Jesuit Missions

Jesuit Missions and Private Property, Commerce, and Guaran Economic Initiative
Latin American History: Oxford Research

Encyclopedias
Jesuit Missions and Private Property, Commerce, and
Guaran Economic Initiative
Julia Sarreal
Subject: History of Southern Spanish America, Church and Religious History, Indigenous
History, Colonialism and Imperialism
Online Publication Date: Oct 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.313
Summary and Keywords
The mission economy supported tens of thousands of Guaran Indians and made the Jesuit
reducciones (1609 to 1767) the most populous and financially prosperous of all the
missions among native peoples of the Americas. The communal structure of collective
labor, shared ownership, and redistribution of communal property formed the basis of the
mission economy and seemed to leave little room for the possession of private property,
independent trade, and economic initiative on the part of the resident Guaran. Late 18th
century Jesuit authors reinforced such an understanding in an attempt to defend their
order and its actions in Paraguay. They argued that the Guaran were incapable of
managing their own affairs and that Jesuit management of the communally structured
economy was indispensible for the wellbeing of both the missions and the Guaran. Such
accounts overlook evidence to the contrary. Mission Guaran did in fact own private
propertyyerba mate, horses, clothing, and jewelryand Jesuit leaders repeatedly issued
orders for the missionaries to allow the Guaran to independently trade yerba mate.
Furthermore, although Jesuit authors repeatedly denied that they paid mission Guaran
wagesto do so would go against the communal structure that they so vehemently
defendedthe missionaries acknowledged that they paid mission Guaran bonuses as a
reward for their skills or extra labor. These bonuses served as a way to motivate
individual economic initiative or agency within the framework of the missions communal
structure. In sum, the communal structure allowed for more flexibility in the ownership of
private property, independent commerce, and economic initiative by the Guaran than
has been portrayed in both the 18th century writings of Jesuit authors and much of the
current literature.
Keywords: Guaran, Jesuits, missions, Ro de la Plata, Paraguay, ethnohistory, mission economy, yerba mate
Visiting one of the Guaran missions during their peak in the 18th century likely left a
strong impression. Many miles from any city or town, a cathedral-sized church with
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date: 19 July 2016

cupolas and a bell tower suddenly emerged out of nowhere and alerted the visitor that
she was about to arrive at the mission. Soon rows and rows of uniform buildings
appeared. Along the length of these long and narrow buildings, about a half a dozen
doors were equally spaced. Each door represented a single-family housing unit. The
buildings housed 1,000 or more people. They lined both sides of a road leading to the
heart of the mission and encircled a central plaza on three sides. The central plaza was
hugelarge enough for the entire mission population to gather together at one time. On
the other side of the plaza was a large church with an ornately decorated stone faade.
Inside the church, vaulting and columns gave an air of elegance and sophistication, while
numerous paintings and sculptures of saints added color and vitality. Next to the church
were storerooms, workshops, and classrooms used for the missions material and
religious operations. All of these buildings and infrastructure were built by Guaran
Indians, who labored often under coercion in the mission economy.1 This economy was
based on a communal structure of collective labor, shared ownership, and redistribution
of communal property.2 While such a generalization of the mission economy is accurate, it
risks obscuring and overlooking independent economic activity and initiative by the
Guaran.
Much of our knowledge about the mission economy derives from various 18th century
Jesuit accounts written in defense of their orders activities in Paraguay. These writings
were in response to reformers, who condemned Jesuit missionaries for obstructing
private property and commerce in the missions. Jesuit authors did not deny that private
enterprise played a minor role in the missions; rather, they asserted that it could be no
other way. They claimed that their brethren had tried to promote private property and
commerce but were, and would continue to be, unsuccessful because the Indians were
too lazy and incapable to manage their own affairs. As a solution, Jesuit authors insisted
that there was no alternative to the mission economys communal structure; for only
under Jesuit guidance and tutelage could the Guaran prosper. Their reasoning made a
strong case for Jesuit management, but it conveniently ignored evidence of economic
independence on the part of the Guarani. Even though the communal structure underlay
the mission economy, some Guaran traded on their own behalfat least in the early
years of the missionsand a differentiated remuneration structure rewarded mission
inhabitants based on skill and effort. Such evidence complicates our understanding of the
mission economy and yields a more nuanced interpretation of the underlying communal
structure.
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18th-Century Critique of the Guaran Missions

