Rutgers -Latin American Studies 101
QUESTIONS:
1) As you do this reading, try to find points which support things you saw in the movie and points which make you doubt something you saw in the movie (or points which shed light on the movie). This is especially important for our class discussion. If you haven’t come up with 6 or more points, you have barely scratched the surface of what you might find.
Besides the general purpose for this article I laid out in question 1, I’ve just two concrete questions:
2) See the phrase highlighted on RP p. 6 below. Why did those two factors impede colonization?
3) How many Indians lived on the mission? How many Jesuits lived on the missions? How does this shed light on the missions? (A related question might shed light on what it was like to be a Jesuit priest: How many Jesuits priests were there by the 1770s?)
Companion Reading for The Mission
You saw the movie The Mission about colonial Paraguay. Geopolitical conflicts originating in Europe affected the Guaraní. The movie begins with a shot of a man, Altamirano, writing a letter; his narration is provides an important part of the film’s perspective. Altamirano is a representative of the Pope, sent to determine the future of seven Jesuit missions.
The Pope had originally legitimized Spain and Portugal’s possession of the New World as well as decided the boundary line between the colonies of the two in the New World (1493). Three centuries later, in 1750, the Pope had adjudicated a territorial dispute between Spain and Portugal and the latter had been granted control over the territory upon which seven missions had been built. The central drama of the movie comes about because unless the Pope specifically allowed these missions to continue to operate without changes, the Portuguese planned to dismantle them. This only makes sense if you understand that the missions enjoyed a unique status in Latin America; they were basically extra-territorial because the religious orders (regular clergy) were completely in charge. That is, the missions did not have any secular governor nor did the Indians have tribute or labor obligations outside of their work for the religious order. In the territory we are studying here, the Jesuits were the founders and leaders.
*Cast of Characters:
Altamirano: As I noted, his voice opens the movie. He corresponds to a historical person, Jesuit Father Luis Altamirano who was sent to Paraguay in 1752 to transfer the territories. He oversaw the transfer of seven missions, settled in the 1600s. In the movie we might say that Altamirano symbolizes the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
The Society of Jesus: This was a monastic order (usually called The Jesuits) founded around 1540 and characterized by its strong allegiance to the Pope. The mission to spread Christianity and fight the spread of Protestantism led them to establishschools in Europe as well as missions in areas as diverse as Japan and Canada. Their missions in South America, around the area occupied by Paraguay today, gained new prominence (and even popularity as a tourist destination) after The Mission came out in 1986. At the time of conquest, the recent establishment of the Jesuit order perhaps added to its zeal and appeal; Jesuit numbers grew from about 1000 in 1550 to 15,000 a century later.(1)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .
p. 2 (RP 6)
Like some friars from other religious orders, the Jesuit commitment to evangelization extended to serious study of the native languages. Indeed, a Guaraní version of the bible was being printed on the first printing press in South America in 1700. Jesuit numbers worldwide had increased to 23,000 worldwide2 when the Pope disbanded the order in the 1770s.(3)
Marquis of Pombal: He isn’t shown in the movie, but he is mentioned by his supporters (who oppose the missions). In 1750, he was newly appointed Prime Minister of Portugal (by King Joseph I of Portugal). He was against the Jesuits from the beginning; it is said that his government believed that the Jesuits were mining for gold on the missions. His antagonism toward the Jesuits grew after the conflict over the missions, and according to one official Catholic source, “The height of Pombal’s persecution was reached with the burning (1761) of the saintly Father Malagrida, ostensibly for heresy; while the other Fathers, who had been crowded into prisons, were left to perish by the score.”(4)
The Guaraní Indians: “The language of Guaraní, a language once spoken throughout most of the southern half of the new world by native Americans, now occupies a seat next to Spanish as one of the official languages of Paraguay. The name itself stems from a Guaranian word, guariní, meaning ‘war’ or ‘warrior.’”(5) As the name indicates, Guaraní were not new at warfare, and like many other South American tribes, they engaged in cannibalism. Both for warfare and for hunting, skill with a bow or a blow gun was very important, yet the Guaraní were sedentary agricultural tribes whose main staples were corn, manioc, and often maté. They, furthermore, had great artistry in pottery and woodcarving, skills which the Jesuits built upon in their mission settlements. Keep in mind that we are discussing a large area, with distinct groups with a number of Guaraní dialects. Nevertheless, an accepted generalization is that the Guaraní had no central government, just numerous village communities in which inhabitants shared communal houses of ten to fifteen families each. By the way, although Guaraní still has a half million speakers, especially in Paraguay, the indigenous language and actors in the movie are from a Colombian tribe (neither are Guaraní).
