportion of Spanish ladies arrived later they were not in sufficient numbers to affect the general rule, which was that the Spanish settlers were allied to Guaraní wives. Thus was formed the modern mixed Paraguayan race. In a very short time, therefore, by means of the ties of relationship, a strong sympathy grew up between the Spaniards and the Guaranís or those of Guaraní blood, and a recognition of this fact formed the basis of the plan of government founded by the great Irala. The lot of the natives of Paraguay, as compared with the natives of the other Spanish dominions in the New World, was far from being a hard one. There were no mines to work. The Spaniards came there to settle, rather than to amass fortunes with which to return to Europe. The country was abundantly fertile, and such wealth as the Spaniards might amass consisted in the produce of their fields or the increase of their herds, which were amply sufficient to support them. Consequently all they required of the natives, for the most part, was a moderate amount of service as labourers or as herdsmen, whilst in return they were in a position to impart to the Paraguayans many of the arts of civilization.

The Jesuits, on the other hand, admitted no other Europeans within the bounds of their reductions, and having themselves no ties of kindred by marriage or otherwise with those around them, remained a distinct class apart. Their disciples were not even instructed in the Spanish or any other European tongue, save so much, perhaps, as was implied by their being taught to patter certain prayers by rote. As to their temporal concerns, they laboured, as it was said, for the common weal, but they were, in fact, reduced to a condition of the most utter servitude imaginable. Not only had they, like their native brethren beyond the limits of the reductions, to give their labour in the fields and in tending the herds, but when this was done the whole of their produce—beyond that necessary for their own sustenance—went into the common Jesuits’ fund,—that is to say, went towards building and adorning splendid churches, many of which, with their carved ornaments of the finest wood, remain to this day when the race that produced them is no more. Nor was this the only labour that fell upon such of the natives as were enticed into life-long servitude for “the greater glory of God.” It was necessary to seclude them from the temptations of the outer world, and for this purpose each reduction was converted into a fortress, so contrived as at the same time to preclude the entrance of strangers from without and the exit of disciples from within. The Paraguayans who had submitted themselves to the Jesuits’ absolute sway were thus cunningly made the artificers of the chains that bound them. It is going considerably in advance of the period now in question to advert to the reigns of Francia and the second Lopez, but it may be permitted here to point out that, in thus inducing a system of utter mental and moral imbecility, the Jesuit Fathers are undoubtedly responsible for the untold misery which was brought about under these tyrants, and which at length resulted in the extinction of the Paraguayan race.

The Jesuits have been their own historians; therefore the following details, written by themselves, must be read with the reflection that there was no contemporary critic to bequeath another side of the picture. Quitting the lower banks of the Plata, already covered with innumerable cattle on boundless plains which showed a perpetual verdure, the Jesuits, on their way to their destination, were shocked, on touching at the island of S. Gabriel, by beholding a tribe of idolaters who inspired terror in their neighbourhood and probably still more at home, since we learn that they put their women to death on attaining the age of thirty. After traversing about a thousand miles of river they reached the Guaraní missions, comprising thirty settlements. On the western coast, and further to the north, were the Chiquito missions, with which the others maintained a correspondence, which until the early part of the eighteenth century could only be effected by way of Peru, along a route of eight hundred leagues, intersected by streams only fordable at certain seasons. The shorter way from the Plata to the Chiquito missions was jealously closed by the Guaranís.