and the Jesuit Response
In the accounts about the state of the Jesuit missions of Paraguay, it is known that
there is no country in the world in which the subjects are treated with a slavery
equal to that which the Indians suffer on the part of the Jesuits, the priests of their
pueblos. [The Indians] constantly work for the benefit of the priests, and only on
Sunday, they are left free to work on their own behalf for themselves and their
women. [The Jesuits] are not more rigorous with the Indians than the most severe
masters are with their slaves. The agricultural and artisan products produced with
the sweat of the Indian are transported to the storehouses that the Jesuits have in
Spanish towns, where they sell [the goods], and in return for those good Indians
receive a small part of the benefit.3
This quote by Pedro Rodrguez de Campomanes, a Spanish statesman and writer, reflects
the criticism of the Guaran missions that intensified during the second half of the 18th
century. Enlightenment thinking and new economic thought lauded private property and
commerce as the means for development and advancement. The missions, with an
economy based primarily on communal structure rather than private enterprise, clearly
conflicted with such thinking. Stories of the Jesuits exploiting the Indians abounded, and
by the time of the Jesuit expulsion in 1767, many believed that the missionaries held their
Guaran charges in conditions equivalent to slavery. Rodrguez Campomanes report
justified the Crowns rational for expelling the Jesuits from all Spanish territory. The
Jesuits did not take such attacks sitting down. Jos Cardiel, Pierre Franois Charlevoix,
Martn Dobrizhoffer, Juan de Escandn, Jaime Oliver, and other Jesuits vociferously
defended their orders activities in the Guaran missions. The rich details in these
accounts, some of the most frequently cited primary sources for describing all aspects of
the Guaran missions, include important information on the mission economy.
One of the main Jesuit responses to the attacks on the mission structure was to
emphasize that the missionaries did not discourage private property and that each family
had its own plot of land to sustain itself. In his history of Paraguay published in 1769,
Jesuit historian Pierre Franois Charlevoix asserted that private property definitely
existed in the missions.
Several persons imagine, that, in this republick, there is no private property; but
that, every week, each family receives the necessary food; and, from time to time,
the other necessary articles for their subsistence. Some such regulation might
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possibly have existed, when those Indians, but newly united, were not in a
capacity to procure themselves, by their labours, a certain and regular supply of
the necessaries of life; nor well established in places of sufficient security. But in
process of time, and especially, since they have been no longer exposed to the
danger of being obliged to remove from place to place, there has been assigned to
every family a piece of land, sufficient, if properly cultivated, to supply it with the
necessaries of life.4
Like Charlevoix, other Jesuit authors stressed that each nuclear family had its own plot of
land for growing food for sustenance.5 While Jesuit authors drew attention to the private
plots of land and the ostensible opportunity for the Guaran to possess private property,
this did not mean that they claimed that private property played a major role in the
mission economy. Rather, all agreed that communal ownership prevailed in the missions.6
In the same document, Charlevoix sought to dispel the idea that private property did not
exist in the missions, and spoke of the existence of communal plots for the public good.7
Furthermore, he later contradicted his earlier assertion about the importance of private
property in the missions writing, mine and yours are unknown words; because, it is, in
fact, to have no exclusive property.8
Jesuit authors overwhelmingly argued that private property played a minor role in the
missions because it was impossible to do otherwise. One of the best examples of such line
of reasoning is the writings of Jos Cardiel, a Jesuit missionary who spent over thirty
years among the Guaran. Cardiel wrote some of the most detailed descriptions of the
Guaran missions. While an undercurrent of defending Jesuit governance runs throughout
his writings, Cardiel was not subtle in his response to attacks on Jesuit restriction of
private property and commerce. He asserted that the missionaries wanted to and tried to
promote such practices, and he wholeheartedly agreed with the ideal that
. . . each Indian should have his milk cows and another team of cattle for food, as
the Spanish in the countryside do; a plot of yerba mate plants; a plot of tobacco
plants; and his own horses and mules [so that he can] produce yerba and tobacco
in abundance and have Spaniards come trade with him, with the priests only
teaching the Christian doctrine.9
Cardiels retort was that while the Jesuits wanted such an outcome, it was not possible.
He continued, what more could we have wanted than to achieve this: to be free from so
much temporal concerns. Many efforts on various occasions were made to realize this,
but nothing could be achieved.10 Cardiel further specified that in thirty-eight years, he
only saw two examples of individual Guaran initiative. The corregidor (head of the
Guaran cabildo) of Candelaria planted yerba mate trees and each year harvested two
bags of yerba mate that he had the priest of his mission send to Buenos Aires in exchange
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for cloth (bayeta or pao), knives, and beads. Similarly, the captain of war of another
mission planted sugar cane, giving seventy-five or a hundred pounds of sugar yearly to
the priest of his mission to trade for goods. Cardiel emphasized that these two individuals
were the exception among thousands of Guaran; he never heard of any other mission
Indian who produced enough to trade goods on his own behalf.11
Jesuits like Cardiel defended the relatively minor role of private property in the missions
by arguing that the Guaran were lazy and incapable. Missionary Jaime Oliver claimed,
[the Guaran] are by nature so lazy that they would be without food because of not
working. It is necessary that the priest see that in the same [fields] they are flogged for
not having planted enough for the year or for not having hoed. And [the priest] must
return again and again until they do it.12 Another missionary, Juan de Escandn, wrote
that the Jesuits took charge of temporal matters because experience taught that the
Indians are incapable without the direction of the priests. Because without a doubt,
generally in none of the missions is there more ability, reason, or discretion than what we
see in a school of children learning to read and write.13
Cardiel was even more specific. The Indians do not have their own cows, nor oxen, nor
horses, nor sheep, nor mules; only chickens, because they are not capable of more.14 He
further explained that it was not for lack of trying by the Jesuits. Cardiel claimed that the
missionaries had tried many times to give the Guaran their own large or small livestock
or some beasts of burden to care for but the Indians could not manage such a task.
According to Cardiel, either the Guaran killed and ate the animal, or it strayed away or
died because they did not give it food or care for it.15 Cardiel also argued that the Guaran
were incapable of storing their own harvest.
They waste it without looking to the future. For this reason, leaving in their house
the necessary quantity for two or three months, [the missionary] requires that
they bring all of the rest of their harvest in bags to the communal granaries, and
there, [the missionary] guards it with the name of each person marked on his
sacks, and when the grains in their houses are ending, [the missionary] gives
them their storage and takes precaution so that they do not sell the sustenance of
their family for four pieces of glass.16
While Cardiel criticized the Indians for trading all of their harvest for worthless trifles,
Escandn complained that without oversight the Guaran ate or wasted all of their
harvest without saving any seeds for planting. Like Cardiel, Escandn emphasized that
the Jesuits had to manage the grains.17
Jesuit authors like Cardiel, Escandn, and Oliver had ulterior motives for describing the
Guaran as lazy and incapable: they wanted their readers to believe that the missions
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could not function without Jesuit management. By emphasizing the inability of the
Guaran to productively use private property and engage in commerce, the missionaries
pointed to the vital importance of the missions communal structure. Since the Jesuits
oversaw the communal structure, the authors were trying to convince their audience that
the Jesuits were necessary for the well being of both the Guaran and the missions.
Instead of straight out refuting accusations that the missionaries prevented individual
Guaran from engaging in economic activity on their own behalf, Jesuit authors took the
approach that such strict oversight was absolutely necessary and a good thing.
The Guaran were not lazy and incapable, but they did not value wealth accumulation like
Europeans did. Prior to European contact, the Guaran culture did not try to accrue goods
as status symbols or as a reserve for later use. Rather than equating status with the
accumulation of material goods, they valued reciprocity and generosity. Furthermore,
just as in nature, they expected that there would be periods of plenty followed by periods
of scarcity.18 While European concepts of wealth accumulation were new to the Guaran,
close readings of Jesuit documents show some examples of mission Guaran engaging in
economic activity on their own behalf.
Libro de Ordenes: Examples of Private Property

