A Brief History of the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos
by Geoffrey A. P. Groesbeck
It is a simple fact that no history of the Jesuit missions of Chiquitos exists in English.F1F There are numerous accounts in Spanish, most of which rely primarily upon two secondary sources, both dating from the nineteenth century: D’ Orbigny’s recollections of his travels in the region between 1831 and 1833F2F, and Gabriel René-Moreno’s numerous writings collected in 1888 as Catálogo del Archivo de Mojos y Chiquitos.F3F More recently, mid- to late twentieth-century assessments by Molina, Parejas and others were gathered together to form the massive Las Misiones Jesuíticas de ChiquitosF4F, often considered by dint of its scope as the most exhaustive treatment. These works deserve credit for shedding light on this often misunderstood – and much mythologised – era.
However, increased accessibility of primary resources, subsequent scholarship, and especially the insistence of later historians such as García, Menacho, Tomichá, and Tonelli (the second a Jesuit himself) upon using primary sources whenever possible,F5F have greatly expanded our knowledge and understanding of these missions during the Jesuit era.F6
At the present, there is heightened interest in the Chiquitos missions for several reasons. Chief amongst these are the unique musical and architectural legacies of these communities, forged by seven decades of cultural collaboration between the Jesuits and the indigenous peoples who lived in the reducciones. These two artistic heritages are well recognised today, the first in the increasingly popular biennial musical festival “Misiones de Chiquitos”F7F, the second when six8 of the settlements were named World Heritage Sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1990.F9F The Jesuit missions of Chiquitos also hold promising research in more nascent fields of scholarly activity, including acculturation and adaptation studies, Jesuit history and the Jesuit modus operandi, missionology, and multicultural studies. Finally, the combined efforts of the Bolivian government and several cultural organisations – spearheaded by the Santa Cruz-based Asociación Pro Arte y Cultura (APAC) and culminating in 2006’s “Lanzamiento Mundial del Destino Turístico ‘Chiquitos’, Misiones Jesuíticas de Bolivia”F10F as a means of showcasing the Chiquitos missions as examples of cultural tourism, also heightened interest in and awareness of the region and its unique patrimony.
Challenges to Historical Research
However, two problems present themselves to anyone interested in accessing information on this period, much less utilising it as a foundation for research. In spite of the genuine singularity and undoubted richness of the cultural patrimony of the Chiquitania, not only is there a paucity of reliable information in English, what does exist in any language often is not anchored in primary sources and frequently is riddled with errors. These mistakes are often the product of later historians who cited earlier works without verifying their accuracy, and injudiciously extrapolated tenuous conclusions from them. Thus, scholars seeking to glean accurate information or buttress their own theories must tread very carefully when citing previous research on the Jesuit missions of Chiquitos.
Examples of these compounded errors abound, but two glaring ones will suffice here. Thanks primarily to the carrying-forward of erroneous assumptions made by earlier researchers who did not verify their sources, the general perception of the Chiquitos mission settlements today (even within the scholarly community) is that there were anywhere from six to ten of them in all, and that they remain as intact continuations – rather than restored representations - of their Jesuit past. Neither assumption is correct.
There were thirteen reducciones established throughout the Chiquitania between 1691 and 1767. Of these, six (San Xavier, San Rafael de Velasco, San José de Chiquitos, Concepción, San Miguel de Velasco, and Santa Ana de Velasco)F11F have been designated World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. This accounts for why several modern sources accounts cite only six reducciones. A seventh – San Ignacio de Velasco – while not a World Heritage Site (its mission complex is a reconstruction, not a restoration, and therefore did not satisfy UNESCO’s inclusion criteria) is nonetheless the largest settlement in the Chiquitania and therefore reasonably well known; including it makes the tally seven by these accounts. The two most remote reducciones, Santiago de Chiquitos and Santo Corazón, are occasionally included, although more often overlooked. A few historians also include the abandoned San Juan Bautista, bringing the total to ten if all of the above settlements are included. Yet there are also three others (San Ignacio de Boococas, San Ignacio de Zamucos, and Nuestra Señora del Buen Consejo) that are almost never mentioned. Nonetheless, these were reducciones in their own right, and played important roles in the shaping of the history of the Chiquitania.
