Missionary Style and Written Production: The Jesuit Procurators in the Making of Early Global Paraguay

Abstract

The chapter examines the role of Jesuit procurators in shaping the identity and global image of the province of Paraguay between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Through written production, including martyrdom accounts, linguistic tools, devotional texts, and historical chronicles, these figures constructed an idealized, Arcadian image of Paraguay that served both to recruit missionaries from Europe and to discipline the behavior of those already present in the missions.