The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-04-26
JEsUITs IN SOUTH AMERICA
SIR ROBERT EASEMENT TELLS OF
THEIR SPLENDID WORK.

The avarice, tyranny and cruelty of
the rubber magnates in the Putumayo
District of Peru are not strange fea-
lures in the exploitation of the natives
of South America. Sir Robert Case
ment, who made thorough study of
the country during his recent investf-
cation of the atrocities practtced upon
the rubber collectors, writes as follows
in a recent issue of the Manchester
(England) Guardian.
The story of the Jesuit missions in
Paraguay, he says, is the record of a
great atonement, unique perhaps in
human affairs, and if in the end futile,
yet destined in the sum of unse1fish
effort to outlive the conquests of the
Spaniard's swords and the transitory
wealth his treasure-ships bore from
the new-found world to redeem lost
crowns in the old. Discovery meant
pillage.
In Paraguay two distinct kinds of
slave settlements we're officially recog-
nized. The, first of these comprised
the "Yanaconas, by which term were
known those Indians who had been
subjugated by private warlike enter
prise. These were to all intents and
purposes slaves. The second
| type of these labor communities was
that of the "Mitayos." The welfare of
the inhabitants Of both "Yanaconas"
and "Mitayos," instead of depending
on the laws, was entirely at the mercy
of the various Spanish proprietors.
This was the situation when in 1888
the first Jesuits made their appearance
in Paraguay. When the true
object of the Jesuits' presence became
known, when it grew evident that the
aim of the Fathers was to stand be-
tween the Spanish masters and the
Indians upon whom these depended SO
largely for their wealth, the attitude
of the Spanish landed proprietors
changed at once into bitter hostility
In scattered sentences picked from
Mr.. Koebel's book, "In Jesuit Land"
Sir Roger says of the explanation of
the crime and of the atonement is
given. It was into world of enslaved
and hunted Indians that the Jesuits
stepped to stand between the hunter
and the chased.
The first attempt to convert the
Guarani Indians was made in 1886
in the province Of La Guayra. In 1905
the Independent efforts of these I'M
selfish men were united under a
Father Provincial "of Paraguay and
Chile" In 1909 the Reduction of
Loreto," the first permanent establish
ment of the missions, was founded in
district which is little known even
up to the present time, and here the
Indians flocked in such numbers that
the priests described the results as
miraculous" The Jesuits from the
first, in order to win the confidence of
the Guaranis, were obliged to restrain
all communication with the Spanish
settlements and entirely to prohibit
the use of the Spanish tongue. Indian
converts under the compassionate
jealousy Of the Fathers were built up
into an organized State that for $50
years-to 1853, the date of the ex-
pulsion of the Jesuits-furnished, per-
haps, the most remarkable example
of unselfish leadership and docile fol-
lowing the modern world has seen.
Between 1923 and 1880 alone the
Jesuits deplored the loss of no less
than 10000 Indians, carried OF, they
said, from the Missions into slavery.
From this unpromising start, beset by
relentless adversaries, denied practi-
ally all material help from their own
Government, the little band of Jesuits
at the height of their power less
than one hundred men-built up out
of the Indians themselves a self-con-
tanned and self-supporting State.
Thus were called into being Indian
armies trained, armed, and of1cered
for defense by Indians, with holy men
as generals The thirty towns" of
the Missions of Paraguay became an
other Ell Dorado to the greedy and in
efficient men beyond-a recruiting
field, greatly coveted, to make good
the deficiencies of their own laziness,
but from which they were debarred
entry by the resolute exclusion OF the
Jesuits. Charge after charge was pre-
ferred against the Missions. Their
crime was that they had converted the
Indian, elsewhere primitive being to
be easily enslaved, into a self-support-
ing and eminently self-defending citi-
zen.
But a citizen who built cities in his
own wilderness, adorned with churches
''the largest and most beautiful in
South America" who made his own
chats, clothes, uniforms, boats, tools,
guns, cannon"-and even gunpowder!
was a thing hateful to contemplate
to the Spanish colonist, and in the end
came to be suppressed, not without
much heart-searching, by the Spanish
Crown. The decree of expulsion, car
ried into effect in 1853, ended for ever
the one European effort to make a
nation of the Indians. His leaders
withdrawn, the secret of their success
dependent on the spirit prevailing
among those they uplifted rather than
on any precise code of laws, was never
recaptured, and the Indian receded to
the woods, while the very sites of the
towns in thirty years were wellnigh
forgotten. The land of plenty, of
muscular toll, and of religion that was
continuous observance Of the law of
work became "a grave Of spoilt labor
and monument to the sustained