But perhaps the most egregious error of all is the assumption – actively promoted by the Bolivian government and many tourism agenciesF12F – that the towns today are lineal descendants in every way to their missionary antecedents. For one thing, the vast majority of people living in these towns today are not descendants of the indigenous peoples who lived on the reducciones. They are, for the most part, descendants of the cruceños who migrated to these towns.13 The local ethnic groups either returned to the forest after the Jesuits’ expulsion or were driven from their homes by the arriving settlers from Santa Cruz. By 1851, the final vestiges of the reducción system had vanished throughout the Chiquitania,F14F and with them, the remnants of these missions’ former inhabitants. Most of the local groups – apart from those who have married into settler families - reside today, greatly marginalised from the rest of society, in semi-autonomous hamlets known as comunidades.F15
One can take this second misunderstanding much further still, especially when considering the cultural legacy of the Chiquitos missions. In fact, this same misassumption of unbroken continuity is nowhere more evident than in the efforts made to portray their churches (templos) as nothing less than the original buildings erected centuries ago. In fact, all of the original churches (of which only parts of six remain) have been heavily restored. Magnificent as they undoubtedly are, only one – that of Santa Ana de Velasco – can be termed “original” in any sense. Furthermore, the art and furnishings of the templos are overwhelmingly of a much later period.F16F These buildings were handed over to the secular clergy of the Diocese of Santa Cruz in 1767, and in 1931 to Franciscan missionaries. Both groups made their own additions and subtractions, leaving little of the original Jesuit buildings and appurtenances. Under the restoration efforts of the late Hans Roth, et al. between 1972-1999 – which were both Herculean and meticulous - further changes were made. On the one hand, Roth’s work strove valiantly to establish aesthetic and architectural fidelity to the Jesuit originals, but the result in many cases is interpretative: We are left with not a true Jesuit church, but an educated guess.F17
Many other examples can be cited. Even as regards the relatively well-documented correspondence between the Jesuits themselves, almost no research has been dedicated to the interaction between the Jesuits in the Chiquitos missions and their counterparts in the Moxos and Guarayos.
The point is that scholars of the Chiquitania must be extremely careful when arriving at conclusions based upon material that has been handed down to them from previous researchers, and even more so when making inferences of their own.
This article seeks to bridge this information gap and perhaps dispel some of the more prevalent misunderstandings by providing a brief but accurate historical overview of the Jesuit missions of Chiquitos, drawn from primary sources, i.e., the writings of the Jesuits and their contemporaries during this period. It focuses primarily on the century before the Jesuit expansion into the Chiquitania as well as the 75-year period (1691-1767) between the founding of the first mission, San Xavier, and the enforcement of the Extrañamiento - the royal decree expelling the Jesuits from the ChiquitaniaF18F and all Spanish possessions in the New World by King Carlos III.
The First Jesuits in Bolivia
The first Jesuit missionaries arrived in what is now Bolivia (then known as Upper Peru) in 1572, having moved eastward from the Viceroyalty of Peru, where they had been established as a province since 1568. They were preceded by other orders, including the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Mercedarians. The Jesuits had petitioned the Spanish Crown for permission to enter its holdings in the New World for three decades before it was granted in 1566 by Phillip II (the Portuguese king John III had given them leave to enter Brazil in 1549). For the first hundred years or so of their presence in Bolivia, the Jesuits invariably accompanied the Spanish military and were residents of its scattered garrisons; they were not authorised to establish frontier settlements without approval of the civil authorities.
