Editing Guaraní people (section)

===The Paraguayan Reductions===
{{Main|Jesuit Reductions}}
[[File:Xamã guarani.jpg|thumb|Contemporary Guarani shaman]]
In 1607, Spanish [[Philip III of Spain|King Philip III]] sent a letter to the governor of Rio de Plata [[Hernando Arias de Saavedra|Hernandarias de Saavedra]] to instruct him to send the newly arrived Jesuits to begin their missionary work.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sarreal|first1=Julia J.S.|title=The Guarani and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History|date=2014|publisher=Stanford University Press|location=Stanford, CA}}</ref> With Spanish royal protection, the first Guayrá [[Mission (Christian)|mission]], [[Nuestra Señora de Loreto|Loreto]], was established on the [[Paranapanema River|Paranapanema]] by Father Joseph Cataldino and Father Simon Macerata in 1610. The Jesuit priest Father [[Ruiz de Montoya]] discussed the difficulties of spreading the missions and his interactions with the Guarani in his book ''The Spiritual Conquest''. Ruiz de Montoya wrote that one of the Guarani caciques Miguel Artiguaye initially refused to join the missions until threatened by another Indigenous group. Artiguaye then returned to the mission and begged for protection.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Montoya|first1=Antonio Ruiz de|title=The Spiritual Conquest: Accomplished by the Religious of the Society of Jesus in the Provinces of Paraguay, Uruguay, and Tape|date=1993|publisher=Institute of Jesuit Sources|location=St. Louis, MO|page=52}}</ref>  As the mission provided the only real possible protection against enslavement, the Guarani flocked there in such numbers that twelve more missions were created in rapid succession, containing all 40,000 Guaranis. The Jesuits were seen as intermediaries between the Spanish authorities and the Guarani caciques.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ganson|first1=Barbara|title=The Guarani Under Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata|date=2003|publisher=Stanford university Press|location=Stanford, CA|page=35}}</ref>  The Jesuit missions needed new converts and required workers to assist in the maintenance of the missions. The Guarani helped grow the crops to sustain the missions' populations and also produce goods to sell and trade to fund the missions.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Cushner|first1=Nicholas P.|title=Jesuit Ranches and the Agrarian Development of Colonial Argentina 1650-1767|date=1983|publisher=State University of New York Press|location=Albany, NY|page=156}}</ref>
Stimulated by this success, Father [[Roque González y de Santa Cruz|González]] and two companions journeyed to the [[Banda Oriental|east bank of the Uruguay River]] (now the country of  Uruguay) and established two or three small missions in 1627. The local tribes killed the priests and the neophytes and burned the missions.

Slave raiders saw the Guarani missions as "merely an opportunity of capturing more Indians than usual at a haul".<ref>Graham 57</ref> In 1629, an army of [[Paulistas]] surrounded the San Antonio mission, set fire to the church and other buildings, killed those who resisted or were too young or too old to travel, and carried the rest into slavery. [[São Miguel das Missões|San Miguel]] and Jesus Maria quickly met the same fate. Eventually, reinforcements gathered by Father Cataldino drove off the slavers. Within two years, all but two of the establishments were destroyed, and 60,000 Christian converts were carried off for sale to [[São Paulo]] and [[Rio de Janeiro]]. The attacks usually took place on Sunday, when the whole mission population was gathered for [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]]. The priests were usually spared, but several were killed.

Only a few thousand natives were left of nearly 100,000 just before the Paulista invasion. Father [[Antonio Ruiz de Montoya]] purchased 10,000 cattle, and was able to convert the natives from farmers to stock raisers. Soon under Fathers Rançoncier and Romero the Uruguay missions were re-established. In 1632 the [[Mameluco]]s discovered a new line of attack from the south. In 1638, despite some successful resistance, all twelve of the missions beyond the [[Uruguay River]] were abandoned and their people consolidated with the community of the Missions Territory. In the last raid Father Alfaro was killed.

In the same year Father Montoya, after having successfully opposed the attempts of the governor and the [[bishop of Asunción]] to reduce the natives' liberties and the mission administration, sailed for Europe. On this trip he was successful in obtaining letters from [[Pope Urban VIII]] forbidding the enslavement of the missionaries under the severest church penalties, and from King [[Philip IV of Spain]], permitting Guaranis to carry firearms for defense and to be trained in their use by veteran soldiers who had become Jesuits.

