Spain and Portugal in South America—Enmity between Brazilians and
Argentines—Expulsion of Jesuits from Paraguay—Struggles with the
natives—Father Mendoza killed—Death of Father Montoya
In the province of Guayrá the Spaniards who had looked with disfavour
on the Jesuits, and had enslaved the Indians when they were able, were
in sore straits. The Mamelucos, finding no more Indians to enslave,
fell on the two towns of Villa Rica and Ciudad Real, destroyed them
utterly, and forced the inhabitants to flee for refuge into Paraguay.
Thus Guayrá went the way of Matto Grosso and several other provinces of
Spain, and became Portuguese. Strangely enough, most of these losses
happened when Spain and Portugal were joined under one crown. At home
the Spaniards and the Portuguese, however much they detested one
another, were forced to keep the peace. In America they were always at
war, which ended invariably to the detriment of Spain.[102] The strife
begun by the Papal Bull of 1493, in which Pope Alexander VI. divided
the territories discovered and to be discovered between Portugal and
Spain, went on, till bit by bit Spain was stripped of the provinces of
Matto Grosso, Rio Grande, and Guayrá, and found herself drawn into the
numerous disputes about the Colonia del Sacramento, which cost so much
blood to both contending Powers. Perhaps the most curious and
interesting incident of the long struggle was the Three Years’ War,
which began in 1750, after the marriage of Ferdinand VI. of Spain with
Doña Barbara of Portugal. By the treaty entered into at this marriage,
seven of the most flourishing of the missions situated on the left bank
of the Uruguay were ceded to Portugal in exchange for La Colonia del
Sacramento on the river Plate. The towns resisted change of
sovereignty, as Portugal to them was typified by the Paulistas, their
most inveterate enemies. The Marquis de Valdelirios in his curious
despatches touches much upon this war, but perhaps the best account is
to be found in the curious memoir of the Irish Jesuit Father, Tadeo
Hennis,[103] who was the backbone of the resisting Guaranís.
The ancient enmity of the two nations has been continued in their
descendants, the Brazilians and the Argentines and Uruguayans, and
little by little Brazil is absorbing all the northern portion of the
Republic of Uruguay. After the retreat under Montoya down the Paraná,
the Jesuit missions, especially in Paraguay and what is now the
province of Corrientes, for some time enjoyed a period of peace and of
repose, and the strange policy of the Jesuits was developed, and
township after township arose amongst the Guaranís (1630-31). But there
was still no rest for Ruiz Montoya, who was of those who rest but in
the grave. In 1632, at the instance of the Governor and magistrates of
the township of Jerez, Montoya sent Fathers Jean Rançonier and Mansilla
to the north of Paraguay to found a mission amongst the Itatines, a
forest-dwelling tribe. Their territory was marshy and the climate bad,
and woods of indiarubber-trees covered all the land. Fathers del Techo
and Charlevoix both speak of the ‘rebounding balls’ with which they
played, which, thrown upon the ground, start up again as if they were
filled with air. This is, perhaps, one of the first times that
indiarubber is mentioned, though in some places Jean de Léry[104] seems
to indicate he was acquainted with its use.
The Jesuits found that to make progress was not easy with these
Indians, who willingly enough listened to their preaching, but refused
to alter their social habits, to which the Jesuits ascribe the fact
that even then their numbers were diminishing. Like most of the Indians
of America, they were polygamists, which custom in their race operates
differently to polygamy amongst the negroes: for whereas they seem to
increase and thrive, the Indians even at the conquest often tended to
become extinct. When a headman amongst the Itatines died, a number of
his followers jumped down precipices to accompany him upon his journey
to a better world. This custom and polygamy gave much trouble to the
Jesuits, but their most admirable patience and knowledge of mankind
helped them to overcome them by degrees. All was about to flourish in
the mission, when one Acosta, a Brazilian priest, appeared. Perhaps he
was in league with the Paulistas, or perhaps was jealous of the
Jesuits, for he tried hard to lead a number of the Indians to San Paulo
to show them (as he said) how they should follow the true law of
God.[105]
The Itatines, either suspecting that Acosta’s true law was false, or
tired of his preaching, rose and killed him; but the effect was bad,
and there grew up amongst those infidels a coldness even towards the
Jesuits themselves. Had it not been for two miraculous events which
happened opportunely, as such things should happen if they are to be
turned to good account, much harm might have been done. A chief, having
cursed a priest, was seized at once with a malignant ulcer in the
throat, which shortly killed him. The Itatines did not apparently think
anything of the influence of the unhealthy climate in which they lived,
and set the occurrence down to the act of God.