These early missionaries were almost exclusively from Spain. For the most part, they attended to the spiritual needs of the colonists and local indigenous peoples in the arid altiplano, around Lake Titicaca and in the cities of La Paz, Potosí, and La Plata (present-day Sucre). They also established chapter houses, churches, and schools, the earliest being that of La Paz, built in 1572.
The Doctrina of Juli
Their most important foundation, however, was the doctrinaF19F of Juli, established by the Dominicans in 1558 on the shores of Lake Titicaca, whose administrative and organisational structure under the Jesuits became the model for the Guaraní reducciones in Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, and later, those of the Moxos and Chiquitos in Bolivia.
The Jesuits were given spiritual control (and for the most part, temporal as well) over Juli in 1577, very much against the wishes of the Dominicans but under express order of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo.F20F Juli as a town was not a newly founded settlement: it was an established Aymara village long before the Spanish arrived. As a doctrina, however, Juli had been only recently evangelised. Upon assuming control, the Jesuits did not attempt in any way to modify the theological content of their predecessors, only the way it was manifested in a social context on a daily basis. The results were impressive: Within a few years, Juli boasted some 15,000 inhabitants and four churches.
The success of the reducciones of the Chiquitania some 150 years later had everything to do with the Jesuits’ insistence – rigourously maintained since the initial establishment at Juli - that these communities be run not only as centres of spiritual welfare, but social welfare as well. Additionally, the doctrina of Juli provided the testing-ground for what later would become the three key elements of their success in the missions: communal self-reliance and self-sufficiency; cooperation with – rather than coercion of – native inhabitants; and as complete autonomy as possible from colonial authorities.
Arrival in Santa Cruz de la Sierra
On 15 May 1585, the first three Jesuits - Fr. Diego de Samaniego (the provincial superior), Fr. Diego de Martínez, and Br. Juan Sánchez - reached the remote eastern outpost of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (at that time located near present-day San José de Chiquitos),F21F where they were welcomed by the governour, Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa. The following year, Fr. Martínez began sporadic evangelisation of the nearby Itatine tribe, marking the first true Jesuit incursion into Chiquitos. (Over the next several decades, other tribes, most of them linguistically part of the Tupi Guaraní or Chiquitano groups, gradually would be converted; only the Chiriguano remained consistently hostile to evangelisation.)
The first chapter house in Santa Cruz was set up in 1592. Although the Jesuits always retained at least two or three (and on occasion as many as ten) of their order in Santa Cruz, most of their evangelising efforts actually were carried out from their base in La Plata (present-day Sucre) to the southwest. Santa Cruz at the time was no more than a poor frontier settlement of some two hundred souls, and suffered repeated setbacks from disease, drought, and lack of resources. The Jesuits also staffed two other small towns in the region – both long since abandoned but at the time strategically important - San Lorenzo de la Barranca and San Francisco de Alfaro. The former became the official seat of Jesuit activity in the Chiquitania in 1699 for a short time, before it was translated back to Santa Cruz.F22
Successes Outside the Chiquitania
At the same time they were making incursions into the Chiquitania, the Jesuits also penetrated into Bolivia’s northern reaches, especially in Mojos (more commonly, Moxos), an area now considered as part of Beni Department (with the exception of Guarayos Province, which remains a part of Santa Cruz Department).F23F The first incursions there took place in 1596, although it was not until 1682 that the Jesuits were definitively established in Moxos with the founding of the reducción of Nuestra Señora de Loreto. Their subsequent growth there was rapid, and within a few decades, the Jesuits had established 17 reducciones in the area.F24
While it would be a mistake to claim that the Jesuits met with success everywhere (their efforts were far less fruitful in India and Japan), they undoubtedly made many converts throughout much of South America (including at least 100,000 in Paraguay alone). Argentina, Brazil, and especially Paraguay soon had several reducciones established along the lines of Juli, and incursions in Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador also flourished. However, the carefully honed Jesuit approach, with its desire for an autonomous theocratic existence, did not sit well with colonial authorities and aroused jealously amongst other religious orders. On the other hand, geography played a large part in ensuring the success of many of the Jesuit missions in South America: Apart from a few exceptions, Jesuit reducciones were so physically distant from colonial control that the mandate of a civil authority hardly mattered initially.
