Conclusion
It is the fashion of some to say that history, of whatever nature, can
but be written dispassionately at a period sufficiently removed from
the events of which it treats to have allowed the heat of passion to
evaporate. This is as false as almost every other dictum which men take
on trust, forgetting that to have passed into the proverbial stage a
saying must have been foolish at the start, in order that it should
have got itself commended by the majority of mankind.
The heat of passion never evaporates in regard to events which at the
epoch of their acting caused great controversies. From writings of
contemporaries the coolest-headed take a bias, in the same way that men
unconsciously pass on the microbes of disease to their best friends.
Only from inventories and rolls of court, State Papers and the like is
it possible to get unbiassed matter, and even then figures, those chief
deceivers of mankind, can be well cooked for or against, according to
the bias of the man who draws them up. Still, when they are drawn up by
enemies, they often quite unwittingly show out the truth. In a letter
dated October 30, 1768, Bucareli sends a list to Aranda of the effects
of many of the Jesuits taken from Paraguay and sent by him to Spain.
The list itself speaks volumes in defence of the Jesuits in Paraguay.
Whatever may have been their faults, the Governor himself (or even
Charles III.) could not have charged upon the captured priests that
they had got together a large stock of property during their mission
life.[341] The first upon the list, P. Pedro Zabaleta, took ten shirts,
two pillow-cases, two sheets, three pocket-handkerchiefs, two pairs of
shoes, two pairs of socks, and a pound and a half of snuff. The others
were in general less well set up with shirts,[342] some few had cloaks,
and one (P. Sigismundo Griera) a nightcap; but all of them had their
snuff, the only relic of their luxurious mission life. Manuel Vergara,
their Provincial, testifies in a paper sent with the list that most of
the clothes were taken from the common stock, and all the snuff. What
sort of treatment they endured upon their passage in the two frigates
_San Fernando_ and _San Nicolas_ is quite unknown, but certainly their
luggage could not have been in the way; and for their snuff, no doubt
they husbanded it with care during the long two months, which in those
days was thought a record run.[343] In the missions which they had so
long tended with such care, giving their muddle-headed love to the
Indians in their Machiavelian way, all was confusion in the space of
six short months. Dean Funes and Don Feliz de Azara[344] are the only
two contemporary writers who treat of the expulsion of the Jesuits from
Paraguay outside the official world. The Dean, a man of the old school,
was kindly and humane, well educated, and, having been brought up in
Tucuman amongst an Indian population, looked on the Indians in a kindly
way as fellow-creatures, though differing in essential points from
races which had been for centuries exposed to civilization and its
effects. His description of the Indians has for veracity and
observation not often been surpassed. ‘Those natives[345] (he says) are
of a pale colour, well made, and well set up. Their talent and capacity
are capable of much advancement. Though they lack invention in
themselves, yet are they excellent in imitation. Idleness seems natural
to them, although it may be more the effect of habit than of
temperament; their inclination towards acquiring knowledge is decided,
and novelty has its full effect upon their minds. Ambitious of command,
they acquit themselves with honour in the positions to which they may
attain. Eloquence is held amongst them in the first place, and avarice
in no respect degrades their minds. An injurious word offends them more
than punishments, which they solicit rather than undergo the former
outrage. Incontinency in their women they look upon but with
indifference, and even husbands are little sensible to acts of
infidelity. Conjugal love has but slight influence upon the treatment
which they give their wives. Fathers of families care for their sons
but little. The serenity of mind of all these Indians in the midst of
the greatest troubles is without equal in the world; never a sigh with
them takes off the bitterness of suffering.’
No one who knows the Indians but must confess that Dean Funes had made
a study of their character deeper than is his own. Azara, on the other
hand, was a man of science; his books upon the birds and quadrupeds of
Paraguay still hold the field, and are esteemed for curious and minute
observation and accuracy as to scientific facts. The man himself was an
extremely able writer, a captain in the Spanish navy, and well
educated. For twenty years he served in Paraguay and in the River
Plate, with credit to himself and profit to the country which he
served. Educated as he was in the school of the Encyclopædists, amongst
the strictest of the pharisees of Liberalism, to him the very name of
Jesuit was anathema. After the fashion of his kind, he seemed unable to
distinguish between the scheming Jesuits at European courts and the
simple and hard-working missionaries in Paraguay. All were anathema,
and therefore all their system was repugnant to him; and though a
kindly man, as is set forth abundantly in all his works, he never
paused to think that there could be a difference between his ideal free
Liberal citizen, voting and exercising all his right of citizenship in
a free commonwealth, after the fashion of a dormouse freely exercising
his natural functions in the receiver of an air-pump, and a simple
Indian of the Paraguayan woods.
Freedom to him, as it has been to many theorists, was an abstract
thing, possessing which a man, even though starving, must in its mere
possession find true happiness. He never paused to inquire, as even
Bucareli did, if the mission Indians could hold their own under free
competition with the ‘sagacity’ of the surrounding Spanish settlers.
Therefore he is the authority whom Liberals always quote against the
system of the Jesuits. When he inveighs against their semi-communism,
the modern Liberal claps his hands, and sees a kindred Daniel come to
judgment, as he would do to-day if in Damaraland the Germans set up a
Socialistic settlement amongst the negro tribes, and some Liberal
economist denounced it with an oath. Azara quite forgets that, as Dean
Funes says, the ‘sentiment of property was very weak amongst the
Indians,’ and that their minds were ‘not degraded by the vice of
avarice.’ Still, Azara was an honest man—a keen observer and impartial,
as far as his upbringing and the tenets he had imbibed in youth
permitted him to be. Upon the question of the Jesuits he was entirely
prejudiced, although few have stood up more stoutly to condemn the
faulty system which the Spaniards pursued towards the Indians in both
Americas. But on account of his political proclivities Azara is quite
silent as to the state into which the missions fell after the Jesuits
had been expelled. No doubt he thought that, once their faulty system
was removed, the Indians would soon become what he judged civilized,
and hold their own with those around them, though of another race and
blood.
Funes, upon the contrary, fully exposes all the rapacity and
incompetence of the new shepherds left by Bucareli to guard the
Jesuits’ sheep.
‘Ignorant[346] of Guaraní, and without patience to acquire it,
confusion reigned in the missions as in a tower of Babel,’ and he goes
on to say ‘an imperious tone of order was substituted for the paternal
manner (of the Jesuits), and as a deaf man who cannot hear has to be
taught by blows, that was the teaching they (the Indians) had to bear.’
Shortly, he says, ‘a wall of hatred and contempt began to rise between
the Indians and their masters; and the priests, who by the virtue of
their office ought to have been the ministers of peace, being without
influence to command . . . and not entirely irreproachable in their
ministry . . . added themselves to the discord and dissension which
arose.’
Bucareli, as soon as he knew what was going on, advised that all the
priests appointed by himself should be replaced by others. This
accordingly was done, but it was even then too late: the missions went
from bad to worse; of the vast quantities of cattle few were left; the
priests followed the example of their prototypes Hofni and Phineas,
went about armed, took Indian mistresses, and neglected all religious
duties, treating the Indians after the fashion of the Spaniards in the
settlements. Thus the Arcadian life, which had subsisted more than two
hundred years, in the brief space of two short years was lost.
The vast estancias, in which at the expulsion more than a million head
of cattle pastured,[347] were but bare plains, in which the cattle that
were left had all run wild or perished from neglect. Wild beasts roamed
round the outskirts of the half-deserted towns. A dense low scrub of
yatais and of palmettos invaded all the pasture-lands, and in the
erstwhile cultivated fields rank weeds sprang up, and choked the crops
which in the Jesuits’ times had made the mission territories the most
productive of the American possessions of the Spanish crown. The
churches were unserved, and in the evening air no more the hymns
resounded, nor did the long white-robed processions headed by a cross
pass to the fields to peaceful labour, marshalled by their priests. The
fruit-trees round the missions were either all cut down for firewood or
had degenerated, and the plantations of the Ilex Paraguayensis,[348]
from which they made their _yerba_, which had been brought from the
up-country forests with vast pains, were in decay, and quite
uncultivated.
The Indian population had almost disappeared within the space of
eight-and-twenty years.[349] The Guaranís collected from the woods with
so much effort to the missionary, then guided down the Paraná by the
most noble and self-sacrificing of their priests, Ruiz Montoya, and
after that redeemed with blood from the fierce Mameluco bands, had
shrunk away before the baneful breath of unaccustomed contact with the
civilizing whites.
The simple ceremonious, if perhaps futile, mission-life had withered up
at the first touch of vivifying competition—that competition which has
made the whole world gray, reducing everything and everyone to the most
base and commonest denominator.
The self-created goddess Progress was justified by works, and all the
land left barren, waiting the time when factories shall pollute its
sky, and render miserable the European emigrants, who, flying from
their slavery at home, shall have found it waiting for them in their
new paradise beyond the seas.
The world, it would appear, is a vast class-room, and its Creator but a
professor of political economy, apparently unable to carry out his
theories with effect. Therefore, to us, the Western Europeans, he has
turned for help, and upon us devolved the task of extirpating all those
peoples upon whom he tried his ’prentice hand. On us he laid
injunctions to increase at home, and to the happier portions of the
world to carry death under the guise of life unsuitable to those into
whose lands we spread.
Let those made cruel by the want of sympathy with men that the mere
poring over books so often superinduces in the mind protest when
judging of the Jesuits in Paraguay against the outrage done to their
theories by the scheme the Jesuits pursued.
It has been nobly said[350] ‘that the extinction of the smallest animal
is a far greater loss than if the works of all the Greeks had
perished.’ How much the greater loss that of a type of man such as the
Indians, whom the semi-communistic Jesuit government successfully
preserved, sheltering them from the death-dealing breath of our cold
northern life and its full, fell effects!
There are those, no doubt, who think that a tree brought from the
tropics should be planted out at home, to take its chance of life in
the keen winter of the north, in holy competition with the ash and oak;
and if it dies, there are still pines enough, with stores of dogwood,
thickets of elder, and a wilderness of junipers. They may be right;
but, after all, that which has felt the tropic sun is for the tropics,
and to grow under the tantalizing sunshine of the north, which lights
but does not warm, it must have glass, and shelter from the cold.
But of aforethought to deliberately transplant our fogs and chilling
atmosphere, and so to nip and kill plants which crave only the sun to
live, that is a crime against humanity; a crime posterity with
execration will one day taunt us with, and hold us up to execration, as
we to-day in our hypocrisy piously curse the memories of Pizarro and
Cortés.
In the eternal warfare between those who think that progress—which to
them means tramways and electric light—is preferable to a quiet life of
futile happiness of mind there is scant truce, so that my readers have
to take their choice whether to side with Funes or Azara in judging of
the Jesuits’ rule in Paraguay. There is no middle course between the
old and new; no halting-place; no chink in which imagination can drive
in its nail to stop the wheels of time; therefore, no doubt, the Jesuit
commonwealth was doomed to disappear. But for myself, I am glad that
five-and-twenty years ago I saw the Indians who still lingered about
the ruined mission towns, mumbling their maiméd rites when the Angelus
at eventide awoke the echoes of the encroaching woods, whilst
screeching crowds of parrots and macaws hovered around the date-palms
which in the plaza reared their slender heads, silent memorials of the
departed Jesuits’ rule.
Indians and Jesuits are gone from Paraguay, the Indians to that
Trapalanda which is their appointed place; and for the Jesuits, they
are forgotten, except by those who dive into old chronicles, or who
write books, proposing something and concluding nothing, or by
travellers, who, wandering in the Tarumensian woods, come on a clump of
orange-trees run wild amongst the urundéys.
FINIS NON CORONAT OPUS
[Illustration]
Notes
About the author:
Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (1852-1936)
Born in London. Lived in Argentina, mostly ranching, from 1869 to 1883,
when he returned to Scotland. Member of the British House of Commons
for North West Lanark (1886-1892). Strong socialist tendencies. Was
elected first president of the Scottish Labour Party in 1888, first
president of the National Party of Scotland in 1928, and first Honorary
President of the Scottish National Party in 1934. Died in Argentina. He
was the model for a number of fictional characters in books by his
friend, Joseph Conrad, and also by G. B. Shaw.
Notes to the etext:
Corrections made:
Chapter I:
(p. 6) (footnote)
[‘Commentarios Reales’ (en Madrid CI}. I}CCXXIII., en la oficina]
where “}” marks a character that is the mirror image of “C”, which was
formerly used in Roman Numerals as follows: “CI}” = “M” [1,000]; “I}” =
“D” [500]; and subsequent “}”s multiply by ten, as “I}}}” = 50,000.
changed to:
[‘Commentarios Reales’ (en Madrid 1723, en la oficina]
Let us all take this moment to give thanks for Hindu-Arabic numerals,
Amen.
(p. 19)
[‘Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay, ‘the Guaranís were spread]
changed to:
[‘Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay’, ‘the Guaranís were spread]
(p. 24) (footnote)
[del Sr Provisor Alonso Joseph Gomez de Lara.]
changed to:
[del Sr. Provisor Alonso Joseph Gomez de Lara.]
(p. 34)
[and his mother Doña Teresa Cabeza de Vaca,]
changed to:
[and his mother ‘Doña Teresa Cabeza de Vaca,]
as the best guess as to where the quoted section begins, which is later
marked with a closing quote.
Chapter II:
(p. 52) (footnote)
[de la Compagnie de Jésus, vol. iii., cap v., p. 322]
changed to:
[de la Compagnie de Jésus’, vol. iii., cap v., p. 322]
(p. 74)
[militia of the missions could no nothing with their bows and arrows]
changed to:
[militia of the missions could do nothing with their bows and arrows]
Chapter V:
(p. 129)
[to divine will, which, will, as the Bishop]
changed to:
[to divine will, which will, as the Bishop]
(p. 131) (footnote)
[[121] Exod. xxxii. 27.]
updated to:
[[121] Exod. 32:27.]
