THE JESUIT ORDER AND THE ECONOMY

Abstract

As one of the strangest experiments in the history of the spread of Christianity, the settlements created by the Jesuit order to «protect» the Indians during colonialism, the so-called Reductions can be named. It is often referred to as the state of the Jesuits, which united 30 large settlements in present-day Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina territories. During the development of the region, about 140,000 people lived here. Later settlements appeared in Peru and Bolivia. In 1767, there were 70 such settlements and 200,000 people lived in them, the same year the Jesuits were expelled and the reduction ceased to exist. To this day, this experiment of the Jesuit order is still a matter of discussion and controversy. It was admired by some French philosophers because they saw in this idea of the Jesuits,a victory of humanity compared to the politics of the Spanish colonizers. Montesquieu wrote that this was the first attempt on the continent to develop a connection between religion and humanity. Voltaire appreciated the Jesuit state as an attempt to atone for the horrors of the conquered lands. However, sociologist Paul Lefebvre characterized this event negatively in history. Lefebvre spoke of a Jesuit state structure where talent-driven and profit-oriented obedience replaced slavery. The English Jesuit Philip Caraman, in his work «Paradise Lost», concluded that the social and political features of this event could be a kind of foreshadowing of democracy. If it had been completed for the betterment of the local inhabitants South America would have been one hundred years earlier in the history of the world.

The main idea of the settlements was the planned Christianization of the local inhabitants under the guidance of the missionaries and the introduction of civilization into them. The Indians, who lived as nomads or semi-nomads, had to be gathered (reduce-gathering, hence the name reduction) and brought up according to church dogmas and «civil» norms. At the same time, it also meant giving up the past rules and forms of life for the Indians. Due to their late arrival on the continent, the Jesuits were the least assimilated to the colonial system and the colonial church, which removed the reductions from the influence of the royal family and gained more political and administrative freedom. In today’s Paraguay (formerly the Guarani region), the settlements created by the Jesuits have been preserved to this day. It is a well-planned city, the centre of which was a square decorated with the most important buildings: a church, a priest’s house, workshops, a shop, a cemetery, a hospital and a widow’s home. And around it, the dwellings of the Indians were symmetrically arranged. As for the order, the governance was fully shared by a small group of European missionaries, both clergy and laity. Economic activities included local indigenous traditions and the requirement of cooperative work, common property, and generous hospitality. The received income was distributed by the leaders for social care. Meat, cotton, textiles, etc., were produced in reductions. Two working days per week were allocated for this purpose, and four days were allocated for earning personal finances and supporting the family. With the help of the missionaries, the local population technologically improved the primitive cultivation of the fields and also studied handicrafts and construction techniques.