page_title: History of Paraguay
section_title: Franciscan and Jesuit expansion
hierarchical_section_title: History of Paraguay / Native peoples / Franciscan and Jesuit expansion
caption_attribution_description: English: Jesus de Tavarangue - from above
context_page_description: The history of Paraguay is a result of development and interaction of varying cultures of indigenous peoples in Paraguay and overseas immigrants who together have created the modern-day Paraguay. Paraguay celebrates Independence Day on May 15, from 1811 to now.
  William E. Barrett wrote: "Paraguay is the country of prophecy. One of the two smallest nations [as of 1952] on the American continent, it was the first American communistic state, the first American nation to be governed by an absolute dictator."
context_section_description: During the next 200 years, the Roman Catholic Church, especially the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and Franciscans, influenced the colony much more than the governors who succeeded Irala. The first to arrive were the Franciscans, who came to Paraguay in the second half of the 1500s and began founding reductions in 1580. Altos, Itá, Yaguarón, Tobatí, Guarambaré, Ypané and Atyrá were all founded by 1600. Many of these missions were relocated during the 1600s due to attacks from Mbya Indians.
  The first Jesuits arrived in Asunción in 1588 and founded their first reduction of San Ignacio Guazú only in 1609. In 1610 Philip III of Spain proclaimed that only the "sword of the word" should be used to subdue Paraguayan native tribes. The Church granted Jesuits extensive powers to phase out the encomienda system, angering settlers dependent on a continuing supply of Indian labor and concubines. In an experiment in communal living, the Jesuits organized about 100,000 Guaraní in about 20 reducciones (reductions or townships) to bring them together in more organized settlements and to protect them from colonists. The Jesuits conceived an autonomous Christian Indian state, to stretch from the Paraguay-Paraná confluence to the coast and back to the Paraná headwaters.
  The new Jesuit reducciones were constantly threatened by the slave-raiding mamelucos, who survived by capturing natives and selling them as slaves to planters in Brazil. Having depleted native populations near São Paulo, they discovered the richly populated reducciones. The Spanish authorities chose not to defend the settlements, and the Jesuits and Guaranís had little means of defense against such raids. The mameluco threat ended only after 1639. After thousands of Guaranís had been enslaved the viceroy in Peru finally allowed Guaranís to bear arms. Well-trained and highly motivated native units attacked the raiders and drove them off. This victory set the stage for the golden age of the Jesuits in Paraguay. Life in the reducciones offered Guaranís higher living standards, protection from settlers, and physical security. The reducciones, which became quite wealthy, exported goods and supplied Indian armies.
  In their reducciones Jesuits sponsored orchestras, musical ensembles and actors' troupes. Virtually all the profits derived from Guaraní labor were distributed back to the laborers. The system was later praised by leaders of the French enlightenment, not otherwise predisposed to favor Jesuits.
  [The society] was established by persuasion without force ... "By means of religion," wrote d'Alembert, "the Jesuits established a monarchical authority in Paraguay, founded solely on their powers of persuasion and on their lenient methods of government. Masters of the country, they rendered happy the people under their sway." Voltaire called the Jesuit government "a triumph of humanity".
  The Paraguayan Jesuits gained many enemies as a result of their success, and the reducciones fell prey to changing times. During the Revolt of Comuneros of 1720s and 1730s, Paraguayan settlers rebelled against Jesuit privileges and the government that protected them.
  The Comunero Revolt was in many ways a rehearsal for the radical events that would begin with independence in 1811. The most prosperous families of Asunción, whose yerba maté and tobacco plantations competed directly with the Jesuits, initially led this revolt but as the movement attracted support from poor farmers in the interior, the rich abandoned it and soon asked the royal authorities to restore order. In response, subsistence farmers began to seize the estates of the upper class and drive them out of the countryside. A radical army nearly captured Asunción and was repulsed, ironically, only with the help of Guaraní troops from the Jesuit reducciones.
  Although this revolt failed, it was one of the earliest and most serious uprisings against Spanish authority in the New World. The Spanish Crown questioned its continued support for the Jesuits. The Jesuit-inspired War of the Seven Reductions (1750–61) only increased sentiment in Madr
caption: Ruins of Tavarangue reduction
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