(p. 138)
[sending to him one Father Lopez, Provincial of the Dominicians.]
changed to:
[sending to him one Father Lopez, Provincial of the Dominicans.]
Chapter VI:
(p. 181) (footnote)
[‘Declaracion de la Verdad, p. 295:]
changed to:
[‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 295:]
(p. 184) (footnote)
[la Historia del Paraguay’, etc., cap. i., vol. ii.]
changed to:
[la Historia del Paraguay’, etc., cap. i., vol. ii.).]
Chapter IX:
(p. 237)
[After negotiations, lasting many years, in 1758 a treaty was signed]
changed to:
[After negotiations, lasting many years, in 1750 a treaty was signed]
15 January 1750, to be exact.
Chapter X:
(pp. 263-264) (footnote)
[Ibañez rarely spoke he truth, not even when it would]
changed to:
[Ibañez rarely spoke the truth, not even when it would]
(p. 268) (footnote)
[The war commenced in 1868 and finished in 1870,]
changed to:
[The war commenced in 1865 and finished in 1870,]
(the dates generally given for this war, though the opening stages
arguably occurred late in 1864.)
(p. 275)
[signed by the celebrated Nicolas Ñeengiurú and other Indians,]
changed to:
[signed by the celebrated Nicolas Ñeenguirú and other Indians,]
and:
[the family of the Ñeengiurú had been well known]
changed to:
[the family of the Ñeenguirú had been well known]
(as it appears elsewhere in the text)
(p. 276)
[the flattering of Nicolas Ñeengiuru]
changed to:
[the flattering of Nicolas Ñeenguiru]
This wrong spelling is given throughout Chapter X, but Chapter X only.
Elsewhere, the accents are occasionally missing from a name that seems
to be the same.
The original Index has been omitted as unnecessary in a searchable
text.
This etext was transcribed from the edition published in London in
1901.
The excellent film, “The Mission” (1986), was based on events
apparently related to the ‘Jesuit War’ referred to in Chapter IX.
HTML 4.0, the current standard at the time this file was created, does
not recognize the breve accent for the letter i, but following the
standard for (a breve), I have gone ahead and coded i breve, as there
are only two instances, and it may yet become a standard.
Footnotes:
[1] The doctrine of the ‘Ciencia Media’ occurs in the celebrated
‘Concordia gratiæ et liberi arbitrii’, by Luis de Molina (1588). The
concilium de Auxiliis was held to determine whether or not _concordia_
was possible between freewill and grace. As the Jesuits stuck by Molina
and his doctrines in despite of councils and of popes, the common
saying arose in Spain: ‘Pasteles en la pasteleria y ciencia media en la
Compañia.’
[2] Dean Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay’, etc.,
Buenos Aires, 1816.
[3] _Idem._ The letter is dated 1771 and the Jesuits were expelled in
1767. As the writer of the letter was on the spot in an official
position, and nominated by the very Viceroy who had been the expeller
of the Jesuits, his testimony would seem to be as valuable as that of
the ablest theorist on government, Catholic or Protestant, who ever
wrote.
[4] This, of course, applies to the possessions of all European States
in America equally with Spain.
[5] Madrid, 1770.
[6] Though in this respect Charlevoix is not so credulous as Padre Ruiz
de Montoya and the older writers, he yet repeats the story of the bird
that cleans the alligator’s teeth, the magic virtues of the tapir’s
nails, and many others. See Charlevoix, vol. i., bk. i., p. 27, Paris,
1756.
[The story of the bird that cleans the teeth of alligators is very
nearly true—_Pluvianus aegyptius_ has a symbiotic relationship with
crocodiles in parts of Africa, and similar relationships exist
throughout the natural world.—A. L., 1998.]
[7] Dobrizhoffer’s book was written in Latin, and printed in Vienna in
1784 under the title of ‘Historia de Abiponibus’, etc. A German
translation by Professor Keil was published at Pesth in the same year.
The English translation is of the year 1822.
[8] It is to be remembered that the Spanish colonists were as a rule
antagonistic to the Jesuits, and that, therefore, Spanish writers do
not of necessity hold a brief for the Jesuits in Paraguay. Moreover,
the names of Esmid (Smith), Fildo (Fields), Dobrizhoffer, Cataldini and
Tomas Bruno (Brown, who is mentioned as being _natural de Yorca_),
Filge, Limp, Pifereti, Enis, and Asperger, the quaint medical writer on
the virtues of plants found in the mission territory, show how many
foreign Jesuits were actually to be found in the reductions of
Paraguay. For more information on this matter see the ‘Coleccion de
Documentos relativos á la Expulsion de los Jesuitas de la Republica
Argentina y Paraguay’, published and collected by Francisco Javier
Brabo, Madrid, 1872.
[9] The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, in his ‘Commentarios Reales’ (en
Madrid 1723, en la oficina Real y á costa de Nicholas Rodriguez Franco,
Impressor de libros, se hallaran en su casa en la calle de el Poço y en
Palacio), derives the word from the Quichua _Chacú_ = a surrounding. If
he is right, it would then be equivalent to the Gaelic ‘tinchel’.
Taylor, the Water-poet, has left a curious description of one of these
tinchels. It was at a tinchel that the rising under the Earl of Mar in
the ’15 was concocted.
[10] See the curious map contained in the now rare work of P. Pedro
Lozano, entitled, ‘Descripcion Chorographica . . . del Gran Chaco,
Gualamba’, etc. Also in the interesting collection of old maps
published in 1872 at Madrid by Francisco Javier Brabo.
[11] It is, of course, to be taken into consideration that my two
journeys in Paraguay were made after the great war which terminated in
1870, after lasting four years; but the writings of Demersay (‘Histoire
du Paraguay et des Établissements des Jésuites’, Paris, 1862), those of
Brabo, and of Azara, show the deserted state of the district of
Misiones in the period from 1767, the date of the expulsion of the
Jesuits, to the middle of the nineteenth century.
[12] _Cocos Australis_.
[13] See the reports of the Marques de Valdelirios and others in the
publications of Francisco Javier Brabo, Madrid, 1872, and in the
‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil de Paraguay, Buenos-Ayres y Tucuman’, por
Dr. Don Gregorio Funes, Buenos Ayres, 1816.
[14] Bernal Diaz, ‘Historia de la Conquista de la Nueva España’, vol.
iv., cap. 207, Madrid, 1796.
[15] Especially noting down the appearance and qualities of ‘el caballo
Motilla’, the horse of Gonzalo de Sandoval. Thus does he minutely
describe Motilla, ‘the best horse in Castille or the Indies’. ‘El mejor
caballo, y de mejor carrera, revuelto á una mano y à otra que decian
que no se habia visto mejor en Castilla, ni en esa tierra era castaño
acastañado, y una estrella en la frente, y un pie izquierdo calzado,
que se decia el caballo Motilla; é quando hay ahora diferencia sobre
buenos caballos, suclen decir es en bondad tan bueno como Motilla.’
[16] ‘La Argentina’, included in the ‘Coleccion de Angelis’, Buenos
Ayres, 1836.
[17] ‘Historia y Descubrimiento de el Rio de la Plata y Paraguay’,
Hulderico Schmidel, contained in the collection made by Andres Gonzalez
Barcia, and published in 1769 at Madrid under the title of
‘Historiadores Primitivos de las Indias Occidentales’.
[18] The great Las Casas, who made seven voyages from America to
Spain—the last at the age of seventy-two—to protect the Indians, had a
strong opinion about ‘conquerors’ and ‘conquests’. In the dedication of
his great treatise on the wrongs of the Indians, he says: ‘Que no
permita (Felipe II.) las atrocidades que los tiranos inventaron, y que
prosiguen haciendo con titulo de “conquistas”. Los que se jactan de ser
“conquistadores” a que descienden de ellos son muchomas orgullosos
arrogantes y vanos que los otros Españoles.’ Strange that even to-day
the same _atrocidades_ of _tiranos_ are going on in Africa. No doubt
the descendants of these ‘conquerors’ will be as arrogant, proud, and
vain as the descendants of the _conquistadores_ of whom Las Casas
writes.
[19] Mendoza left (‘Azara Apuntamientos para la Historia Natural de los
Quadrupedes del Paraguay’, etc.) five mares and seven horses in the
year 1535. In 1580 Don Juan de Garay, at the second founding of the
city, already found troops of wild horses. The cattle increased to a
marvellous extent, and by the end of the century were wild in
Patagonia. Sarmiento (‘Civilisation et Barbarisme’) says that early in
this century they were often killed by travellers, who tethered their
horses to the carcasses to prevent them from straying at night.
[20] Hulderico Schmidel, ‘Historia del Descubrimiento de el Rio de la
Plata y Paraguay’.
[21] Perhaps the two most important works upon the language are the
‘Tesoro de la Lengua Guarani’, by Ruiz de Montoya, Madrid, 1639 (it is
dedicated to the ‘Soberana Virgen’); and the ‘Catecismo de la Lengua
Guarani’, by Diego Diaz de la Guerra, Madrid, Año de 1630. He also
wrote a ‘Bocabulario y Arte de la Lengua Guarani’.
[22] P. Guevara, in his ‘Historia del Paraguay’, relates a curious
story which he said was current amongst the Indians. Two brothers, Tupi
and Guaraní, lived with their families upon the sea-coast of Brazil. In
those days the world was quite unpopulated but by themselves. They
quarrelled about a parrot, and Tupi with his family went north, and
populated all Brazil; whilst Guaraní went west, and was the ancestor of
all the Indians of the race of Guaranís.
[23] Azara, in his ‘Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay’, has a similar
passage: ‘Recibe bien todo Indio silvestre, al estrangero que viene de
paz.’
[24] ‘Por lo comun reparten pedazos de este cuerpo, del qual pedazo
cozido en mucha agua hacen unas gachas (_fritters_) y es fiesta muy
celebre para ellos que hacen con muchas cerimonias.’
[25] ‘Histoire du Paraguay et des Établissements des Jésuites’, L.
Alfred Demersay, Paris, 1864.
[26] ‘La Argentina’, a long poem or rhyming chronicle contained in the
collection of ‘Historiadores Primitivos de Indias’, of Gonzales Barcia,
Madrid, 1749.
[27] Lozano, in his ‘Historia del Paraguay’, compares it to Greek, but
in my opinion fails to establish his case; but, then, so few people
know both Greek and Guaraní.
[28] He passed through the whole Chaco, descending the Pilcomayo to its
junction with the Paraguay, through territories but little explored
even to-day. Perhaps the most complete description of the Chaco is that
of P. Lozano, with the following comprehensive title:
‘Descripcion chorographica de Terreno Rios, Arboles, y Animales de los
dilatadisimas Provincias del Gran Chaco, Gualamba, y de los Ritos y
Costumbres de la inumerables naciones barbaros é infideles que le
habitan. Con un cabal Relacion Historica de lo que en ellos han obrado
para conquistarlas algunos Gobernadores y Ministros Reales, y los
Misioneros Jesuitas para reduc irlos à la fe del Verdadero Dios.’ Por
el Padre Pedro Lozano, de la Compañia de Jesus, Año de 1733. En Cordoba
por Joseph Santos Balbas.
This book did not appear in a clandestine manner, for it had: 1.
Censura, por C. de Palmas. 2. Licencia de la Religion, por Geronymo de
Huróza, Provincial de los Jesuitas de Andalucia. 3. Licencia del
Ordinario por el Dr. Don Francisco Miguel Moreno, por mandado del Sr.
Provisor Alonso Joseph Gomez de Lara. 4. Aprobacion del Rdo. P. Diego
Vasquez. 5. Privelegio de su Majestad por Don Miguel Fernandez Morillo.
6. Fé de Corrector por el Licenciado, Don Manuel Garcia Alesson,
Corrector General de su Majestad (who adds in a note, ‘este libro
corresponde à su original’). 7. Sumo de Tassa, as follows: ‘Tassaron
los señores del Consejo este libro à seis maravedis cada pliego.’
Palma, in the first _censura_, says that he had read it several times
‘con repetida complacencia’, and that, though it was ‘breve en volumen’
(it has 484 quarto pages), that it was also short in its concise style,
kept closely to the rules of history, and was ‘muy copiosa en la
doctrina’.
[29] This race at one time spread from the Orinoco to the river Plate,
and even in the case of its offshoot, the Chiriguanás, crossed to the
west bank of the Paraguay. Padre Ruiz Montoya, in his ‘Conquista
Espiritual del Paraguay’, cap. i., speaking of the Guaraní race, says:
‘Domina ambos mares el del sur por todo el Brasil y ciñiendo el Peru
con los dos mas grandes rios que conoce el orbe que son el de la Plata,
cuya boca en Buenos-Ayres es de ochenta leguas, y el gran Marañon, à el
inferior en nada e que pasa bien vecino de la ciudad de Cuzco.’
[30] Barco de la Centenera, in ‘La Argentina’, canto v., also refers to
‘La Casa del Gran Moxo’. It was situated ‘en una laguna’, and was ‘toda
de piedra labrada’.
