Jesuit and Indigenous Subjects in the Global Culture of Letters: Production, Circulation, and Adaptation of Missionary Texts in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract

Studies on the role of the Society of Jesus in the expansion of the Iberian empires and in the worldwide dissemination of the arts and sciences acquired particular relevance, as did ethno-histories concerned with the interactions between priests and indigenous peoples in local missionary contexts. These two levels of analysis of missionary activity, however, have not been sufficiently placed in dialogue until now. This chapter proposes their simultaneous consideration based on an analysis of one aspect of missionary culture: textual production. Since the founding of the order, the Ignatians placed great importance on the circulation of reports about their overseas missions, which they recorded through diverse types of texts, manuscripts, and printed works. These texts were supported by a centralized and hierarchical system of data collection that the order promoted from Rome and the principal European metropolises, to which letters flowed from geographically isolated regions. Within the large repertoire of circulating texts it is possible to identify, on the one hand, those oriented toward the description and establishment of typologies and classifications of the indigenous groups targeted for conversion, and, on the other hand, practical texts directly concerned with pastoral work and answering the daily demands of the missions. I am interested in analyzing both levels of textual production as part of a single process in which knowledge was generated and then constantly updated during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.