With respect to their Missions in South America, nothing could be more inconsistent than the allegations made against them:—whilst accused, on the one hand, of aiming at the establishment of a powerful and independent supremacy, they were, on the other, at the same time, reproached with having systematically kept the Indians in a state of infantine tutelage.
What would have been the consequences of the opposite system? How long would the Spanish rule in those countries have lasted had the Jesuits trained up a hundred thousand of the proper owners of the soil in any practical knowledge of the rights of man? How long would the Jesuits themselves have preserved their influence with them?
The Indians loved the Jesuits, and looked to them as to their fathers, and great were their lamentations when they were taken from them, and replaced by the unprincipled Franciscan friars sent to them by Bucareli, the Captain General of Buenos Ayres:—the following memorials, addressed to him from the Missions of San Luis and Martires, will serve to throw some light on the true feelings of the people with regard to their old and new pastors.
I have given a copy of one of the originals in Guarani in the Appendix, as a specimen of a language, which, of all the native tongues, was, perhaps, the most diffused in South America, and which, to this day, may be traced from the Paranã to the Amazons:—
No. I.
Translation of a Memorial addressed by the people of the Mission of San Luis to the Governor of Buenos Ayres, praying that the Jesuits may remain with them instead of the Friars sent to replace them.
(J. H. S.)
"God preserve your Excellency, say we, the Cabildo, and all the Caciques and Indians, men, women, and children, of San Luis, as your Excellency is our father. The Corregidor Santiago Pindo and Don Pantaleon Cayuari, in their love for us, have written to us for certain birds which they desire we will send them for the King:—we are very sorry not to have them to send, inasmuch as they live where God made them—in the forests,—and fly far away from us, so that we cannot catch them.
"Withal we are the vassals of God and of the King, and always desirous to fulfil the wishes of his ministers in what they desire of us. Have we not been three times as far as Colonia with our aid!—and do we not labour in order to pay tribute!—and now we pray to God that that best of birds—the Holy Ghost—may descend upon the King, and enlighten him, and may the Holy Angel preserve him!
"So, confiding in your Excellency, Señor Governor, our proper father, with all humility, and with tears, we beg that the Sons of St. Ignatius, the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, may continue to live with us and remain always amongst us. This we beg your Excellency to supplicate of the King for us for the love of God:—all this people,—men, women, and young persons, and especially the poor,—pray for the same with tears in their eyes.