The Jesuits in the Chiquitania
By the late seventeenth century, the Jesuits had been in Santa Cruz for a century, although local evangelising efforts were few and far between. When missionaries did arrive, they usually came not from Lima but rather from the much closer Archdiocese of La Plata. None were to be had from the sparsely populated and abysmally poor Diocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra itself (erected in 1605); the first seminary there was not erected until much later.
But after 1690, things changed rapidly. In that year, a Jesuit college was established in Tarija (now a city in southern Bolivia, but then the northernmost outpost of the Jesuits’ sphere of influence in Paraguay) by Fr. José de Arce, newly arrived from the missions of Paraguay. He was chosen by his Jesuit superiors in Europe to act as a catalyst for Jesuit expansion throughout the Archdiocese of La Plata and beyond, a mission he was to achieve with great success, at the cost of his life. Although Tarija – like Santa Cruz - originally had been part of the Jesuit province of Peru, it was largely independent from distant Lima, and in 1607 control had been transferred to the newly created Archdiocese of La Plata.
However, Tarija’s proximity to trade routes to Paraguay meant it was influenced more by happenings in Asunción than in La Plata. During much of this time, the Jesuits had been busy in Paraguay establishing a virtual theocracy over large parts of the region. The first Jesuit reducción in Paraguay - San Ignacio Guazú – was founded in 1610. In the same year, the nearby Argentine reducciones of San Ignacio Mini and Nuestra Señora de Loreto were founded. Twenty more followed quickly, with another nine in Brazil as well.
Also in 1690, the Tarija-based Arce was put in charge of the evangelisation of the hostile Chiriguano, who occupied much of the vast and desolate Gran Chaco, an enormous area encompassing broad swaths of modern-day Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. A less spiritual mandate attached as well: to find a route and establish reducciones between isolated Santa Cruz and the Guaraní missions of Paraguay, possibly via the Chiriguano-held territories. Jesuit religious authorities in Lima initially claimed the responsibility as theirs, but busy with their efforts in the Moxos and elsewhere, could only protest ineffectually against Arce’s mandate. The matter dragged on for 16 years until 1706, when the Jesuit provincial general ruled in favour of the Tarija mission, definitively ending the debate.
A Fortuitous Mistake
Arce - although based in Tarija and therefore nominally answerable to authorities in La Plata – was the right man for the job. Interested as he was in establishing both a route and missions along the way that would link Santa Cruz to Paraguay, he ironically never intended to enter the Chiquitania, but rather the territory to the southeast, which geographically afforded more direct access to Paraguay. However, he and his companion, Fr. Diego Centeno,F25F after setting out from Tarija, became lost near what is now the town of Charagua, and were befriended by a group of Chané. Nearly dead of thirst before their rescue, the priests remained with their benefactors for three days and vowed to repay their kindness.
At the time, the Chané’s leader, the cacique Tambacura, was imprisoned in Santa Cruz and had been condemned to death. His sister, a member of the group who met Arce and Centeno, pleaded his cause with the Jesuits, who agreed to travel first to Santa Cruz before resuming their trek to Paraguay. Once arrived, the two Jesuits argued successfully to have Tambacura’s sentence overturned, and secured his freedom. The timing was fortuitous again: Governour Agustín Arce (no relation to the Jesuit Arce) had just asked the authorities in Peru for Jesuit missionaries to evangelise the nearby Chiquitano, a friendly tribe that already had sent several delegations to Santa Cruz to petition him directly.