But more was still to come. Another chief having so far forgotten
himself as to jeer at a priest, a thunderbolt fell so close to him that
he was knocked senseless, and lay as dead. These two events confirmed
the Jesuits’ power, and things began to flourish in their four new
missions. But the Great Power, so careful of the individual effort of
His priests, seems to have been most unaccountably remiss of their
success considered as a whole. In the same year (1632) the Mamelucos
appeared and ruined all the four missions, so that the efforts of the
Jesuits and the miracles were lost.
In 1633 the first skirmish took place between the Bishop of Paraguay
and the Jesuits. This skirmish little by little grew into a war, kept
up for more than a hundred years, and ended finally in the expulsion of
the Jesuits from Paraguay. The Governor, Don Luis de Cespedes, having
called upon the Indians of the Jesuit missions for personal service, a
proceeding quite against both the King’s orders and the Papal Bulls,
the Bishop thought the moment opportune to press for tithes. This, too,
was equally forbidden both by a Bull and by an order of the Council of
the Indies. Padre Romero went to Asuncion and displayed his Bulls and
his orders of the Council, and the Governor withdrew his claims. The
Bishop, after some opposition, withdrew likewise, and the Provincial of
the Order arrived at Asuncion, bringing with him an order from the King
signifying that the Indians of the reductions were to be left entirely
to the Jesuits. So for the present the Jesuits scored a victory, though
in the future it was to cost them dear. But the Governor of Paraguay
having returned apparently to his design of exacting personal service
from the Indians of the missions, the Provincial checkmated him with a
royal order from Philip IV. The order was addressed to the Viceroy of
Peru, the fourth Count of Chinchon. The missive, dated at Madrid in
1633, condemned in the strongest terms all personal service (that is,
forced labour) amongst the Indians, not only of the Jesuit missions,
but of Peru and Mexico. With a touching confidence in his own powers,
and absolute right Divine, the well-meaning King added to his orders a
paragraph commanding all to be done as he had ordered within six
months. Strange to find Philip IV., whom Velasquez has immortalized and
shown us as he sat upon his horse ineffable, so far away from the Museo
del Prado, where alone he ever seems really to have lived. But foolish
Governors and Bishops were not the Jesuits’ worst enemies in Paraguay.
In 1634 the Provincial, Father Boroa, was shipwrecked in a voyage up
the Uruguay, and only saved by the devotion of his neophytes.
Sometimes the cruel treatment of the natives by the Spanish settlers
was avenged upon the Jesuits. This was the case with a band of
Guapalaches, who, coming on Father Espinosa in a wood, attacked and
massacred him and all his Indians, and, having cut his body into
pieces, left it for the wild beasts to eat. Upon another occasion
Father Mendoza fell into an ambuscade, from which he might have escaped
had not his horse sunk in a miry stream. Long he defended himself with
an Indian shield, but at length was stretched upon the ground and left
for dead. During the night he revived, and dragged himself up to some
rocks; but the Indians in the morning, following up his trail, came on
him praying in a loud voice. They told him that he served a blind God,
or at best a powerless God, as He did nothing to defend His servant;
then, after torturing him cruelly, they despatched him, and, taking out
his heart, said: ‘Let us see if his soul will take the road to heaven.’
