The missions of Paraguay: The demography of an experiment

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Volumn 35, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 185-224

  Livi Bacci, Massimo ^a   Maeder, Ernesto J ^b,c,d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE   (Italy)

^b UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DEL NORDESTE   (Argentina)

^c Academia Nacional de la Historia   (Bolivia)

^d Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto M Lillo   (Argentina)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33744516533     PISSN: 00221953     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/0022195041742201     Document Type: Article

References (113)

1. On Hispaniola, see Livi-Bacci, "Return to Hispaniola: Reassessing a Demographic Catastrophe," Hispanic American Historical Review, LXXXIII (2003), 3-51.
2. A good account of Guarani society is David J. Owens, "A Historical Geography of the Indian Missions in the Jesuit Province of Paraguay," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (University of Kansas, 1977).
3. On contact-population estimates, see William M. Denevan (ed.), The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (Madison, 1992), xxxviii.
4. On the geography, see Guillermo Furlong, Cartografia Jesuítica del Rio de la Plata (Buenos Aires, 1936), 2v.;
5. Owens, "Historical Geography."
6. A general outline of the history of the Paraguay missions, as well as a detailed and systematic account of their geography, economy, society, and religion, can be found in Furlong, Misiones y sus pueblos de Guaraníes (Buenos Aires, 1962).
7. On the missions' share of the entire region's population, see Rafael Carbonell de Masy, Estrategias de desarrollo rural en los pueblos Guaraníes (1609-1767) (Barcelona, 1992), 95.
8. The major demographic studies of the Guarani, from which many of the data analyzed in this study have been drawn, are Ernesto J. A. Maeder and Alfredo S.C. Bolsi, "La población de las Misiones Guaraníes entre 1702-1767," Estudios Paraguayos, 2 (1974), 111-137;
9. Ernesto J. A. Maeder and Alfredo S.C. Bolsi, " idem, "Evolución y características de la población Guaraní de las misiones jesuíicas, 1671-1767," Historiografia, 2 (1976), 113-150;
10. Ernesto J. A. Maeder and Alfredo S.C. Bolsi, " idem, "La población Guaraní de las Misiones Jesuíticas. Evolución y características (1671-1767)," Cuadernos de Geohistoria Regional, 4 (1980);
11. "La Población Guaraní de la provincia de Misiones en la epoca post Jesuítica (1768-1810)," Folia Historica del Nordeste, LIV (1982), supplement.
12. The organization and society of the missions are described in a number of contemporary works, particularly, José Cardiel, Las Misiones del Paraguay (Madrid, 1989;
13. orig. pub. 1913, in Hernández, Organización social [see below]);
14. Furlong, José Cardiel, S.J. y su Carta-Relación (Buenos Aires, 1953);
15. Pedro F. J. de Charlevoix, Histoire du Paraguay (translation of Pablo Hernández) (Madrid, 1913), 5v.;
16. Martin Dobrizhoffer, Historia de los Abipones (Resistencia, Spain, 1967, 1968, 1970), 3v.;
17. José M. Peramás, La República de Platón y los Guaraníes (Buenos Aires, 1946).
18. Among the modern works, see Alberto Armani, Città di Dio e Città del Sole (Roma, 1977);
19. Francesco Barbarani, "Le riduzioni dei Guaraní: un' alternativa al sistema coloniale," in Antonio Sepp (ed.), Il sacro esperimento del Paraguay (Verona, 1990);
20. Philip Caraman, The Lost Paradise: An Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay, 1607-1768 (London, 1975);
21. Carbonell, Estrategias;
22. Furlong, Misiones;
23. Pablo Hernández, Organización social de las doctrinas Guaraníes de la Campañia de Jesus (Barcelona, 1913), 2v.;
