The Missions of Paraguay: Rise, Expansion and Fall

Abstract

Since the beginning of the seventeenth century, in a large region of southern South America, the Jesuits developed a missionary program under the protection of the Spanish crown which lasted for one hundred fifty years. Successive generations of missionaries of the order from Europe and Latin American created, in collaboration with local indigenous leaders, dozens of mission towns resettling populations of the most remote regions. The missions of the Jesuit province called Paracuaria soon became a refuge for thousands of Indians and eventually acquired a significant degree of economic and political autonomy. Although the aim of the missions, also known as reducciones, was to spread the gospel among the natives, the Jesuits enterprise was not exclusively religious but also political and social. Missionaries thought that from their action would emerge a new society among the Indians of the jungle, who would abandon their old customs and adopt the ideals of Christian civility.