REDUCTIONS
699
REDUCTIONS
to the wishes of the king, issued a strict command to
the members of the order to yield to the inevitable
and to prevail upon the exiled Indians to submit, a
task which they performed, at first indeed without
success. In begging earnestly for a respite and in
making every effort to have the cruel measure revoked
they merely performed their duty; to present their
conduct as insubordination, as has been done, is
unjust. Their position was infinitely aggravated by
the imprudent and domineering behaviour of the
Spanish and Portuguese plenipotentiaries, and espe-
cially by the impassioned attitude of the commissary
of the order, P. Luis Altamirano, S.J., who was ap-
pointed by the general and the king, and who treated
as rebels his own brethren, who advised him to pro-
ceed with care and moderation. In spite of all the
appeals of the Fathers, the Indians, goaded beyond
bearing, rose in arms, but having no leader and lacking
unity, were defeated in battle in Feb., 1756. Those
who did not submit fled into the forests, where some
of them carried on an unsuccessful guerilla warfare.
The greater part of the Indians, following the advice
of the Fathers, emigrated and settled in the Reduc-
tions on the Rivers Parand and Uruguay (right bank).
In 1762 there were still 2497 families, numbering
11,084 souls, scattered there in 17 Reductions; 3052
families, numbering 14,018 souls, had returned to their
old home in 1761. For in that year Spain had can-
celled the unfortunate treaty of 1750, acknowledging
thereby the mistake that had been made. This War
of the Seven Reductions was made to serve as one of
the principal points of accusation advanced by the
enemies of the Jesuits. A flood of defamatory
pamphlets, falsified documents, and ridiculous fables.
as, for instance, the tale of a king, Nicholas I of
Paraguay, went out from an unscrupulous press which
Pombal controlled, and was spread broadcast over
Europe by the anti-Jesuit faction. Although their
absolutely unhistoric character has long been clearly
proven, these publications continue even now to
vitiate the historical presentation of this period.
The rest is known. On 2 April, 1767, Charles III of Spain, weak and duped, signed the edict which decreed the exile of the Jesuits from the Spanish possessions in America (cf. P. Hernandez, "El extranamiento de los Jesuites del Rio de La Plata y de les Mis. del Parag.", Madrid, 1908; J. Nonell, "El V. P. Jos6 PignatelU y la Comp. de Jesus en su extincion y restabl.", 3 vols., Manresa, 1893-94; Carayon, "Docum. inedite Charles III et les Jesuites de ces etats d'Amcrique en 1767", doc. P, Paris, 1867-68). It was the death-warrant of the Reduc- tions of Paraguay. The expulsion was carried out by force by the Governor of La Plata, Marquess of Bucareli, in the most brutal manner ("Die Tage- buchblatter des P. Jos. Peramas" in "Kathol. Missionen", 1899-1900, 8 sq.). "The Jesuits in Paraguay, at least, by their conduct in their last public act, most amply vindicated their loyalty to the Spanish crown. . . . Nothing would have been easier, depleted as the viceroyalty was at the time of troops, than to have defied the forces which Bucareli had at his disposal and to have set up a Jesuit State, which would have taxed the utmost resources of the Spani-sh crown to overcome " . . . [but] "they made no fight, nor offered any resistance, allowing them- selves to be taken as the sheep is seized by the butcher" (Cunninghame Graham, loc. cit., 267). The Jesuit Province of Paragu.ay numbered at that time 564 members, 12 colleges, 1 university, 1 novitiate, 3 houses for C(jnducting retreats, 2 residences, 57 Re- ductions, and 113,716 Christian Indians. The leave- taking from the Indians was heart-rending. In vain they pleaded in the most fervent manner to be allowed to keep their Fathers or to be assured that they would return (Hernandez, loc. cit., 364 sq.). They never returned.
V. The Reductions after the Expulsion of
THE Jesuits. — The first fruits of the expulsion was
the keenest disappointment. Except the splendid
decorations of the churches, of which entire wagon-
loads were tarried away, none of the hoped-for
treasures were found. The spiritual administration
of the Reductions was transferred to the Franciscans
and others, the public administration to Spanish
civil officials. Attempts were made to retain most
of the institutions introduced by the Jesuits, which
had pre\dously been so severely censured — a fact
which sheds a characteristic light upon them — but
the rapid decUne of the Reductions (in 1772 the Guar-
anl Reduction numbered 80,881 souls; in 1796 only
45,000; soon after there were only a few remnants
left) showed that their vitality had been destroyed
(see testimony of the Franciscan Provincial Fray
Jose Bias de Aguirra, of the Governor D. Lazaro de
Ribera and others, in Monner-Sans, loc. cit., 192 sq.).
