Missionary College of Ocopa.—Its foundation, utility, downfall,
and decree for its restoration.—Introduction of Christianity
along the rivers Marañon, Huallaga, and Ucayali, &c. by the
Jesuits and Franciscans.—Letter from Friar Manuel Plaza, the
last great missionary of Ocopa, to the prefect of Junin.
Could the department of Junin boast of no other advantages than those
which arise from the quantity of precious metal which it annually
furnishes, it would be sufficient to substantiate its superior claim to
the attention, not of the Peruvian government alone, but to that of all
other countries in friendly and commercial relations with Peru.
Higher sympathies, however, than such as emanate from mere pecuniary
considerations, must be awakened when it is remembered, that from a
corner of this department the voice of Christianity has penetrated into
vast regions of heathen and savage tribes, and reached the unsettled
wanderers among the thickest entanglements of the woods, which occupy a
great portion of the widely extended missionary territory of Peru. From
Ocopa issued forth those zealous, persevering, self-denying, and enduring
men, the great object of whose lives it has been, in the midst of danger,
and in the name of the Saviour, to add to the faith of the church—and
to civilized society—beings whose spirits were as dark and uncultivated
as the woods they occupied from the confines of the rivers Mantaro and
Apurimac on the south, to the river Marañon or Amazons on the north, and
from the frontier provinces of the department of Junin on the west, to
the great river Ucayali on the east. The missionary college of Ocopa
is situated in latitude 12° 2´ south, in the province of Jauja, and at
the distance of about twelve leagues to the south-east of Tarma. It was
founded in the year 1725 by the commissary of the missionaries, Frater
Francisco de San Joseph, with the intention of establishing missions for
the conversion of the Indians, who ranged the wild frontier-land we have
just alluded to. In the years 1757-8, it was erected by a bull of his
Holiness Clement XIII. and schedule of his Majesty Ferdinand VI. into a
college _De Propagandâ Fide_.[17]
This college has attached to it a church built of stone; and we are
told that great numbers flocked there in former days, when its altars
were decorated with rich donations, and its ecclesiastics celebrated
for their saintly character. The missionaries of this college had
subordinate religious settlements, or asylums, in other provinces of
the department; as, for example, Huaylas, Huanuco, and also Tarma, at
a place called Vitoc, at the entrance of the Montaña. The college was
originally constructed to accommodate forty monks, and towards the close
of the eighteenth century, when it was under the guardianship of R. P.
Fr. Manuel Sobreviela, their number was eighty-four; part of them being
distributed in the different settlements, and also in the villages of the
neophytes among the wilds beyond the eastern summits of the Andes. The
seminary, being under royal protection, was allowed from government six
thousand dollars a-year as a charity. The great revolution, which wrested
the country from the hands of the Spaniards, also deprived the college
of its best support. The Patriots, in the midst of war, proscriptions,
confiscations, and persecutions, spared not even this useful institution;
the monks dispersed when deprived of government support, and only a few
hoary brethren can now be traced among the number of these fugitive
fathers. One of them, barefooted and bareheaded, we sometimes visited in
his humble cell at San Francisco in Lima. His thoughts, abstracted from
the scenes around him, usually dwelt among the tribes of the Huallaga
and Ucayali; and with an enthusiasm which brightened up the eye of
venerable age, he would point out, in the aisles and cloisters of this
great conventual church of his order, the paintings that commemorated the
martyrdom of such of his brotherhood as fell victims to the violence of
savages whom they piously laboured to turn to Christianity.
