136 



PROVINCE OF PARANNA. 



thousand families, making a surprising and incredible population of thirteen 

 hundred thousand inhabitants. 



It is said the word Guarrannis means Guerreiros, (warriors,) and that this 

 people, in former times, wandered about, carrying destruction to every part 

 within their reach, and obtaining many prisoners, thus acquiring greater num- 

 bers and power. Their language and name became common to divers 

 tribes, whom these religious teachers introduced into their associations, from 

 different parts, by which they greatly augmented the population of this re- 

 pubhc. The exchequer of the catholic crown furnished annually forty to 

 fifty thousand ducats to the missionaries employed in this conquest, inasmuch 

 as the Indians did not render their agriculture and industry adequate to the 

 expenditure and support of the country, the public receipts of which the 

 Jesuits were the receivers and appropriators. When the villages and temples 

 were completed, each man, from eighteen to fifty years, paid annually a capi- 

 tation of two gold pieces. The captains fcadg'we^^ were exempted from this 

 tribute as well as their first born, (primogenitas,) and twelve men more in each 

 mission destined to the service of the church. In 1634, when there was already 

 thirty redugdes with one hundred and twenty-five thousand Christian Indians, 

 the number that paid tribute only amounted to nineteen thousand one hundred 

 and sixteen. In 1649, with a view of gaining more subjects, and to avoid any 

 desertion to the territory of the crown of Portugal, where there was no capita- 

 tion, the Indians were alleviated from one-half of this tribute. Four years pre- 

 viously was conceded to them the power of exporting the matte, upon certain con- 

 ditions, in order that they might become less chargeable to the capitation. The 

 concession of this liberty was a means of feeding the cupidity of the Jesuits, by 

 the intervention of the curates of iheredugdes serving them as a cloak through the 

 Indians, to carry on a great trade in this commodity, to the prejudice of the 

 merchants at Assumption, whose complaints produced two decrees ; the one 

 apprizing the chief priest of Paraguay of the exorbitant quantity oi matte which 

 its padres had traded in ; the other prohibiting the Indians from carrying 

 more than twelve thousand arrobas annually to that city. 



Each of the redugdes, otherwise called missions, was a considerable town, 

 laid out with straight streets. The houses, generally of earth, were whitened, 

 covered with tiles, and had verandas on each side, in order to preserve them 

 from the sun and rain. On seeing one, a correct idea might be formed of the 

 whole. Each mission had only a mother church, generally of stone, magnifi- 