and Commerce
Early Jesuit writings allude to the Guaran as having private property and engaging in
commerce. Of particular usefulness is the libro de rdenes (book of directives), which
recorded orders or directives made by the Jesuit hierarchy (generals, provincials, and
superiors) regarding management of the missions and the Province of Paraguay. Each
mission was supposed to have a copy of the libro de rdenes used by the missionaries to
guide all of their management decisions and day-to-day affairs. Because the audience for
this work was the lower levels of the Jesuit hierarchy, the writing was straightforward
about management concerns. Moreover, the writings in this book were not for public
dissemination or for people outside of the Jesuit order, and thus, there was less incentive
to hide or distort information in an effort to portray the Jesuit order and the missions in
the best possible light. As a result, the libro de rdenes has been a good resource for
understanding the Jesuits priorities, concerns, and challenges regarding the missions.
While 18th-century authors like Cardiel claimed that mission Guaran were incapable of
managing private property and conducting trade on their own behalf, the libro de rdenes
was less definitive. Three separate entries in the book ordered missionaries to allow
Guaran returning from the yerba mate harvest to keep their own yerba mate and to trade
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it for other items. As early as 1667, Andrs de Rada, the provincial in charge of the
Province of Paraguay, wrote that the missionaries could not obligate the Guaran to sell
their yerba mate in their mission, or even less to the priests, if it is better for them to sell
it somewhere else where [the person with whom they are trading] will give them more [in
exchange] or an item that they need more.19 Fifteen years later, Thomas de Baeza,
another provincial of Paraguay, ordered that the Indians returning from harvesting yerba
mate not be obligated to register the bags or baskets holding their own yerba mate. Like
de Rada before him, de Baeza also highlighted that they not be obligated to bring the
yerba mate to the priests quarters. Rather, they should voluntarily bring the yerba mate
[for trade] when they want to buy some things that they need.20 Both de Rada and de
Baeza emphasized that the Indians should not forcibly be made to hand over their private
supplies of yerba mate to the priests.21 Both provincials also stressed that the Indians be
allowed keep and manage the yerba mate themselves; furthermore, the Indians should be
allowed to trade the yerba mate freely. Such orders imply not only that the Guaran were
capable of managing private property and conducting trade, but also that they were
doing so from the early years of the missions.
The matter of allowing the Indians to maintain control over the yerba mate that they
brought back from the harvest was not resolved with the orders issued by de Rada and de
Baeza. Some fifty years later, the Provincial of Paraguay Jaime Aguilar again warned the
missionaries that they could not rigorously compel an Indian returning from the harvest
to turn over any more of the yerba mate than that which easily met the Indians tribute
payment.22 Aguilar further specified that the missionaries could not take any yerba mate
from the Indian to cover the cost of oxen, mules, or food for the trip.23 The repetition of
similar orders from three provincials suggests that at least some missionaries had
difficulties relinquishing control of the yerba mate to the Guaran.
Jesuit Interference
Only later do we find evidence of the Jesuits increasingly limiting economic activity. The
Provincial of Paraguay Antonio Machoni issued a directive about the Guaran possessing
their own horses that points to the missionaries purposefully limiting the Indians ability
to possess and independently manage private property. In 1742, Machoni ordered that, if
Indians owned horses that caused harm to a mission, the missionary should force the
Indian to sell his horse by taking away the animal and paying the Indian the just price or
by trading the horse for a donkey or a cart with a team of oxen if his agricultural fields
were distant.24 Machonis directive also complicates Cardiels claim that the Guaran were
unable to care for large livestock. Cardiel asserted that whenever a mission Guaran
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owned a large animal such as a horse, it either died or strayed due to lack of care. In
contrast, Machoni ordered missionaries to confiscate such animals based on their own
judgment: if the missionary deemed that the Indians take advantage of [the horses] to
the detriment of their mission or others nearby.25 Machonis directive acknowledges that
some Guaran owned their own horses. The fact that he mandated confiscation only under
the condition that such ownership was harmful to the missions further implies that at
least some Guaran were able to care for their own property.
The Jesuits knew that, legally, the Guaran had the right to own property and conduct
trade. Various Spanish laws stipulated that the Indians of the Americas could own
property, enter into economic exchanges, and freely trade goods.26 The Jesuits knew that
they had to be careful not to go against such laws. In 1667, Andrs de Radas directive
discussed above explicitly acknowledged that to do otherwise would be in opposition to
what was decreed in the royal cedulas about the liberty of the Indians.27 Tensions arose
between the need to allow the Guaran to own and trade private property and the Jesuits
desire to shape the Guaran into their idea of good Christians. Such conflict can best be
seen regarding items that the Jesuits viewed as luxuries.
The libro de rdenes exposes several instances where Jesuit provincials ordered the
missionaries to restrict Guaran ownership of and trade in certain items. In 1678, the
Provincial of Paraguay Diego Altamirano mandated that the missionaries reform what he
believed to be excesses in the way that some Guaran women dressed: the many
necklaces and bracelets, decorated skirts, and similar finery. While Altamirano did not
explicitly state how the missionaries should prevent the Guaran from wearing such
items, he did give his rational for such reforms: to keep the Indians from falling away
from God.28 Several years later, Provincial of Paraguay Thomas Bonavides ordered the
missionaries to intervene in the way that some Guaran dressed. Bonavides emphasized
that allowing the Guaran to possess such clothing was a challenge to Jesuit authority.
The use of all [of these excessive clothing items] needs to be stopped because if [the
Indians] spend their efforts in such things, the priests will not be able to come to them
nor have them as subjects.29 Enforcing such orders restricted the Indians ability to
possess private property and freely trade for the goods that they desired.
The Missions Communal Structure

While the Jesuits justified their intervention as necessary for the Indians spiritual
welfare, the communal structure of the missions also seemed to undermine private
property and independent trade. The missionaries acknowledged that distributions of
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food and other items were critical for attracting Guaran to the missions. When
describing the founding of Mission Yapey in a Carta Anua (letter to the head of the Jesuit
order in Rome summarizing the pastoral work of the province of Paraguay), Provincial
Diego de Boroa underscored that daily distributions of beef brought many Indians to the
mission. According to de Boroa, the mission was located in an area where Indians sowed
crops in the forests. Some also traded with and learned bad customs from Spaniards who
lived nearby. De Boroa acknowledged that the Jesuits had a hard time convincing Indians
to settle in Yapey, but he claimed that the situation changed when missionary Andrs de
la Rua gathered a small heard of cattle and began distributing beef daily . . . and with
this means, many Indians that lived in a scattered and lazy manner took shelter [in the
mission] . . .30 Throughout the missions lifespan, distributions of beef from communal
supplies continued to be critical. Years later, Cardiel wrote, the good or bad of the
mission in temporal and spiritual [matters] depends on the good state of these [livestock]
ranches, from which the Indians received beef rations.31 The missions communal
supplies not only gave Guaran residents beef, they also regularly provided the Indians
with yerba mate, tobacco, and cotton and wool cloth. Moreover, the Guaran could also
rely on supplemental assistance from communal supplies during times of need. One could
argue that such distributions made the Guaran complacent. While such forces might
have been at work, they did not squash all individual initiative. As the Jesuits regulations
about clothing and attire highlighted, mission Guaran possessed private property. A
missions communal structure did not preclude economic initiative. Rather, incentives
existed within the communal structure to encourage such behavior.
The very strength of the communal structure depended on a number of Guaran taking on
additional responsibilities and/or utilizing special skills. As a reward for such efforts,
these individuals received special incentives and recompense. The libro de rdenes
specified that mission Guaran had to be paid for transporting yerba (1667 and 1735)32
and trade goods (1689),33 and an entry by the Provincial Thomas Donavides, in 1688,
stipulated the amount of cloth that mission weavers were to receive in recognition of the
great service that they gave to their mission.34
While explicitly asserting that mission Indians did not receive wages, the 18th century
Jesuit authors who defended their orders activities in the missions acknowledged that
missionaries gave rewards and bonuses to individual Guaran who exercised special skills
or took on additional responsibilities. They justified these payments to skilled Guaran
artisans and craftsmen because such individuals worked more than the rest of the
mission inhabitants or because their work was more difficult than other tasks. The
Guaran who had special skills (weavers, blacksmiths, and all the other mechanical
trades) did their work without payment, but they did receive additional remuneration
from communal supplies, since they worked more than everyone else.35 Furthermore,
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Jesuits justified the extra cloth given to the weavers because their work is reputed to be
the most difficult.36
Learning a skill or trade was not the only way to exercise individual initiative and receive
extra compensation while residing in the mission. Indians who traveled on behalf of their
missionto harvest yerba mate, hunt livestock, or transport trade goodsalso received
extra compensation. In such cases, the Jesuits again claimed that the recipient was not
receiving a wage but rather a reward, which was justified by the extra work performed by
the recipient. According to Cardiel,
. . . when the work of the traveler is greater [than those who stay in the mission to
repair buildings or cultivate the communal fields], or they exercise their
assignment with more care or utility, upon the return [the missionary] gives them
their reward. The rewards are rosaries, strings of glass beads for themselves or
their women, cloth, knives, spurs, bridles, locks, axes, and wedges.37
The Jesuits did not equate such bonuses with wages, and they explicitly emphasized in
their writings that mission Guaran did not receive wages. Indeed, Cardiel prefaced
almost every mention of extra compensation for labor with the caveat that such a reward
did not constitute a wage. The Jesuits did not want anyone to draw the conclusion that
mission Guaran received wages because salaries directly conflicted with the idea of
equality that constituted the very essence of the communal structure of collective labor,
shared ownership, and redistribution of communal property. Regardless of this conflict,
in practice, the Jesuits needed to motivate mission Guaran, and material rewards were
an effective tool for doing so.
In 1682, the Provincial of Paraguay Thomas de Baeza explicitly described how the
missionaries were to use bonuses and extra distributions from communal supplies to
motivate individual Guaran into taking on extra work that they did not want to do. In this
case, de Baeza gave instructions to the missionaries for dealing with a shortage of wet-
nurses to care for orphaned babies.
And since many orphaned babies who are still of breastfeeding age die (their
mothers dead) because there is nobody to give them milk, you need to take care to
give them to caregivers that will breastfeed them. And to facilitate this, give to the
women who refuse to be caregivers clothing and a ration of meat every day and
have them helped with their agricultural field, and from time to time give them
yerba mate, and give them an orphan that [is the age that needs to be carried],
and to this [baby] also give clothing and a ration every day.38
Essentially, de Baeza ordered the missionaries to bribe reluctant womenwith extra