While in Santa Cruz, Arce also witnessed the forced march of some 300 Chiquitano, destined for the mines of Potosí, who had been captured and sold into slavery by Portuguese slave traders – the notoriously cruel and much-feared bandeirantes. The sight convinced him that his lot lay with the Chiquitano, not the Chiriguano. This seemingly isolated decision was to become the single-most important event in the history of the Chiquitania.
Leaving Santa Cruz in late 1690, Arce and Centeno set out again for TarijaF26F, where Arce had no trouble convincing the new Jesuit Provincial Lauro Núñez of his change of heart. Núñez approved the venture and authorised six Jesuits to convert both the Chiquitano and the Chiriguano, in an area roughly the size of Alaska. The original mandate to find a route between Santa Cruz and Asunción remained in place as well. In 1691 Arce and Centeno set out again for Santa Cruz, accompanied this time by Br. Antonio de Rivas.F27
San Xavier: The First Jesuit Reducción in Chiquitos
Governour Arce died soon after the decision was made to evangelise the Chiquitania, and there was little support for continuing the policy. In fact, the townspeople of Santa Cruz were convinced that the Chiquitano were too bellicose, and in the end gave the Jesuits only two young guides to accompany them.
Nonetheless, on the feast of St. Sylvester - 31 December 1691 – Fr. Arce and Br. Rivas at last founded the first Chiquitos reducción, that of San Francisco Xavier de los Piñocas (now San Javier or San Xavier) for the Piñocas, a sub-group of the Chiquitano. (This was the only reducción [co-]founded by a religious brother.) Although it was rebuilt on three occasions before settling into its present form in 1708, its first site was – and its current location is again - located approximately 215 kms (133 miles) northeast of Santa Cruz. What many accounts omit is that the two Jesuits were nearly dead of starvation and almost certainly lost when befriended by the Piñocas. They could not have travelled much further in any case and so the settlement arose where it did.
The Passing of Arce
Arce remained in San Xavier in charge of evangelising the Chiquitano and Chiruguano as the padre superior de las misiones until 1703,F28F when he returned to the Guaraní reducciones. In 1715, he again was charged with the long-postponed task of opening a route between Chiquitos and Paraguay.F29
Arce and another Jesuit, Fr. Bartholomew Blende, struck out from Asunción, hoping to follow the course of the Paraguay River and eventually reach the reducción of San Rafael. They succeeded, but opted to forge a new trail on their return to Asunción when their luck ran out. In September, Fr. Blende was killed by the hostile Payaguá somewhere in the desolate Gran Chaco in Paraguay. In December of the same year, almost exactly 24 years to the day he co-founded the first Chiquitos reducción of San Xavier, Arce too meet his end at the hands of the Payaguá. Their bodies were never recovered, and it was not until 1718 that four surviving Guaraní guides arrived to recount what had happened.
Additional Chiquitos Settlements
Over the next seven decades, twelve more settlements followed that of San Xavier, with Santo Corazón de Jesús de Chiquitos (now simply Santo Corazón) generally accepted as the last, erected in 1760, seven years before the Jesuit Extrañamiento. The short-lived reducción of Nuestra Señora del Buen Consejo, founded near present-day Puerto Suárez just three months before the Jesuits’ expulsion, is rarely included, as its existence was ephemeral.F30F A listing of these settlements in the Chiquitania and their founding follows.
