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“Links to the Frontier; Jesuit Supply of its Moxos Missions, 1683-1767.”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

David Block
David Block*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
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Extract

Our view of the Spanish missionary Church results from the convergence of two streams of historical writing. The first uses the activities of a particular religious order or its most illustrious members to frame the foundation and growth of a missionary enterprise. The second pursues a thematic approach, emphasizing the importance of the missions as foci of Spanish culture in a native world. Within this second stream falls the particularly North American interest in the frontier with its stress on the mission stations as the vanguard of Iberian religious, political, and social institutions.

Though widely divergent in organization and emphasis, both streams present a picture of isolation. Solitary missions existed as self-contained theocracies on the very edge of the viceroyalty. The missionaries themselves constantly stressed this view. Their correspondence cites the difficulties of operating stations at great remove from the seats of Spanish power in America. Professional historians, following the diaries and letters of the missionary fathers, have placed priests, neophytes, and — in North America — presidial soldiers beyond the aid or control of metropolitan authority touched only by an occasional visita or supply train.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , October 1980 , pp. 161 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1980

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Jay F. Lehnertz and Joe Hamilton, Jr. who made thoughtful suggestions after reading an earlier version of the manuscript and Adán Benavides, Jr. who generously offered some of his as yet unpublished material on the San Antonio missions.

References

1 Some of the best examples of this genre include Dunne, Peter M., Black Robes in Lower California (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1952);Google Scholar Cardiff, Guillermo Furlong, Misiones y sus pueblos de guaranies (Buenos Aires, 1953);Google Scholar and Geiger, Maynard, The Franciscan Conquest of Florida (Washington, D.C., 1937).Google Scholar

2 See Ricard, Robert, La “Conquête spirituelle” du Mexique. Essai sur l’apostolat et les methodes missionaries des ordres mendiants en Nouvelle-Espagne de 1523–24 a 1572 (Paris, 1933);Google Scholar de Armas Medina, Fernando, Christianización del Perú (1532–1600) (Seville, 1953);Google Scholar and the somewhat dated but still useful work by Rippy, J. Fred and Thomas, Jean Nelson, Crusaders of the Jungle (Chapel Hill, 1936).Google Scholar

3 In Latin America, the frontier has been the province of H. E. Bolton and his students. See Bolton’s, Rim of Christendom (New York, 1936);Google Scholar his Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century (New York, 1962); and Bannon, J.F. The Spanish Borderlands Frontier (New York, 1970).Google Scholar

4 One of the most accessible sources of missionary correspondence is the collected letters of Father Serra in Tibesar, Antonine, ed., Writings of Junípero Serra 4 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1955–1966).Google Scholar See Serra’s complaints to Vicerov Bucareli on the slow state of transportation between Mexico City and California in volume III, p. 117.

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7 “Expediente que contiene varias cartas escritas por el Obispo de Santa Cruz.” San Lorenzo, 7/VIII/1767. ANB, Audiencia de Charcas, Mojos V, f. 7r.

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20 “Expediente obrado acerca del remate de la hacienda de chalguani.” La Plata, 20/IX/1768. f. 14r..

21 “Traslado de la ynposición de un censo.” Lima, 20/X/1698. AGNP, Compañía de Jesús, Censos, leg. 8, s/f. .

22 “Testamento del General D. Juan de Murga.” Lima, 25/II/1726. AGNP, Compañía de Jesús, Cuentas Generales, leg. 100, s/f. .

23 For the financial activities of the secular Church in Mexico see Costeloe, Michael, Church Wealth in Mexico (Cambridge, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Peru see Hamnett, Brian, “Church Wealth in Peru: Estates and Loans in the Archdiocesis of Lima in the Seventeenth Century.” Jahrbuch fur Geschichte von Staat, Wirschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 10 (1973), pp. 113–132.Google Scholar

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32 Investors included sources as disparate as the Bishop of Concepción de Chile and the Indian caja de comunidad in Casma. “Libro de la hacienda de San Antonio de Motocache.” Motocache, no date, ff. 4v., 6r., 26v. . “Notario Juan de Avellán.” Lima, 20/V/1710. AGNP, Compañía de Jesús, Hojas Sueltas, leg. 126, no. 3. . “Testimonio de el ymbentario.” in Eguiguren, , ed., Huellas, p. 59.Google Scholar

33 “Libro de la hacienda de San Antonio de Motocache.” Motocache, 1 /VIII/1713, f. 9v., Motocache, 14/IX/1720, f. 19r. .

34 Accounts of the 1730s show that the missions received interest from a 10,000 peso censo, but this amount corresponds to the debts assumed by the Jesuits at the time of San Jacinto’s purchase. “Borrador, Año 1731.” San Jacinto, 24/III/1731. AGNP, Compañía de Jesús, Cuentas de Haciendas, leg. 93, ff. 424–443.

35 “Libro de rezivos y gastos de San Jacinto.” San Jacinto, 31/I/1712. AGNAP, Compañía de Jesus, Cuentas de Haciendas, leg. 93, ff. 424–443.

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43 Between the Jesuit census of 1752 and the 1773 count made by the Governor of Moxos, total mission population fell from 31,325 to 17,191. “Catálogo y numeración de las misiones de Mojos a cargo de los Padres de la Compañía de Jesús.” Memorias de los virreyes. IV, appendix, “Estados o Documentos,” pp. 4-5. “II Estado del numero de gente de las misiones de Mojos.” Loreto, 20/XII/1773. ANB, AdM 4, s/f. .

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