[31] Their numerals are four in number (_peteî, mocoî, mbohap, irând_);
after this they are said to count in Spanish in the same way as do the
Guaraní-speaking Paraguayans. Much has been written on the Guaraní
tongue by many authors, but perhaps the ‘Gramatica’, ‘Tesoro’, and the
‘Vocabulario’ of Padre Antonio Ruiz Montoya, published at Madrid in
1639 and 1640, remain the most important works on the language. Padre
Sigismundi has left a curious work in Guaraní on the medicinal plants
of Paraguay. Before the war of 1866-70 several MS. copies were said to
exist in that country. See Du Gratz’s ‘République du Paraguay’, cap.
iv., p. 214.
[32] See Demersay, ‘Histoire du Paraguay’, p. 324, for names of Guaraní
tribes. Alfred Maury also, in his ‘La Terre et l’Homme Américain’, p.
392, speaks of ‘le rameau brasilio-guaranin, ou Caráibe, qui s’etendait
jadis depuis les Petites-Antilles jusqu’au Paraguay.’
[33] Few modern ‘conquerors’ in Africa seem to have engaged in personal
combat with the natives. Even of Mr. Rhodes it is not set down that he
has killed many Matabele with his own hands. Times change, not always
for the bettering of things.
[34] Santiago, as in duty bound, usually appeared whenever Spaniards
were hard pressed. Few writers had the courage of Bernal Diaz, who of a
similar appearance said: ‘But I, sinner that I was, was not worthy to
see him; whom I did see and recognise was Francisco de Morla on his
chestnut horse’ (Bernal Diaz, ‘Historia de la Conquista de Nueva
España’, cap. xxxiv., p. 141; Madrid, 1795).
[35] Thus it will be seen that the Franciscans were at work in the
country long before the arrival of the Jesuits. It may be on this
account that they became such bitter enemies of the later comers.
[36] ‘Comentarios de Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca’. Published by Don
Andres Gonzalez Barcia in his collection of ‘Early Historians of the
Indies’ (Madrid, 1749).
[37] It must be allowed, however, that in their writings few of the
Spanish _conquistadores_ of America bragged much. They mostly gave the
credit of all their doings to the God of Battles. The boasting has been
reserved for the conquerors of Africa in our own time.
[38] _Asiento_ is a contract. The contract which Charles V., at the
well-meant but unfortunate instigation of Las Casas, made with the
Genoese to supply negroes for America is known as ‘El Asiento de los
Negros’.
[39] In the _capitulacion_ made by Alvar Nuñez with the King occurs the
celebrated clause, ‘Que no pasasen procuradores ni abogados a las
Indias’, _i.e._, that neither solicitors nor barristers should go to
the Indies. It is unfortunate it was not held to stringently, as in
Paraguay, at least, the Reptilia were already well represented.
[40] This is perhaps the first account of the levying of the tithe in
the New World.
[41] These backwaters are known in Guaraní by the name of _aguapey_.
[42] The vinchuca is a kind of flying bug common in Paraguay. Its shape
is triangular, its colour gray, and its odour noxious. It is one of the
Hemiptera, and its so-called scientific appellation is _onorhinus
gigas_.
[43] R. B. Cunninghame Graham writes elsewhere: “All over South America
the jaguar is called a tiger (tigre).”—A. L., 1998.
[44] Azara, in his ‘Historia del Paraguay’, etc., tells us that in 1551
Domingo de Irala at Asuncion bought a fine black horse for five
thousand gold crowns. He bound himself to pay for him out of the
proceeds of his first conquest.
[45] ‘Comentarios de Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca’, contained in Barcia’s
‘Historiadores Primitivos de las Indias Occidentales’.
[46] The ‘patriots’ are always those of the prevailing party in a
State.
[47]
‘(I.H.S.)
‘God preserve your Excellency, say we, the Cabildo, and all the
Caciques and Indians, men, women and children of San Luis, as your
Excellency is our father. The Corregidor, Santiago Pindo and Don
Pantaleon Caynari, in their love for us, have written to us of certain
birds which they desire we will send them for the King. . . . We are
sorry not to have them to send, inasmuch as they live where God made
them, in the forests, and fly far away from us, so that we cannot catch
them. Withal we are the vassals of God and of the King, and always
desirous to fulfil the wishes of his Minister . . . so we pray to God
that that best of birds, the Holy Ghost, may descend upon the King. . .
. Furthermore, we desire to say that the Spanish custom is not to our
liking—for everyone to take care of himself, instead of helping one
another in their daily toil.’
This quaint and touching letter was written originally in Guaraní, and
is preserved at Buenos Ayres. ‘That best of birds, the Holy Ghost,’
shows faith grounded, at least, on ornithology, and the whole spirit of
the simple document is as pathetic as its unconscious philosophy is
true.
[48] Guevara, ‘Historia del Paraguay’ (printed in ‘La Coleccion de
Angelis’, Buenos Aires, 1836), book vi., p. 108, says of Alvar Nuñez:
‘Merecia estatua por su rectitud, justicia y Christiandad.’ And in
another place Guevara says: ‘La Florida lo cautivó con inhumanidad; La
Asuncion lo aprisionó con infamia; pero en una y otro parte fue
ejemplar de moderacion . . . recto, prudente y de sano corazon.’ Alvar
Nuñez died holding the office of ‘Oidor de la Audiencia de Sevilla’,
according to P. del Techo (‘Historia del Paraguay’); or as a member of
the Consejo de Indias, according to Charlevoix.
[49] Acquaviva was General of the Order at this time; he was a man of
marked ability and great energy.
[50] Before this date the Jesuits in Paraguay had been under the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishops of Peru.
[51] Paranapané = the White Paraná, or, according to others, the Paraná
without fish.
[52] Reduction (_reduccion_) was the Spanish name for a missionary
establishment.
[53] Some of the Spanish writers refer to Filds as Padre Tom Filds. His
real name was Fields, and he was a Scotchman.
[54] The Paulistas were the inhabitants of the Portuguese (now
Brazilian) town of São Paulo. Azara, who hated the Jesuits (his
brother, Don Nicolas de Azara, having been concerned in their
expulsion), says that fear of the Paulistas contributed to the success
of the Jesuits with the Indians. Dean Funes (‘Historia del Paraguay’,
etc.) says just as reasonably that it was fear of the Spanish settlers.
[55] There was, however, a royal Order (_cedula real_) which applied to
all America, which especially prohibited Spaniards from living in the
Indian towns, and, moreover, provided that even for purposes of trade
no Spaniard should remain for more than three days in an Indian town.
[56] ‘Histoire Politique et Philosophique des Indes’, vol. i., p. 289
(Genève, 1780).
[57] Cretineau Joly, ‘Histoire Religieuse, Politique et Littéraire de
la Compagnie de Jésus’, vol. iii., cap. v., p. 322 (Paris, 1846).
[58] ‘Historia General de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y
tierra firme del Mar Oceano’, decad. v., lib. iv., cap. xl.
[59] ‘Historia General de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y
tierra firme del Mar Oceano’, decad. v., lib. x., cap. lxxx.
[60] ‘Inventarios de los bienes hallados á la Expulsion de los
Jesuitas’ (Madrid, 1872).
[61] The Franciscans had already five or six settlements.
[62] The word in Brazil is used to designate a half-breed, but the
etymology seems unknown.
[63] ‘Me he de salvar a pesar de Dios, porque para salvarse el hombre
no ha menester mas que creer’ (Ruiz Montoya, ‘Conquista Espiritual’).
Montoya adds with a touch of humour quite in Cervantes’ vein: ‘Este,
sabe ya por experiencia la falsedad de su doctrina, porque le mataron
de tres balazos, sin confesion.’
[64] The Mamelucos sometimes pushed their forays right through Paraguay
into the district of the Moxos, and Padre Patricio Fernandez, in his
curious ‘Relacion de los Indios Chiquitos’ (Madrid, 1726), relates
their adventures in that far-distant district, and the conflicts which
the Indians, led by their priests and helped by the Spanish settlers,
sustained.
[65] Lahier (Francisci) S. I., ‘Annæ Paraguarie, Annor. 1635, et duor.
sequ.’
[66] ‘Relazioni della Provincia del Paraguai’.
[67] Brabo.
[68] An _estero_ is a tract of country covered by water to the depth of
two or three feet. The bottom is usually hard, but it is full of holes
and hummocks. High pampa grass and reeds not infrequently obscure the
view, and clouds of insects make life miserable. If the tract extends
to more than a day’s journey, the night passed on a dry hummock,
holding one’s horse and listening without a fire to the wild beasts, is
likely to remain present to one in after-life, especially if alone; the
only things that seem to link one to humanity are one’s horse and the
familiar stars. Perhaps that is why Capella has always seemed to me in
some sort my own property.
[69] This curious berry, about the size of a large damson, grows on a
little shrub in sandy and rocky soils. It has a thick yellow rind and
several large seeds, and the property of being icy cold in the hottest
weather—a true traveller’s joy. Dr. de Bourgade de la Dardye, in his
excellent book on Paraguay (the English edition published in London in
1892), thinks it is either a eugenia or a myrtus.
[70] Charlevoix, vol. i., liv. vii., p. 384.
[71] _Ibid._, liv. vii., p. 359.
[72] Charlevoix, ‘Histoire du Paraguay’, vol. lvi., p. 285.
[73] ‘Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay’, Ruiz de Montoya, introductory
chapter.
[74] This may either mean to the service of God or to the service of
the King (Philip III.), for in the time of Montoya ‘Majesty’ was used
in addressing both the King of Spain and the King of Heaven.
[75] Yapeyu, or Reyes, was the southernmost of the Jesuit reductions.
It was situated upon the Uruguay in what is now the Argentine province
of Entre Rios.
[76] ‘Conquista Espiritual’, p. 22.
[77] This time, it is to be hoped, without omissions.
[78] ‘Dando gracias por agravios negocian los hombres sabios.’
[79] Soon afterwards ruined by the Paulistas.
[80] _Cacique_ = chief.
[81] These raids were known as _malocas_.
[82] In Paraguay it was not unusual for foreign Jesuits to hispaniolize
their names; thus, Smith became Esmid. But it was more usual to add a
Spanish name, as appears to have been the case with P. Vansurk
Mansilla. Father Manuel Querini, in his report to the King of Spain in
1750, mentions the names of Boxer, Keiner, and Limp, with many other
French, English, and German names, amongst those of priests at the
various missions.
[83] Montoya, ‘Conquista Espiritual’. Also Charlevoix.
[84] It is certain that the Guaranís, like many other Indians, were
polygamists, and Xarque, in his ‘Vida Apostolica del P. Joseph
Cataldino’, thus explains the matter: ‘El tener tanto numero de
concubinas, no solamente lo ocasiona su natural lascivo, sino tambien,
el vicio de la embriaguez, pues teniendo tantas criadas tenian con mas
abundancia su cerveza y vino.’ Thus Xarque seems to agree with the late
Miss Mary Kingsley, who in one of her books (though she says nothing
about the ‘natural lascivo’ of the negroes of the West Coast of Africa)
seems to attribute the polygamy of the negroes to the difficulty a man
experiences, in the countries in which she travelled, in getting his
food prepared by one wife.
[85] Charcas is situated in what is now Bolivia, and was extremely
inconvenient for all dwellers on the eastern side of the Andes to
reach. Whether this was a masterpiece of policy calculated to
discourage lawsuits, or whether it was merely due to Spanish
incuriousness and maladministration, is a moot point.
[86] The Indians of the missions were not allowed to possess firearms
at this period.
[87] ‘Paraguay’, Dr. E. de Bourgade la Dardye; English edition by
George Philips junior (London, 1892). The Indians call it Salto de
Canandiyú, which, according to Azara, was the name of a _cacique_ whom
the first Spaniards met there.
[88] ‘Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay’, Madrid, 1847.
[89] ‘Y es un espantoso despeñadero de agua’, etc. (‘Descripcion del
Paraguay’, tomo i., p. 39).
[90] ‘No dan cuartel’.
[91] At least, I have been unable to discover any other account by an
eye-witness.
[92] This city was situated near the great falls of Guayrá, and was
destroyed by the Paulistas, as well as the city of Villa Rica, after
the Jesuits and their Indians left the province.
[93] ‘Conquista Espiritual’, p. 48.
[94] ‘Rigoroso examen’ (‘Conquista Espiritual’).
[95] In all the books and pamphlets I have searched about the Jesuits
in Paraguay, both friendly and unfriendly to the Order, I have never
found a charge of personal unchastity advanced against a Jesuit. In
regard to the other religious Orders it is far otherwise.
[96] Azara, ‘Descripcion e Historia del Paraguay’, tomo i., p. 40: ‘En
las inmediaciones del Salto hay proporcion para tomar las medidas
geometricas que se quiera y metiendose por el bosque se puede reconocer
lo inferior del Salto, bien que para este es menester desnudare
totalmente porque llueve mucho.’
[97] Azara records (book i.) the Indian fable that no living thing
could exist near the cataract. Though this is of course untrue, yet in
most Paraguayan forests near water, game is both scarce and hard to
find.
[98] ‘Con buenas prendas de su salud eterna’ (‘Conquista Espiritual’).
[99] Fathers Suarez, Contreras, and Espinosa were Montoya’s lieutenants
in this memorable retreat. It is difficult to give the palm to the
energy and courage of the four priests, or to the resignation and faith
of the immense multitude of Indians who were saved by them.
[100] _Culebra_ is the Spanish for a serpent. These fish may have been
waterboas, or, again, as seems probable by their digestive powers, some
kind of hypothetical fish not yet catalogued.
[101] The name of this river seems to have passed through the machine
of some medieval typewriter, for it is like no name in any language,
and Montoya knew Guaraní well, having written much in that language.
[102] Even so late as the year 1777, in which the last treaty of
boundaries was signed at San Ildefonso, Portugal was the gainer, though
not so greatly as by the former treaties of 1681 and 1750.