When the next Paulista army, 800 strong, attacked the missions in 1641 they were met by a body of Christian Guarani armed with guns on the [[Acaray River]]. In two battles, the Paulista army suffered a defeat that warded off invasions for ten years. In 1651, the war between Spain and Portugal encouraged another Paulista attack to gain territory for Portugal. Before Spanish troops could arrive to help defend the missions, the fathers themselves led a Guarani army against the enemy. In 1732, at the time of their greatest prosperity, the Guarani missions were guarded by a well-drilled and well-equipped army of 7,000 Guaranis. On more than one occasion this mission army, accompanied by their priests, defended the Spanish colony.

In 1732, there were 30 Guarani missions with 141,252 converted Guaranis.{{Citation needed|date=May 2007}} Two years later a [[smallpox]] epidemic killed approximately 30,000 of them. In 1765, a second outbreak killed approximately 12,000 more, and then spread westward through the [[Gran Chaco people|tribes of the Chaco]].

====Uruguay missions saved====
In 1750 the [[Treaty of Madrid (13 January 1750)|Treaty of Madrid]] between Spain and Portugal transferred to Portugal the territory of the seven missions on the Uruguay River, and the Guaranis were ordered to leave; they refused, being familiar with the Portuguese as slave hunters. Seven years of [[guerrilla warfare]] killed thousands of them (see [[Guarani War]]). The Jesuits secured a royal decree restoring the disputed mission territory to Spanish jurisdiction. Two missions in 1747 and a third in 1760 were established in the sub-tribe of the [[Itatín]]es, or Tobatines, in central Paraguay, far north of the older mission group. In one of these, {{ill|San Joaquín, Paraguay|lt=San Joaquín de los Tobatines|es|San Joaquín (Paraguay)}} (founded 1747), [[Martin Dobrizhoffer]] ministered for eight years.

====Jesuits expelled====
{{further|Suppression of the Society of Jesus}}
In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish dominions by royal edict. Fearing the outcome of this decision, [[viceroy]] [[Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa]] entrusted the execution of the mandate in 1768 to two officers with a force of 500 troops. Despite their mission army of 14,000, the Jesuits submitted without resistance. Guarani caciques from Mission San Luis wrote a letter to the Governor of Buenos Aires on February 28, 1768, to ask for the Jesuits to stay. They wrote, "The fathers of the Company of Jesus know how to get along with us, and we with them, we are happy serving God and the King."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ganson|first1=Barbara|title=The Guarani Under Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata|date=2003|publisher=Stanford University Press|location=Stanford, CA|page=198}}</ref> The Guarani request was denied, but the letter highlights the value of the relationship the Jesuits and Guarani had established in the region.

====Decline of the reductions====
[[File:Ruins of the São Miguel das Missões.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Ruins of the church at [[São Miguel das Missões]], Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.]]
The missions were turned over to priests of other orders, chiefly [[Franciscans]], but under a code of regulations drawn up by the viceroy and modeled largely on the Jesuit system. Under chaotic political regulation, the missions rapidly declined. Most Guaranis returned to the countryside. According to the official census of 1801, fewer than 45,000 Guaranis remained; cattle, sheep, and horses had disappeared; the fields and orchards were overgrown or cut down, and the churches were in ruins. The long period of revolutionary struggle that followed completed the destruction. In 1814, the mission Indians numbered 8,000, and in 1848 the few who remained were declared citizens.

====Aftermath====
A 2018 study in ''[[The Quarterly Journal of Economics]]'' found that "in areas of former Jesuit presence—within the Guarani area—educational attainment was higher and remains so (by 10–15%) 250 years later. These educational differences have also translated into incomes that are 10% higher today. The identification of the positive effect of the Guarani Jesuit missions emerges after comparing them with abandoned Jesuit missions and neighboring Franciscan Guarani missions. The enduring effects observed are consistent with transmission mechanisms of structural transformation, occupational specialization, and technology adoption in agriculture."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Caicedo|first=Felipe Valencia|title=The Mission: Human Capital Transmission, Economic Persistence, and Culture in South America|journal=[[The Quarterly Journal of Economics]] |volume=134|pages=507–556|language=en|doi=10.1093/qje/qjy024|year=2019|hdl=10.1093/qje/qjy024|hdl-access=free}}</ref>