The beautiful churches fell to pieces; the magnificent
economic institutions stood forsaken. Terrific up-
risings, the revolution, and its accompanying battles,
and finally the despotic rule of the first republican
presidents, Francia and Lopez, destroyed in less than
fifty years what the spirit of Christian sacrifice had
laboriously built up during a period of one hundred
and fifty years. To-day only beautiful ruins mark
the place where once this great Christian common-
wealth stood. But "the memory of the missionaries
still continues to live in blessing among the Indians,
who talk of the rule of the Padres as of their Golden
Age" (Stein-Wappteus, loc. cit., 1013; Cunninghame
Graham, loc. cit., 211). "The fact is", says the
famous German traveller and ethnographer. Dr.
Karl von der Steinen, "that the expulsion of the
Jesuits was a severe blow for the native inhabitants
of La Plata and the Amazon territories, from which
it has never recovered" ("Halbmonatsch. der
deutschen Rundschau", no. 1, 1892, 45).
In addition to the literature quoted, see also: — Older Works: LoZANO, Descripcion corogrdjicn del Gran Chaco (Corddba, 1793); Idem, Hist, de la Comp, de J. en la Ptov. del Parag. (2 vols., Madrid. 1754); Muriel, Hist. Paraguajensis Petri Fr. Xav. de Charlevoix, ex GaUico Latina cum Animadversionibus et Sup- plemeiito (Venice, 1779); Muratori, II Cristianesimo Felice nelle missioni de' Padri delta C. de G. nel Paraguay (Venice, 1743), tr. into various languages; del Techo, Hist, Prov. Paraquarim (Li^ge, 1673), the Spanish tr. (Madrid, 1897), is full of arbitrary alterations and misrepresentations; see Cardiel, loc. cit., introd., 1 sq.; ScHlRMBECK, Me^sis Paraguariensis (Munich, 1649); Paraguaria ad ecclesiam traducta (Wiirzburg, 1653); Sepp, Reissbeschreibung . . . in Paraguariam (Nuremberg, 1697); Idem, Continuation oder Beschreibung der denkw. Sachen (Ingold- stadt, 1710); Idem, Continuatio laborum apost. . . . ab anno less ad 1700 (Ingoldstadt, 1709); Continuatio laborum . . . ab anno 1701 (Ingoldstadt. 1710-11); Neue Nachrichten von d. Miss, d. Jesuiten in Parag. (Hamburg, 1768); Nachricht eines Eng- Idnders von Paraguay und den Jesuiten- Missionen (s. 1. d.); Beytrag zur Gesch. v. Parag. . . . Sendschreiben des P. Bernh. Nusdorfers (Frankfort and Leipzig, 1768); Efemerides de la Guerra de los Guaranis . . . Diario escrito por el P. Tadeo Hennis (Madrid, 1770), ed. Ib.^nez, and mutilated in an arbitrary man- ner; see also Biblioth. de la C. de J., ed. Blurd, pt. I. vol. X (new ed., Paris. 1910), col. 979; 1570 sq., 1740 sq., antagonistic to the Jesuits; Ibanez de Echavarri, El Reyno Jesuitico del Paraguay (Madrid, 1770), Ger. tr. in Le Bret, Magazin zum Gebrauch der Staateti und Kircheng. (Frankfort and Leipzig. 1772), and separately, Jesuitisches Reich in P. (Cologne, 1774).
Ibanez is untrustworthy, having been dismissed twice from the Society of Jesus. "It is neither more nor less than a crude and criminal elaboration of what had been asserted by the anony- mously twenty-eight years before" (Monner-Sans, loc cit., 78). The documents which Ibaiiez cites, and which are taken from the archives of the secularized Jesuit houses, would be valuable if they had not lost their historical value through arbitrary falsifica- tions and omissions. Rela^&o abbreviada de la Republica que oa Religiosos Jesuitas das Provinc. de Portugal e Hespanha estable- ceram nos dominios ultramar. das duos Monarchias (Lisbon, 1760), a Ij-ing pamphlet of the tj-pe spread by Pombal. tr. into various languages and repeatedly re-edited, even as late as 1892 at Wiener-Neustadt; refuted in a brilliant manner by Cardiel. Declaracion de le Verdad (Buenos Aires. 1900); Diario da ex- pediqao de Gomes Freire de Andrade as Missaoes do Uruguay in Rev. Trimensal do Inst. Hist. Ceogr. e Ethnogr. do Brasil, XVI (1871), 137-321; Sammlung der neuesten Schriften, welche die Jesuiten in Portugal betreffen (4 vols., Frankfort and Leipzig), 1760 sq., refuted in Osservazioni Interessanti e Relative agli Affari de' Gesuiti (1760); German in Betrachtungen. iiber die Handel dtr Jesuiten (Oberammergau, 1761, etc.).