These savages do not seem to have been genuinely interested in finding
out what became of the soul after the dissolution of the body, for they
sat down and made a hearty meal of two young Indians who accompanied
the unlucky priest. But they had heard their victim say that when he
baptized them it purified their souls, and the last words of Father
Mendoza had been to recommend his soul to God. I often wonder if the
Christians of to-day, their creed so firmly fixed by the martyrdoms of
simple folk, who held their faith without perhaps much reasoning on it,
know what they owe to men like Father Christopher Mendoza, slain by the
Indians in the Paraguayan woods. Your ancient martyr, fallen out of
fashion and forgotten by the Christians of to-day, should have his
homage done to him, if only by the chance writer, who in his studies
for some subject of no interest to the general world comes on his trail
of blood; for martyrdom, no matter how obscure, forgotten by the people
of the faith for which the martyr suffered, is a slur not only on the
faithful, but on the faith itself. In 1636 occurred the second invasion
of the Paulistas, which induced Father Montoya, accompanied by Father
Diaz Taño, to go to Europe to seek protection for the Indians both from
the King of Spain and from the Pope.
The Mamelucos burst into the province of Tapé,[106] and, as the mission
of Jesus-Maria (one of the few left undestroyed at the former invasion)
was most exposed, Father Romero asked permission of the Governor of the
River Plate[107] to make some trenches to defend the place. The
Governor consented, but the storm burst on the mission before the
defences were in a fit state to defend. The mission priests Antonio
Bernal and Juan Cardenas were in the front ranks encouraging the
Indians, and both were badly wounded. Fathers Mola and Romero went
about ministering to the wounded, but escaped themselves. At last, the
Mamelucos having set fire to the church, capitulation became
inevitable, and the chief part of the Indians were led away in chains.
The same fate would have overtaken the mission of San Cristobal, where
father Romero had retreated with some fugitives from Jesus-Maria, had
not the people and their priest retreated hastily upon the mission of
Santa Ana. But even there they were not long in safety, and had to
undertake another perilous journey down the river Iguai. Here a party
of passing Mamelucos fell into an ambuscade, and were hewn in pieces,
presumably before the Lord. The Mamelucos pushed their advance so far
that Father Montoya had given orders that all the missions of that
province should be burned. The inhabitants, who trusted him quite
blindly, were just about to begin to burn their houses, when an order
from the Provincial stopped them from doing so till he himself appeared
upon the scene. He arrived, and, gathering up the scattered Indians as
far as he was able, left them for safety in some of the missions which
had not been destroyed, and set off himself to ask for help from the
Governor of Paraguay.
Finding no help either from him or from the Governor of the River
Plate, he went to Corrientes, and was received almost with contumely.
Then, desperate, he equipped an army of the mission Indians, and
advanced to fight the Mamelucos; but they had retreated into Brazil,
and were beyond his reach. Seeing that nothing was to be hoped from the
Spanish Governors, he sent a box of papers in a ship going to Portugal,
and laid his case before the Council of the Indies. Montoya and
Charlevoix relate that the box was thrown into the sea near Lisbon by
some enemy of the Jesuits, but providentially was washed up by the
tide, and, being found miraculously, was taken to the King of Spain.
Whether this happened as it is written, who shall say? But, in
distress, when have good men (before the time of the encyclopædists)
been without a miracle to sustain their cause? In the next year (1637)
Father Montoya and Taño started upon their mission to Europe, and a new
field was opened to Montoya in which to show his talents on the
Indians’ behalf.
