Jesuits and Natives

"The Lost Paradise" by Philip Caraman is a book about the Jesuit "state" or "republic" in Paraguay, which existed for several centuries from the late 16th century to the 1760's. The book is very uneven. Some chapters are downright confusing, while others are more clearly written. The most interesting parts of Caraman's book deal with the organization and daily life of the Jesuit towns in colonial Paraguay.

The Society of Jesus established self-governing towns known as reductions in various parts of South America as part of their missionary strategy. The Jesuits fraternized with the Indians, attempting to "civilize" and modernize them by establishing an urban culture based on trade, handicrafts and agriculture. In the process, the Catholic order hoped to convert the indigenous population to Christianity. The Jesuits opposed enslavement of the Indians and other forms of exploitation, making the reductions unpopular among Spanish settlers and Portuguese slave-raiders. They were also extremely annoying to the Jesuits' Franciscan competitors, and eventually to various royal governments in Europe. The Jesuits were a semi-independent international organization, and part of their finances came from the reductions in South America. Small wonder the "Black Capes" were controversial!

The reductions in Paraguay and adjacent regions of Brazil and Argentina were the most successful - or at least the most notorious. They have been turned into legend by both contemporary and modern writers, sometimes depicted as a Utopia in the best traditions of Plato and Thomas More, sometimes seen as an authoritarian, paternalistic nightmare. The truth seems to lay somewhere in between. Since the usual alternative to living in a Jesuit reduction was enslavement or enserfment at the hands of European settlers, it's not particularly surprising that many Indians more or less voluntarily choose the protection of the Society of Jesus. In this sense, the Jesuit "republic" in Paraguay really was a positive development.

Judging by "The Lost Paradise", the area controlled by the Jesuits wasn't really a "state" in the strict sense of the term, but rather a network of autonomous towns. Nor was it an independent kingdom or republic. Together, the Jesuit reductions comprised an administrative unit within the Spanish Empire, and the inhabitants were therefore subjects of the Spanish crown. The reductions regularly paid taxes to the rulers of Spain! However, the Jesuits *did* have their own agendas, different from those of the local Spanish settlers. For instance, they opposed the virtual enslavement of the Natives through the encomienda system. Apart from the Jesuits themselves, Spanish settlers were usually not allowed to visit the reductions. More generally, the Jesuit padres were part of an international Catholic order subject to the Pope, rather than to the kings of Spain. This raises the question why the Spanish crown permitted a quasi-autonomous unit of this kind?

I don't think Caraman analyzes this question in sufficient depth, but he does point to some factors favouring Jesuit crypto-independence in Paraguay. The reductions guarded the border between the Spanish colonial possessions and those of Portugal. Sao Paolo in Brazil was in the hands of slave-raiders known as Mamelucos who regularly attacked Native settlements, including some of the original Jesuit reductions. Since the Mamelucos were Portuguese subjects, it was in the best interest of the Spanish crown to permit the Jesuits to arm the local Indians against them, thereby stopping the Portuguese empire from expanding into Paraguay and Argentina. Another factor favouring the Jesuits was the sparseness of Spanish settlements in the region. Even Buenos Aires (later the burgeoning capital of Argentina) was dependent on Jesuit-led Native troops for protection against the Portuguese. I also suspect that the Spanish authorities might have liked the Jesuit Order's pacification of the indigenous tribes. The colonial settlers resented or feared the activities of the local Indians: large-scale theft of cattle, attacks on outlying settlements and cannibalism. The Society of Jesus attempted to convert even the most "wild" and "primitive" (read war-prone) Natives to Christianity.

How did life in a reduction look like? While it must have felt regimented for former hunters and gatherers, Caraman's book doesn't suggest an autocratic nightmare. Nor does it suggest complete communism. The reductions did have vast tracts of land held in common, but the author believes that the Indians were used to communal ownership due to their recent "primitive communism" living nomadically in the jungles. The Indians also had private plots. They couldn't be bought or sold, but this was no real problem either, since land was so abundant that everyone who wanted additional plots were simply given what he wanted. Horses and cattle seem to have been semi-feral all over Paraguay, and also existed in such abundance that most Natives actually consumed beef as a staple! Caraman is also impressed by the houses for orphans and widows, and the fact that there were no beggars in the reductions. People who couldn't work were given hand-outs from the common storehouses. The author describes the Jesuit system as a "welfare state".