clothing, meat, yerba mate, and laborinto providing milk and caring for orphans. Few
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Jesuit accounts are as explicit about how the missionaries were to use such rewards.
Instead, most accounts simply describe the rewards as extra compensation for individuals
whose labor exceeded that of everyone else.
Just as the libro de ordnes exposes how the missionaries used extra rewards of material
goods to manipulate the Indians into doing more work and taking on extra
responsibilities, it also exposes the fact that sometimes missionaries practiced favoritism
by giving extra material to certain Indians without sufficient justification. In 1721,
Provincial Jos de Aguirre censured missionaries who extensively distributed without
reservation ribbons (listones) and colored cotton fabric (ruanes) for [the Indians
clothing], or very vain adornments to the Guaran males who worked in the missionaries
quarters and who did little or nothing to serve the community. According to de Aguirre,
such unequal distributions of the missions communal goods resulted in a shortage of
simple cloth (lienzo de la tierra) and wool cloth (bechara) for the clothing of a large part
of the poor male and female Indians who work with more utility for the communal good.
De Aguirre demonstrated that he understood how a missionary could come to show such
favoritism by prefacing his criticism with the following warning: Of this universal love is
also born the paternal love of the Indians that are or were under our care, without letting
it lead us to have more affection for some over others, which usually is the origin of great
turmoil. While de Aguirre understood why a missionary might give special gifts to
favorite Guaran, he clearly did not condone such actions. De Aguirre concluded his
directive with the withering critique that such a missionary not only lacked compassion
and mercy that is so practiced in these blessed missions since their first founding but also
the equality and justice in the sound administration of the properties that are common to
all [of the Guaran].39 Jesuit authors repeatedly acknowledged that sound management of
the missions required that missionaries give extra distributions from communal supplies
to motivate and reward economic initiative that benefited the communal good.
As these examples show, the communal structure of collective labor, shared ownership,
and redistribution of communal property exhibited more flexibility than was previously
thought. While the Indians did not explicitly receive wages for their labor, they did
receive distributions from communal supplies and bonuses based on skill and/or effort.
These bonuses motivated and rewarded individual initiative. Furthermore, despite claims
to the contrary by 18th-century Jesuit authors, evidence shows that individual Guaran
possessed private property and conducted commerce on their own behalf. The Guaran
kept their own yerba mate and traded it themselves; they owned and cared for horses;
and they acquired clothing and jewelry that the Jesuits considered unnecessary luxuries.
As their order and its activities in Paraguay came increasingly under attack in the 18th
century, the Jesuits felt pressure to defend themselves and justify their presence in the
missions. Jesuit authors tried to play down such initiative on the part of the Guaran. By
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portraying the Indians as lazy and incapable, they hoped to show that both the communal
structure and Jesuit oversight were vital to the welfare of the missions and the Guaran.
As a result, a distorted image of the mission economy emerged that emphasized the
communal structure and downplayed Guaran initiative, but evidence shows that, even
under the communal structure, the Guaran received bonuses that rewarded skills and
effort, and they possessed private property and conducted commerce.
Discussion of the Literature

A significant number of works have been written about the Guaran missions. Much of the
literature is in Spanish and, more recently, in Portuguese. A good place to start a study of
the Guaran missions is with the works of Pablo Hernndez, Guillermo Furlong, Magnus
Mrner, Aurelio Porto, and Rafael Carbonell de Masy. Informative and rich with detail,
these studies serve as a jumping off point for further research. While they provide a
foundation for understanding the Guaran missions, these works are generally biased in
favor of the Jesuits and pay limited attention to the Guaran experience.40
In recent years, scholars have become more critical of sources and have shifted their
focus away from the Jesuits and toward the Indians experience and Guaran agency. A
good example is Barbara Gansons work.41 In addition to reading traditional sources
against the grain, much of this scholarship relies on new sources. Guaran letters are
especially rich.42 Other sources such as accounting records and census records are also
being used to draw out the Guaran experience.43
Cultural history is also important in much of the recent scholarship on the Guaran and
their missions. These works primarily explore Guaran identityhow the Guaran view
themselves and the world around them. Anthropologists, starting with Branislava Susnik,
have contributed greatly to our understanding of Guaran culture.44 More recently,
Brazilian anthropologists have made significant contributions to our knowledge of
Guaran culture and practices before the arrival of the Jesuits, and Argentine
anthropologist Guillermo Wilde provides valuable insights about ethnogenesis in and
beyond the missions.45 The music of the Guaran missions is a fruitful line of future
research that is only in its beginning stages, much less advanced than the music of the
Chiquitos missions to the north.46
The economic history of the missions has also received less attention. Arnaldo Bruxel
studied the different forms of property in the missions.47 Writing at the height of the Cold
War, Oreste Popescu applies 20th century economic theory to the Guaran missions and
concludes that the mission economy was an economic theocracy.48 Taking a more
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concrete approach, Theresa Blumers describes Jesuit accounting practices and

