Where this study about the Jesuit orders dynamics among the Inca wants to go is beyond race and the casta system, although these will be unavoidable and important aspects of the research. More prominently featured will be aspects such as trade, labor, production, consumption, daily lives, gender, social interaction, what society was like before contact, what was introduced, what was taken away, and what was the final product. The correlation or contest between micro and macro identity will be observed.
Across three centuries, beginning in 1567, the Jesuit order had a substantial political and socio-economic presence in the Andean regions of Latin America. Less than four decades after Saint Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society to spread the faith by the "sword of the word", the first Jesuits entered South America by the request of King Philip II of Spain, altering the chemistry of a continent and two competing empires.
Prospectus
Across three centuries, beginning in 1567, the Jesuit order had a substantial political and socio-economic presence in the Andean regions of Latin America. Less than four decades after Saint Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society to spread the faith by the “sword of the word,” the first Jesuits entered South America via Cartagena, Colombia on their journey to Peru by the request of King Philip II of Spain.1 By 1767, the Jesuits had lost their favor with the Church and the Crowns of Europe, as they were suppressed across the Old World and the American colonies alike.2
Since the breakout of the Age of Exploration and the Reformation, there had been an increasing separation of Church and State, as well as independence and mobility of the Jesuits within the Catholic Church. While the Jesuits maintained their position as a Catholic order, they were working independently and even sometimes counter to Papal doctrine. Similarly the Crown of Castile was working for God and country, loyal to the Pope and Church, but also serving its own interest and the interest of the Spanish Kingdom.3 This disrupts the narrative of Papal, imperial, and Society collusion in the suppression and colonization of the New World, and affirms the idea that not all was as cut and dry as one may have been led to believe.
Some argue that the Jesuits were a destructive force, tearing apart the fabric of Indigenous culture and identity, others argue that the Jesuits were a force for good attempting to preserve what they could in the face of an imposing Iberian monarchy and the grand inquisitors of Europe. This study isn't a propagation of the Jesuits' positive or negative qualities in the historical light of their existence in South America but an examination of how impactful were the Jesuits in shaping and preserving the cultures of Andean communities, and how this conflicted with the Spanish Crown and Catholic Church. On a broader scale, it is about the history of the Jesuits in the Viceroyalty of Peru, and how their presence amalgamated Andean society.
One could argue that the historiography of the Jesuits in the Viceroyalty of Peru began during the three-century expanse of their run in the colonial region. In the first few decades of this period, Jesuits, such as Father Bernabé Cobo, were focused on the society and history of the Andean communities and their conquest by the Incas.4 In Peru, as in all of the Spanish Empire, monks, friars, and priests of all sects and orders showed deep concern about the Spanish mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and local community education and preservation.5 Others, while discussing the history of the Andean peoples and their contact with the Spanish, also detailed their religion, practices, structures, and its “ministers of Satan” struggling against the power of Christ and the cross.6
The retrospective historiography of the Jesuits in the Viceroyalty of Peru begins with their expulsion by Charles III of Spain and the Society's suppression by the Papacy in the mid-18th century. It is fairly precise and easy to follow initially, across the 18th and 19th centuries, the history of the Jesuits is relayed as a series of events that occurred, with more emphasis on politics, but it was not void of opinion or inquiry into social history. Jean Le Rond d'Alembert's An Account of the Destruction of the Jesuits in France from 1766, while largely centered on the suppression of the Jesuits in Europe, relates how events that occurred in South America, nominally Paraguay, shaped their fate in the Old World. The portrayal of the Jesuits at this time takes a negative stance, as the Jesuits are deemed anti-progress and disruptions to society. It is claimed that in such places as Paraguay that the Jesuits found gentleness and good but they spread wickedness across society, and would do the same if given the chance in Europe. They had long found refuge in support from kings and popes, but their opposition to universities and education, as well as general “disruption society” barred them from royal and ecclesiastical favor.7 Negative attitudes prevailed in the Enlightenment as the Jesuits were accused of robbing society and treating people like fools.