JESUIT REDUCCIONES OF THE CHIQUITANIA
Settlement (Original Name) |
Founders |
Founded (Relocated) |
San Xavier* (San Francisco Xavier de los Piñocas) |
Fr. José de Arce; Br. Antonio de Rivas |
1691 (1696, 1698. 1708) |
San Rafael de Velasco* |
Frs. Juan Bautista Zea and Francisco Hervás |
1696 (1701, 1750) |
San José de Chiquitos* (San José de los Borós) |
Frs. Felipe Suárez and Dionisio Avila |
1698 |
San Juan Bautista (San Juan Bautista de los Borós) |
Frs. Juan Bautista Zea, Juan Patricio Fernández and Pedro Cerena |
1699 (1716, 1772, between 1788-99) |
Concepción* (La Inmaculada Concepción) |
Frs. Francisco Caballero and Francisco Hervás |
1699 (1707, 1722) |
San Ignacio de BoococasF31F |
Fr. José Ignacio de la Mata |
1707 |
San Miguel de Velasco* (San Miguel Arcángel) |
Frs. Felipe Suárez and Francisco Hervás |
1721 |
San Ignacio de ZamucosF32F |
Frs. Juan Bautista Zea and Agustín Castañares |
1723 |
San Ignacio de Velasco (San Ignacio de Loyola de Velasco) |
Frs. Miguel Areijer and Diego Contreras |
1748 |
Santiago de Chiquitos (Santiago Apóstol) |
Frs. Gaspar Troncoso and Gaspar Campos |
1754 (1764) |
Santa Ana de Velasco* |
Fr. Julián Nogler |
1755 |
Santo Corazón (Santo Corazón de Jesús de Chiquitos) |
Frs. Antonio Gaspar and José Chueca |
1760 (1788) |
Nuestra Señora del Buen Consejo |
Fr. José Sánchez Labrador |
1767 |
* Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1990.
The First Stage: 1691-1723
Most historians group the establishment of the Jesuit reducciones of Chiquitos into two distinct periods with an interregnum between, each period characterised by rapid growth of settlements: the first, starting in 1691 and ending in 1723, corresponded to the settlement of the first eight missions; and the second, beginning in 1748 and ending with the expulsion in 1767, encompassed the last five.
Regarding the first seven reducciones, San Xavier has been treated already, and those of San Rafael,F33F San José, and San Miguel\ are straightforward enough to require no additional treatment beyond what is readily available elsewhere.F34F The remaining three – San Juan Bautista, Concepción (along with San Ignacio de Boococas), and San Ignacio de Zamucos - deserve additional mention to clarify their status.
The first of these three, San Juan Bautista, no longer exists, having been abandoned sometime after a fire destroyed much of the town in 1811. By the time the French explorer D’ Orbingy visited in 1831, the mission was in ruins.F35F A newer settlement near the reducción, San Juan de Taperas, must have sprung up sometime before the demise of the mission. Census records show the former reducción (secularised since 1767) with a population of 1,433 in 1807 (the last census before the great fire that destroyed most of the settlement), and San Juan de Taperas with a population of 879 in 1830, by which time the original San Juan Bautista was no more.F36
Concepción presents a particularly interesting case of scholarly confusion. Originally founded in 1699F37F (not in 1708, 1709, or even 1722, as the majority of sources still claim), this first settlement lasted only a few years. A rare example of local hostility to the Jesuits’ presence in the Chiquitania, the first Concepción was subjected to frequent attacks from marauding tribes and hastily dismantled. A second attempt in 1707 was successful, and in the following year Concepción incorporated the inhabitants of San Ignacio de Boococas, a small reducción that also was founded in 1707 by Fr. José Ignacio de la Mata.F38F Concepción then was formally re-established in 1709, and translated in 1722 to its current location.
San Ignacio de Zamucos was founded in 1723 and dismantled in 1745, due to internecine fighting between two rival sub-groups living within the settlement. Three years later, the majority of its inhabitants moved north and the reducción of San Ignacio de Velasco came into existence.F39
The Second Stage: 1748-1767
Between the founding of San Ignacio de Zamucos in 1723 and that of its successor, San Ignacio de Velasco, in 1748, no new missions were established in the Chiquitania. With the settling of San Ignacio, however, the second phase of Jesuit expansion began. The five reducciones established in the final nineteen years of the Jesuit presence in the region were more strategically placed, having as an important objective their placement along the route to the missions of Paraguay.