24. Maeder, Aproximación a las Misiones Guaraníticas (Buenos Aires, 1996);
25. Magnus Morner, The Political and Economic Activities of the Jesuits in the la Plata Region (Stockholm, 1953);
26. Owens, "Historical Geography."
27. For the quotation about climate, see Gonzalo de Doblas, Memoria sobre Misiones, in Pedro De Angelis (ed.), Colección de Obras y Documentos (Buenos Aires, 1970), 24-25.
28. On vulnerability to cold, see Pablo Pastells, Historia de la Campañia de Jesus en la Provincia del Paraguay (Madrid, 1933), V, 107, 148.
29. On the location of the missions, see Barbarani, Organizzazione del territorio e sviluppo urbanistico nelle missioni gesuitiche del Paraguay (1609-1641), in Giovanna Rosso Del Brenna (ed.), La costruzione di un nuovo mondo (Genova, 1994);
30. Carbonell, Estrategias, 301-302;
31. Furlong, Misiones, 187.
32. For Sepp's description, see Sacra esperimento, 195-216.
33. Each building housed six to twelve families, each with its own living quarters (6 m long by 5 m wide), with two opposite entrances - one leading to the front porch and one leading to the back porch. In the later period of the missions, they were built of stone instead of wood and adobe, without chimneys. On the characteristics of Guaraní dwellings, see Furlong, Misiones, 289;
34. Hernández, Organización social, 1, 102.
35. Quotation of Diego de Torres in J.M. Blanco, Historia documentada de la vida y gloriosa muerte de los Padres Roque Gonzales de la Cruz, Alonso Rodriguez, y Juan del Castillo de la Compañia de Jesús, Mártires del Caaró y Yjuhi (Buenos Aires, 1929), 108.
36. On the medical knowledge of the fathers, see Armani, Città di Dio, 153-155.
37. For quotation, see Cardiel, Misiones, 6.
38. On productivity in agriculture, see Carbonell, Estrategias, 103.
39. On consumption of meat and beef, see Dobrizhoffer, Historia Abipones, I, 321-325;
40. Sepp, Sacro esperimento, 173-174;
41. Cardiel, Misiones, 72.
42. Carbonell, Estrategias, 106-107, provides es-timates of caloric consumption. For a population with the age structure, type of activity, and anthropometriccharacteristics of the Guarani, a daily consumption in excess of 2,500 calories was more than adequate. Periods of nutritional stress or outright famine were due more to po-litical disorders than to climatic events.
43. For Altamirano's description, see Pastells, Historia (Madrid, 1923), IV, 92.
44. On mobility and its limitations, see Mörner, "The Guaraní Missions and the Segregation Policy of the Spanish Crown," Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu (Rome,1961), XXX;
45. Furlong, Misiones, 294;
46. Peramás, República, 139.
47. The unnamed Jesuit's quotation appears in Caraman, Lost Paradise, 139.
48. On tambos, see Furlong, Misiones, 292.
49. On merchant ships, see Dobrizhoffer, Historia Abipones, I, 301.
50. The colonial authorities of Asunción and Buenos Aires requested the help of the Guaraní for a variety of reasons, both military and civil. In general, the Jesuits complied with the requests in order to maintain good relations with the colonial authorities and safeguard their much-prized autonomy. On occasion, they sent hundreds, or even thousands, of Indios away from their villages for months (and sometime years) at a time. The expeditions to dislodge the Portuguese from Colonia do Sacramento in 1680, 1702-1704, and 1735 involved as many as 4,000 Guaraní; the suppression of the Comuneros (insurgent Spanish colonists) uprisings in Asunción, between 1724 and 1729 and between 1732 and 1735, required as many as 12,000 of them. Corvées and other duties outside the mission placed the Indios in direct contact with Spaniards, mestizos, or blacks - much to the Jesuits' chagrin. Not all the Indios returned home; those who did carried the risk of