The Patriots having at length seen the national loss likely to result
from neglecting the territory of the missions, and allowing the
half-converted Indians to glide back again into their former savage and
independent condition, for the want of officiating priests or zealous
monks to continue the work of civilization, in which the Spaniards
had engaged with so much spirit and success, it was resolved by the
government of Peru, in March 1836, to annul the decree which, in November
1824, was passed to convert this religious college into a common school
or academy of general instruction; which, however, was never established
on a permanent footing. Besides other reasons of less moment which were
assigned in the preamble of the decree for restoring the college to its
ancient functions, it was stated that the civilization of the savage
tribes of the interior, and their conversion to the holy Catholic faith,
was an enterprise worthy of the intellectual light of the age we live in,
and acceptable in the sight of the Almighty; that only for this purpose
was the college intended at the period of its foundation; that measures
had actually been taken by the government to induce missionaries to come
from Europe for the re-establishment of this pious institution, and that
therefore it was decreed that the missionary college of Ocopa should
be placed precisely on the same footing as before the revolution, or
the decree of the 1st of November 1824; that all its rents and property
should be restored, and that whatever sums were assigned for the academy
alluded to should be transferred to this missionary college; that the
Archbishop should appoint a fit person to take charge of the college
and receive all its revenues, and to pay from this fund the expenses of
repairing the buildings and the passage-money of the expected European
monks, whose arrival the Very Reverend Archbishop was required to
encourage, while he superintended the necessary repairs of the college,
and made such reforms in its regulations and rules as should best
harmonize with the republican form of government. Nothing can better
prove the decay of the missionary cause, and, we might perhaps add, the
decay of practical religion in Peru, (since its own clergy want zeal
and enterprise to act as missionaries,) than this document; and though
the invitation be more immediately addressed to Spanish ecclesiastics,
yet the decree is in that spirit which seems to open the door to any
company or association, who, adhering to the Catholic form of religious
instruction, may be pleased to extend their benevolence and Christianity
to the fertile regions of the Amazons, where they may fulfil their
mission far removed from the scenes of political anarchy or misrule,
and far beyond the pale of all hostile influence which could impede the
exercise of their sacred calling. Experience has long since sufficiently
shown that these Indians of eastern Peru are neither incapable of
intellectual improvement, nor deficient in those moral elements which
form the groundwork of the social edifice; and if ever they should be
instructed, and guided, and disciplined in the way of life, according to
the Gospel, by active, honest, and enlightened teachers, who know that
faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, there may yet be
exhibited on the banks of Ucayali, and on the fine plain del Sacramento,
a great and virtuous people, concerned to know and to do their respective
duties, where now cruel barbarism and savage superstition hold their
cheerless sway.
To give a full historical account of the transactions of the missionaries
of Ocopa, their various expeditions by different routes and with varying
success,—or to enter into the interior economy of their college, and
details of its discipline,—would be too copious a matter for the narrow
space we have allotted for this subject, which in itself is one of no
ordinary interest. And, to detach the history of the missionary exertions
of the Jesuits of Quito and San Borja from the labours of the Franciscans
of Lima and Ocopa,—to define the precise limits of the conversions by
each of these religious orders independently of the other,—would not be
free of intricacy; nor does it appear to be necessary to establish the
degree of honour due to each, for they both toiled in the same thorny
vineyard, and the latter creditably continued what the former had happily
commenced. But, to give an idea of the origin of these missions, it may
be well to refer back to the discovery of those regions in which they
were planted.
The mouth of the Marañon was discovered by Vicente Yanes Pinzon, at the
close of the fifteenth century; but Orellana, the Lieutenant-general
of Gonzalo Pizarro, Governor of Quito, was the first to sail down its
stream, from the point where the Napo joins it, to the ocean, in an armed
vessel built at the place of embarkation on the latter river by order of
Pizarro, who had himself undergone great hardships, and sacrificed most
of his followers on an expedition of inland discovery. Orellana commenced
this voyage in the year 1540 or 1541.
Some of the natives were friendly towards him, and others in canoes
opposed his progress; and, as the men of one particular tribe were aided
by their women in the combat, the Spanish captain gave their female
warriors the name of Amazonas,—whence the appellation “Amazons,” which
this great river still retains.
Another expedition, under Pedro de Ursua, was undertaken in 1560; but
he and most of his followers fell victims to an ambuscade laid for them
by the Indians. In 1602, Father Rafael Ferrier, a Jesuit missionary,
descended the Marañon to the river Napo, which Orellana had navigated
about sixty years before; and on his return to Quito, communicated his
discoveries, and his ideas concerning the natives he had seen.
In the year 1616, some Spanish soldiers, stationed on the frontiers
of Quito, pursued some Indians into their canoes on the Marañon; in
the pursuit they descended this river till they came to the Maynas,—a
tribe of Indians who showed such a disposition to amity and to become
Christians, that, on the return of the soldiers to the frontier station
of Santiago de las Montañas, so favourable a report was made of them to
the Viceroy of Peru, that in 1618 he appointed Don Diego Baca de Vega as
Governor of Maynas and Marañon; who was the first to subdue the people of
these territories, and subject them to the dominion of Spain.
