Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/770

 REDUCTIONS

690

REDUCTIONS

One by one the Reductions fell into the hands of the marauders. In 1630 alone no less than 30,000 Indians are said to have been murdered in Guayra or carried off from there by force as slaves. In vain the mission- aries had appealed to the Spanish and Portuguese authorities for protection. They could not or would not help (Handelmann, loc. cit., 516 sq.). As a last resort it was decided to take the remaining Christians and those still coming in to the Reductions founded on the Parand and Uruguay rivers, and in 1631 the exodus was accompUshed under the leadership of the heroic Father Simon Maceta. Dr. H. von Ihering calls this exodus "one of the greatest achievements of its kind recorded in history" (''Globus", LX, 1891, 179). Scarcely 12,000 reached their destination. ("Conquista Espiritual hecha por los Religiosos de la Compaiiia de Jesus en las Provineias del Paraguay, Parana, I'ruguay, y Tape escrita porel P. Antonio Ruiz de Montoya de la misma Comp. ", new ed., Bilboa, 1S92, 143 sq.). In similar manner also the nine Reduc- tions which had been founded between 1614 and 1638 on the Rio Jacuhy and in the Sierra dos Tapes in the present Brazilian Province of Rio Grande do Sul, and which numbered in all some 30,000 souls, were soon after destroyed and partially transferred to other places. The neglect of the Spanish governors to come to the aid of the missions in their peril was bitterly avenged by the subsequent destruction of the Spanish colonies in Guayra by the Portuguese, and the loss of the entire province. Cast upon their own resources, the Jesuits organized, with the king's consent, an Indian militia, equipped with fire-arms, so that, as early as 1640, they could place a well-disciplined army in the field against the Paulistas, and could effect- ively suppress robbery and pillage. Henceforth the Reductions continued to form a strong bulwark against the inroads of the Portuguese.

The main part of this "Christian Indian State", as the Reductions have been called, was formed by the 30 [32] Guaranl Reductions, which came into being dur- ing the period from 1609i-1760 in the territory of the present country of Paraguay, the Argentine Provinces of Misiones and Corrientes, and the Brazilian Province of Rio Grande do Sul. lilany of these Reductions repeatedly changed their location in consequence of the frequent inroads of the Mamelucos and savage Indian tribes, retaining, however, their former names, — a circumstance which has given rise to no little confusion in older charts. The growth of the Guaranl Mission can be seen from the annual statistical rec- ords. In 1648 the Governor of Buenos Aires on a visit found a population of 30, .548 souls in nineteen Reduc- tions, and in 1677 the Fiscal of the Audiencia of Charcas, Don Diego Ibaiiez da Faria, found 58,118 in twenty-two Reductions. In 1702, 22 villages on the Parang and Uruguav numbered 89,500 souls; in 1717, 31 villages numbered 121,168; in 1732, 141,- 242; 1733, 126,389; 1734, 116,250; 1735, 108,228; 1736, 102,721; 1737, 104,473; 1738, 90,287; 1739, 81,159; 1740, 73,910; 1741, 76,960; 1742, 78,929; 1743, 81,355; 17.50, 95,089 (Monner-Sans, 134 sq.). The remarkable fluctuations in the number of the in- habitants were due to repeated attacks of epidemic diseases (see below).

Besides the Guarani missions, the Chiquitos Mission was founded in 1692 to the north-west, in the pres- ent Bolivia; in 1765 this mission numbered 23,288 souls (4981 families) in ten Reductions (Fernandez, "Relacion de los Indos Chiquitos", Madrid, 1726; Lat. tr., Augsburg, 1733; Ger. tr,, Vienna, 1729; Bach, "Die Jesuit™ und die Mission Chiquitos . . . ed. Kriegk, Leipzig, 1843). Tlic connecting link l)e- tween the Guarani and the Chiquitos missions was formed by the Mission of Tarunia willi three Reduc- tions: San Joaquin (1747); San Estanislao (1747), and Helen (1760), to which 2.597 souls (547 families) be- longed in 1762, and 3777 souls (803 families) in 1766.