Regarding the historiography, not much changed from Le Rond d'Alembert's time through the 1800s. While the contemporary sentiments of the mid-1700s faded to more neutral tones, and the study of history gained more prestige as an academic field, the study of history was still relegated to the idea that history is a series of events that happened. In 1848 A. Steinmetz continues this tradition of sequential storytelling, drawing away from Le Rond d'Alembert's negative portrayal for neutral tones, even occasionally taking somewhat positive positions with proclamations like: “to this depopulated country (Peru) the Jesuits were dispatched, and the most favorable auspices, like their glorious beginning.”8
At this time new ideas about historical frameworks and scopes of study began to emerge in the historiography. This shift in the general study of history began to incorporate aspects of labor, economics, socialism, Marxism, race, and gender, as military and political history began to be get edged out from mainstream focus. This period not only saw a shift in how history was studied, but how the Jesuits were perceived as well. In 1910 Sir Clements Robert Markham provides the Jesuits with a positive narrative regarding cultural preservation, describing how while the Jesuits worked on conversion and the spread of Christian faith, they created dictionaries, studied grammar and vocabulary, propagated native and traditional place names, and worked to save the Indigenous languages of the Andes.9 Taking a stride away from the traditional scope, Sir Markham also focuses his monograph away from the European perspective and illuminates Incan society, before and after contact, noting societal order, structure, terms of war, commerce, and agriculture. Reverend Laux's monograph lists out statistic and facts about population, conversion, slavery, and who was where.10 All the same, as the study of history evolved over the first half of the 20th century, historians like Sir Clements Robert Markham and Reverend John Laux began taking a more social and political approach to Jesuit history and Latin American while still incorporating the same series-of-events formula in their writings.
The 1960s is where one truly begins to find diversity in historiography; this period was capitalized by conflicting and competing economic systems ruling a polarized world. Economics and imperialism were hot button issues that permeated into every aspect of life and society. As historical frameworks began to develop along Cold War fronts, the “intellectual conquest of Peru” was reinforced as an understated aspect of Andean and Jesuit history.11 Depending on where one feels within social and political leanings at the time, this could be viewed as either a positive or negative development. Luis Martin highlights that Jesuit academic work was an aggressive reaction to the Counter-Reformation but maintains that they worked as champions of the Indigenous peoples in the face of a brutal military conquest.
By the 1980s and the height of the Cold War, far more emphasis was placed on economics, agriculture, slavery, and overall negative sentiments toward the Jesuits. More important than the flip-flopping of opinion toward the Jesuits and a perceived righteousness or self-serving actions on local communities is the emphasis of their actual impact on local communities.
Professor of History, Nicholas P. Cushner publishes several writings during the ‘80s pertaining to the socio-economic conditions of slaves and Indigenous peoples in Jesuit reducciones and haciendas. In one such publication, he details the demographics of slaves, their treatment by the Jesuits, their daily lives, and how they interacted within the communities.12 In another publication, Professor Cushner focuses on the function of these Jesuit estates, the economic and agricultural dynamic, and how they impacted both local communities and the greater Spanish Colonial Empire, providing a micro and macro scale for the historiography.13
As the historiography nears the turn of the millennium, there is a stark rise in Indigenous social history. Authors like Ana Carolina Hosne highlight the fact that the Jesuit-Indigenous social and cultural exchange wasn't a one-way street, there was an exchange on both sides.14 Larissa Brewer-García further adds to the Indigenous social history by detailing how the Jesuits prohibited the ordination of Mestizos reaffirmed the stratification of local communities and society, reinforced Mestizo marginalization and impacted translation efforts and cultural preservation.15 Overall this most recent part of the historiography is diverse, complex, and multi-perspective, as shown in Girolamo Imbruglia's relatively all-encompassing monograph The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay and a Cultural History of Utopia (1568-1789), where he covers the social history of the Jesuits in the Viceroyalty of Peru at different points from the religious foundation, to the web between Church and State, and the people who lived in them.16
Across this historiography, one has seen that historians have debated whether or not the Jesuits had a positive or negative impact in the Andean region, they have debated what those impacts were, and they have discussed different levels of society and government and their roles at local and macro levels. Additionally, they have questioned the loyalty and motives of the Jesuits: whether they were serving the Crown, God, the Pope, local communities, or their own financial interest. This has all come to a head in the 21st century, as the historiography of this topic, and all topics in general, were becoming more diversified and new social histories are creating complexities that disrupt long held beliefs and proclaimed truths. What all of these histories regarding the Jesuits and their interactions with the Incan and general Andean communities touch on but fail to grasp is how specifically culture and society was altered. Many historians place positions along the lines that the Spanish either overhauled Andean society or failed in their endeavors to make significant drastic impacts, but those impacts aren't sifted though to express the balance and mixture of Old World and New World life beyond genetic mixing, the introduction of religion, limpieza de Sangre, and the casta system.
Where this study wants to go is beyond race and the casta system, although these will be unavoidable and important aspects of the research. More prominently featured will be aspects such as trade, labor, production, consumption, daily lives, gender, social interaction, what society was like before contact, what was introduced, what was taken away, and what was the final product. The correlation or contest between micro and macro identity will be observed.
Remembering that the Jesuits were a multinational organization, not just an Iberian enterprise, will impact how they interacted with and were perceived within the Spanish colonies. This study intends to contribute to the social history of the region by expressing the history of the people beyond how the Spanish government viewed them or how European laws and regulations controlled them. It's about how these people shaped their own lives and how the Jesuits acted as a neutral outside force in the amalgamation of society and identity.
