Jesuit Missions in South America - 17th and 18th century

Allow me to take you on a journey to the Jesuit Missions, which spread mainly in today's Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay in the 17th and 18th centuries. The idea to write about this piece of South American history came to my mind during my last visit to San Ignacio de Mini in Argentina, where I went on a trip with my mother. The photos in the article come from my private archive and include the aforementioned trip with my mother from February 2022 as well as a trip with my boyfriends to the Jesuit ruins in Paraguay (Jesus de Tavarangue and La Santisima Trinidad de Parana) from 2019. The information contained in the post is the messages given to us by local guides and those we found in museums located nearby the ruins.

Beginning

Jesuits came to South America at the beginning of the 17th century. Their main task was, as might be expected, the Christianization of local peoples, but the methods they adopted differed significantly from those commonly adopted at the time. When the Spaniards and the Portuguese used violence and forcibly converted the Guarani, and turned those who resisted into slaves or brutally murdered them, the Jesuits decided to use more humane methods and began to establish settlements that anyone could join (and leave without major consequences). The Jesuits were against slavery and treated the Guarani people subjectively rather than objectively. Of course, as it happens in history, many things change over time, which is why Jesuits are often presented as heroes. People are forgetting about their violations (punishments, cultural surveillance, etc.), so it is important to emphasize that although the Jesuits Missions were a very good place in Europe-occupied South America, they were not without problems.

The Jesuit Missions were quite peculiar creations that some historians now call theocratic communism or, more simply and more generally, theocratic utopia. The political system that was created in thirty cities, because there were so many of them at its peak, has never been repeated anywhere in the world before or ever since.

The missions were economically and nutritionally self-sufficient. The property right as we know it from the 20th and 21st centuries did not exist here. All things "belonged to God" and the entire community could benefit from them. In the later stages of the mission's development, roads between various missions were made and barter was used. Surplus products were sold to Buenos Aires, and the money was frozen on a special general fund or distributed equally among all residents.

Every adult citizen was obliged to work, and every child - to learn. They learned to write and read in Latin, in Guarani, and in Spanish, as well as technical skills related to teachings introduced by the Missionaries that were not previously known to local residents (carpet making, cloth making, silverware, gunpowder production, etc.). Work, on the other hand, depended on gender - women were involved in weaving, design, sometimes pottery, men were raising animals and work on agriculture, with food production taking place on common fields belonging to the entire community, but each family had its own garden where they could grow vegetables and fruit for themselves as well.

As you can guess, religion played a huge role in the theological utopia. They prayed incessantly, the rhythm of the prayer determined the time of the day, and earlier beliefs and traditions were superseded in favor of the Christian ones, while disobedience was punished with flogging or, in more serious cases, even imprisonment. The religious aspect of the missions was not to the liking of the local shamans, so the first missions were often resisted by the locals, and several Jesuits were killed while trying to convert Guarani.

Development and collapse

At the peak of its development, there were 30 Jesuit missions, and each of them had around 7,000 inhabitants, the smallest of 500 people. All missions were self-sustaining and well communicated, and it was this economic and political success, along with the Jesuits' staunch opposition to slavery, that caught the attention of the rulers of Spain and Portugal, who felt the Jesuits were threatening the Monarchy. Initially, attempts were made to limit the expansion of the Jesuits, as in Brazil, where only a small area was designated for them to build their centers. From 1760, the Jesuit Missions lost all protection from European rulers. Then they became victims of frequent attacks by slave hunters. They had to defend themselves with locally produced weapons. In combat, the Guarani were fairly well trained and coped well with smaller groups of aggressors, but with the organized Spanish-Portuguese forces, which they had to face after a few years, they had no chance to win. Ultimately, in the first half of the nineteenth century, all centers were already destroyed, and the people inhabiting them were enslaved or murdered.

The ruins were not remembered until the interwar period. Much has not survived until then, but a few, including the three mentioned above of which I present photos, are in very good condition. San Ignacio de Mini is the best-preserved Jesuit ruins in Argentina, Jesus de Tavarangue and La Santisima Trinidad de Parana the largest Jesuit ruins in general. All three sites are on the UNESCO World Heritage List and remain open to the public for a small fee. The Jesuit Ruins in Paraguay offer free entrance to the Guarani people.

Buildings and everyday life

The construction of Jesuit missions began with clearing the forest. The space surrounding the buildings was occupied by farmland where grain, cassava, yerba mate, cocoa, tobacco, or cotton were produced. Cities had a very similar form. In the central point, there was a large square where all kinds of ceremonies, both religious and secular, were held. Missionaries rewarded the community for a well-done job by organizing concerts, dances, or playing games (mainly by mapping battles). There was also a magnificent church right next to the main square. It was here that people gathered for prayer several times during the day: with sunrise, the choir sang from the church, calling everyone to the morning mass followed by breakfast, at noon people prayed again before lunch, followed by a siesta, and in the evening, after work, the rosary was celebrated followed by free time and rest.

The churches were very impressive. The one from San Ignacio de Mini was ... 74 meters high. It was built for a quarter of a century, and apart from its beautiful baroque design, it was characterized by another extraordinary solution - space for air was left between the walls and the roof (the roof was set on wooden stilts, a dozen or so centimeters higher), thanks to which the church had a ventilation system and the hottest days prevailed in it lower temperature.

Hospitals were built next to the church, where European and folk medicine was used (missionaries were inspired by the local knowledge of herbal medicine), libraries, schools where writing and reading were taught in three languages ​​- Latin, Spanish, and Guarani. There were also missionaries' residential buildings in the area (two clergymen lived in smaller centers, up to five in larger ones), a service and commercial zone with a market (where, however, nothing was sold for money) and workshops (carpets, metallurgy, wood carving, ceramics, stonework, weaving), a women's house and cemetery, divided into zones for men, women, children, and newborns (people who died during the epidemic and seriously ill were buried outside the city).

Closer to the square, more impressive houses were also erected for selected Guarani who performed important functions, such as accountants. These houses had a sewage system and in Paraguay even hot water.

On the other side of the square, a little farther away from the church, there were residential buildings with covered porches to protect from the sun. The buildings were adjacent to each other, thanks to which it was easier to control the neighbors and report on them in the event of non-compliance with the rules prevailing in the centers. The buildings were also relatively small - thanks to this, the missionaries more easily fought the traditions of the Guarani, who were originally polyamorous and, contrary to the teachings of the Church, formed families of many partners. The roofs of the houses were made of locally produced ceramic tiles.

There were also prisons at a greater distance, and in some towns watchtowers as well.

Work depended on the weather. On rainy days, only activities that did not require leaving the roofed houses were performed, and on sunny days, work was done outside. In addition to producing food and the aforementioned activities, missionaries also introduced technologies that allowed Guarani to produce boats, gunpowder, paintings, and musical instruments.

Interestingly, apart from the aforementioned methods of rewarding the community with dances and concerts, records about ... fireworks for Guarani have survived to this day! Imagine what an amazing experience it must have been to see the fireworks 300 years ago in the middle of the jungle!