[103] ‘Efemerides o Diario de la Guerra de los Guaranies’, por P. Tadeo
Hennis. This journal has, I think, never been published in its
entirety, but portions of it are to be found in the collection of
documents, Bulls, despatches, etc., published at Madrid in 1768 under
the title of ‘Causa Jesuitica de Portugal’. The author of this book
calls Hennis a German, but his name, Thadeus Ennis (as it is often
spelt), and his love of fighting look un-Germanic. Portions of the
diary are also to be found in the work of Bernardo Ibañez de
Echegarray, entitled ‘Histoire du Paraguay sous les Jésuites’
(Amsterdam, 1780). Either the original or an old manuscript copy exists
in the archives of Simancas, where I have seen, but unfortunately did
not examine, it. A portion of the work is also included in the
‘Coleccion de Angelis’ (Buenos Ayres, 1836).
[104] ‘Histoire d’un Voyage faict en la Terre du Brésil’.
[105] The way of the neophyte even to-day is hard, so many priests of
different jarring sects disputing for his soul as hotly as if it were a
preference stock which they had private intimation was just about to
rise.
[106] This province was sometimes called Guayrá, and sometimes La
Provincia de Vera, Vera being the family name of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de
Vaca. Its position, etc., may be determined by reference to the curious
volume of maps published at Madrid by Don Francisco Javier Brabo in
1872.
[107] That a mission could be so undefended as to need trenches, that a
Jesuit should ask leave to make such elementary defences, even in the
face of imminent danger, seems to prove that the Jesuits at least in
1636 had no intention of defying the sovereign power, as was so often
alleged against them.
[108] San Joaquin, Santa Teresa, Santa Ana.
[109] ‘Histoire du Paraguay’, liv. ix., p. 446.
[110] This territory is now the Argentine province of Misiones.
[111] This seems to prove the malice of those who set about that the
Indians of the missions paid no taxes to the Crown.
[112] Vieyra, the great Portuguese Jesuit, said that all miracles were
possible to God, but yet that he had never heard that our Lord had ever
cured anyone of folly.
[113] Now a province of the Argentine Republic.
[114] ‘Historia Paraquariæ’, book xii., cap. xii.
[115] La Plata was sometimes called Chuquisaca, and is to-day known as
Sucre.
[116] ‘Histoire du Paraguay’, vol. i., book ix., p. 478.
[117] Charlevoix, vol. i., book xi. Dean Funes, in his ‘Ensayo de la
Historia Civil de Paraguay, Buenos Ayres y Tucuman’, vol. ii., book
iii., p. 10 (Buenos Ayres, 1816), says of him: ‘Se adquirió muy en
breve una reputacion mas brillante que solida.’
[118] But besides putting into execution all his histrionic talents, he
had the adroitness to address himself to those feelings of
self-interest which he knew were perhaps more powerful than those of
admiration and respect for his own saintly proceedings in his new
diocese. Crétineau Joly, in his ‘Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus’,
vol. iii., p. 333 (Paris, 1845), tells us that Cardenas ‘parle aux
Espagnols, il s’addresse à leurs interêts, il réveille les vieux levain
de discorde . . . et il accuse les missionnaires d’être seuls les
apôtres de la liberté des Indiens.’
[119] ‘Oraculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia’ (Amsterdam, en casa de Juan
Blau, 1659).
[120] Charlevoix.
[121] Exod. 32:27.
[122] The arroba is about twenty-five pounds weight.
[123] Charlevoix.
[124] Camalote is a species of water-lily which forms a thick covering
on stagnant rivers and lakes in Paraguay and in the Argentine Republic.
[125] This was untrue, as the Jesuit missions were not at that time
(1644) apportioned into parishes under the authority of the Jesuits,
and such tribute as then was customary was all collected by government
officials.
[126] This was also untrue, as the tithes were never regulated in
Paraguay till 1649.
[127] This accusation was quite untrue, for the edict referred to was
not obtained under misapprehension, but after a complete exposition of
all the facts. Moreover, it was subsequently renewed on several
occasions by the Spanish Kings.
[128] The Venetians did not expel the Jesuits, they left Venetia of
their own accord.
[129] Fathers Montoya and Taño went respectively to Rome and to Madrid
to lay the sorrows of the Indians before the King and Pope. Having
obtained the edict from the King that Cardenas referred to, and a brief
from the Pope (Urban VIII.) forbidding slavery, they had the hardihood
to appear within the city of San Paulo and affix both edicts to the
church door. As was to be expected, the Paulistas immediately expelled
them from their territories, and hence the semi-truth of the sixth
charge made by Bishop Cardenas.
[130] Funes, ‘Historia Civil del Paraguay, Buenos-Ayres, y Tucuman’.
[131] The testimony of Funes is as follows: ‘Á juicio de testigo ocular
no es más admirable la sangre fria de sus capellanes’ (‘Historia Civil
del Paraguay’, book iii., cap. viii.).
[132] Literally, ‘taking out the blocks to air’. The effigies are made
of hard and heavy wood, and I remember once in Concepcion de Paraguay
assisting on a sweltering day to carry a Madonna weighing about five
hundredweight.
[133] The proverb says in Paraguay, ‘No se fia de mula ni mulata’.
[134] ‘Pagar y apelar’.
[135] Misque is at least fifteen hundred miles from Tucuman.
[136] ‘Que lo hagan salir de nuestros Reynos y Señorios como ageno y
estraño, por importar assi para la quietud de aquellas Provincias, y al
servicio de su Majestad.’
[137] A _yerbal_ is a forest chiefly composed of the _Ilex
Paraguayensis_, from the leaves of which the _yerba maté_, or
‘Paraguayan tea’, is made.
[138] Xarque, book ii., cap. xl., p. 30.
[139] This Villalon has left some curious memoirs in the case which he
submitted to the Council of the Indies which sat in Seville.
[140] Charlevoix, book xii., p. 115.
[141] Chipa is a kind of bread made of mandioca flour.
[142] Rapadura is a kind of coarse sugar, generally sold in little
pyramid-shaped lumps, done up in a banana leaf. It is strongly
flavoured with lye.
[143] Mani is ground-nut. [“Peanut” in American English.—A. L., 1998.]
[144] The paraiso is one of the Paulinias.
[145] ‘Obedesco, pero no cumplo.’
[146] ‘Cosas de palacio van despacio.’
[147] Dean Funes, in his ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay,
Buenos Ayres y Tucuman’ (book ii., cap. i., p. 10), says he was ‘Dotado
de un temperamento muy facil de inflamarse, de una imaginacion viva, de
una memoria feliz, y de un ingenio no vulgar.’
[148] At the date of the expulsion the number of the cattle was
719,761; oxen, 44,183; horses, 27,204; sheep, 138,827 (‘Inventarios de
los bienes hallados á la expulsion de los Jesuitas’, Francisco Javier
Brabo, Madrid, 1872).
[149] _Cocos yatais_.
[150] Urunday (_Astrenium fraxinifolium: Terebinthaceæ_), curapay
(_Piptadenia communis: Leguminaceæ_), lapacho (_Tecoma curialis_ and
_varia: Begoniaceæ_), taruma (_Vitex Taruma: Verbenaceæ_), tatane
(_Acacia maleolens: Leguminaceæ_), and cupai (_Copaifera Langsdorfii_).
These and many other woods, such as the Palo Santo (_Guaiacum
officinalis_), butacæ, and the _Cedrela Braziliensis_, known to the
Jesuits as ‘cedar’, and much used by them in their churches, comprise
the chief varieties.
[151] ‘Libro compuesto por el Hermano Pedro de Montenegro de la C. de
J., Ano 1711’, MS. folio, with pen-and-ink sketches, formerly belonged
to the Dukes of Osuna, and was in their library. Padre Sigismundi also
wrote a herbal in Guaraní, and a Portuguese Jesuit, Vasconellos, has
left a curious book upon the flora of Brazil.
[152] Domingo Parodi, in his ‘Notas sobre algunas plantas usuales del
Paraguay’ (Buenos Ayres, 1886), has done much good work.
[153] _Acacia Cavenia_.
[154] _Prosopis dulcis_. The famous ‘balm of the missions’, known by
the vulgar name of _curalo todo_ (all-heal), was made from the gum of
the tree called aguacciba, one of the Terebinthaceæ. It was sold by the
Jesuits in Europe. It was so highly esteemed that the inhabitants of
the villages near to which the tree was found were specially enjoined
to send a certain quantity of the balsam every year to the King’s
pharmacy in Madrid.
[155] It was from those mountains that the Jesuits procured the seed of
the _Ilex Paraguayensis_ to plant in their reductions. The leaves
beaten into a finish powder furnished the ‘Paraguayan tea’, called
_yerba-maté_ by the Spaniards and _caa_ by the Indians, from which the
Jesuits derived a handsome revenue. After the expulsion of the Order
all the _yerba_ in Paraguay was procured, till a few years ago, from
forests in the north of Paraguay, in which the tree grew wild.
[156] It was by the Bull of Paul III.—given at the demand of two monks,
Fray Domingo de Betanzos and Fray Domingo de Minaya—that the Indians
were first considered as reasoning men (_gente de razon_), and not as
unreasonable beings (_gente sin razon_), as Juan Ortiz, Bishop of Santa
Marta, wished.
[157] Ibañez (‘Histoire du Paraguay sous les Jésuites M.D.CCIXXX.’), a
great opponent of the Jesuits, says that European offenders and
recalcitrant Indians in the missions were sent as a last resource to
the Spanish settlements. This is not astonishing when we remember the
curious letter of Don Pedro Faxardo, Bishop of Buenos Ayres (preserved
by Charlevoix), written in 1721 to the King of Spain, in which he says
he thinks ‘that not a mortal crime is committed in the missions in a
year.’ He adds that, ‘if the Jesuits were so rich, why are their
colleges so poor?’
[158] It is to be remembered that, of the thirty Jesuit missions, only
eight were in Paraguay; the rest were in what to-day is Brazil and the
Argentine provinces of Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Misiones.
[159] Sometimes, when they had been assembled, they all deserted
suddenly, as did the Tobatines, who in 1740 suddenly left the reduction
of Santa Fé, and for eleven years were lost in the forests, till Father
Yegros found them, and, as they would not return, established himself
amongst them (Cretineau Joly, ‘Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus’, vol.
v., cap. ii.).
[160] P. Cardiel, ‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 282: ‘Todos los
pueblos estan bien formados con calles á cordel. Las casas de los
Indios son en algunos pueblos de piedras cuadradas pero sin cal . . .
otras de palos y barro todas cubiertas de teja, y todas tienen
soportales ó corredores, unas con pilares de piedras, otras de madera.’
[161] Don Francisco Graell, an officer of dragoons in service during
the War of the Seven Towns in 1750, gives the following description of
the church of the mission of San Miguel: ‘La iglesia es muy capaz, toda
de piedra de silleria con tres naves y media naranja. Muy bien pintada
y dorada con un portico magnifico y de bellisima arquitectura, bovedas
y media naranja son de madera, el altar mayor de talla, sin dorar y le
falta el ultimo cuerpo.’
[162] ‘Galerias con columnas, barandillas y escaleras de piedra
entallada’ (Don Francisco Graell). See also P. Cardiel (‘Declaracion de
la Verdad’, p. 247), ‘En todos los pueblos hay reloj de sol y de
ruedas,’ etc. The work of Padre Cardiel was written in 1750 in the
missions of Paraguay, but remained unpublished till 1800, when it
appeared in Buenos Ayres from the press of Juan A. Alsina, Calle de
Mexico 1422. It is, perhaps, after the ‘Conquista Espiritual’ of Father
Ruiz Montoya, the most powerful contemporary justification of the
policy of the Jesuits in Paraguay. It is powerfully but simply written,
and contains withal that saving grace of humour which has, from the
beginning of the world, been a stumbling-block to fools.
[163] The mission of San Miguel had 1,353 families in it, or say 6,635
souls. San Francisco de Borja contained 650 families, or 2,793 souls
(Report by Manuel Querini to the King, dated Cordoba de Tucuman, y
Agosto 1o, 1750).
[164] In their extensive missions in the provinces of Chiquitos and
Moxos they pursued the same system. As they were much more isolated in
those provinces than in Paraguay, and consequently much less interfered
with, it was there that their peculiar system most flourished. After
the expulsion of the Jesuits from America in 1767, the Spaniards in
Alta Peru, and subsequently the Bolivians, had the sense to follow the
Jesuit plan in its entirety; whereas Bucareli, the Viceroy of Buenos
Ayres, entirely changed the Jesuits’ rule in Paraguay. The consequence
was that in Bolivia the Indians, instead of dispersing as they did in
Paraguay, remained in the missions, and D’Orbigny (‘Fragment d’un
Voyage au Centre de l’Amérique Méridianale’) saw at the missions of
Santiago and El Santo Corazon, in the province of Chiquitos, the
remains of the Jesuits’ polity. There were ten missions in Chiquitos,
and fifteen in Moxos. At the present time the Franciscans have some
small establishments in Bolivia.
[165] ‘Pillos muy ladinos’ (Robertson, ‘Letters from Paraguay’).
[166] Ferrer del Rio, in his ‘Coleccion de los articulos de la
Esperanza sobre Carlos III.’ (Madrid, 1859), says: ‘Fuera de las
misiones de los Jesuitas particularmente en el Paraguay se consideraban
los Indios entre los seres mas infelices del mundo.’
Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, in their celebrated ‘Secret Report’
(‘Noticias Secretas de America’): ‘La compañia (de Jesus) atiende a sus
fines particularmente con los misioneros que llevan de España; pero con
todo eso no se olvida de la conversion de los Indios, ni tiene
abandonado este asunto pues aunque van poco adelante en el, que es lo
que no se esperimenten en las demas religiones.’