The methodological approach that will be taken with this study is from the scope of social history. Where possible, I would like to give the Indigenous communities their own voice and perceived interactions with the Jesuits, but the balance of primary sources would certainly give the Jesuits the greater vocalization. As mentioned above, aspects of society and culture such as social interaction, local response to politics, religion, agriculture, economics, and community will play a role as factors in research and historical production. This will be done to contrast past historiographies that have shaped Jesuit interaction as either positive or negative, and focus solely on the social outcome rather than intent or purpose. With this methodology the path of the amalgamated Andean identity, on both a micro and macro level, should become apparent. With the proper sources and historiographical foundation to build on, one will be able to uncover what the Andean people thought of their own cultures and societies from pre and post-contact, as well as the Jesuit and Spanish perception. What did these people want to change or reinforce about their society and daily lives, and what was the capacity for reshaping and mixing of customs and ideas? Additionally, beyond religious conversion, what aspects of Andean society did the Jesuits desire to change, remove, or preserve, and how did this align or contradict the colonial government? It may be prudent to uncover why the Andeans and Jesuits felt the way they did regarding certain aspects, and where they placed themselves in relation to one another and the greater community of the Viceroyalty. With these questions in mind, and the scope set, the methodological approach to this history has a foundation and will plausibly uncover new revelations that will give a silent community a past.
The historical study will begin with a proposition of an established thesis, followed by a description of the topic, and an overview of relevant background information necessary to understand the socio-political atmosphere of the Andean region, greater Spanish Empire, and the Jesuit Order. Relevant information regarding pre-contact and post-contact Andean life will also be covered before the crux of the paper is filled out.
The body of the historical study will cover Andean life and society, as well as Jesuit interaction from the aforementioned perspectives and details. There will be some comparison and contrasting to express how society shifted and altered over time, but the heart of the paper will stay with the people and how they experienced these changes in daily life, in their own words as much as possible.
Once this history has been covered and tied to the thesis and questions established at the introduction of the study opposing theories and perspectives will be addressed and resolved as satisfactorily as possible. With the thesis supported or undermined, a conclusion will be drawn regarding theories about the amalgamation of Andean culture and society, as well as their identities and what they mean to the people.
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1 Girolamo Imbruglia, The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay and a Cultural History of Utopia (15681789) (Leiden, Netherlands: BRILL Publishing, 2017), 56-57.
[2] Imbruglia, The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay, 204-216.
3 Imbruglia, The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay, 107-109.
4 Father Bernabé Cobo, “How the Inca Formed a Nation, 1590,” in Latin American Civilization: History and Society, 1492 to the Present, ed. Benjamin Keen (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), 19-21.
5 Fray Pedro de Gante, “Fray Pedro de Gante's Letter to Charles V, 1552,” in Colonial Latin America: A Documentary Histo ry, eds. Kenneth Mills, William B. Taylor, and Sandra Lauderdale Graham (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2002), Chapter 14, 104-112.
6 José de Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, 1590 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 448.
7 Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, An Account of the Destrucion of the Jesuits in France (London: T. Becket & P. A. De Hondt, 1766), 17-19.
8 A. Steinmetz. History of the Jesuits, Volume 1. Philadelphia: T.K. and P.G. Collins, 1848), 445.
9 Sir Clements Robert Markham, The Incas of Peru (Boston: Dutton Publishing, 1910), 313-315.
10 Reverend John Laux, Church History: A History of the Catholic Church to 1940. (Charlotte: TAN Books, 1930), 516.
11 Luis Martin, The Intellectual Conquest of Peru: The Jesuit College of San Pablo, 1568-1767 (New York City: Fordham University Press, 1968), 11-22.
12 Nicholas P. Cushner, “Slave Mortality and Reproduction on Jesuit Haciendas in Colonial Peru.” The Hispanic American Historical Review (May, 1975): 177-199.
13 Nicholas P. Cushner, Lords of the Land: Sugar, Wine, and Jesuit Estates of Coastal Peru, 1600-1767 (New York City: SUNY Press, 1980), 1-4.
14 Ana Carolina Hosne, “The ‘Art of Memory' in the Jesuit Missions in Peru and China in the Late 16th Century,” Revue de la Culture Matérielle, Fall, 2012, https://joumals.lib.unb.ca/ index.php/MCR/article/view/21407/24871.
15 Larissa Brewer-García, “Bodies, Texts, and Translators: Indigenous Breast Milk and the Jesuit Exclusion of Mestizos in Late Sixteenth-Century Peru.” Colonial American Review (2012): 369-390.
16 Imbruglia, The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay, 1-21.
- Quote paper
- Michael Gorman (Author), 2023, Jesuit Dynamics among the Inca. What was the Society before Contact like?, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/1363465