Military drills, religious processions and celebrations, and (for some) handicraft production were common activities in the reductions, apart from the daily drudgery of agricultural labour. Occasionally, the Jesuits sent missionaries backed up by Christian Indians to the pagan tribes, winning them over by a combination of force and cajoling. While life in the reductions was better than being worked to death by Spanish encomenderos, it was not a tranquil Utopia either. Smallpox epidemics and other diseases took a grisly toll. Bad eating habits led many inhabitants to become chronically ill from worm-infestation, addiction to intoxicants was relatively common, and periodically there were battles with Mamelucos or pagan Indians. But then, war and disease were not unknown in Europe either. More originally Paraguayan were the constant attacks by jaguars. Here, "The Lost Paradise" contains some anecdotes that are frankly unbelievable. One Indian settlement was supposedly besieged for nine days by a huge flock of *very* hungry and very angry jaguars. According to Wikipedia, the jaguar is a solitary animal, except for mother-cub groups. How many cubs did this particular mother have, I wonder? The Jesuits also reported that the jaguars often sneaked into their towns, ambushing and killing people.

An ironic fact about the Jesuit reductions is that their main export product was yerba (a.k.a. yerba mate or mate), a drink the Jesuit fathers considered to be an intoxicant. However, they were forced for pragmatic reasons to let the Indians drink it, and for economic reasons to export it. Indeed, yerba from the reductions soon got the reputation for being the best in the market! Another "irony" (if that's the word for it) is that the reductions had Black slaves - a fact only mentioned once by Caraman. He doesn't mention their number, but the inconsistency between protecting Indians from enslavement, while buying Black slaves, is glaring...

Despite their sympathies for the Natives, the Jesuits *did* have a paternalistic, crypto-racist attitude towards their wards. The author accepts their complaints at face value, suggesting that he, too, is something of a racist. This leads to constant contradictions in his narrative. Apparently, the Guarani (the main Indian people in the region) were "indolent" and therefore had to be constantly supervised when working or drilling. The medical assistants were particularly stupid. However, the author also claims that there were usually only two (!) Jesuits present in each reduction, making the reader wonder who really supervised the indolent Guarani? At one point, Caraman seems to suggest that the day-to-day running of the settlements were in the hands of traditional Indian leaders (caciques). Since the reductions were making modest profits, clearly somebody *wasn't* being indolent...

The Jesuits, once again parroted by Caraman, also accused the Guarani of low intellectual abilities. Apparently, they were completely unable to come up with new inventions of any kind. Strangely, however, they were masters at imitation. One Jesuit writes that the Guarani built him an organ, being an exact replica of an organ he had brought with him from Europe. It's unclear why this isn't seen as an example of intelligence? Some of the other complaints are simply silly. The Guarani were so low-brow that one couldn't "reason from created objects to the existence of a creator", and apparently they were no good at mathematics, either. Somehow, I feel the Natives in 17th century Paraguay might have had other things on their minds than learning multiplication...

Eventually, the Jesuits themselves got other things to worry about. In 1750, a treaty between the erstwhile arch-enemies Spain and Portugal ordered the Jesuits (and the Indians) to leave seven of the reductions. The Jesuits complied, but the Guarani decided to resist only to be defeated in battle by a combined Spanish-Portuguese force. Despite Jesuit compliance with the expulsion order, their enemies spread out the rumour that the order was disloyal to the Spanish crown. In 1767 the Jesuits were expelled from all of South America by orders of king Charles III. The Society of Jesus was seen by its opponents in both Spain, Portugal and France as a "state within the state", and as the political arm of the papacy. In 1773, the Catholic Church was forced to officially dissolve the Jesuit Order en toto. Meanwhile in Paraguay, the new colonial administration had realized that the reductions were necessary to keep stability in the region, and therefore ordered the Franciscans to continue where the Jesuits had left off. However, the harm could not be repaired and the old Jesuit towns soon went into decline and were eventually abandoned. Today, only ruins are left.

Although "The Lost Paradise" by Philip Caraman might not be the most graceful book around, it does give an interesting look at the Jesuit "republic", and paints it as less controversial than many popular sources. For that reason, it can be worth reading.