[167] Many travellers, as Azara, Demersay, Du Graty, and D’Orbigny,
have remarked how fond of music was the Guaraní race, and how soon they
learned the use of European instruments. D’Orbigny (‘Fragment d’un
Voyage au Centre de l’Amérique Méridianale’), in his interesting
account of the mission of El Santo Corazon, in the district of
Chiquitos, says: ‘Je fus très étonné d’entendre exécuter après les
danses indigènes des morceaux de Rossini et . . . de Weber . . . la
grande messe chantée en musique était exécutée d’une manière très
remarquable pour des Indiens.’
Vargas Machuca, in his most curious and rare ‘Milicia y Descripcion de
las Indias’, says, under the heading of ‘Musica del Indio’: ‘Usan sus
musicas antiguas en sus regocijos, y son muy tristes en la tonada.’
To-day the Indians of Paraguay have songs known as _tristes_. The
brigadier Don Diego de Alvear, in his ‘Relacion de Misiones’ (Coleccion
de Angelis), says that the first to teach the Guaranís European music
was a Flemish Jesuit, P. Juan Basco, who had been _maestro de capilla_
to the Archduke Albert.
[168] See also P. Cardiel, ‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 274: ‘. . . y
esta acabada, se toca á Misa á que entran todos cantando el Bendito, y
alabado en su lengua, ó en Castellano, que en las dos lenguas lo
saben.’
[169] Dean Funes, in his ‘Ensayo de la Historia del Paraguay’, etc.,
says that in the _estancia_ of Santa Tecla, in the missions of
Paraguay, during the time of the Jesuits, there were 50,000 head of
cattle.
[170] ‘Inventarios de los bienes hallados á la expulsion de los
Jesuitas’, Introduction, xxvii, Francisco Javier Brabo.
[171] The rare and much-sought-after ‘Manuale ad usum Patrum Societatis
Jesu qui in Reductionibus Paraquariæ versantur, ex Rituale Romano ad
Toletano decerptum’, was printed at the mission of Loreto. It contains
prayers in Guaraní as well as in Latin. Here also was printed a curious
book of Guaraní sermons by Nicolas Yapuguay, many Guaraní vocabularies,
and the ‘Arte de la Lengua Guaraní’ of Ruiz Montoya.
[172] P. Cardiel, ‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 295: ‘De estos granos
comunales se da para sembrar’, etc.
[173] This jerked beef is called _charqui_ in South America.
[174] The poorer classes in Paraguay all used to wear the _tipoi_. They
covered themselves when it was cold with a white cotton sheet wrapped
in many folds.
[175] The Jesuits themselves were dressed in homespun clothes, for
Matias Angles—quoted in the introduction to the ‘Declaracion de la
Verdad’ of Father Cardiel, published at Buenos Ayres in 1900 (the
introduction by P. Pablo Hernandez)—says: ‘El vestuario de los Padres
es de lienzo de algodon teñido de negro, hilado y fabricado por las
mismas Indias de los pueblos; y si tal qual Padre tiene un capote ó
manteo de paña de Castilla se sucede de unos á otros, y dura un siglo
entero.’
[176] In the ‘Relacion de Misiones’ of the Brigadier Don Diego de
Alvear, written between 1788 and 1801, and preserved in the ‘Coleccion
de Angelis’, occurs the following curious description of the feast-day
of a patron saint of a Jesuit reduction: ‘They make a long alley of
interwoven canes, which ends in a triumphal arch, which they adorn with
branches of palms and other trees with considerable grace and taste
(_con bastante gracia y simetria_). Under the arch they hang their
images of saints, their clothes, their first-fruits—as corn and
sugar-cane, and calabashes full of maize-beer (_chicha_)—their meat and
bread, together with animals both alive and dead, such as they can
procure (_como los pueden haber con su diligencia_). Then, forming in a
ring, they dance and shout, ‘Viva el rey! Viva el santo tutelar!’
[177] Many and curious are the names by which the office-bearers went.
Thus, in the Mission of el Santo Corazon, in the Chiquitos, I find the
following: Corregidor, the Mayor; Teniente, Lieutenant; Alferez,
Sub-Lieutenant; Alcalde Primero, Head Alcalde; Alcalde Segundo, Second
Alcalde; Commandante, Captain (of the Militia); Justicia Mayor, Chief
Justice; Sargento Mayor, Sergeant-Major. Then came fiscales, fiscals;
sacristan mayor, head-beadle; capitan de estancia, chief of the cattle
farm; capitan de pinturas, carpinteria, herreros, etc.—captain of
painters, carpenters, smiths, etc. All the offices were competed for
ardently, and those of Corregidor and Alcalde in especial were prized
so highly that Indians who were degraded from them for bad conduct or
carelessness not infrequently died of grief.
[178] In each reduction there were two priests. In all Paraguay, at the
expulsion of the Order in 1767, there were only seventy-eight Jesuits
(Dean Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia del Paraguay’, etc., cap. i., vol.
ii.).
[179] In the mission of Los Apostoles there were 599 of these ‘horses
of the saint’, according to an inventory preserved by Brabo.
[180] Furnished to Bucareli, Viceroy of Buenos Ayres at the expulsion,
and first printed by Brabo (‘Inventarios de los bienes hallados á la
expulsion de los Jesuitas’).
[181] The Jesuits exercised the Indians a great deal in dancing, taking
advantage of their love of dancing in their savage state. D’Orbigny and
Demersay (‘Fragment d’un Voyage au Centre de l’Amérique Méridianale’,
and ‘Histoire Physique, etc., du Paraguay’) found between the years
1830 and 1855 that the Indians of the Moxos and Chiquitos still danced
as they had done in the time of the Jesuits.
I have seen them in the then (1873) almost deserted mission of Jesus,
buried in the great woods on the shore of the Paraná, dance a strange,
half-savage dance outside the ruined church.
[182] Cardiel, in his ‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 239, says: ‘Todos
los pueblos ponen su castillo en la plaza y en el medio de el colocan
el retratro del Rey, y el Indio Alferez Real . . . va al castillo con
el Estandarte Real y alli hace su homenage con otros rendimientos
anteel Retratro Real,’ saying in Guaraní, ‘Toicohengatú ñande Mbaru
bicha guazú! Toicohengatú ñande Rey marangatú! Toicohengatú ñande Rey
Fernando Sesto!’ (‘Long live our King, the great chief! Long live our
good King! Long live our King Ferdinand VI.’).
[183] ‘Chupas de damasco carmesi con encajes de plata.’
[184] It may be roughly translated, ‘a good stone wall between a male
and female saint.’
[185] These clothes were the property of the community, and not of the
individual Indians.
[186] Brabo, xxxv., Introduction to ‘Los inventarios de los bienes.’
[187] A recent writer in the little journal published on yellow
packing-paper in the Socialist colony of Cosme, in Paraguay (_Cosme
Monthly_, November, 1898), has a curious passage corroborating what I
have so often observed myself. Under the heading of ‘A Paraguayan
Market’, he says: ‘The Guaraní clings stubbornly to the Guaraní
customs. This is irritating to the European, but who shall say that the
Guaraní is not right? . . . European settlement cannot but be fatal to
the Guaraní, however profitable it may be to land-owning and mercantile
classes. . . . The Paraguayan market is a woman’s club . . . they will
come thirty or forty miles with a clothful of the white curd-cheese of
the country, contentedly journeying on foot along the narrow paths.
They will cut a cabbage into sixteenths and eat their cheese themselves
rather than sell it under market price.’ Long may they do so, for so
long will they be free, and perhaps poor; but, then, in countries such
as Paraguay freedom and poverty are identical.
[188] As the Gaucho proverb says, ‘Las armas son necesarias pero
“naide” sabe cuando.’
[189] Corregidores, alcaldes, regidores, alguaciles, etc.
[190] Hereditary or sometimes elected chiefs.
[191] I remember seeing on the tombstone of a Spanish sailor his hope
of salvation through the intercession of the Lord High Admiral Christ.
After the Spanish custom, officers were often generals both by sea and
land, so that soldiers were not excluded from the Lord High Admiral’s
intercession.
[192] Dean Funes (‘Ensayo de la Historia de Paraguay’, etc.) says:
‘These Indians went under the command of Don Antonio de Vera Moxica;
their sergeants were Guaranís and their captains Spaniards. Their
_cacique_ was Ignacio Amandaá, who commanded in chief under Vera
Moxica.’ They fought bravely, and returned again and again to the
assault of the town after several repulses, manifesting the same dogged
courage and indifference to death which their descendants showed in the
war against Brazil in 1866-70. In that war bodies of Paraguayans
frequently attacked strong positions defended by artillery, and allowed
themselves to be shot down to the last man rather than retire. At other
times, concealed behind masses of floating herbage, from their canoes
they sprang on board Brazilian ironclads, and were all killed in the
vain endeavour to capture the vessels. I knew a little pettifogging
lawyer, one Izquierdo, who, with ten companions, attempted in a canoe
to take the Brazilian flagship (an ironclad); left alone on her deck,
after the death of his companions, he sprang into the water under a
shower of bullets, and, badly wounded, swam over to the Chaco, the
desert side of the river. There for three days he remained, subsisting
on wild oranges, and then swam across again on a raft of sticks, in
spite of the alligators and many fierce fish which abound in Paraguay.
He got well, and, though lame, was, when I knew him, as arrant a little
scrivening knave as you could hope to meet in either hemisphere.
On many other occasions the mission Indians performed notable services
for the Spanish Government. In 1681, when the French attacked Buenos
Ayres, a detachment of two thousand Indians was sent to its assistance.
Philip V. himself wrote to the Provincial of Paraguay on this occasion
asking him to send troops to the defence of the city.
In 1785 four thousand Guaranís, commanded by Don Baltazar Garcia, were
at the second siege of the Colonia del Sacramento. Funes says of them:
‘A juicio de un testigo ocular, no es menos admirable la sangre fria de
sus capellanes.’
[193] ‘Perro Luterano’. It is astonishing how in Spain the
comparatively innocuous Luther has fallen heir to the heritage of
hatred that should more properly have belonged to the inhuman and
treacherous Calvin.
[194] Philip V. in 1745, after an examination which lasted six years,
approved of all the actions of the Jesuits in Paraguay (Cretineau Joly,
‘Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus’, vol. v., p. 103). So that a
curious letter of a Jeronimite friar (one Padre Cevallos), written in
1774, is well within due limits when it says that all the Jesuits did
in Paraguay was ‘todo probado por reales cedulas ó procedia de ordenes
expresas.’
[195] One is obliged to allow, in common fairness, that Calvin carried
out in his own practice what he advocated—as witness his conduct with
Servetus, whom he first calumniated, then entrapped, and lastly
murdered in cold blood.
[196] Don Francisco Corr sent the following list of arms to the Viceroy
Zabala, of Buenos Ayres (Funes, ‘Ensayo’, etc.): ‘Armas buenas, 850;
lanzas de hierro, 3,850; pedreras (culverins), 10. Las flechas no se
cuentan.’ He says: ‘Todos los Indios quando han de salir a compaña
llevan 150 flechas de hierro, menos los que llevan armos de fuego. Asi
mismo cargan “bolas” que son dos piedras en una cuerda. Los de a pie
que no llevan escopetas tienen lanza, flecha, y honda con su provision
de piedras en un bolson como de granaderos. Se prestan caballos entre
los pueblos.’
[197] Ibañez (‘Histoire du Paraguay sous les Jésuites’) states the
hides sold at about three dollars apiece.
[198] The arroba was twenty-five pounds.
[199] These figures are from Brabo’s inventories.
[200] Ibañez states that only eighty-four dollars a year were set apart
for the maintenance of each priest.
[201] Dean Funes (‘Ensayo de le Historia Civil del Paraguay’, etc.)
puts it at a million reales, which almost equals £20,800.
Ibañez (‘La Republica Jesuitica’), with the noble disregard of
consequences so noticeable in most polemical writers, boldly alters
this to a million dollars, his object being to prove that the Jesuits
exacted exorbitant taxation from the neophytes.
[202] The honey of the missions was celebrated, and the wax made by the
small bee called ‘Opemus’, according to Charlevoix (livre v., p. 285),
‘était d’une blancheur qui n’avait rien de pareil, et ces neophytes ont
consacré tout qu’ils en peuvent avoir à bruler devant les images de la
Ste. Vierge.’
[203] In the inventory of the mission of San José I find: ‘Item, doce
pares de grillos’; but I am bound to say that in this instance they
were for the use of ‘los Guaicurus infieles prisioneros que estan en
dicha mision.’
[204] ‘Il Cristianesimo Felice nelle Missione dei Padri della Compagnia
di Jesu nel Paraguay’.
[205] ‘L’Histoire du Paraguay sous les Jésuites’, Amsterdam, 1700,
lxxv.
[206] In all, the missions amounted to thirty; and for their relative
situations _vide_ the curious map, the original of which was published
in the work of Padre Pedro Lozano, C. de J., ‘Descripcion chorographica
del terreno, rios, arboles y animales de las dilatadissimas provincias
del Gran Chaco, Gualanba’, etc. Cordoba, del Tucuman, en el Colegio de
la Assumpcion, por Joseph Santos Balbas, 1733.
[207] A letter of a certain Jesuit (name lost, but dated 1715) says
that there were at least two thousand canoes in constant use on the
Paraná, and almost as many more on the Uruguay (Brabo, ‘Inventarios’,
etc.).
[208] Corregidores, regidores, alcaldes, etc.