reproduces accounting documents, but she does not analyze their content.49 Rafael
Carbonell de Masy incorporates Blumerss work into his own, and he, along with John
Crocitti, provides an overview of the mission economy that uncritically restates Jesuit
sources.50 Although Juan Carlos Garavaglias Marxist interpretation is highly critical of
the missions, his work is the first to provide concrete data and analysis about the
missions regional economic importance.51 Sarreal delves deeper into mission accounting
records to trace Guaran living standards and experiences during the Jesuit and post-
Jesuit periods.52 By exploring Guaran concepts of economics before European contact,
Jos Souza, Bartomeu Meli, and Dominique Temple also shed light on the changes
experienced by the Guaran in the missions, but their work focuses on the transition of
the Indians to the missions.53
Scholars have delved into a variety of other aspects of the missions, including
demography, religion, native leadership, and Guaran militias.54 Of particular use for
undergraduate teaching are the film The Mission, James Schofield Saegers article that
critically analyzes the film, and the English translations of five Guaran letters in the
appendices to The Guaran Under Spanish Rule.55 Much still remains to be studied about
the Guaran missions, and the rich troves of primary source material promise abundant
fruitful research for years to come.
Primary Sources
A large amount of primary source material related to the Guaran missions has been
published, is available electronically, or is accessible at one of various archives around
the world. Scholars have edited and, in some cases translated, the written accounts of
various Jesuit missionaries about their time among the Guaran. These sources are
readily available in print or online in digital form.56 For information about the formation of
the missions and their early years, scholars should consult the cartas anuasyearly
letters from the Jesuit provincial in charge of Paraguay to the general of the Jesuit order
in Romeand the work of Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (an early Jesuit missionary among the
Guaran).57 The writings of both Ruiz de Montoya and Martin Dobrizhoffer (who worked
among the Guaran and the Apibones) are among the few primary source materials that
have been translated into English.58 Most of the published writings by Jesuits date from
the 18th century. Jos Cardiel, a missionary who spent over thirty years among the
Guaran, was perhaps the most prolific of the Jesuit authors, and his works are among the
most frequently cited.59 In the mid-20th century, Guillermo Furlong published numerous
short books about Jesuits who worked among the Guaran, along with some of the priests
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writings.60 The 18th century histories of the Guaran missions by Pierre Francois Xavier
de Charlevoix and Lodovico Antonio Muratoriboth of whom never visited the missions
might also be of interest.61 Hugo Stornis catalogue of the Jesuits who worked in Paraguay
during the colonial period is useful for tracing the lifespans and trajectories of individual
missionaries.62 For the post-Jesuit period, scholars should read the report of Gonzalo de
Doblas, a civilian administrator in charge of several Guaran missions, and the documents
compiled by Francisco Javier Brabo.63 Guillermo Furlong published a compilation of Jesuit
maps of the Ro de la Plata region, many of which include mission territory.64 Art from the
missions can be viewed at various museums in the region, and many of the thirty missions
located in Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil are open to visitors.
Documents pertaining to the Guaran missions can be found in various archives in South
America, Europe, and the United States, only some of which are listed below. In Buenos
Aires, Salas IX, X, and XIII and the collections of Andrs Lamas and the Biblioteca
Nacional in the Archivo General de la Nacin contain a wealth of materials. The archive in
the Museo Mitre, also in Buenos Aires, has material about the Guaran missions. In
Paraguay, the Coleccin Rio Branco, Seccin Civil y Judicial, Seccin Historica, and
Seccin Nueva Encuadernacin at the Archivo Nacional de Asuncin are worth
consulting. Documents from the latter collection can be viewed electronically through the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Family Search website.65 The Coleo de
Angelis in the Biblioteca Nacional de Rio de Janeiro has a wealth of information. Jaime
Corteso published seven volumes of this material, all of which are accessible
electronically.66 In Spain, material about the Guaran is found in various archives,
including the Archivo Histrico Nacional and the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, the
Archivo General de Simancas and the Archivo General de las Indias in Seville. Some
documents from these archives can be found online; others must be consulted in person.67
Pablo Pastell published eight large volumes of documents housed at the Archivo General
de las Indias that are related to the Jesuits in Paraguay. The Benson Latin American
Collection of the University of Texas at Austin has written copies of a number of these
documents.68 The Jesuit archive in Rome (Archivum Romanum Societatus Iesu) also
contains documents about the Guaran missions. In the United States, Saint Louis
University has microfilms of material related to Jesuit missions compiled from various
archives, including the Archivum Romanum Societatus Iesu and Archivo General de las
Indias.69 Among other material, The John Carter Brown Library houses the largest
collection of printed books from the Guaran missions.70
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Further Reading
Blumers, Teresa. La contabilidad en las reducciones Guaranes. Asuncin, Paraguay:
Centro de Estudios Antropolgicos, Universidad Catlica, 1992.
Bruxel, Arnaldo. O Sistema de propiedades das redues guaraniticas. Pesquisas 3

(1959): 29198.
Ganson, Barbara. The Guaran under Spanish Rule in the Ro de la Plata. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2003.
Kern, Arno Alvarez. Misses: Uma utopia poltica. Porto Alegre, Brazil: Mercado Aberto,
1982.
Livi-Bacci, Massimo, and Ernesto J. Maeder. The Missions of Paraguay: The Demography
of an Experiment. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35.2 (Autumn 2004): 185224.
Meli, Bartomeu, and Dominique Temple. El don, la venganza y otras formas de economa
guaran. Asuncin, Paraguay: Centro de Estudios Paraguayos Antonio Guasch, 2004.
Mrner, Magnus. Actividades polticas y econmicas de los Jesuitas en el Ro de la Plata:

La era de los Habsburgos. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paids, 1968.
Neumann, Eduardo. O trabalho guarani missioneiro no Rio da Prata colonial, 1640/1750.

Porto Alegre, Brazil: Martins Livreiro, 1996.
Popescu, Oreste. El sistema econmico en las misiones jesuitas. Barcelona: Ariel, 1967.
Quarleri, La. Rebelin y guerra en las fronteras del Plata: Guaranes, jesuitas e imperios
coloniales. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 2009.
Sarreal, Julia. Revisiting Cultivated Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Daily Life in the
Guaran Missions. Ethnohistory 60.1 (January 2013): 101124.
Sarreal, Julia. The Guarani and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2014.
Souza, Jos Otvio Catafesto de. O sistema econmico nas sociedades indgenas guarani
pr-coloniais. Horizontes Antropolgicos 8.18 (2002): 211253.
Susnik, Branislava. Los aborgenes del Paraguay. Vol. 4, Cultura Material. Asuncin,
Paraguay: Museo Etnogrfico Andrs Barbero, 1982.
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date: 19 July 2016

Wilde, Guillermo. Religin y poder en las misiones de guaranes. Buenos Aires, Argentina:
Editorial Sb, 2009.
Notes:
(1.) Due to length restrictions, I cannot discuss the exploitative labor practices upon
which this labor regime was based. For more information about the daily work schedule
see, Julia Sarreal, The Guaran and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2014), 6672; Julia Sarreal, Revisiting Cultivated
Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Daily Life in the Guaran Missions, Ethnohistory
60.1 (2013): 101124. For more about corporal punishment see, Barbara Ganson, The
Guaran under Spanish Rule in the Ro de la Plata (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2003), 7879.
(2.) Sarreal, The Guaran and Their Missions.
(3.) Pedro Rodrguez de Campomanes, Dictamen fiscal de la expulsin de los jesuitas de

