Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

We would like to characterize the book Insignes misioneros de la Compañía de Jesús written by Francisco Xarque and published in 1687, as an example of imposing the “counterreform way of reading” in a “discursive form” widely used by the Jesuits: the relation. Our hypothesis is that Francisco Xarque intended to “inform” readers, in the sense of giving form to them or even better edifying them. He doens’t want to give a simple account of the missionaries work. His objective was, through the relation of the missions, to forge the unity of Church's moral teaching, in a moment of intense debates on this subject.

As we have been publishing so far, the document that we present on this occasion is one of 12 known and unpublished, which was presented by various Jesuits from the province of Paraguay to Father Pedro Calatayud to facilitate his task in the composition of a history of Paraguay, of which he could only sketch a draft. In this particular case, it is a text, as the title indicates, about the school of the Immaculate in Santa Fe, its location, ministries that were developed, such as the flying missions, indigenous towns, congregations and Spiritual Exercises.

The first Jesuits to die a violent death in America were the Portuguese coadjutors Pedro Correia and João de Sousa, on a vague date at the end of 1554. The news shocked the Society of Jesus, based on the initial information of Fr. José de Anchieta, which he obtained from witnesses and raised St. Ignatius. Their deaths constituted in that moment the validation of the presence of the Society of Jesus in America, even if the history did not stop being used ideologically in different circumstances and times. Along with the writings and to complete these "surprising examples of sanctity", iconographic representations appeared such as that on the cover of the book by Fr. Pierre du Jarric (1610) and the traditional work of the Bohemian Matthias Tarner (1675), although far from the Anchieta story, but which served iconographically in different periods including the ceiling of the sacristy of the Bahia cathedral at the end of the 17th century and the church of St. Cecilia at the beginning of the 20th cen-tury. Therefore, with this work we want to highlight, with an emblematic example, the dif-ferent uses given to the images in different periods and according to such or such convenience.

The doctrine of the authors had an important role in the legal structure between the 16th and 18th centuries. The purpose of this work is to point out the importance of the work of José de Acosta as a doctrine invoked by the protector of the natives Juan Gregorio de Zamudio y Pesoa in criminal cases of the Indian Silver. In his opinions, the protector Zamudio went to sources of authority such as Acosta, who indicated a solution to the problema of natural persons in judicial practice. Acosta´s work was historical with legal references, however, in the notable distance between the mandates imposed by the royal laws and the effective behavior of the local authorities, it served as the tuitive doctrine of the natives.

On February 1773 the governor of Moxos León González de Velasco visited the Santa Maria Magdalena reduction in Baures district. During his stay in this town, he verified the economic situation, made a brief history of the town, based on oral testimonies of its people, and carried out a population census. Those data were forwarded in a report to the Audiencia de Charcas, in those papers he described relevant information about Magdalena, six years later of the expulsion of the Jesuits.

Time adapts to some and to others. Jesuits and indigenous people had to compose codes of coexistence. Between Jesuits and indigenous people as well as between indigenous and indigenous people as well as between Guaraní, and between Guaraní and other ethnic groups. Both sedentary among themselves and between sedentary and nomads. The law had to adapt to different cultures. The priest parents had to consult with the chiefs. The parents had to investigate together with the indigenous people to support their allegations on the differences between town and town. In other words, a specific concept of property was built for the missionary society.

Within the Society of Jesus there are two clearly diversified estates: that of the Priests and that of the Coadjutor Brothers. The former were devoted to spiritual life, science, culture and teaching; the latter to domestic offices. However, as time went by, many cases of "entrepreneurship" occurred among the coadjutors and they assumed functions that would correspond to the former. A typical case is that of Brother Agustín de Vega, a missionary of the Orinoco (1731-1750) who has gone down in history as the historian of that difficult period.

The document that we present on this occasion is one of the twelve unpublished items that can be found in a file in the Loyola Sanctuary Historical Archive that Fr. Lorenzo Casado compiled for Fr. Pedro de Calatayud, who would compose a story of the Jesuit Prov-ince of Paraguay that was unpublished. As well as this and another text on the mataguayos by Fr. Arto. Missionary who lived with both ethnic groups, leaving this relationship in mid-1770 in exile in Faenza. Memories of a time when he was contemporary to the events he describes.

The reduction of Candelaria was a town like any of the 30 Guaraní-Jesuit villages, with the same economic activities and the same problems to be solved. However, as it was the seat of religious authority - the Superior had been there since 1633 - it concentrated the administration/distribution of the economy of the other villages. The Superior was in charge of all the economic matters of the reductions, together with a group of assistants, and he also administered the synod corresponding to the priests. All economic transactions and carefully recorded, and had to be approved by the Provincial installed in Cordoba.