[209] It is not to be supposed, however, that the Indians were kept in
ignorance. P. Cardiel (‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 222), quoting
from the Cedula Real of 1743, says that ‘in every one of the towns
there is a school established to teach reading and writing in Spanish,
and that on that account a great number of Indians are to be met who
write well.’ Cardiel adds, on the same page, ‘Dos de ellos estan
copiando ahora esto que yo escribo, y de mejor letra que la mia.’
[210] Dean Funes (‘Ensayo Critico’, etc.) puts the income from commerce
of the thirty towns at a hundred thousand dollars, and informs us that,
after taxation (to the Crown) had been deducted from it, it was applied
to the maintenance of the churches and other necessary expenses, and by
the end of the year little of it remained.
[211] Don Martin de Barua, in his memorial to the King (1736),
complaining of the Jesuits, puts the number of taxable Indians at forty
thousand. The Commission appointed to examine into the charges in 1736,
which reported in 1745 (a reasonable interval), affirmed that the
taxable Indians only numbered 19,116. Each Indian paid an annual
poll-tax of one dollar a year to the Crown. In addition to that, every
town gave one hundred dollars a year. The salary of the priests was six
hundred dollars a year (Azara, ‘Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale’).
[212] ‘Account of the Abipones’. London: John Murray, 1822.
[213] ‘Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale’. Paris: Denton, 1809.
[214] Perámas (‘De vita et moribus sex sacerdotum Paraguaycorum, Petrus
Joanes Andrea’, lxxxiv.) states that it appeared, from papers left
after their expulsion, that the income of the Jesuit College of Cordoba
just paid the expenses of administration (‘era con escasa diferencia
igual á los gastos’).
In the Archivo General of Buenos Ayres, legajo ‘Compañia de Jesús’,
there is a document referred to by P. Hernandez in his introduction to
the work of P. Cardiel (‘Declaracion de la Verdad’), which states that
in the year of the expulsion the income of the thirty towns fell a
little short of the expenses.
[215] Azara, ‘Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale’; also Funes, ‘Ensayo
Critico de la Historia del Paraguay’; and Padre Guevara, ‘Historia del
Paraguay, Rio de la Plata y Tucuman’.
[216] Archivo General de Simancas, Estado, legajo 7,450, folios 21 y
22, 5_a_, Copia de las cartas (sin firma; la siguiente es de Nicolas
Neenguirú) que se hallaron en letra Guaraní traducidas por los
interpreteo nombrados en las sorpresa hecha al pueblo de San Lorenzo
por el Coronel D. José Joaquin de Viana, Gobernador de Montevideo, el
dia 20 de Mayo de 1756:
‘El modo de vivir del Padre es, cerrar bien todas las puertas y
quedarse el solo, su Mayordomo, y su muchacho. Son ya Indios de edad, y
solo estos asisten solo de dia adentro, y á las doce salen afuera, y un
viejo es quien cuida de la Porteria, y es quien Sierra la puerta quando
descansa el Padre, ó quando sale el Padre á ver su chacara. Y aun
entonces van solos, sino es con un Indio de hedad quien los giua y
cuida de el caballo y despues de esto á misa y á la tarde al Rosario de
Maria Santisima llamandonos con toque de campana, y antes de esto á los
muchachos y muchachittas los llama con una campánilla y despues de eso
el bueno de el Padre entra ha enseñarles la Doctrina, y el persinarse
de el mismo modo, todos los dias de fiesta nos Predica la palabra de
Dios, del mismo modo el Santo Sacramento de la Penitencia y de la
Communion, en estas cosas se exercitta el bueno del Padre y todas las
noches se sierra la porteria y la llave se lleva al aposento del Padre
y solo se vuelve á abrir por la mañana quando entra el Sachristan y los
cosineros. . . .
‘Los Padres todas las mañanas nos dicen misas, y despues de misa, se
van a su aposento y hai cogen un poco de aqua caliente con Yerva y no
otra cosa mas; despues de esto sale a la puerta de su aposento y ahai
todos los que oyeron misa se arrimen a besarle la mano, y despues de
esto sale afuera a ver los Indios si trabajan en los oficios que cada
uno tiene, y despues se van a su aposento a resar el oficio divino, en
su libro, y para que Dios le ayude en todas sus cosas. A las once de el
dia van a comer un poquitto, no á comer mucho solo coge cinco plattitos
y solo beve una vez el vino, no llenando un vaso pequeño, y aguardiente
nunca lo toman y el vino no lo hai en nuestro pueblo, solo lo traen de
la Candelaria segun lo que envia el Padre Superior lo trahen de acia
Buenos Aires. . . . Despues que sale de comer y para descansar an poco,
y mientras descansa salen fuera los que assisten en la casa del Padre,
y los que trabajan dentro en algunas obras y tamvien el Sachristan y el
cosinero: todos estos salen fuera y quando no se toca la campana estan
serradas las puertas, y solo un viejo es el que cuida de las puertas, y
quando vuelvan a tocar la campana, vuelve este a abrirlas para que
vuelvan a entrar los que trabajan dentro, y el Padre Coge el Brebiario
no a ir a parte ninguna. A la tarde tocan la campanilla paraque se
recojan las criatturas, y entre el Padre á ensenarles la doctrina
christiana.’
[217] Perhaps the entire isolation of the Jesuits in these two
provinces accounts for their absolute quiet; and if this is so, it goes
far to prove that they were right to attempt the same isolation in
Paraguay. The comparative nearness of the Spanish settlements
frustrated their attempts in this instance.
[218] For ‘reasoning men’, and how this monstrous superstition still
prevails in Venezuela, see the charming book of S. Perez Triana, ‘De
Bogota al Atlantico’, etc., pp. 156-158 (Paris: Impresa Sud Americana).
A really interesting book of travels, without cant, and without an eye
on the public. Strange to relate, the author seems to have killed
nothing during his journey.
[219] Charlevoix, book iv.
[220] ‘Conquista Espiritual’, Ruiz Montoya.
[221] ‘Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale’.
[222] Azara, ‘Viage al America Meridional’, tomo 2, cap 12. ‘La corte
ordenó a Don Francisco de Alfaro oidor de la Audiencia de Charcas pasar
al Perú en calidad de visitador. La primera medida que tomó en 1612 fue
ordenar que ninguno en lo sucesivo pudiese ir a casa de Indios, con el
pretexto de reducirlos, y que no se diesen encomiendas del modo que
hemos explicado, es decir con servicio personal. No alcanzo sobre que
podia fundarse una medida tan politicamente absurda: pero como este
oidor favorecia las _ideas de los Jesuitas_, se sospechó que por aquel
tiempo que ellos dictaron su conducta.’
[223] For _mitas_ and _encomiendas_, see foregoing chapters.
[224] Brabo, ‘Inventarios de los bienes hallados a la expulsion de las
Jesuitas’.
[225] ‘Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale’.
[226] P. Cardiel (‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 449), quoting from
Xarque (‘La Vida Apostolica del Padre Joseph Cataidino’, Zaragoça por
Juan de Ypa, 1664), says, _re_ the diminution of the Indians under the
Spanish rule: ‘Para que se vea cuanta razon tiene el Juez reparese que
segun los padrones del siglo pasado (vg. 1600-1700) en la ciudad y
jurisdicion de Santiago del Estero habia 80,000 Indios y ahora, apenas
hay ochenta. En la jurisdicion de Cordoba de Tucuman, habia 40,000; hoy
no hay 40. En la jurisdicion y cercanias de la ciudad de Buenos Ayres,
habia 30,000; hoy apenas hay 30.’
[227] Charlevoix, vol. ii., livre xvii.
[228] Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay’, etc., vol.
ii., cap. v., p. 231.
[229] Del Techo, Lozano, Guevara, Charlevoix, etc., etc.
[230] Liberty is commonly only attained by blood. It is, I think, quite
legitimate in playing the liberty game to kill all who disagree with
your party, or to banish them. In these degenerate times, lovers of
liberty have to stop short at calumny, just as if they were mere
tyrants.
[231] _Guazu_ = ‘great’ in Guaraní. It is frequent in place-names both
in Paraguay and Corrientes.
[232] Dean Funes, vol. ii., cap. xii., p. 372, says of Zavala: ‘Por
caracter era manso, pero usó algunas veces de severidad, porque sabia
que para servir bien a los hombres es preciso de cuando en cuando tener
valor de desagradarlos. . . . La pobreza en que murio despues de tantos
años de mando, es una prueba clasica de que no estaba contagiado con
esa commun flaqueza de los que gobieran en America.’
[233] In the long and interesting letter of Jaime Aguilar, the
provincial of the Jesuits in Paraguay, to the King of Spain (Philip V.,
1737), occurs the following passage:
‘Y si alguna vez, que no son muchas, se animan los Españoles a
perseguir y castigar los Indios, muchos huyen de la tierra, o se
esconden, por no ir a la entrada. . . . Otras (vezes) quando llegan
allá, el Enemigo les quitan la Cavallada, dexandolos a pie y se vuelven
a casa como pueden.’
This I have seen myself, not thirty years ago, on the frontiers of the
Argentine Republic. The popular Argentine poem, ‘La Vuelta de Martin
Fierro’, by José Hernandez (Buenos Ayres, 1880), has an illustration
showing an expedition against the Indians returning. Some of the men
are on foot; others are riding two on the same horse, and officers are
animating their men with the flat of their swords.
[234] ‘Account of the Abipones’, p. 125.
[235] Brabo, ‘Inventarios’, p. ix.
[236] Francisco Xavier Brabo, ‘Inventarios de los bienes hallados á la
expulsion de los Jesuitas’ (Madrid, 1872).
[237] The lists of cannons, guns, and arms of all kinds in the
inventories of the Chaco towns, preserved by Brabo, serve to show not
only the dangers to which the Jesuits were exposed, but also how
thoroughly the Jesuits understood the fickle nature of those with whom
they lived.
[238] Another priest, the list of whose effects Brabo has preserved in
his ‘Inventarios’, had a book called ‘El Alivio de Tristes’. Even a
Protestant may be excused for hoping that it merited its title.
[239] Cretineau Joly, tome v., chap. ii., p. 95. Your moral force is
excellent in a civilized country; but your modern missionary usually
prefers something more in accordance with the spirit of the times.
[240] The total number of cattle was 78,171, as against 698,353 in the
towns of the Guaranís. See Brabo, ‘Inventarios de los bienes hallados á
la expulsion de los Jesuitas’, Appendix, p. 668.
[241] ‘History of the Abipones’, from the Latin of Martin Dobrizhoffer,
London, 1822.
It is a curious circumstance that in the missions in the Chaco there
were negro slaves, though in the Paraguayan missions they were unknown.
In the inventory of the town of San Lucas appear the following entries,
under the head of ‘Negros Esclavos’:
‘Justo, que sirve de capataz en el campo; será de edad de veinte y
siete años, mas ó menos segun su aspecto.’
‘Item, Pedro, será de diez y seis años y es medio fatuo.’
‘Item, José Felix, será de un mes y medio.’
[242] Though 1747 was the date of the final founding of these
reductions, as early as 1697 about four hundred Indians were discovered
in the woods of the Taruma by Fathers Robles and Ximenes, and
established in the mission of Nuestra Señora de Fe; but in the year
1721 they all returned to the woods, a famine and an outbreak of the
small-pox having frightened them. After being again established in a
mission, and again having left it, in 1746, they were established
definitely at San Joaquin.
[243] Dobrizhoffer calls the Tobatines by the name of Itatines.
Charlevoix and others refer to them as Tobatines.
[244] ‘Account of the Abipones’, p. 54.
[245] In 1873, when I visited the outskirts of this forest, the
conditions were similar to those which Dobrizhoffer describes, with the
addition that the depopulation of the country, owing to the recent long
war, had allowed the tigers to multiply to an extraordinary degree, and
my guide and myself, after feeding our horses, had to sleep
alternately, the waker holding the two horses hobbled and bridled.
[246] The whole operation of collecting and preparing the leaves of the
_Ilex Paraguayensis_, to make the _yerba-maté_, was most curious. Bands
of men used to sally out for a six-months’ expedition, either by land
with bullock-waggons, or up one of the rivers in flat-bottomed boats,
which were poled along against the rapid current by crews of six to
twelve men. Arrived at the _yerbal_, as the forest was called, they
built shelters, after the fashion of those in use amongst the larger of
the anthropoid apes. Some roamed the woods in search of the proper
trees, the boughs of which they cut down with machetes, whilst others
remained and built a large shed of canes called a _barbacoa_. On this
shed were laid the bundles of boughs brought from the woods, and a
large fire was lighted underneath. During forty-eight hours (if I
remember rightly) the toasting went on; then, when sufficiently dry,
the leaves were stripped from the twigs, and placed on a sort of open
space of hard clay, something like a Spanish threshing-floor. On this
they were pounded fine, and the powder rammed into raw-hide bags. This
concluded the operations, and the _yerba_ was then ready for the
‘higgling of the market’.
[247] _Traduttore traditore_, as the proverb says.
[248] Charlevoix says, in his ‘Histoire de la Nouvelle France’,
speaking of the Indians in general: ‘L’expérience a fait voir qu’il
étoit plus à propos de les laisser dans leur simplicité et dans leur
ignorance, que les sauvages peuvent être des bons Chrétiens sans rien
prendre de notre politesse et de notre façon de vivre, ou du moins
qu’il falloit laisser faire au tems pour les tirer de leur grossièreté,
qui ne les empêche pas de vivre dans une grande innocence, d’avoir
beaucoup de modestie, et de servir Dieu avec une piété et une ferveur,
que les rendent très propres aux plus sublimes opérations de la grâce.’