Whilst Father Montoya was in Spain, the Provincial appointed Father
Alfaro to take his place. He fell on troublous times, for the Mamelucos
were preparing to attack the three remaining missions in the province
of Guayrá.[108] As they were not defensible, it was agreed to evacuate
them, and to retreat into the provinces upon the Uruguay. When they
were just about to start from Santa Teresa, where the inhabitants of
the other missions had been collected, the Mamelucos appeared just
before Christmas. The Indians were driven off as slaves, and the
Mamelucos, with their usual sense of humour, attended Mass as penitents
on Christmas Day, with candles in their hands, and listened to the
sermon in an edifying way. The priest reproached them for their
cruelty, and they, after listening devoutly, gave him the liberty of
two choir boys, and quietly left the church.
At length the Jesuits, rendered desperate by the perils to which the
mission Indians were exposed, armed several bands of Indians and
attacked the Mamelucos. But, as was to be expected, the half-armed
Indians were always worsted by the well-armed and disciplined Paulista
bands, and then the Jesuits took the supreme resolve to evacuate Guayrá
entirely, and place the Indians in safety between the rivers Paraná and
Uruguay.
Formed into three great companies, the Indians started on their second
exodus. Although the difficulties were less than in the voyage down the
Paraná, still, to march several thousand Indians just emerged from
savagery, accompanied by their women and children, and charged with all
their possessions, through a wild country, where they were exposed to
the attack of a well-armed enemy upon the way, was not an easy task.
Father Christobal Arenas formed them into three divisions, leading the
first himself; but the Provincial seems to have done most of the
organizing, for Charlevoix says that ‘to his courage, prudence, and
inalterable kindness,’ the success was due.[109]
Courage and prudence and inalterable kindness are the three virtues
which have most moved the world; perhaps the last has been most
efficacious, and one would hope that in the future it would be the only
one of the whole three required.
Twelve thousand Indians, not counting women and children, were thus led
into a territory[110] between the rivers Uruguay and Paraná, rich,
fertile, and, as the distance between the rivers is not above some
five-and-twenty miles, defended in some measure, and easily rendered
almost impregnable.
No one can see the heart of man, and, even if God sees it, He never
tells us what is there, so that we are obliged to judge of actions as
we find them, and leave the search for motives to omniscients. On the
face of it, the Jesuits, both those who led the Indians down the Paraná
and those who headed them in this migration to the Mesopotamia between
the Uruguay and Paraná, were not impelled by thought of gain; and if a
Jesuit must of necessity have some dark scheme behind the smallest
action of his life, these men concealed it so deep down within their
souls that all the researches of their keenest enemies have not been
able to throw light on it. But, even settled in their new homes, the
Indians were defenceless against the Mamelucos, as it was a state maxim
of the Spanish court that the Indians should never be allowed the use
of guns. This was a wise enough precaution, without doubt, for the
Indians of the Encomiendas, who lived amongst the Spaniards and owed
them personal services; but arms for the Indians of the missions were a
necessity of life. Therefore, before he started for Madrid, the
Provincial impressed upon Montoya to approach the Council of the Indies
and the King, and represent to them that it was impossible to guarantee
the existence of the reductions against the Mamelucos unless the
Indians were allowed to provide themselves with arms. So Father
Montoya, though he was charged to press for various reforms, was most
especially impressed upon this point. He was to tell the King that the
Indians were not to be allowed to keep their arms themselves, but that
they would be kept by the Jesuits, and served out to the Indians in
case of an attack; then, that the arms would not cost a penny to the
treasury, but be all paid out of the alms collected for the purpose by
the Company; lastly, and this was a true stroke of Jesuit policy, that,
to instruct the Indians how to shoot, they would bring from Chile
certain Jesuits who in the world had served as soldiers. One sees them
brought from the frontiers of Araucania, and from the outposts of the
trans-Andean towns, half sacristan, half sergeant, instant in prayer,
and yet with a look about them like a serious bull terrier—a fitting
kind of priest for a frontier town, and such as could alone be found
amongst the Jesuits.
