THE PAEAGUAY MISSIONS. 309 



The Paraguay Missions. 



In the reduction of the Paraguay and Chaco Indians the chief instruments 

 had been the Jesuits, who devoted themselves to this work for two centuries, in 

 the face of tremendous obstacles, which at last became insurmountable. Of these 

 difficulties the most formidable were not hunger, thirst, famine, epidemics, or 

 the savage aborigines, but their own kindred, the white settlers, soldiers, civilians, 

 rival religious and secular missionaries. They aimed at constituting theocratic 

 communities amongst the aborigines, who were regarded by the white adventurers 

 as mere game and legitimate prey, although to be sure. Pope Paul III. had, in 

 1537, officially declared that the Indians were " real human beings, capable of 

 understanding the Catholic faith and of receiving the sacraments." 



Nevertheless, in most of the churches they were denied the communion on 

 the ground of inherent stupidity, ignorance and depravity. The kidnappers 

 organised themselves in bands to capture whole tribes, killing the aged and 

 infirm, and driving the able-bodied men before them at the point of the lance 

 like droves of cattle. Hence the Jesuits who grouped the natives in orderly 

 communities, were regarded as usurpers of the public property, and every effort 

 was made to deprive them of this human live-stock. They were also detested as 

 "aliens," a charge to which their very organisation exposed them, for their 

 country was the Catholic, that is, the " Universal " church. Whatever their 

 accidental nitionality, whether Spaniards or Portuguese, French or Italians, 

 Germans or Slavs, they recognised none of the political divisions introduced into 

 the New World ; and to them it mattered little whether their Indian congrega- 

 tions were regarded as belonging to the " Most Christian King," or to " His 

 Most Faithful Majesty." 



In many local insurrections they had also to suffer from the jealousy of other 

 religious orders, Dominicans, Franciscans, Mercenarios or " Brothers of Mercy," 

 and in the towns they were expelled from their churches, while their congrega- 

 tions were reduced to servitude. Then, after succeeding, in the teeth of these 

 persecutions, in founding their theocracy, their neophytes were reported to have 

 brought them great quantities of gold, and a yell of hatred was raised on all 

 sides against them. But the Jesuits had amassed no gold, and although they 

 possessed substantial wealth in their plantations and live stock, it had no value 

 unless maintained by continuous labour- 

 After their arrival at Bahia in 1549 their missions were gradually spread 

 southwards to Porto Seguro, to Piratininga and S. Paulo. But the great field 

 of their operations lay farther inland, along both banks of the Upper Parana, 

 about the presumed frontiers of the Spanish and Portuguese domains. In this 

 secluded region they succeeded in civilising over 100,000 natives; but the kid- 

 nappers were still on their track, and in the three years, from 1628 to 1081, the 

 Paulistas, themselves nearly all Indians on the mother's side, were reported to 

 have captured 60,000 within the territory of the missions. Then the directors 

 of the Guayra reductions saw that they would have to migrate still to the west, in 

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