Had more people thought with Charlevoix, and not been too anxious to
draw savages incontrovertibly to our ‘politesse’ (_sic_) and ‘façon’,
and left more to time (‘au tems’), how much misery might have been
saved, and how many interesting peoples preserved! For, in spite of the
domination of the Anglo-Saxon race, it might have been wise to leave
other types, if only to remind us of our superiority.
[249] Hell not infrequently seems to have struck the Indians as a joke,
for Charlevoix relates that when the first missionaries expatiated on
its flames to the Chirignanós, they said, ‘If there is fire in hell, we
could soon get enough water to put it out.’ This answer scandalized the
good priest, who could not foresee that the flames of Tophet would be
extinguished without the necessity of any other waters than those of
indifference.
[250] ‘Account of the Abipones’, p. 74.
[251] Padre del Techo, in his ‘History of Paraguay’, says of the wood
Indians that ‘they died like plants which, grown in the shade, will not
bear the sun.’
[252] San Joaquin, San Estanislao, and Belen.
[253] Notably those of Azara.
[254] ‘Account of the Abipones’, p. 15.
[255] As that of Philip V., from the palace of Buen Retiro, December
28, 1743, and his two letters to the Jesuits of Paraguay. Also the
previous edict obtained by Montoya from Philip II., and by the various
additions on the same head made from time to time to the code known as
‘The Laws of the Indies’.
[256] Since the discovery of America the Spaniards and the Portuguese
had been in constant rivalry throughout the south-eastern portion.
Their frontier, between what are now Brazil and Argentina, had never
been defined. In 1494 King John II. of Castile concluded a treaty
signed at Tordesillas with the King of Portugal, placing the
dividing-line between the countries two hundred leagues more to the
westward than that of the famous Bull of Pope Alexander VI. (May 4,
1493), which placed it at one hundred leagues west of Cape Verd,
cutting the world in two from the Arctic to the Antarctic Pole. From
the signing of the treaty of Tordesillas trouble began in South America
between the Powers, as by that treaty a portion of Brazil came into the
power of Portugal.
[257] These were the towns of San Angel, San Nicolas, San Luis, San
Lorenzo, San Miguel, San Juan, and San Borja.
[258] According to the 1913 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia (in
the article titled “Reductions of Paraguay”) this treaty, signed in
secret on 15 January 1750, was a deliberate assault on the Jesuit Order
by the Ministers of Spain and Portugal, the latter of whom, Pombal, is
said to have been responsible also for the false and libelous ‘Histoire
de Nicolas I., Roy du Paraguai et Empereur des Mamalus’ (referred to in
this chapter) which was distributed throughout Europe as another attack
on the Jesuits. As anyone familiar with the situation could see that
the Indians would not be happy about the treaty’s requirement to
abandon their homes, it was a well-calculated, though detestable,
move.—A. L., 1998.
[259] Most of the dates of the events subsequent to the cession of the
seven reductions on the Uruguay are taken from ‘La Causa Jesuitica de
Portugal’ (Madrid, 1768), written by Ibañez, a great enemy of the
Jesuits. In it is also an account of the events in Paraguay between
1750 and 1756, called ‘Relacion de la Guerra que sustentaron los
Jesuitas contra las tropas Españolas y Portuguesas en el Uruguay y
Paraná’. No proof has ever been brought forward that the Jesuits as a
body ever incited the revolt of the Indians, though undoubtedly Father
Tadeo Ennis, a hot-headed priest, stirred up his own particular
reduction to resist. It does not seem likely that the Jesuits could
have thought it possible to wage a successful war against Spain and
Portugal. The dates taken from Ibañez tally with original letters from
the Marques de Valdelirios, the Spanish boundary commissioner, and
others, which are preserved in the Spanish national archives at
Simancas.
[260] _Vide_ ‘Exc. por los cartas que recibi con los avisos, y llegada
del P. Altamirano, entiendo acabará de persuadirse a que los Padres de
la Campañia son los sublevados, sino los quitan de las aldeas sus
Santos Padres (como ellos los llaman) no experimentarán mas que
rebeliones insolencias y desprecios. . . .’—Letter quoted by Ibañez
(‘Causa Jesuitica’), and also preserved at Simancas.
[261] The Marques de Valdelirios, writing to Don José de Carvajal from
Monte Video, June 28, 1752 (Simancas, Legajo 7,447), says: ‘Estoy
cierto de que los padres estan ya en la persuasion de que el tratado no
se ha de dejar de executar.’ This being so, it was evident that the
Marquis, at the date of writing, was of opinion that the Jesuits were
not going to oppose the execution of the treaty, as he goes on to say:
‘Y es credible que con este desengaño trabajan seriamente en la mudanza
de sus pueblos.’
[262] The instructions were prepared in 1768 by Bucareli for the
guidance of Don Juan Joseph de Vertiz, his interim successor in the
government of the River Plate, and were delivered to him in 1770 when
Bucareli returned to Spain. They are printed by Brabo in his ‘Coleccion
de Documentos relativos á la Expulsion de los Jesuitas’, Madrid, 1872,
p. 320.
[263] ‘Oficiales mecanicos’.
[264] This refers to the same subject, and prohibits any Spaniard from
settling in an Indian town in any part of America.
[265] Dean Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay’, etc.,
tome iii., p. 45.
[266] Dean Funes says ‘una difusa memoria’; but, then, even though
friendly, churchmen and cats rarely forego a scratch. The proverb has
it, ‘Palabras de santo, uñas de gato’.
[267] Though Ibañez (‘Republica Jesuitica’, tome i., cap. i.) says:
‘This treaty caused entire satisfaction to all the world except the
English, who feared their commerce would suffer by it (_i.e._, by the
closing of the Colonia del Sacramento as an entry for smuggled goods),
and the Jesuits.’
Raynal, also an ex-Jesuit, but a man of far higher character than
Ibañez, says (tome iii., lib. 97): ‘This treaty met censure on both
sides, the ministers in Lisbon themselves alleging that it was a false
policy to sacrifice the Colonia del Sacramento, the clandestine
commerce of which amounted to two millions of dollars a year . . . for
possessions whose advantages were uncertain and position remote. The
outcries were even stronger in Madrid. There they imagined that the
Portuguese would soon rule all along the Uruguay . . . and from thence
penetrate up the rivers into Tucuman, Chile, and Potosi.’
[268] Quoting the Pope who advised St. Augustine on his first mission
visit to England, to convert the natives to Christianity, to go slowly.
[269] D. Martin de Echaria, Don Rafael de Menedo, and Don Marcos de
Lauazabel.
[270] From a letter preserved at Simancas (Legajo 7,447), written by P.
Diego Palacios to P. Luiz de Altamirano, dated San Miguel, June 20,
1752, it appears that there were in the territory of the seven towns
plantations of _yerba_ trees, cotton, and valuable woods.
[271] Archivo de Simancas, Legajo 7,378, folio 17—a long and curious
letter.
[272] ‘Stroner’ may have been ‘Stoner’, in which case he must have been
an Englishman. There were few English names amongst the Paraguayan
Jesuits, if one except Juan Bruno de Yorca (John Brown of York), Padre
Esmid (Smith), the supposititious ‘Stoner’, and the doubtful Taddeo
Ennis, who, though said to be a Bohemian, was not impossibly a
Milesian.
[273] Dean Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil de Paraguay’, etc., book
v., p. 52.
[274] They also said, in a memorial presented to the Marquis of
Valdelirios by the Provincial Barreda, preserved at Simancas (Legajo
7,447), ‘That they had voluntarily made themselves vassals of the King
of Spain—despues de Christianarnos, nos hizimos voluntariamente
vasallos de nuestro Catholico Rey de España para que amparandonos con
su poder fomentase nuestra devota Christiandad.’ It was not likely,
therefore, that they would voluntarily become subject to the
Portuguese, their most bitter persecutors.
[275] José Barreda, the Father Provincial of the missions, in a curious
letter under date of August 2nd, 1753, tells the Marquis of Valdelirios
that he fears not only that the 30,000 Indians resident in the seven
towns may rebel, but that they may be joined by the Indians of the
other reductions, and that it is possible they may all apostatize and
return to the woods. Brabo, in the notes to his ‘Atlas de Cartas
Geograficas de los Paises de la America Meridianal’ (Madrid, 1872),
gives a synopsis of this letter, which formed part of his collection,
and contained the greatest quantity of interesting papers on the
Jesuits in Paraguay and Bolivia which has ever been brought together.
In 1872, after publishing his ‘Atlas’, his ‘Coleccion de Documentos’,
and his ‘Inventarios’, he presented his papers (more than 30,000 in
number) to the Archivo Historico Nacional of Madrid. There they remain,
and form a rich mine for dogged scholars who have not passed their
youth on horseback with the lazo in their hands.
[276] Archivo de Simancas, Legajo 7,378, folio 146.
[277] _Ibid._: ‘Que toda la polvora que tengan los curas y misioneros
se queme o se inutilize y pierda hechandola al rio, y que en los
pueblos donde se fabrica, cese luego este labor.’
[278] In another letter, also preserved at Simancas, and dated at
Yapeyu, he complains bitterly of his own suffering on the journey: ‘Me
moli tanto con el traqueo violento del carreton que no he podido volver
sobre mi.’ The roads to the missions seem to have been as bad as those
which produced the historical exclamation, ‘O dura tellus Hispaniæ!’ It
is certainly the case that Ibañez, in his ‘Republica Jesuitica’
(Madrid, 1768), gives a very different version of the doings of
Altamirano; for he says that Rafael de Cordoba, Altamirano’s secretary,
‘embarked in a schooner called _La Real_ a great quantity of guns and
lead for balls, packing them all in boxes, which, he said, were full of
objects of a pious nature. . . . This,’ says Ibañez, ‘was told me by
the master of the schooner _José el Ingles_, a man worthy of credence.’
This is pleasing to one’s national pride, but, still, one seems to want
a little better authority even than that of ‘Bardolph, the Englishman’.
[279] Dean Funes, book v., cap. iii., p. 54.
[280] In a most curious letter (preserved at Simancas, Legajo 7,447),
the mayor and council of the reduction of San Juan write to Altamirano
upbraiding him with being their enemy, and tell him that ‘St. Michael
sent by God showed their poor grandfathers (_sus pobres abuelos_) where
to plant a cross, and afterwards to march due south from the cross and
they would find a holy father of the Company.’ This, of course, turned
out as the saint had foretold, and after a long day’s march they
encountered the Jesuit and became Christians.
[281] This account seems to have been lost, and a careful search has
not disinterred it from the Maelstrom of Simancas, that prison-house of
so many documents, without whose aid so much of Spanish history cannot
be written.
[282] His ‘Efemerides’, or Journal, printed and mutilated by Ibañez in
his ‘Republica de Paraguay’, gives the best account of the brief ‘war’
which has come down to us; it is supplemented by the ‘Declaracion de la
Verdad’ of Father Cardiel, which deals with the misstatements of Ibañez
and others against the Jesuits. In regard to his own share in the war,
Padre Ennis says: ‘Atque in exercitas curatorem, spiritualem medicum
secum ire postulat.’
[283] ‘Se puso las botas’.
[284] Dean Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay’, Buenos
Ayres, etc., book v., cap. iv., p. 58.
[285] Luckily Ibañez (‘Republica Jesuitica de Paraguay’) has not
corrected the many faults of spelling and Latinity into which Padre
Ennis fell. Those, though left in from malice, as Ibañez was a bitter
enemy of the Jesuits, serve to present the man in his habit as he
wrote. However, Ibañez has so much mutilated the text of the journal
that occasionally the sense is left obscure.
[286] ‘Hoc itaque nuncio læti altero ac incensi . . . Sacramento
expiationis et pane fortim roborati’ (Ennis, ‘Efemerides’).
[287] Cardiel, in his ‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 426, says: ‘Lo
mismo es 28,000 mil Indios que igual numero de muchachos.’
[288] ‘Nec tamen resipiscebat et Divinam Nemesim quamquam clare
experiebatur pro causâ Societatis.’
[289] ‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 404.
[290] In fact, they much resembled those ‘crakys of warre’ which, with
the ‘tymmeris for helmys’, Barbour, in the ‘Bruce’, takes notice of as
the two noteworthy events of a battle that he chronicles:
‘Twa noweltyis that day thai saw,
That forouth in Scotland had bene nane.
Tymmeris for helmys war the tane,
That thaim thoucht thane off gret bewté
And alsua wondyr for to se.
The tothyr, crakys war, off wer,
That thai befor herd neuir er.’
_The Bruce_, Booke Fourteene, p. 392.
[291] This was in an action in the year 1756.
[292] ‘Miente de la cruz a la fecha’.
[293] The Mamalucos, or Paulistas, were, of course, the bitterest
enemies of everything Paraguayan, so that a King had as well been
styled of ‘Iceland and of Paraguay’.
[294] If this assumes to be Sâo Paulo de Piritinanga in Brazil, it is
not unlikely one of the few books published there in the eighteenth
century, if not the only one. Happy is the city of one book, especially
when that work has nothing of a theological character in it, even
though it lies from _la cruz á la fecha_.
[295] ‘Account of the Abipones’, vol. i., p. 32.
[296] The only man the Indians produced who showed any aptitude as a
leader was a chief called Sepe Tyaragu. At his death in action in 1756
Nicolas Ñeenguiru succeeded to his post.
[297] _Milvago Chimango_.