Espaa (17661767), ed. Jorge Cejudo and Tefanes Egido (Madrid: Fundacin
Universitaria Espaola, 1989), 131. Similarly, in describing his reforms to the missions
after the Jesuits were removed, the governor of Buenos Aires Francisco Bucareli wrote
for the most part [the Indians] labors were converted into the benefit of others; even
though the food and clothing was acquired with their own hard work, it was most
meagerly distributed to them such that their nakedness was notorious and scandalous. In
sum, up until this time the Indians were made to suffer effectively in slavery, violating
their natural and divine rights, and almost innumerable royal decrees, licenses, and
laws. Bucareli, Adicin a mi instruccin, Buenos Aires, January 15, 1770, in Coleccin
de documentos relativos a la expulsin de los jesuitas de la Repblica Argentina y del
Paraguay en el reinado de Carlos III, ed. Francisco Javier Brabo (Madrid: Estudio
Tipogrfico Jos Mara Prez, 1872), 303.
(4.) Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, The History of Paraguay, vol. I (London:
Lockyer David, 1769), 267268.
(5.) Jose Cardiel, Breve relacin de las misiones del Paraguay (1771), in Las misiones
del Paraguay, ed. Hctor Sinz Ollero (Madrid: Dastin Historia, 1989), 6970; Juan de
Escandn to Andrs Marcos Burriel, Madrid, June 18, 1760, in Juan de Escandn S.J. y su
carta a Burriel (1760), ed. Guillermo Furlong (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones
Theoria, 1965), 108, 114115.
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(6.) For example, Escandn explains, . . . and with this word (tupamba) they also call
every other thing communally owned by the mission (which is most or almost all) in
distinction to the individual and particular things of each person. Juan de Escandn to
Andrs Marcos Burriel, 92.
(7.) There are some [plots] that belong to the community, and the produce of which is
deposited in the publick magazines. Charlevoix, The History of Paraguay, 268.
(8.) Charlevoix, The History of Paraguay, 272.
(9.) Cardiel, Breve relacin, 95.
(10.) Ibid, Cardiel, Breve relacin, 95.
(11.) Ibid, Cardiel, Breve relacin, 98.
(12.) Jaime Oliver, Breve noticia de la numerosa y florida xptiandad Guaran, Archivum
Romanum Societatus Iesu, Rome, Historia 15301767, Paraq., 21.
(13.) Juan de Escandn S.J. y su carta a Burriel, 106.
(16.) Cardiel, Declaracin de la verdad, 293294.
(18.) Sarreal, The Guaran and Their Missions, 18. Marshall Sahlins argues that primitive
societies generally tried to meet their needs rather than produce a surplus. Marshall
Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972); Arno Alvarez Kern, O
processo histrico platino no seclo XVII: Da aldeia guarani ao povoado missioneiro,
Estudos Ibero-Americanos 15.2 (1985): 2141; Jos Otvio Catafesto de Souza, O sistema
ecnomico nas sociedades indigenas guarani pr-coloniais Horizontes Antropolgicos
8.18 (2002), 242243.
(19.) Padre Andres de Rada, Carta comun de su ra. del padre provincial para todos lo p.p.
de estas reducciones del Paraguay, December 19, 1667, p. 50, Biblioteca Nacional,
Madrid (hereafter BNM), Mss. 6976.
(20.) Carta del Padre Provincial Thomas de Baeza para los padres misioneros de Paran y
Uruguay, April 15, 1682, p. 119, BNM, Mss. 6976.
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(21.) According to de Rada, Carta comun, . . . tampoco se les obligara a que vender en su
pueblo y menos a los curas su yerba . . . According to de Baeza, Carta del Padre
Provincial, . . . ni menos se les obliguese que lo lleven a la casa del Padre . . .
(22.) In the Guaran missions, males between the ages of 18 and 50 had to pay 1 peso of
tribute per year. Caciques, primogenitors of a cacique, the disabled, and a few church
officials were exempted.
(23.) Carta de P. Provincial Jaime Aguilar a los p.p. misionarios, Candelaria, November
23, 1735, Mss. pp. 277278, BNM, Mss. 6976.
(24.) Memorial del Padre Provincial Antonio Machoni para el padre superior, y sus
consultores, que comunicara a los p.p. misioneros de estas doctrinas del Paran y
Uruguay en la segunda visita de March 7, 1742, p. 296, BNM, Mss. 6976.
(25.) Memorial del Padre Provincial Antonio Machoni, p. 296, BNM, Mss. 6976.
(26.) Laws 24 to 29 of Book 6, Title 1 of the Recopilacin de leyes de los reinos de las
Indias, summarize various earlier laws that mandate that Indians be allowed to engage in
trade, Recopilacin de leyes de los reinos de las Indias (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura
Hispnica, 1973), 220221.
(27.) Padre Andres de Rada, Carta comun.
(28.) Diego Altamirano to mission priests, Mission San Ignacio del Paraguay, November
15, 1678, p. 105, BNM, Mss. 6976.
(29.) The excesses described by Bonavides are, capas y calzoncillos o paetes labrados,
cuyas labores se muestran por debajo de los otros calzones, manquillas de Ruan, listones,
botones, y tambin lo de las quedejas; y aun en las Indias, se dice, ayental o tal parte
algn exceso. Carta del Padre Provincial Thomas Bonavidas a los p. padres misioneros
del Paran y Uruguay, December 10, 1685, Mss. 6976, p. 130. Again, in 1724, another
provincial (Luis de la Roca) expressly limited the clothing that the Guaran could possess:
do not allow any male or female Indian use as clothing or on his or her person ruan
(cotton fabric from Rouen, France stamped with colors) or bretaa (fine fabric from
Brittany, France). Ordenes del Padre Provincial Luis de la Roca para las doctrinas del
Paran y Uruguay en la visita de 1724, p. 237, BNM, Mss. 6976.
(30.) Diego de Boroa to the Jesuit General in Rome, Cordoba, July 26, 1635, in Cartas
anuas de la Provincia Jesutica del Paraguay: 1632 a 1634, ed. Ernesto J. A. Maeder
(Buenos Aires, Argentina: Academia Nacional de Historia, 1990), 205.
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date: 19 July 2016

(32.) Padre Andres de Rada, Carta comun; Carta de P. Provincial Jaime Aguilar a los p. p.
misionarios.
(33.) Provincial de esta provincia, Gregorio Horozco, Santiago, February 6, 1689, p. 150,
BNM, Mss. 6976.
(34.) Padre Provincial Thomas Donavidas to mission priests after his visit in 1688,
Santiago, October 26, 1688, p. 140141, BNM, Mss. 6976.
(37.) Jos Cardiel, Costumbres de los Guaranes, in Historia del Paraguay: Desde 1747
hasta 1767, comp. Domingo Muriel, trans. Pablo Hernndez (1779; reprint, Madrid:
Librera General de Victoriano Surez, 1919), 497. Cardiel provides a similar description
in Breve relacin, 94.
(38.) Carta del Padre Provincial Thomas de Baeza.
(39.) Padre Provincial Joseph de Aguirre to missionaries, Itapua, January 18, 1721, p. 225,
BNM, Mss. 6976.
(40.) Hernndez and Furlong were Jesuit priests, and Carbonell de Masy is a Jesuit priest.
These three are the most pro-Jesuit in their writings. Pablo Hernndez, Misiones del
Paraguay: Organizacin social de las doctrinas guaranes de la Compaa de Jess, 2 vols.
(Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1913); Guillermo Furlong, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaranes
(Buenos Aires, Argentina: Imprenta Balmes, 1962); Rafael Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias
de desarrollo rural de los pueblos Guaranes, 16091767 (Barcelona: Instituto de
Cooperacin Iberoamericana, Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, 1992). The Spanish
translation of Mrners work is more comprehensive than the English translation.
Magnus Mrner, Actividades polticas y econmicas de los jesuitas en el Ro de la Plata:
la era de los Habsburgos (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paids, 1968). Porto focuses on the
seven missions in present-day Brazil and relies primarily on information gleaned from the
Coleo de Angelis at the Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro. Aurelio Porto, Histria
das misses orietais do Uruguai, 2 vols., (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1943).
(41.) Barbara Ganson, The Guaran Under Spanish Rule in the Ro de la Plata. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
(42.) Eduardo Neumann, Prcticas letradas guaranes en las reducciones del Paraguay
(siglos XVII y XVIII), (PhD diss., Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2005); Eduardo
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date: 19 July 2016