Of these five, only the third and fifth require additional remarks beyond what is supplied by conventional sources.F40F Santa Ana is notable less from a historical and more from a cultural aspect in that it has the only templo that retains most of its original Jesuit-era accoutrements, in this case much of the church itself and several furnishings. In fact, Santa Ana is from a preservationist standpoint the most authentic Jesuit reducción, although sporadic restoration work continues on the church (notwithstanding that it was erected a few years after the departure of the Jesuits).
As noted above, the final reducción was Nuestra Señora del Buen Consejo, founded in May of 1767, although it survived only three months, owing to the expulsion that followed later that year. Of all thirteen settlements, we possess the least information on this one. That we have any information at all is something of a marvel, given that the Jesuits had no time to do anything but record its ephemeral existence before they were expelled. There are no inventory records or other documents that have been discovered to date.
The Question of Allegiance
Politically, the Chiquitos reducciones owed nominal allegiance to the Spanish CrownF41F, through the Audiencia of Charcas, with its seat at La Plata, itself part of the much larger Viceroyalty of Peru. From a religious standpoint, the Diocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra supposedly was in at least nominal control of the Chiquitos missions. Yet the diocese was itself ultimately subject to oversight from the Archdiocese of La Plata (which, although maintained by secular clergy, was dominated by and had a strong affinity towards the Jesuit Province of Paraguay) and made no attempt to interfere with the Jesuit apparatus.
In reality, thanks to their remoteness, the Chiquitos missions truly were completely autonomous and entirely self-sufficient. In fact, they exported their surplus goods throughout all of Upper Peru and beyond, earning the envy of Spanish and Portuguese colonists elsewhere in South America, especially the slave traders and large landholders who coveted the fertile Chiquitania territories for their own encomiendas (settlements worked by enslaved native Amerindians) and estancias (cattle ranches).
The Chiquitos missions were founded as reducciones - autonomous, self-sufficient communities ranging in size from 1,000 to 4,000 inhabitants, with two priests at their head, assisted by a council of eight native leaders (known as a cabildo) who met on a daily basis to monitor the progress of the town and its inhabitants. Usually two priests were assigned to a reducción. One was in charge of the “care of souls”, and catechetical instruction and the liturgy. The other was in charge of corporal matters: communal goods, land, workshops, and the like.
It is important to note that these settlements were never intended as military or trading posts (although they occasionally acted as both). As the Jesuit manuscripts make abundantly clear, the primary purpose always was spiritual. Only the natives and the Jesuit missionaries were legally inhabitants. Colonists were not allowed to live in the settlements, and in fact could not even remain in them for more than a few days’ time. (The sole exception to this law was the architect Antonio Rojas, who possibly constructed two Chiquitos churches.F42F)
The indigenous inhabitants were members of one of the region’s three largest ethno-linguistic groups: the Chiquitano, Guarayo, or Ayoreo. (A few Chiriguano and Guaraní were present in some reducciones as well.) At the time of the Jesuits’ expulsion in 1767, there were at least 24,188 inhabitantsF43F throughout the eleven settlements then existing in the Chiquitania,F44F and more than 30,000F45F if the Moxos reducciones then under Jesuit guidance are included.F46F As non-baptised residents were not always included in these tallies, it is possible the actual number may have been as high as 37,000.F47
Political Considerations and the Expulsion of the Jesuits
The Chiquitos settlements eventually and inevitably became caught in a political battle between Spain and Portugal, the latter of whose slave traders in nearby Brazil – the hated mamelucos - wished to expand westward, while the Santa Cruz-based encomiendas and estancias coveted the fertile lands of the mission settlements to the east. Nor did it help that their thriving economies and well-ordered way of life had earned the reducciones a great deal of jealousy on the part of the civil authorities. And as the settlements were virtually semi-independent states (with private militias), both powers were suspicious of the missions’ undefined political status and sought to exploit it.
