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 REDUCTIONS

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REDUCTIONS

members in what a state of misery and despair the In- dians of the encomiendas and the unitas passed their lives" (Cunninghame Graham, loc. cit., 211).

(d) The system emploj-ed was, in fact, the onlj' means adopted to save the Indians. "Whatever one may say of the Jesuit Missions," Dr. K. Haebler writes ("Jahrbuch d. Geschichtwissenschaft ", 1895, III, 49), "they absolutely merit the praise that theirs were the only settlements in which the Indians did not die out, but rather increased in number." Of the 80,000 Indians living in the Province of Santiago del Estero in the seventeenth century, only 80 remained about 1750; of 40,000 in the Cord6ba territory only 40 (see Cardiel, loc. cit., 449).

(e) To what extent the self-reliance of the Reduc-

taneously furthered the interests of Portugal and his hatred of the Society of Jesus. The treaty, secretly entered upon in Madrid on 15 Jan., 1750, contained among its provisions the agreement that Spain retain the long-contested colony San Sacramento at the mouth of the Uruguay, and transfer to Portugal, in exchange, the seven Reductions lying on the left bank of the Uruguay, i. e. about two-thirds of the present Brazilian pro\-ince of Rio Grande do Sul and one of the most valuable sections of the territory of La Plata. The treaty further pro\-ided (art. 16) that the mission- aries and their thirty thousand Indians leave their home, founded during a hundred and fift}' years of patient toil, with bag and baggage and without delay, and settle on the opposite bank of the Uruguay. This

tion Indians and their appreciation of the unencum- change of location was, even from the viewpomt of

bered right of property was actually developed under colonial policy and political economy (see opinions

Jesuit training was proved bv their conduct during regarding it by Bonnet de Mably and Manuel de la

thew.arof the seven Reductions (see below), which, as Sola, in Stein-Wappa?us, loc. cit., I, 3, 1012, and

is well known, was occasioned by the refusal of the Indians to surrender their land to the Portuguese, and by the fact that, for the first time in this matter, they rebelled even against the will of the Fathers. The dissolution of the Reductions after the departure of

Monner-Sans, loc. cit., 147) an incomprehensible mis- carriage of justice towards the missionaries and the Indians alike, whose wishes had not been consulted in any manner; it was "one of the most tyrannical commands that was ever issued in the recklessness of

the JesuHs was'not "the resuit of their system, but of unfeeling power" (Southey, loc. cit^ III, 449).

that which succeeded it. Southey correctly adds that the weak Ferdmand VI

IV. Declint; of the Reductionr.— The tragic de- had no idea of the importance of the treaty. cline of the Reductions is but an epi.sode in the war B. The War of the Seven Reductions— The treaty

against the Jesuit Order, which was begim about the caused surprise and mdignation m the Spanish colony

middle of the eigliteenth centurv, of which the trio of of La Plata. The Viceroy of Peru, the royal Audiencia

free-thinking ministers of France, Portugal, and Spain viz. Choi.seul. Pombal. and Aranda, were the prin- cipal leaders, and which ended with the dissolution of the order in 177.3. The principal factors can be enumerated onlv brieflv here.

A. The Treaty of ^r.-JO.— The difficulties existing

of Charcas, and the secular and ecclesiastical author- ities unanimously sent protests of the most emphatic nature to the Spanish Cabinet. They were as unsuc- cessful as the earnest petitions of the Jesuits, who declared that it was impossible to ajiproach the In- dians with the cruel demand to give up their home and

between Spain and Portugal because of the boundaries their possessions, solemnly granted them by so many

of their American jjossessions supplied the all-power- royal decrees, and to surrender them without any

ful Minister of State Pombal, the mortal enemy of cause or provocation to their enemies and oppressors,

the Jesuits, with the' longed-for opportunity of per- the Portuguese. It was all of no avail. Ignazio

fecting a clever diplomatic coup, and which simul- Visconti, the General of the Society, over-compliant