Far greater difficulties than in the Guarani mis- sions were encountered among the numerous many- tongued "mounted tribes" of the Gran Chaco, whose depredations continually kept the Spanish colonies on the alert (Huonder, "Die Volkergruppierung im Gran Chaco im 18. Jahrhundert ", in "Globus", LXXXI, 387 sq.; D. Lorenzo Hervas, "Catalogode las lenguas", Madrid, 1800). At the urgent request of the Spanish authorities the Jesuits attempted to found Reductions among these tribes also. Fifteen Reductions came into existence between 1735 and 1767, which about 1767 harboured Indians of eleven different tribes, among them about 5000 Christians (cf. the treatise by Dobrizhoffer, "Hist, de Abiponi- bus", Vienna, 1784; Ger. tr., Vienna, 17S3; tr., London, 1822; Bauke (Pauke), "Missionen von Paraguay", new ed. by Kobler, Ratisbon, 1870; and Bringmann, Freiburg im Br., 1908). Scattered Re- ductions were founded in Tucuman, particularly among the Chiriguanos and Mataguayos (1762: 1 Reduction, 268 Christians, 20 pagans), and in North Patagonia (Terra Magallonica) where the Reduction of Xuestra Seiiora del Pilar was established in 1745. Altogether the Jesuits founded approximately 100 Reductions, some of which were later destroyed; 46 were established between 1638 and 1766. Conse- quentlj', the accusation raised by Azara and others that their missionary activity had become stagnated is unfounded. Until 1767 new reductions were con- tinually being formed, while a constant stream of con- \erts gained by the missionaries on their extensive apostolic journeys kept pouring into the older Reduc- tions (cf. L'lloa, "Voyage del' Amer. merid.", Amster- dam, 1752, 1, 541 sq.)'. Between 1610 and 1768, 702,086 Indians of the Guaranl tribes alone were baptized.

The founding and preservation of these Reductions were the fruit of a century and a half of toil and heroic sacrifice in the battle against the terrors of the wilder- ness and the indolence and fickleness of a primitive people, as well as against the reckless policy of ex- ploitation followed by the Spaniards, to whom the Reductions were ever an eyesore. Down to 1764 twenty-nine Jesuits of Paraguay suffered death by mart3Tdom.

III. Org.\nization of the Reductions. — A. Plan and Location of the Settlements. — The Reductions were almost always laid out in healthy, high locations, the great central stations, as for instance Candelaria and Yapeyu, on the large waterways (Parand and L'ru- guay) of the countrj'. The general plan was similar to that of the Spanish pueblos. The form was square, all streets running in straight lines, the main streets frequently being paved. The latter gave upon the plaza the large square where the church was situated, generally shaded by trees, and ornamented with a large cross, a statue of the Virgin and frequently also with a pretty village well; at the head of the plaza stood the church, and adjoining it, on one side, the residence of the Fathers, called the "College"; on the other, the cemetery, enclosed by a wall with a pillared hall. The dwellings of the Indians, until the end of the seventeenth century, were frequently plain huts; later, solid, one-story houses, built of stone or adobe, and invariably covered with tiles because of the danger of fire, about fifteen by eighteen feet in size, and divided into various apartments by parti- tions of wicker-work; they formed comfortable quar- ters for families of from four to six members (cf. Cardiel, "Declaraci6n de la Verdad", Buenos Aires, 1900, 121 sq., 282 sq.; Queirel, "Carta sobra las ruinas de S. Ignacio !\Iiri", Buenos .\ires, 1898), and, at all events, were incomparably better than the dwellings of the Indians of the rncomicnda. A portico, resting on stone or wooden pillars, and extending the entire width of the building, projected from the front of each house, so that one could walk through the entire town in rainy weather without getting wet.