It came to a sudden and completely unforeseen (from the isolated standpoint of those in the Chiquitos) end on 27 February 1767, when the Spanish King Carlos III ordered the expulsion – referred to in Spanish sources as the Extrañamiento - of all Jesuits from his realms (those in Brazil had been expelled by the Portuguese in 1759), including the scarcely two dozen missionaries who watched over the enormous Chiquitania territory.F48F By September, all but one of the Jesuits had been removed and may of the inhabitants of the reducciones already had begun to abandon them. Many of the Jesuits – most of whom were aged - died as a result of the hardships endured in the long journey to Lima and then back to Europe as a consequence of the expulsion. The last Jesuit to leave the area was Fr. Narciso Patzi, on 10 May 1768, his departure delayed due to a grave illness.F49
After the Extrañamiento
After the expulsion, the reducciones steadily spiralled into a state of near-terminal decline. In 1776, the government of the entire region was militarised and the Chiquitania administered from the newly created, far-away Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata (to which the Audencia of Charcas now belonged). In ecclesiastical terms, all of the reducciones had been secularised immediately after the Jesuits’ departure by Bishop Herboso y Figueroa,F50F and the Diocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra took over spiritual control (although in 1840 Franciscan missionaries were appointed to the Guarayos and Moxos missions). For more than thirteen decades, they lay in a state of economic and social torpor until the arrival of the Swiss architect and former Jesuit, the late Hans Roth, whose nearly three decades of spearheading restoration efforts finally raised them from obscurity.
The post-expulsion period in the Chiquitania is beyond the scope of this article.51 Although the departure of the Jesuits is a matter well-documented, and much has been recorded of the period preceding their banishment, considerable research remains to be done on the history of the Jesuit missions of the Chiquitos immediately following the Extrañamiento. (This is especially so in the case of the chaotic period immediately following Bolivia's independence.)
But the swift demise of these settlements raises troubling questions for those exploring both colonial and post-colonial history. How could such unparalleled – and acknowledged - success so quickly turn to decay and obscurity? As key export areas, why was no support offered by the Spanish crown to maintain their economic prosperity after the Jesuits were banished? Why, after being reconstituted by Pope Pius VII in 1814, did the Jesuits not return to the Chiquitania?
To a large extent, the blame for these matters lay with the avaricious interests and political policies of Spain, to a lesser extent with Portuguese interests, and even the papacy itself, all of whom had conspired to obliterate the Jesuits, and in so doing, their handiwork and legacy in the Chiquitania and elsewhere. As the late Hans Roth, the principle restorer of the Chiquitos missions, wrote, “It was not the natives who destroyed the work...but rather the economic and political envy, the ignorance and barbarism of those already civilised and educated.”F52
On A Positive Note
Of the original thirteen Jesuit Chiquitos settlements, nine still survive. Of these, seven possess a unique, albeit hybrid, cultural and social infrastructure that has changed little since the days of the Jesuits. All remain active settlements, and most still function as missions, with vibrant religious customs and beliefs. With a renewed scholarly interest in the area tempered by a careful, rigorous approach to the conservation and study of the Chiquitos missions and their primary sources, much of value of the unique cultural and historical patrimony of these places can be preserved and drawn upon for further use.
Currently a visiting professor at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Zacatecas, Mexico, Geoffrey Groesbeck works primarily with governments and NGOs throughout Latin America, assessing and developing sustainable development initiatives through the implementation of cultural tourism and other social development mechanisms.
He has written and lectured extensively on Bolivia’s remote and beautiful Chiquitania. Co-author of four best-selling books, his works are considered without peer and have been translated into 12 languages. His articles and photographs have appeared in some of the world’s best-known magazines, newspapers, and academic journals.
Acknowledged as a leading expert on the Jesuit missions of Chiquitos, his writings, photography, and award-winning Web site on the same have won international acclaim and governmental commendation.
For further information,
please see the author's Web site, http://www.chiquitania.com.
He may be contacted via email at info@chiquitania.com. |
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