Jesuit Reduction

I always wondered what was the real purpose of all the missions in California. Too much is made of the genocide of the Native Americans such as them dying off because of European diseases. There was another evil method of wearing down the Native Americans into submission and giving up. The Jesuits.

I can't believe this is out in the open on Wikipedia. It really makes me question how Christianity and the Catholic Church has been used as a tool for control. The European colonists were probably wondering how do we get rid of the thousands of indigenous tribes in the "New World", so we can have the "New World" to ourselves. The solution was to bring in the Jesuit trickery. The Jesuits influence in getting rid of the Native Americans never gets talked about.

According to that link from Wikipedia:

A Jesuit reduction was a type of settlement for indigenous people in South America created by the Jesuit Order during the 17th and 18th centuries. The strategy of the Spanish Empire was to gather native populations into centers called "Indian reductions" (reducciones de indios), in order to Christianize, tax, and govern them more efficiently. The Jesuit interpretation of this strategy was implemented primarily in an area that corresponds to modern-day Paraguay amongst the Tupi-Guarani peoples. Later reductions were extended into areas now part of Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia.

To understand the impetus behind these Jesuit efforts, one must take into account the widespread Catholic belief about baptism, current at that time. It would be centuries before the Catholic church would reconsider its glum appraisal of the chances of salvation for those not baptized into the Church. From this came the heroic efforts of missionaries to the detriment of native cultures, which few today could countenance.

Jesuit reductions were different from the reductions in other regions because the indigenous people (Indians) were expected to convert to Christianity but not necessarily adopt European values and lifestyles. Also, unlike the Patronato Real system of missionaries accompanying conquistadores in search of gold in Central America, here it was to remain free from exploitation that the indigenous peoples were sequestered. Under the leadership of both the Jesuits and native caciques, the reductions achieved a high degree of autonomy within the Spanish colonial empire. With the use of Indian labour, the reductions became economically successful. When their existence was threatened by the incursions of Bandeirante slave traders, Indian militia were created that fought effectively against the colonists. The resistance by the Jesuit reductions to slave raids, as well as their high degree of autonomy and economic success, have been cited as contributing factors to the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Americas in 1767.

In the 16th century, priests of different religious orders set out to evangelize the Americas, bringing Christianity to indigenous communities. The colonial governments and missionaries agreed on the strategy of gathering the often nomadic indigenous populations in larger communities called reductions in order to more effectively govern, tax, and Christianize them. Reductions generally were also construed as an instrument to make the Indians adopt European lifestyles and values, which was not the case in the Jesuit reductions, where the Jesuits allowed the indigenous people to retain many of their pre-colonial cultural practices. In Mexico the policy was called congregación, and also took the form of the hospitals of Vasco de Quiroga, and the Franciscan Missions of California, and in Portuguese Brazil they were known as aldeias. Legally, under colonial rule, Indians were classified as minors, in effect children, to be protected and guided to salvation (conversion to Christianity) by European missionaries.

The Jesuits, only formally founded in 1540, were relatively late arrivals in the New World, from about 1570, especially compared to the Dominicans and Franciscans, and therefore had to look to the frontiers of colonization for mission areas. The Jesuit reductions originated in the early seventeenth century when Bishop Lizarraga asked for missionaries for Paraguay. In 1609, acting under instructions from Phillip III, the Spanish governor of Asunción made a deal with the Jesuit Provincial of Paraguay. The Jesuits agreed to set up hamlets at strategic points along the Paraná river, that were populated with Indians and maintained a separation from Spanish towns. The Jesuits were to "enjoy a tax holiday for ten years" which extended longer. This mission strategy continued for 150 years until the Jesuits were expelled in 1767. Fundamentally the purpose, as far as the government was concerned, was to safeguard the frontier with the reductions where Indians were introduced to European culture. In 1609 three Jesuits began the first mission in San Ignacio Guazú. In the next 25 years, 15 missions were founded in the province of Guayrá. But since some of these were within the Portuguese area they were subjected to frequent destructive raids by Bandeirantes of São Paulo to enslave the Indians. In 1631 most of the reductions moved west into Uruguay which was under Spanish jurisdiction, in some cases to be re-opened from the 1680s onwards.

Here is another link from Wikipedia called Indian Reductions which further explains how the Native Americans were tricked and fooled into being slaves:

Indian reductions (Spanish: reducciones) were mission towns built by Spanish Jesuit missionaries in Central and South America and populated by the forcible relocation of indigenous populations. The goal was to consolidate previously scattered populations to exert more control over them including increasing baptisms and to improve the flow of silver to the government in Spain. The local populations, who had adapted to a way of life suitable to the many, minor microclimates throughout the Andes, were uprooted and forced to assimilate. They new towns were sometimes located in areas know to be prone to natural disasters including flooding. The large population centers disrupted family and kinship relationships. The indigenous people were exposed to many new diseases like Smallpox, for which they had no immunity, and many died as a result.

The Spanish sometimes located the settlement villages in what the natives knew to be natural disaster zones, prone to flooding or avalanche. The resettlements destroyed the longstanding and key kin and other familial relationships between villages. The social disruption resulted in adversely and dramatically affecting the indigenous populations. The reductions increased the risk of smallpox transmission, because the native population had no natural immunity to this new disease, they suffered very high fatalities from its epidemics. Through the reductions, the Spanish colonists completely controlled and exploited the indigenous population, under the guise of attempting to culturally transform and "Hispanicize" or assimilate them.