epidemic contagion. Some rough calculations show that in three decades (1700-1709, 1720-1729, and 1730-1739), more than 50 adult Indios of every 1,000, on average, entered corvées every year. Presumably, this considerable loss of manpower had a substantial impact on the villages' economy and society. In the other decades, the effect of the corvées was less significant than that of the absence of young conscripts in those nineteenth-century European nations that had a universal and compulsory military draft. For more discussion, data, and estimates, see Livi-Bacci and Maeder, "Misiones Paraquariae: la demografia di un esperimento," Popolazione e Storia, IV (2004, forthcoming).
51. For the General Rules of the Missions of 1689, see Paraquariae, 12, folios 168-176, Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu (arsi), Rome; Hernández, Organización Social, I, 592-598.
52. The episode of the jailed Indio is in Pastells, Historia, VI (Madrid, 1946), 12.
53. On Indios fleeing the missions, see Cardiel, Misiones, 95;
54. Branislava Súsnik and Miguel Chase-Sardi, Los Indios del Paraguay (Madrid, 1995), 95-97.
55. On marriage regulations and practice, see Hernández, Organización social, I, 90, 97-98;
56. Hernández, Organización social, II, 34-36;
57. Peramás, República, 63;
58. Cardiel, Misiones, 121;
59. Sepp, Sacra esperimento, 124;
60. Furlong, Misiones, 288;
61. Súsnik and Chase-Sardi, Indios, 96-97.
62. On age limits in the planillas, see Pedro A. Vives Azancot, "Entre el esplendor y la decadencia: la población de Misiones (1750-59)," Revista de Indias, XXXII (1982), 471-543, 507.
63. Peramás, República, 32.
64. On the shortage of religious personnel, see, among others, Pastells, Historia, V, 327.
65. The major political and military crises suffered by the missions were the consequences of conflicts between the Crown and the colonists in Asunción (Comuneros) - encomenderos hostile to the Jesuits and eager to make use of the abundant Guarani manpower reserves. These events culminated in armed conflict in 1724 and 1733-1735, when regular Guaraní forces were involved. The 12,000 Guarani mustered for military action from 1733 to 1735 amounted to more than one-third of the active male population. The guerra de limites settled the secular border conflict between the Spanish and the Portuguese colonial empires; the new border divided Brazil and the Spanish Rio de la Plata along the river Uruguay. Portugal was to gain seven missions located on the eastern bank of the Uruguay (in today's Brazil) and to lose Colonia do Sacramento (in today's Uruguay), a dangerous enclave in Spanish territory. But when the seven missions refused Portuguese rule, armed conflict followed, culminating in the battle of Caaybaté, in which a joint Hispano-Portuguese force defeated the Guaraní, who left 1,311 dead on the field (Armani, Città di Dio, 216).
66. Furlong, José Cardiel, 140.
67. On proselytism and mobility, see Súsnik and Chase-Sardi, Indios, 140.
68. Bartolomé Jimenez's letter to the king is in Pastells, Historia, V, 327.
69. For the vicissitudes of the Tarumá Indios, see Charlevoix, Histoire du Paraguay, V, 216;
70. Furlong, Manuel Querini S.J. y sus "Informes al Rey" 1747-1750 (Buenos Aires, 1969), 113-114;
71. Pastells, Historia, V, 689.
72. On the Iberá Indios, see Maeder, "Un pueblo de disertores Guaraníes del Iberá en 1736," Folia Historica, 1 (1974);
73. Súsnik and Chase-Sardi, Indios, 95.
74. Lozano's observation is quoted in Hernández, Organización Social, I, 397-398.
75. For Nicolas del Techo's quotation, see Francisco Guerra, Epidemiología Americana y Filipina 1492-1898 (Madrid, 1999), 214.
76. For the epidemic of 1588, see Pastells, Historia ( Madrid, 1912), I, 80.