Neumann, Mientras volaban correos por los pueblos: Autogoverno e prcticas letradas
nas misses Guaran-sculo XVIII, Horizontes Antropolgicos 10.22 (2004): 93119;
Eduardo Neumann, A lana e as cartas: escrita indgena e conflito nas redues do
Paraguai-sculo XVIII, Histria Unisinos 11.2 (2007): 160172; Guillermo Wilde, Religin
y poder en las misiones de Guaranes (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sb, 2009); Ganson, The
Guaran Under Spanish Rule; Sarreal, The Guaran and Their Missions.
(43.) Sarreal, The Guaran and Their Missions; Sarreal, Revisiting Cultivated Agriculture
and Animal Husbandry; Julia Sarreal, Caciques as Placeholders in the Guaran Missions
of Eighteenth Century Paraguay, Colonial Latin American Review 23.2 (2014): 224251.
(44.) Branislava Susnik, El indio colonial, 3 vols. (Asuncin: Museo Etnogrfico Andrs
Barbero, 19651971); Branislava Susnik, El rol de los indgenas en la formacin y en la
vivencia del Paraguay, 2 vols. (Asuncin: Museo Etnogrfico Andrs Barbero, 1982
1983); Branislava Susnik, Los Aborgenes del Paraguay, 7 vols. (Asuncin: Museo
Etnogrfico Andrs Barbero, 19781987).
(45.) Artur H. F. Barcelos, Espao & arqueologia nas misses Jesuticas: o caso de Soo
Joo Batista (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2000); Andr Luis R. Soares, Guarani organizao
social e arqueologia (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1997); Souza, O sistema econmico nas
sociedades indgenas Guarani pr-coloniais; Solange Nunes de Oliveira Schiavetto, A
arqueologia guarani: construo e desconstruo da identidade indgena (So Paulo:
FAPESP, 2003); Wilde, Religin y poder.
(46.) Guillermo Wilde, El enigma sonoro de Trinidad: Ensayo de etnomusicologa

histrica Resonancias 23 (2008): 4167; Guillermo Wilde, Toward a Political
Anthropology of Mission Sound: Paraguay in the 17th and 18th Centuries, trans. Eric
Ederer, Music and Politics 1.2 (2007); Piotr Nawroot, Indgenas y cultura musical de las
reducciones jesuticas. Guaranes, Chiquitos, Moxos (Bolivia: Editorial Verbo Divino,
2000); Piotr Nawrot, Teaching of Music and the Celebration of Liturgical Events in the
Jesuit Reductions, Anthropos 99.1 (2004): 7384.
(47.) Arnaldo Bruxel, O Sistema de propiedades das redues guaraniticas, Pesquisas 3

(1959): 29198.
(48.) Oreste Popescu, El sistema econmico en las misiones jesuitas (Barcelona: Ariel,
1967).
(49.) Theresa Blumers, La contabilidad en las reducciones guaranes (Asuncin: Centro de

Estudios Antropolgicos, Universidad Catlica, 1992).
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(50.) Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo. John J. Crocitti, The Internal

Economic Organization of the Jesuit Missions among the Guaran, International Social
Science Review 77.12 (2002): 313.
(51.) Juan Carlos Garavaglia, Economa sociedad y regiones (Buenos Aires, 1987), 119
192.
(52.) Sarreal, The Guaran and Their Missions; Sarreal, Revisiting Cultivated
Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Daily Life in the Guarani Missions.
(53.) Souza, O sistema econmico; Bartomeu Meli and Dominique Temple, El don, la
venganza y otras formas de economa guaran (Asuncin, Paraguay: Centro de Estudios
Paraguayos Antonio Guasch, 2004).
(54.) For demography, see Massimo Livi-Bacci and Ernesto J. Maeder, The Missions of
Paraguay: The Demography of an Experiment, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35.2
(2004): 185224; Ernesto J. A. Maeder, La poblacin de las misiones de guaranes (1641
1682): Reubicacin de los pueblos y consecuencias demogrficas, Estudos Ibero-
Americanos 15.1 (1989): 4980; Ernesto J. A. Maeder and Alfredo S. C. Bolsi, La
poblacin guaran de las misiones jesuticas: Evolucin y caractersticas (16711767),
Cuadernos de Geohistoria Regional 4 (1980): 145; Ernesto J. A. Maeder and Alfredo S. C.
Bolsi, La poblacin guaran de la provincia de Misiones en la poca post jesutica (1768
1809), Folia Histrica del Nordeste 54 (1982): 61106; Robert H. Jackson, Demographic
Patterns in the Jesuit Missions of the Ro de la Plata Region: The Case of Corpus Christi
Mission, 16221802, Colonial Latin American Historical Review 13.4 (2004): 337366;
Robert H. Jackson, The Population and Vital Rates of the Jesuit Missions of Paraguay,
17001767, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 38.3 (2008): 401431. For religion, see
Graciela Chamorro, Teologa guaran (Quito, Ecuador: Abya-Yala, 2004); Hlne Clastres,
The Land-Without-Evil: Tup-Guaran Prophetism, trans. Jacqueline Grenez Brovender
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995); Judith Shapiro, From Tup to the Land
Without Evil: The Christianization of Tup-Guaran Cosmology, American Ethnologist
14.1 (1987); Dot Tuer, Old Bones and Beautiful Words: The Spiritual Contestation
between Shaman and Jesuit in the Guaran Missions, in Colonial Saints: Discovering the
Holy in the Americas, 15001800, eds. Allan Greer and Jodi Blinkoff, 7798 (New York:
Routledge, 2003). For native leadership, see Wilde, Religin y poder; Guillermo Wilde,
Prestigio indgena y nobleza peninsular: La invencin de linajes guaranties en las
misiones del Paraguay, Jahrbuch fr Geschichte Lateinamerikas, 43 (2006): 119145;
Sarreal, The Guaran and Their Missions; Sarreal, Caciques as Placeholders; Kazuhisa
Takeda, Cambio y continuidad del liderazgo indgena en el cacicazgo y en la milicia de
Page 21 of 24

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las misiones jesuticas: Anlisis cualitativo de las listas de indios guaranes, Revista
Tellus 12.23 (2013): 5979. For Guaran militias, see La Quarleri, Rebelin y guerra en
las fronteras del Plata: Guaranes, jesuitas e imperios coloniales (Buenos Aires: Fondo de
Cultura Econmica, 2009); La Quarleri, Gobierno y liderazgo jesutico-guaran en
tiempos de guerra (17521756), Revista de Indias 68.243 (2008): 89114; Mercedes
Avellaneda and La Quarleri, Las milicias guaranes en el Paraguay y Ro dela Plata:
alcances y limitaciones, 16491756, Estudos Ibero-Americanos 33.1 (2007): 109132;
Takeda, Cambio y continuidad del liderazgo indgena.
(55.) The Mission, written by Robert Bolt and directed by Roland Joff (1986; Burbank,
CA: Warner); James Schofield Saeger, The Mission and Historical Missions: Film and the
Writing of History, The Americas 51.3 (1995): 393415; Ganson, The Guaran Under
Spanish Rule.
(56.) An excellent online source for many of these documents is the Internet Archive and
Open Library.
(57.) Cartas anuas de la Provincia del Paraguay, Chile y Tucumn, de la Compaa de