About this time (1639) the third invasion of the Mamelucos took place,
and Father Alfaro, who had been left in charge of the missions on the
Uruguay and Paraná, was shot by a Mameluco with a crossbow, and fell
dead from his horse. The Governor of Paraguay, on hearing of it,
marched with an army, and, having killed two or three hundred of the
Mamelucos, took the rest prisoners, and carried them back to Asuncion.
There, to the disgust of all the Jesuit historians, he menaced them
with the wrath of Heaven and let them go. The feelings of a churchman,
when his own privilege is thus usurped, may be compared to those of a
strict game-preserver who sees his coverts poached. It is not so much
the damage that is done as the personal insult and the humiliation
which he suffers in his pride.
In this year, too, the Indians of the missions rendered their first
armed service to the State which afterwards so often drew on them in
its necessity and treated them so ill.
The Governor of Buenos Ayres, Don Pedro Estevan Davila, was setting out
upon an expedition against a tribe of Indians who had taken refuge in
the islands of the Lake Yberá. Eighty of the Indians were sent, and,
being well led and armed, contributed considerably towards success.
Next year a second contingent was required by the Governor of Tucuman,
and duly sent to his assistance. History seems to repeat itself, and
foolish soldiers and others never to gain experience; for the Governor
(Padre del Techo in his ‘Historia Paraquaiæ’ tells us), having made war
in Flanders, could never be dissuaded that the same system was not
suitable for warfare in America. Accordingly, he set out in good order,
but neglected to send out scouts, and consequently fell into the middle
of the Calchaquis strongly entrenched within a marsh, attacked them
with a rush, lost heavily, and had to retire to Tucuman. But all this
time Father Montoya and Diaz Taño were striving in Rome and at Madrid
with the Pope and with the King.
Urban VIII., at that time God’s vicegerent for the Christian portion of
the world, received Diaz Taño kindly, listened to all he had to say
with interest, promised him his help, and gave him a Papal letter
menacing the Mamelucos with the wrath of God. From Rome Father Taño
went to Madrid, and thence to Lisbon, whence he sailed armed with the
protection of the Pope and accompanied by a fresh band of zealous
priests. Arrived in Rio de Janeiro, he published the Papal letter, and
fixed it on the doors of the Jesuit College and on those of their
church. He seems on this occasion to have been wanting in the chief
Jesuit virtue, prudence, or at the least he seems to have mistaken the
character of the people amongst whom he was. Most of the colonists
having relations with the Mamelucos were indignant, and a mob broke in
the doors both of the college and of the church. The riot grew so
serious that the Governor convoked a council, and cited Father Taño to
appear. He came and spoke, and in the eyes of the chief people of the
place made out his case; but the multitude, caring not much for reason
(and nothing for philanthropy), became more furious, but was appeased
at last by a petition being sent in protest to the Pope.
But if these things passed in Rio de Janeiro (which Del Techo refers to
as _oppido sanctorum_), what was the fury of the people in San Paulo,
the very centre of the Mamelucos, when the Vicar-General published the
brief by order of Don Pedro Albornoz! The people rose immediately, and
menaced the Vicar-General with instant death unless he instantly
withdrew the brief. This he refused to do, although forced on his knees
and with a naked sword held at his throat. His courage quieted them,
and they drew up an appeal which they tried hard to make him sign, but
he again refused. The mob, having demanded the brief, was told it was
in the college of the Jesuits. Thither they went post-haste, and were
met upon the steps by the Superior, dressed in canonicals and holding
the holy wafer in his hand. He spoke, and most of them fell prostrate
on the ground before the Body of our Lord. Others stood upright, and
said that, whilst they adored the Holy Sacrament with their whole
souls, they would not suffer that their slaves, who were their chiefest
property, should be set free. An atheist (or some kind of Protestant)
cried out to fire upon the priest, but he had no support. The Superior
then gave them a copy of the brief, and they returned to the
Vicar-General to ask for absolution for any censure of the Church they
might have incurred; but he for the third time was obdurate, and let
them welter in their sin.