*General background information for the movie:
This region (modern Paraguay and bordering regions in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina) had a fairly large indigenous population which was not wealthy in European terms (no precious metals) and had not been organized into a centralized military empire like the Aztecs and Incas. These two factors combined to impede European domination. The town of Asunción was founded in 1537, decades after the “discovery” of America and that same year the Spanish made first contact with the Guaraní. Under the first Spanish governor a policy of intermarriage with indigenous women was encouraged, as well as the enslavement of native tribes who had no defenders. The crown, naturally, allowed the Indians to possess no firearms, so it was European weapons against blow guns, arrows; the other indigenous defense was escape into less accessible territory.
However, the devastating toll that Spanish contact was exacting on the indigenous populations had catalyzed a debate in Spain regarding how to manage the Indians of the New World.(6) Church thinkers like Bartolomé de las Casas argued that the Spanish treatment of the indigenous was a black spot on the nations’ its history, and successfully lobbied the Spanish crown for laws protecting the natives of America. The New Laws of 1542 prohibited Indian enslavement and forbade the creation of any new encomiendas. (We’ll talk about this in class).
After The New Laws, the center of the Indian slave trade became the town of São Paulo in Brazil, a Portuguese colony. It is estimated that, in 130 years, two million Indians were slain or captured by
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 3 (RP 7)
Brazilian slave-hunters. While only Portuguese law permitted Indigenous slavery after 1493, Spanish and Portuguese alike used indigenous slave labor.
The arrival of the Jesuits brought the first real change. In 1608, because of Jesuit protests against the enslavement of the Indians, King Philip III of Spain issued royal authority to the Jesuits for the conversion and colonization of the Indians in part of his territory. In 1610, the first mission was established. The Guaraní came to the Jesuits in such numbers and proved so peaceful in this setting that 12 missions rose in rapid succession. There were other missions in Latin America (and even in what is now the US), but none matched the success of those we are studying here.
In Paraguay and surrounding regions there were 33 missions, with 78 Jesuits and some 144,000 Indians, and a million cattle. These were profitable business enterprises which produced and traded cattle and mate (an indigenous tea); the Jesuits ploughed most of the profits back into the missions so that the indigenous shared in the wealth in some fashion.
Life was very regimented under the tutelage of the Jesuits. Every day men women and children had separate jobs assigned to them. The population rose together; church services and prayer as well as meals and sleep times were all determined for the entire mission population by the Jesuits.
In each town there are one of two clockwork clocks, some made by the Indians, others purchased in Buenos Aires, through which we govern ourselves in the religious distribution of time. (We, here refers to the Jesuit). 7Both critics and defenders of the Jesuit missions comment on the remarkable uniformity of life. A defender might see an idyllic life in a community in which the days began with a Catholic mass, including music (for all the missions had remarkable indigenous musicians), before the residents divided up into groups based on gender and age for their morning tasks. For the women it might be weaving and caring for the youngest children, and for the men it could be artisan work or tending the family plot (chacra). The older children might have the “very fun job” of scaring the birds from the community fields. Drum beats divided the day, reminding workers to move to their next task, calling children to catechism (instruction of principals of Christianity taught through questions and answers), calling upon anyone who “voluntarily wanted to pray the rosary” before dinner, or reminding the Guaraní to say their Ave-Marías before sleep. Around dinner, the men “take their portion of maté which is distributed to all through the common store” (as in warehouse), and some days of the week “the women come to seek their meat rations from up to forty cows that were killed in one day for just one reducción.”(8)
One critic, Blas Garay, saw communism in this overwhelming uniformity, and claimed the Jesuit will was imposed even upon sentimental life. “…The Jesuits were concerned regarding the need to increase the population in their reducciones and had little confidence in the willingness of the Indians, who worn out by the tasks of the day, arrived home and ate and lay down to sleep until dawn when they awoke to go to church and then right back to work, without fulfilling” their duties as spouses. According to this critic the Jesuits resorted to playing drums especially toward dawn in order to wake the Guaraní and “remind them” to procreate.(9)
Regardless of whether the above anecdote was true, there was a communal aspect to rituals which we would call sentimental life. Baptisms were done after mass on Sundays, marriages were done in large groups of couples (15 to 17 years of age) on predetermined dates. Families lived together in groups reminiscent of the Guaraní custom. Funerals were perhaps one area in which the Jesuits couldn’t impose a schedule or ritual (except for the time of day, after dinner). Not only were the Catholic rites observed but, in spite of Jesuit efforts to eradicate the practice, women continued to
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 4 (RP 8)
lament the dead through “desentonos,” displays of long and ritualized wailing in which the deceased was praised for what he had been and done (or “at least for what he could have done and been”).10
The physical infrastructure was also remarkably uniform. All thirty area missions (except for the last one constructed) were laid out identically: church, classrooms, workshops to the south of a main square.11 The other three sides of the square were surrounded by tile roofed long narrow dwellings, which were shared by several families in what Blas Garay called “shameful promiscuilty.” The cabildo (or administrative) building also occupied a prominent place on the square. To wrap up Blas Garay’s critical comments about the Jesuit’s missions, it is important to return to the important economic aspect of their work. The Jesuits engaged in highly profitable commerce of the same product (maté) whose trade by “unscrupulous” growers they had fought against.