Jess (16091614), in Documentos para la historia Argentina, vol. 19 (Buenos Aires,
Argentina: Talleres S. A. Casa Jacobo Peuser, 1927); Cartas anuas de la Provincia del
Paraguay, Chile y Tucumn, de la Compaa de Jess (16151637), in Documentos para
la historia Argentina, vol. 20 (Buenos Aires: Talleres S. A. Casa Jacobo Peuser, 1929);
Ernesto J. Maeder, ed., Cartas anuas de la Provincia Jesutica del Paraguay: 1632 a 1634
(Buenos Aires: Academia Nacional de Historia, 1990); Ernesto J. A. Maeder, ed., Cartas
anuas de la Provincia Jesutica del Paraguay: 16371639 (Buenos Aires: FECIC, 1984);
Ernesto Maeder, ed., Cartas anuas de la Provincia del Paraguay, 1641 a 1643, in
Documentos de Geohistoria Regional, no. 11 (Resistencia: Instituto de investigaciones
Neo-histricas, 1996); Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, The Spiritual Conquest Accomplished by
the Religious of the Society of Jesus in the Provinces of Paraguay, Paran, Uruguay, and
Tape (1639), trans. C. J. McNaspy (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1993).
The Spanish version is available electronically: Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, (Bilbao, Spain:
Imprenta del Corazon de Jesus, 1892).
(58.) Ruiz de Montoya, The Spiritual Conquest; Martin Dobrizhoffer, An Account of the
Apbipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, trans. Sara Henry Coleridge, 3 vols.
(London: John Murray, 1822). Various copies of the three volumes are available
electronically.
(59.) The first two are available electronically: Jos Cardiel, , ed. Pablo Hernndez
(Buenos Aires, Argentina: Juan A. Alsina, 1900). Cardiel, Costumbres de los Guaranes
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is reproduced in a section of Domingo Muriel, , comp. Domingo Muriel, trans. Pablo

Hernndez, 463544 (1779; repr., Madrid: Librera General de Victoriano Surez, 1919).
Cardiel, Breve relacin de las misiones del Paraguay.
(60.) These include but are not limited to, Furlong, ed., Juan Escandn y su carta a
Burriel (1760); Guillermo Furlong, ed., Antonio Sepp, S.J. y su gobierno temporal (1732)
(Buenos Aires: Theoria, 1962); Guillermo Furlong, ed., Manuel Querini S. J. y sus
Informes al Rey 17471750 (Buenos Aires: Theoria, 1967); Guillermo Furlong, ed.,
Bernardo de Nusdorffer y su Novena Parte (1760) (Buenos Aires: Theoria, 1971).
(61.) These works can be found online: Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, , 2 vols.
(London: Lockyer David, 1769); Lodovico Antonio Muratori, , trans. unknown (London: J.
Marmaduke, 1759).
(62.) Hugo Storni, Catlogo de los jesuitas de la provincia del Paraguay (Cuenca del
Plata), 15851768 (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.I., 1980).
(63.) Gonzalo de Doblas, Los escritos de D. Gonzalo de Doblas relativos a la provincia de

Misiones, 1785 & 1805, ed. Walter Rela (Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones de la Plaza,
1988). Francisco Javier Brabo, ed., Coleccin de documentos relativos a la expulsin de
los Jesuitas de la repblica Argentina y del Paraguay (Madrid: J.M. Prez, 1872).
(64.) Guillermo Furlong, Cartografa Jesutica del Ro de la Plata (Buenos Aires,

Argentina: Tallares S. A. Casa Jacobo Peuser, 1936).
(65.) See Paraguay, Miscellaneous Records, 15091977, on the Family Search site,
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
(66.) Jaime Corteso, ed., , 7 vols. (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca Nacional, Diviso de Obras
Raras e Publicaes, 19511969). The volumes are also available electronically through
Biblioteca Nacional Digital Brasil.
(67.) A copy of the libro de ordenes that missionaries were to use to guide their
management decisions and day-to-day affairs (Mss. 6976) can be accessed electronically
by searching cartas de los PP. Generales on the Biblioteca Digital Hispnica website.
PARES (Portal de Archivos Espaoles) is the search engine for Spanish national archives,
and some documents can be viewed electronically.
(68.) Pablo Pastells, ed., Historia de la Compaa de Jess en la provincial del Paraguay
segn los documentos originales del Archivo de las Indias, extractados y anotados, 8 vols.
(Madrid: Librera General de Victoriano Surez, 19121949).
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(69.) For more information, see The Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library collection
on the St. Louis University (St. Louis, MO) Library webpage.
(70.) One of the six books can be viewed electronically in the John Carter Brown Paraguay
Collection of Archive.org.
Julia Sarreal
New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University
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date: 19 July 2016

Jesuit Missions

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Jesuit Missions and Private Property, Commerce, and Guaran Economic Initiative

Latin American History: Oxford Research

Summary and Keywords

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date: 19 July 2016

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date: 19 July 2016

18th-Century Critique of the Guaran Missions

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date: 19 July 2016

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Libro de Ordenes: Examples of Private Property

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The Missions Communal Structure

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Essentially, de Baeza ordered the missionaries to bribe reluctant womenwith extra

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date: 19 July 2016

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Discussion of the Literature

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concrete approach, Theresa Blumers describes Jesuit accounting practices and

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Bruxel, Arnaldo. O Sistema de propiedades das redues guaraniticas. Pesquisas 3

Mrner, Magnus. Actividades polticas y econmicas de los Jesuitas en el Ro de la Plata:

Neumann, Eduardo. O trabalho guarani missioneiro no Rio da Prata colonial, 1640/1750.

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(2.) Sarreal, The Guaran and Their Missions.

(3.) Pedro Rodrguez de Campomanes, Dictamen fiscal de la expulsin de los jesuitas de

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(8.) Charlevoix, The History of Paraguay, 272.

(9.) Cardiel, Breve relacin, 95.

(10.) Ibid, Cardiel, Breve relacin, 95.

(11.) Ibid, Cardiel, Breve relacin, 98.

(13.) Juan de Escandn S.J. y su carta a Burriel, 106.

(14.) Cardiel, Breve relacin, 75.

(15.) Cardiel, Breve relacin, 75.

(16.) Cardiel, Declaracin de la verdad, 293294.

(17.) Juan de Escandn S.J. y su carta a Burriel, 115.

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(27.) Padre Andres de Rada, Carta comun.

(31.) Cardiel, Breve relacin, 79.

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(35.) Cardiel, Breve relacin, 72.

(36.) Juan de Escandn S.J. y su carta a Burriel, 109.

(38.) Carta del Padre Provincial Thomas de Baeza.