[298] _Polyhorus tharus_. In relation to the word ‘tharus’, which
figures as a sort of scientific (or doggerel) cognomen to this bird,
Mr. W. H. Hudson once pointed out to me that, like some other
‘scientific facts’, it originated in a mistake. The Pampa Indian name
of the bird is ‘traré’. Molina (Don Juan Ignacio), in his ‘History of
Chile’, happened to spell the word ‘tharé’, instead of ‘traré’, and
then proceeded to make a dog-Latin form of it. Thus the bird has
received its present scientific name.
[299] Cardiel, ‘Declaracion de la Verdad’, p. 430: ‘. . . llego alli
despues de la fuga y desamparo de los pueblos . . . saco a los dos
Padres que estaban muy afligidos por la soledad y alboroto.’
[300] In a letter (Archivo de Simancas, Legajo 7,378, folio 128),
Valdelirios, writing to the governor of Buenos Ayres, Don José de
Caravajal y Lancastre, says: ‘Inagotables son los recursos de los
Padres para que se dilate y no se ratifique el tratado. . . .’ But he
gives no proof except that they had sent petitions to the King—surely a
very constitutional thing for them to do.
[301] The letter was written originally in Guaraní, and a certified
translation of it exists at Simancas, Legajo 7,385, folio 13.
[302] Altamirano.
[303] Don Pedro Cevallos, Governor of Buenos Ayres, who was in Paraguay
in 1755, sent there to fight the troops of King Nicolas, found, as he
himself says, ‘no King, and no troops, but a few half-armed Indians.’
Writing to the King, he says: ‘Los Jesuitas son utiles en el Paraguay.’
[304] The figures in Chapter VII. serve to show that in Paraguay, at
least, they were not exactly millionaires. In Mexico, Palafox, the
saintly Bishop of Puebla, had set about all kinds of stories as to
their riches, but Geronimo Terenichi, an ecclesiastic sent to Mexico to
examine into the question of the Jesuits and their wealth, after a year
of residence, expressly says ‘they were very poor, and laden with debt’
(‘eran muy pobres y estaban cargados de deudas’): ‘Coleccion de los
articulos de la Esperanza, sobre la Historia del Reinado de Carlos
III.’, p. 435. Madrid, 1859.
[305] They were expressly proclaimed to be ‘ocultas y reservadas’.
Carlos III., in defence of his ‘occult’ and ‘reserved’ reasons, said,
‘mis razones, solo Dios y yo debemos conocerlas’ (‘Reinado de Carlos
III.’, vol. iii., p. 120. Ferrer del Rio, Madrid, 1856). No doubt
Carlos III. satisfied his conscience with this dictum, but it is
permissible to doubt whether the power alluded to in such a cousin-like
manner by the King was equally satisfied.
[306] This celebrated tumult, generally known in Spain as ‘el Motin de
Aranjuez’, and sometimes as ‘el Motin de Esquilace’, occurred on Palm
Sunday, 1766. The ostensible reason was an edict of the King (Charles
III.) prohibiting the use of long cloaks and broad-brimmed hats, which
had been for long popular in Spain. The tumult assumed such formidable
dimensions that the Walloon Guards were unable to quell it, but two
friars, Padre Osma and Padre Cueva, in some manner were able to stem
the confusion. The King and the court were so much disturbed that they
quitted Madrid and went to Aranjuez. There is no proof that the Jesuits
had any hand at all in the affair.
[307] Ferrer del Rio, in his history of the reign of Charles III.
[308] Such, at least, several of his letters to the Pope, Clement XII.,
would seem to indicate. It is not impossible that the strenuous
opposition which the Jesuits gave to the Inquisition may have had
something to do with their expulsion. Some of them went great lengths
in their attacks. P. Antonio Vieyra, the celebrated Portuguese Jesuit,
in his ‘Relaçaõ Exactissima, Instructiva, Curioza, Verdadeira,
Noticioza do Procedimento das Inquiziçois de Portugal’ (Em Veneza,
1750), is almost as severe as Protestant writers have been against the
Inquisition. Particularly does he inveigh against the prison system of
the Holy Office (pp. 3-5, chap. i.). In the last chapter (p. 154),
Vieyra calls Saavedra, the founder of the Portuguese Inquisition, a
tyrant, and in recounting his deeds calls him _tyranno, cruel,
falsario, herege_, and _ladram_ (a thief), and finishes by asserting
that the tribunal invented by such a man ‘had its roots in hell’, and
that ‘its ministers could not go to heaven’.
[309] His full name was Don Francisco de Paula Bucareli y Ursua.
[310] Brabo (‘Coleccion de Documentos’, etc.) says of him, ‘speaking of
the petty jealousies and intrigues which the decree of expulsion
evoked: ‘En medio de tantas contrariedades, crimenes y miserias destaca
serena la figura de Bucareli, no solo llevando a cabo con incansable
celo su cometido, si no atendiendo a suplir en la organizacion
religiosa, intelectual y civil los numerosos vacios que dejaba la falta
del absorbente y decisivo influjo jesuitico.’
[311] ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay’, etc., vol. iii., cap.
viii., p. 119.
[312] Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil’, etc., vol. iii., cap. viii.
[313] ‘Tambien en algunos pueblos hay unas escopetas inglesas muy
largas con sus horquillas si se quieren usar de ellas no son muy
pesadas y tienen buen alcance’ (Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil del
Paraguay’, etc., vol. iii., cap. viii.).
[314] There were in the year 1759 throughout the world 271 Jesuit
missions, 1,542 religious houses, 61 cattle farms, 340 residences, 171
seminaries, 1,542 churches, and 22,589 Jesuits, whereof 11,293 were
priests. Of the above houses, missions, and churches, the greater
portion were in America (Ferrer del Rio, ‘Historia del Reinado de
Carlos III.’, Madrid, 1856).
In the River Plate and Paraguay there were about 400 Jesuits, of whom
300 were priests. The other hundred, according to Ibañez (‘Republica
Jesuitica’), were ‘mostly poor devils who were in want of food, and
came into the Order for a meal.’ Ibañez rarely spoke the truth, not
even when it would have been expedient to do so; and certainly amongst
these ‘poor devils’ could not have been included Asperger, the writer
on Indian medicines, and other distinguished men who inhabited the
Paraguayan missions as lay brothers.
[315] Dean Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil’, etc., vol. iii., book
v., cap. ix.
[316] The fine library was dispersed, and many priceless MSS. treating
of the discovery and conquest, and of expeditions by the Jesuits
amongst tribes of Indians now extinct, were lost. Nothing seems to have
been preserved except matter which the dispersers thought might prove
incriminating to the Jesuits. It is a well-known principle to judge and
condemn a man, and then to search for evidence against him. The books
were kept in a place known as La Granja de Santa Catalina, and a man of
letters, Dr. Don Antonio Aldao, was charged to catalogue and remit them
to the capital. Dean Funes says (book v., cap. ix., p. 156) that he
complied with his instructions (‘verificóla felizmente y con arreglo a
sus instrucciones’), but, anyhow, most of the books were lost. It is a
common phrase amongst doctors, ‘The operation was entirely successful,
but the patient unfortunately succumbed.’ Amongst the books was the
celebrated ‘Monita Secreta’, used by Ibañez in his charges (after the
expulsion) against the Jesuits.
[317] Dean Funes (‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil’, vol. iii., cap. viii.)
seems to have gauged the feelings of the Governor when he says: ‘Temblo
de susto Bucareli considerando en riesgo una conquista, que debia
aumentar su gloria y su fortuna.’ ‘Su fortuna’ is delicious, and shows
your true conqueror’s melancholy.
[318] The Tebicuari forms the northern boundary between the territory
of Misiones and the rest of Paraguay. It is a large river, and in my
time (1872-1875) was bridgeless, and had to be crossed in canoes,
whilst the horses swam, or were towed behind the canoes with ropes.
[319] Yapeyú was the largest of all the missions. The name signifies a
chisel in Guaraní.
[320] Bucareli, in a letter to El Conde de Aranda (Brabo, ‘Coleccion de
Documentos relativos á la Expulsion de los Jesuitas’, Madrid, 1872),
says in reference to the perils by which he imagined himself
surrounded: ‘El misero diminuto estado de la tropa, por el atraso de
sus pagas y la falta que encontré de caudales en estas cajas, era una
urgencia que me atormentaba.’
[321] This war, undertaken by a fool (Lopez) against enormous odds,
served to show what a people even when in the wrong, and in a bad
cause, can do when it believes itself to be fighting for national
liberty. As a matter of fact, Paraguayan liberty was not threatened for
an instant, and Lopez declared war against both Brazil and the
Argentine Republic out of mere ambition to be a second Napoleon. His
solitary qualifications for the character were that, like his
prototype, he was fat and loved women. The war commenced in 1865 and
finished in 1870, and left the country almost a desert. So lonely was
it, that I have often in those days seen tigers calmly walk across a
road in mid-day, and a shout or a pistol-shot but little quickened
their movements.
[322] _Capilla_ was the name given in Paraguay to some of the smaller
villages which had a chapel, the chapel (_capilla_) being more
important than the houses.
[323] El V. P. José Pignatelli, in his ‘La Compañia de Jesus en su
Extincion y Restablecimento’, says that the Paraguayan Jesuits were all
sent to Faenza.
[324] ‘Carta del Gobernador de Buenos Ayres (Bucareli) al Comte de
Aranda’. Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos Relativos a la Expulsion de
los Jesuitos’, p. 8, Madrid, 1872: ‘Les hice vestir a la Española
asistiendolos y tratandolos de modo que conozcan la mejora de su
suerte. . . .’
[325] Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, etc., p. 101. The letter is
headed ‘I. H. T., Ore Rey Nitu Don Carlos Tercero’.
[326] Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, etc., p. 185.
[327] Ceremonies, no doubt, have their uses in enslaving mankind. A
courtier once said to a Spanish King, ‘Your Majesty is but a ceremony
yourself.’
[328] Letter to Aranda: Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, p. 196: ‘Y
las mujeres en tal extremo, que es impossible demostralo sin faltar a
la modestia.’
[329] ‘Semejantes tiranias’.
[330] P. 222: ‘Y teniendo presente que por lo que mira a este punto
resulta de los informes que solo hablan estos Indios su idioma natural,
pero que no es prohibicion de los PP. Jesuitos, sino por el amor que
tienen a su nativo lenguage pues en cada uno de los pueblos han
establecido esculas de leer y escriber en lengua española, y que por
este motivo se encuentra un numero grande de Indios muy habiles en
escribir (dos de ellos etan copiando hora esto que yo escribo y de
mejor letra que la mia).’ Also pp. 223-225, etc.
[331] Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, etc., p. 200.
[332] ‘Y sobre todo, fuera de la America y libre de Secretaria y
Consejo de Indias.’ Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, etc.: Letter of
Bucareli to Aranda, p. 231.
[333] Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, etc., p. 280.
[334] The alcaldes of Indian villages usually have a long cane with a
silver head, like those formerly carried by footmen, as a badge of
their office. In remote places I have seen them, with their canes in
their hands, a battered tall hat upon their heads, a linen jacket and
trousers, and barefooted, riding on an ox, and thought that they served
to maintain the majesty of the law quite as well as if they had had
stuff gowns, horsehair wigs, and had been seated on a sack of wool.
[335] Vol. iii., book v., cap. viii., p. 130 (‘Ensayo de la Historia
Civil del Paraguay’, etc.): ‘Los Caciques y corregidores que
acompañaban a Bucareli, habian sido alhagados por todos los artificios
de sugestion. Esto á la verdad, no era mas que coronar las victimas,
que se destinaban al sacrificio.’
[336] Chapter IX.
[337] Brabo, p. 304.
[338] Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, p. 320: ‘Y porque estoy
informado que muchos Indios de los que se habian ausentado con las
tropas Portuguesas, y que han residido por gran tiempo en el Rio Pardo,
Viamont, y otras partes se han restituido a sus pueblos, ciudaran . . .
de que todos estos con sus families seran traslados a los mas
interiores o distantes de aquellas fronteras por no ser conveniente se
mantengan en ellas o sus inmediaciones, y asi en lo sucesivo lo
ejecutaran . . . con los Indios que se restituyan, sin dejar alguno,
para evitar todo motivo de communicacion que puede ser muy
prejudicial.’
[339] ‘No conviene dejarles una entera libertad, que seria por extremo
fatal y prejudicial á sus intereses pues la astucia y sagacidad de los
españoles triumfaria facilemente de su rudeza.’
[340] Brabo, ‘Bucareli’s Instructions’, p. 327: ‘Que el commercio de
los españoles ha de ser libre.’
[341] The Paraguayan Jesuits were allowed to take away all their
personal property, and it appears that they did so.
[342] Cayetano Ibarguen had only two, P. Lorenzo Balda three, and so on
(Brabo, ‘Coleccion de Documentos’, p. 388).
[343] So late as 1818 Rengger, in his ‘Essai Historique sur la
Révolution du Paraguay’, etc., talks of arriving in Buenos Ayres ‘après
un court trajet de soixante jours.’ From thence to Corrientes he took
seven weeks, but does not say if the passage was considered short or
long.
[344] Funes, ‘Ensayo Critico de la Historia Civil del Paraguay’, etc.;
Don Feliz de Azara, ‘Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay’, etc.; and
also ‘Memorias sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata en 1801’.
[345] ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil’, vol. i., book ii., p. 341.
[346] Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil’, etc., book v., cap. viii.,
p. 133.
[347] Brabo, ‘Inventarios’, Appendix, p. 669.
[348] Demersay (‘Histoire du Paraguay’), writing in 1847, says of the
mission of La Cruz he saw a few trees still standing in a miserable
state.
[349] Funes, ‘Ensayo de la Historia Civil’, etc., book vi., cap. viii.,
p. 395.
[350] Hudson, ‘Naturalist in La Plata’.