Unfortunately, the profitability and the concentration of experienced indigenous workers led slave raiders (known as Bandeirantes, a Portuguese word which reflects the origin of many of the raiders) to see missions as a place to get Indian slaves and conflict was inevitable. In 1692, an army of settlers from São Paulo with horses, guns and bloodhounds (as well as Indian allies), suddenly attacked one of the missions, set fire to the buildings, and butchered Indians. Other missions quickly met the same fate, and according to church sources, slave traders carried off 60,000 mission Indians during this period. The priests were usually spared out of fear of government reprisals, but several lost their lives while ministering to the wounded or pleading with the attackers. Two Jesuit priests even followed one captive train on foot through the swamps and forests, Jesuit priests even followed one captive train on foot through the swamps and forests, confessing the dying who fell by the road and carrying the chains of the weakest. They then unsuccessfully asked for the mediation of the governor-general of Brazil.
This was a huge setback; the Guaraní lost faith in the Jesuits. The mission movement, however, began again in the 1630s, this time based on the less labor intensive cattle industry. The same story led to the same finale. The Jesuits were able to bring the missions to life yet again, and in 1638 even persuaded King Philip IV of Spain to allow the missions to arm themselves. Indeed, the Indians were to be trained by veteran soldiers who had become members of the Jesuit order. (It may seem remarkable that the Indians were given the right to bear arms, but not so surprising if one sees the missions as part of the geo-political struggle between Spain and Portugal). In 1641, a new invasion led to a fierce defense and the retreat of the Portuguese slave runners. There was a period of calm after this last event, which was not to say that life was easy on the mission.
We’ll jump ahead a century to the events surrounding the 1750 border treaty. The treaty transferred territory to Portugal; Spain, in exchange, was granted land elsewhere as well as 4000 pesos for each mission (the worth of the land, livestock and buildings was estimated at over seven million). As you saw in The Mission, this was followed by a decision by the Church for the removal of the Guaraní.
Did the Indigenous react with warfare in history as they did in the Hollywood version? Yes! When the Jesuits tried to lead them to new territory, the Indians of the seven missions rose in revolt under their own chiefs and defied the united armies of both Spain and Portugal. After a seven year guerrilla type war, resulting in thousands of deaths and the near destruction of the missions in question, the Jesuits were able to convince the Spanish crown to annul the boundary decision and restore the disputed territory to Spanish jurisdiction. But, the matter wasn’t really settled, as the Portuguese (remember Pombal?) continued their battle against the Jesuits.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 5 (RP 9)
*The end of the movie = the end of the missions?
The end of the Jesuit missions (and not just the seven missions affected by the 1750 treaty) followed less than two decades after the events portrayed in the movie.
It wasn’t only the Portuguese who opposed the Jesuits; a number of European monarchs (including that of Spain) began to fear Jesuit power. Not only were the missions and other Jesuit endeavors financially successful, but Jesuits were in charge of prestigious schools all over the Americas. Jesuit wealth and power was creating a backlash. In different dates depending on the European country, the Jesuits were expelled by the Catholic hierarchy or the State. From Spanish America they were expelled in 1767. The missions were turned over to priests of other orders, chiefly Franciscans, but under divided authority, with uncertain government support, and without the Jesuit knowledge of the region and its inhabitants, the missions rapidly declined.
ENDNOTES
(1) “History of the Jesuits.” http://matrix.scranton.edu/admissions/jeshist.html
(2) Ibid.
(3) The Catholic Encyclopedia has a fairly complete discussion of the pope’s decision.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14096a.htm
(4) Quote on Pombal is from: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14096a.htm
(5) Nathan Page, “Guaraní: The Language and People.”
(6) Whether through outright warfare, through slavery, tribute or disease, the population of indigenous tribes that met up with Spanish had fallen precipitously by 1540. Most notably, in the first Caribbean islands that the Spanish attempted to colonize the death rate reached 90% or higher. (According to some investigators, this depopulation in the Caribbean happened before European diseases were introduced, and thus was the direct result of Spanish treatment).
(7) “La vida en las reducciones jesuíticas de guaraníes o el uso perfecto del tiempo.” In El barroco paraguayo, Madrid: Instituto de Cultura Hispánica, 1977. This article contains long citations from 18th century sources. Translations by Dr. Olander.
(8) Comments of praise all come from the above article.
(9) Blas Garay, “El comunismo de las misiones: la revolucion de la independencia del Paraguay,” Paraguay, 1975. (Translation by Dr. Olander).
(10) “La vida en las reducciones…”
(11) Larry Rohter, “Missions of a Lost Utopia.” The New York Times, Sunday December 3, 2006, section 5, p. 1 & 12.
No comments:
Post a Comment