In 1638, according to Alçedo, the Jesuit fathers, Gaspar Cuxia and Lucas
de la Cueva, settled several missions in the country of Maynas on both
shores of the Marañon, which continued to flourish until the abolition
of the useful society of Jesuits in 1767.[18]
At first the capital of Maynas was San Francisco de Borja, which,
according to Ulloa, is situated in latitude 4° 28´ south, and 1° 54´
east, of the meridian of Quito. In this city an insurrection of the
native Indians took place in the year 1635, which was happily quelled by
the indefatigable Jesuits: but afterwards the town of Laguna on the east
bank of the Huallaga, in latitude 5° 13´ south, became the principal seat
or capital of the missions of Maynas, which extend from St. Borja along
both sides of the river Marañon, embracing many villages or settlements,
to the frontier possessions of Brazil at Tabatingo. From the Marañon the
patriarchal government of the missionaries extended southward along
the river Ucayali, and among several of the tribes on its banks, or in
the adjacent woods, such as the Cocamas, Piros, and Conibos or Conivos
Indians, whom the Jesuits of Quito had in a great measure converted
to the faith; but they again revolted, and returned to their original
wandering and savage mode of life, having put their pastors to death.
After this unfortunate event, several fruitless efforts—especially in the
year 1695, and also in 1764,—were made to reconvert these tribes, till at
length the Franciscan missionaries of the college of Ocopa succeeded to a
great extent in this hazardous undertaking.
But long before the establishment of this college of their order, two
Franciscans,—the Fathers Andres de Toledo and Domingo Breda, both bent on
making converts to the faith,—left Quito in the year 1636, and, having
surmounted the greatest hardships by land and water, arrived at Para.
They reported their arrival and discoveries to Santiago Raimundo de
Noroña, Governor of San Luis de Marañon, in the united service of Spain
and Portugal, for both countries were then under the sovereignty of the
crown of Spain. The result of the intelligence thus derived was a further
survey up the river, under the command of the Portuguese captain, Texera:
and an account of the whole of these proceedings being transmitted from
the _Audiencia_ at Quito to the Count of Chinchon, Viceroy of Peru, he in
the year 1639 sent back the flotilla of Texera to Para, conveying thither
the Fathers Christoval de Acuña, and Andres de Artieda, Jesuits of Quito,
and other able men, commissioning them, among other things, to survey
minutely the river Marañon and its banks, and, having done so, to embark
for Spain, and lay their account before the Council of the Indies; all
which they accomplished in a creditable manner.
As early as the year 1631, Franciscan missionaries visited the environs
of the river Huallaga, made converts, and entered the country of the
Panataguas. Contiguous to Huanuco, and probably within the territorial
limits of this ancient tribe, is situated at present the important and
civilized Indian town called Panao, which is included in the curacy of
Santa Maria del Valle.
From the Panataguas are supposed to have sprung several other tribes
of distinct denominations, which had spread over the adjacent country,
wherein Christianity had made but slow progress.
From the city of Huanuco the fathers of Ocopa penetrated, by Panao, Muña,
and Pozuzo, to the port on the river Mayro, where they formed one of
their earliest settlements: from this place they appear to have descended
in canoes to the rivers Pachitea and Ucayali. This course is well marked
on the map of those parts, published in Lima, in the year 1791, by the
literary society entitled “Sociedad de Amantes del Pais de Lima.” This
excellent map of the territory of the missions in Peru was dedicated
to his Catholic Majesty, Charles the Fourth, Emperor of the Indies, by
the said society, and the reverend fathers of the missionary college
of Ocopa; whose superior or guardian, Fr. Manuel Sobreviela, enriched
it with a plan of the rivers Huallaga and Ucayali, and of the pampa
del Sacramento. In the above route from Huanuco, the Franciscans from
the time they left their last christianized settlement, Pozuzu, (some
years ago depopulated by the small-pox,) had to contend with the Amajes,
Carapachos, Callisecas, and other savage tribes, occupying the territory
between Pozuzo and the mouth of the Pachitea. From this spot, namely,
where the Pachitea joins the Ucayali, to the river Sarayacu, which enters
the Ucayali in latitude 6° 45´ south, several streams descend from
the plains of Sacramento to join the Ucayali,—such as the Aguaytia, De
Sipivos, and Manoa, the environs of which are inhabited or frequented by
various tribes of Indians known by the names Sipivos, Conibos, Manoas,
and Serebos, &c. Among these they made some converts; but the principal
nation are the Panos, who inhabit the neighbourhood of the Sarayacu, and
form a great part of the population of the town of the same name, which
is the superior, or rather, at present, the only seat of the Franciscan
missions on the Ucayali. This mission, founded by the Franciscan, Father
Girbal, in 1791, was visited in February 1835 by Lieutenant W. Smyth and
Mr. F. Lowe, in their journey “undertaken with a view of ascertaining
the practicability of a navigable communication with the Atlantic by
the rivers Pachitea, Ucayali, and Amazon.” They found it under the
guardianship of the venerable Father Manuel Plaza, whose account of
these parts forms an interesting document in the Mercurio Peruano. The
climate of Sarayacu is described by this excellent missionary as more
free from ague and dysentery than the settlements in low, sultry, and
humid situations on the banks of the river Marañon; and Lieutenant Smyth
and Mr. Lowe, who give an interesting account of the actual state of
the mission, observe that “the climate seems very much like that of the
island of Madeira;” and, like the city of Huanuco on the Huallaga, it is
refreshed in the dry season by breezes that blow along the river.