The news of the revolution which liberated Portugal from Spain having
just reached the town, the Jesuits had to retreat from it, leaving the
inhabitants enraged against them and more determined than before to
push their forays into Paraguay. But the time was past for their
incursions, for Father Ruiz Montoya had prospered at Madrid, and
secured even more than he had hoped for when he started on his quest.
On arriving at Madrid, which he did after a prosperous journey of four
months, he waited on the King (Philip IV.), and laid before him and
commissaries chosen from the Indies and Castile the following points:
1. That the law of 1611, which provided that no Indians, unless taken
in a just war, should be reduced to slavery, should be put into effect.
2. That the Pope should be approached to confirm the briefs of Paul
III. and Clement VIII., which contained the same provisions.
3. That those who did not conform to these instructions should be
handed over to the Inquisition to be judged.
4. That the Indians who had been enslaved by the Paulistas should be at
once set free and the aggressors punished.
The King after deliberation granted every point, and, further,
regulated the tribute which the Indians were to pay.[111] All this was
easy to enact, but, like most other laws, not quite so easy to put into
effect. Moreover, as the revolution which separated Portugal from Spain
had just occurred, all Spanish thunder against the Mamelucos was of but
small account. Montoya then pressed the demand for license to use
firearms in self-defence against the Mamelucos. The King after
deliberation granted this last point, and from that time the incursions
of the Mamelucos ceased in Paraguay and generally throughout the
mission territory. Then also there was set on foot that Jesuit militia
which rendered such good service to the crown, but was the cause of so
much murmuring, as it protected the mission Indians both from the
Paulistas and from the inroads of the Spanish colonists.
Father Montoya never returned to Paraguay, where he had fought so long
and done so much for the poor Indians. Apparently it was not written
that he should see the results of all his efforts, for, having embarked
at Seville for Peru, he was detained at Lima on business of the Order.
From thence he went to Tucuman, and, having returned to Lima, died aged
seventy. The Viceroy and the chief members of the Audiencia (with whom
he had struggled all his life) accompanied his body to the grave, and
it is said that several miracles showed forth the glory he enjoyed in
heaven.
That may be so, and if they happened (as they well may have done, for,
after all, a miracle[112] really exists for those who credit it), if
Heaven has honoured him, ’tis more than man has done: for even in
Paraguay his name is not remembered, though it remains enshrined in the
neglected pages of many a dusty Latin or a Spanish book.
But all the time that Fathers Montoya and Diaz Taño were in Europe a
serious danger to the Jesuits was growing up. At the discovery of the
New World, the Franciscans had been the first of all the Orders to go
out. Some had accompanied Columbus, some were with Cortes in Mexico.
Almagro and Pizarro’s hosts had their Franciscan chaplains. In his
commentaries, Alvar Nuñez relates how he met some of the Order in
Brazil. Lastly, the first of all the saints of the New World was a
Franciscan.
In 1638 the Franciscans in the province of Jujuy[113] disputed with the
Jesuits the right to certain missions, accusing them, as Padre del
Techo says, ‘of putting their sickle into their ripening corn.’[114]
What could be more annoying if it were true? As if a Wesleyan mission
in the Paumotus Group should, after having shed its Bibles and its
blankets like dry leaves, suddenly find an emissary from Babylon itself
arrive and mark the sheep!
But from Jujuy the dissensions spread to Paraguay, where the
Franciscans had several missions extending from Yuti to Cazapá, thus
being almost within touch of the Jesuit Gospellers in Santa Maria, upon
the eastern bank of the Tebicuari, which bounds their territory. These
jealousies might have gone smouldering on, and never burst out into
fire, had not the appointment of a Franciscan to the see of Paraguay
caused the flames to flare out fiercely.
Had a firebrand been wanted to stir up strife, none better could have
been found than Don Bernardino de Cardenas, who was just then appointed
to the bishopric of Paraguay.