77. The cartas ánuas were reports written every three years by the missions' Superior to the General of the Jesuits in Rome, regarding various aspects of religious and social life in the missions.
78. Doblas, Memorias, 29.
79. Diego de Alvear, Relación geografica e historica del territorio de las Misiones, in Pedro De Angelis (ed.), Colección de Obras y Documentos (Buenos Aires, 1970), III, 707.
80. On the population threshold for measles, see Roy M. Anderson, "Directly Transmitted Viral and Bacterial Infections of Man," in idem (ed.), The Population Dynamic of Infectious Diseases (New York, 1982), 1-37.
81. Charles W. Dixon, Smallpox (London, 1962).
82. Russell Thornton, Jonathan Warren, and Tim Miller, "Depopulation in the Southeast after 1492," in John W. Verano and Douglas H. Ubelaker (eds.), Disease and Demography in the Americas (Washington, D. C., 1991), 187-195.
83. Furlong, José Cardiel, 188
84. For Diego de Boróa's observation, see Owens, "Historical Geography," 240.
85. For the care of the Indios in the hospitals, see Sepp, Sacro esperimento, 179.
86. On mortality in Arauco and in the Guayrá, see P. Leonhardt (ed.), Cartas Anuas de la Provincia del Paraguay, Chile y Tucumán de la Campañia de Jesus (1615-37) (Buenos Aires, 1927-1929), I, 215, 452.
87. For mortality in Yapeyú, see Leonhardt, Cartas Anuas, II, 709;
88. mortality in Santa Maria, Manuscritos da Coleção De Angelis, Jesuitas e bandeirantes no Uruguai (1611-1758) (Rio de Janeiro, 1970), IV, 199-205;
89. mortality in Corpus, Pastells, Historia, IV, 56;
90. mortality in San Borja, Maeder and Bolsi, Población Guaraní, 75.
91. Burgés statement is quoted in Pastells, Historia, V, 52.
92. For the carta ánua of 1661, see Manuscritos, Jesuitas e bandeirantes, 204.
93. Sepp's description of the 1695 smallpox epidemic is in Sacra esperimento, 175.
94. See also Maeder and Bolsi, Evolución y características, 127;
95. Pastells, Historia, IV, 501;
96. Pastells, Historia, V, 51-55.
97. On the origin of the 1718/19 epidemic, see America Meridionale 2, f. 32, Archivio Congregazione Propaganda Fide, Rome. Africa, via the slave trade, was the main source of smallpox for Brazil and, maybe, for certain areas south of Brazil. See David Alden and Joseph C. Miller, "Out of Africa: The Slave Trade and the Transmission of Smallpox to Brazil, 1560-1831," in Robert I. Rotberg (ed.), Health and Disease in Human History (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 203-230.
98. On widows, see Furlong, José Cardiel, 142;
99. Caraman, Lost Paradise, 135.
100. Furlong, José Cardiel, 172.
101. On the Jesuits' pharmacopoiea, see Caraman, Lost Paradise, 144-145.
102. For the debate about concubinage and polygamy, see Peramás, República, 65.
103. On the re-emergence of traditional customs after the Jesuits' expulsion, see Doblas, Memória, 33-34.
104. United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2000 Revision (New York, 2001).
105. On the fecundity of Guaraní women, see Dobrizhoffer, Historia Abipones, I, 107;
106. Alvear, Relación Geografica, 595.
107. For modern writers' opinions, see Armani, Città di Dio, 149;
108. Furlong, Misiones, 289;
109. Owens, "Historical Geography," 143. Assuming that 10% of married women were older than fifty, and assigning to them a plausible age distribution, Ig in the various decades fell between 0.7 and 0.9, with an average around 0.8.
110. Maeder and Bolsi, Población Guaraní post-Jesuítica, 75-78, analyze demography in the post-Jesuit decades.
111. Maeder's quotation can be found in Maeder and Bolsi, idem, Aproximación a las Misiones Guaraníticas (Buenos Aires, 1996), 117.
112. Antonio de Leon's letter to the king can be found in Pastells, Historia, I, 276.
113. For more details about these estimates, see Livi-Bacci and Maeder, "Misiones Paraquariae."