All the other missionary settlements in these parts having been abandoned
since the downfall of the college of Ocopa, the consequence has been,
that the Indians of those settlements have collected round their only
remaining spiritual father and friend, Padre Plaza, at Sarayacu, where
the population has thus been swelled to the number of about two
thousand; and these semi-barbarous tribes honour their faithful pastor,
and are very attentive to the service of their church, which is performed
partly in the Latin and partly in the Pano tongue. Lieutenant Smyth and
Mr. Lowe not being able to realize the object of their expedition by
entering the Montaña at Pozuzo, and descending by the Mayro, returned
to Huanuco, and descended by the river Huallaga, till they arrived at
the river Chipurana, in the province of Maynas, which, according to the
missionaries, enters the Huallaga in latitude 6° 30´ south. They ascended
the Chipurana as far as they found it navigable; and thence, partly by
land and partly by water, they proceeded to Sarayacu, in expectation
of being able, through the guidance of Padre Plaza, to effect their
expedition up the Pachitea,—an undertaking in which they unfortunately
did not succeed, on account of the inundation of the rivers during the
wet season, which lasts from November to May, and also for want of a
sufficient supply of effects to exchange for the provisions necessary
for the support of an escort of the mission Indians, without which
the enterprise is not safe, nor indeed practicable, at any season.
Nevertheless, Padre Plaza, before the visit of Lieutenant Smyth and
Mr. Lowe, wrote to advise the government of his opinion regarding the
communication with the district of his mission by the port of Mayro;
and his letter on this subject was published at Cerro Pasco, after
accounts had been received of the failure of the expedition undertaken
by the gentlemen now mentioned, in company with the Peruvians, Major
Beltran and Lieutenant Azcarate. It is to be feared that this reverend
monk is too much stricken in years to be much longer able to preserve
his usefulness; and, what is yet more to be lamented, at his death it
is probable that all the labours of himself and his predecessors in
the same field of conversion and civilization will have been thrown
away. Friar Manuel Plaza is not likely to have a successor from the
school of Ocopa, notwithstanding the decree respecting its restoration,
while Peru continues to exhaust its best resources in war, either civil
or defensive, against neighbouring states. To enable that country
to consolidate its internal strength, and attend to the practical
improvements of civil and religious institutions, it must have what the
majority of its citizens sincerely long for,—an interval of quiet. Until
domestic peace be acquired, the peace of the Gospel is not likely to be
sent forth afresh to subdue the turbulent spirit of the Cashivo, or to
replant and renew the settlements and friendships that were formerly
established by the emissaries from Ocopa; friendships now for the most
part forgotten, and settlements no longer to be traced, except on the map
of their wide-spreading mission-land, already alluded to as dedicated
by their order and the literati of Lima to the King of Spain. But since
then the dynasty of kings has been destroyed; and zeal for the missionary
cause, except in name and speculation, has almost vanished from the land,
where it would appear that patriotism can only thrive on the ruins of
all the best institutions of former days: and when the writer of the
following letter shall be no more, the name of king and Saviour, if not
also of friend[19] and patriot, may soon cease to be heard or honoured
among the woods and glades in the now isolated and forlorn mission of the
Ucayali.
“Peruvian Republic.—Mission of the Ucayali.
”Sarayacu, 14th December 1834.
“To the Sub-prefect of Huanuco.
“On the 20th of November last, I replied to the prefect,
D. Francisco Quiros, regarding the project of the Supreme
Government, which was sent to me by you, 24th September of this
present year; and I answered, with the least possible delay, by
the Moyobamba post. But, lest that letter should have been in
any way mislaid or lost, I think it advisable, as it related to
an affair of so much importance, to forward a duplicate of the
same, which is as follows:—
“RESPECTED SIR,
“This very day came to my hands your note of the 18th of
September of the present year; and having carefully perused
it, I have to inform your honour, (Vuesa Señoria,) with the
greatest sincerity, that the project adopted by the Supreme
Government, of penetrating to the river of Pachitea by the
port of Mayro, is the best and safest plan, because of the
advantages that would accrue to the republic from opening the
navigation of that river; for, from its junction with the
Ucayali, up the stream to Mayro, is only a passage of seven
or eight days; and from the latter place to Pozuzo, by land,
is but an intermediate distance of fourteen leagues.[20]
But there is one obstacle which, as long as it exists, will
almost certainly interfere with the enjoyment of a safe
traffic on the river Pachitea; namely, that on its banks are
situated the pagan Cashivos, cruel cannibals who live on human
flesh,—sometimes availing themselves of much cunning and
artifice to deceive passengers; and at other times, with all
the fierceness of the wild beasts of the forest, fearlessly
attacking them, as was proved in two expeditions undertaken
from this place by Father Girbal, who the first time only
advanced to the nearest huts, when he was compelled to return
on account of the scarcity of arms, and the small escort given
him by the government. He afterwards advanced to their last
encampments (_rancherias_), whence he returned without having
realized his purpose of striking the Mayro, where people waited
his arrival with provisions and whatever else was required: and
since this last expedition, which was made in the year 1797, no
further active measures have been attempted.
“The neighbouring nations of Conivos and Sipivos, who reside
by the inland streams of the Ucayali, though they constantly
endeavour to drive away these cruel enemies, have never
succeeded; for so far is it otherwise, that they suddenly
break into the houses, and, not satisfied with putting their
inmates to death, carry off the dead bodies to celebrate their
banquets with, for the Cashivos have an innate appetite for
human flesh.[21] The project of entering by the Mayro is the
most attainable of any other, because, in descending the water,
the vessels keep the centre of the river, so that they cannot
be reached by the arrows from the banks at point-blank shot:
besides, by merely discharging a few fire-arms, they disperse;
and as, happily, they do not use canoes, they cannot intercept
the passage, or do us material injury. And further, the descent
to this point is accomplished in two days only; for which
reason it is very necessary that I should have seasonable
advice, the time being as nearly as possible fixed, to prevent
any disappointment as to our meeting; when, according to the
plan proposed by the commissioners, an expedition may be
made with every precaution from this point, for the purpose
of clearing the passage of so destructive and indomitable a
people; and in this way the frontier towns may be able to
proceed in extracting from the Montaña its precious productions.
“Actuated by this desire, and that of rendering happy the
inhabitants of the Ucayali, I have now, for the space of
thirty-four years, felt it my duty to live in these missions;
and God grant that my eyes may yet see the prosperity of these
regions, since my expedition to the Pangoa failed of producing
the advantages expected from it.[22]
“This expedition I undertook merely to please the fathers
of Ocopa; but that the intercourse thus commenced would
be of short duration, it was easy to conjecture from
the great distance which separated the mission from the
college; the difficult and dangerous navigation of the
head-streams—_cabezeras_—of the Ucayali; and lastly, the
discordant opinions of the European fathers.
“But the day has now arrived when my wishes will be verified
through the skilful arrangements of the Supreme Government; and
to the best of my power I will contribute to the success of the
enterprise, not only by assisting the commissioners, but also
by accompanying them on the expedition, old as I am.
“All the above considerations I submit to your notice for your
information and government.—God protect your Honour!
“As the letter which I have alluded to may possibly have
miscarried, it will give me great satisfaction to know that
this has come to your hands.
“God protect you!
“FRAY MANUEL PLAZA.”