Book: A Vanished Arcadia,

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Although Thadeus Ennis and other Jesuits accompanied the troops,
and no doubt aided much by their advice, the Indians had as a general
one Nicolas Neenguiru, styled in the Gazettes of the time
the King of Paraguay. About this man all kinds of monstrous legends
soon sprang up. One little lying book, entitled `Histoire de Nicolas I.,
Roy du Paraguai et Empereur des Mamalus',* which bears
upon its title-page `Saint Paul',** 1756, especially excels.
In that brief work of but one hundred and seventeen pages,
printed on yellowish paper, and with one of the finest
little vignettes of a basket of fruit and flowers upon its title-page
that one could wish to see, a sort of parody of a Spanish picaresque novel
in duodecimo is set forth with circumstance.

--
* The Mamalucos, or Paulistas, were, of course, the bitterest enemies
of everything Paraguayan, so that a King had as well been styled
of `Iceland and of Paraguay'.
** If this assumes to be Sao Paulo de Piritinanga in Brazil,
it is not unlikely one of the few books published there
in the eighteenth century, if not the only one. Happy is
the city of one book, especially when that work has
nothing of a theological character in it, even though it lies
from `la cruz a la fecha'.
--

Nicolas Roubioni is duly born in 1710, in a small `bourgade de l'Andalousie'
bearing the name of Taratos. The name carries conviction from the start,
and pronounced a la francaise, with the accent equal upon
all the syllables, is quite as Spanish as the most exigent of comic operas
could possibly desire. His father, `ancien militaire', left him alone
to educate himself as he best liked. Arrived at eighteen years of age
he runs away to Seville, and after several adventures
in the style of those of Rinconete and Cortadillo, seen through
French spectacles, enters the service of a lady bearing
the well-known Spanish name of Donna Maria della Cupidita.
Under the unnecessary alias of Medelino, and in the capacity of cook,
he becomes the lady's lover as in duty bound. `Chasse' from Seville
by a jealous brother of his love, he flies for refuge to a `bourgade'
(name not chronicled) some seven leagues away. He then becomes a muleteer,
and at Medina Sidonia kills a man, and, forced to flee, repairs to Malaga,
where he lives peacefully ten years. Finding life dull there,
he journeys to Aragon and joins the Jesuits, and from henceforth
his future is assured. After an interval he reappears at Huesca,
and at once falls in love with `une belle espagnole', Donna Victoria Fortini,
whom he courts under the guise of a gentleman of Seville,
returning every night to the convent of the Jesuits
to change his clothes. So great becomes his effrontery
that under the style and title of `Comte de la Emmandes',
he publicly marries `sa belle', the Jesuits either consenting,
or too astounded at the fact to intervene. Things getting hot in Huesca,
he embarks for Buenos Ayres as a missionary, leaving poor Donna de la Victoria
`dans une inquietude mortelle', as she might well have been.
Arrived in Buenos Ayres just at the moment of the cession of
the seven Jesuit towns, he sees his opportunity, learns Guarani
in the brief space of six or seven weeks, and joins the Indians.
They naturally, having been trained to look on every foreigner
outside the Order of the Jesuits as an enemy, receive him as their King.
Under the title of the `Son of the Sun and Star of Liberty' he rules them,
looked on as a God. The brief mendacious chronicle leaves him on the throne,
just after having joined the empire of the Mamalucos to that of Paraguay,
and promising to give the world more of his history when it comes to hand.

By stories such as those contained in the mendacious little book
imprinted at St. Paul, the easy-minded public -- then, as now,
always more easily impressed with lies than with the truth --
was biassed against the Jesuits in Paraguay. Father Dobrizhoffer,*
who knew `King' Nicolas from his youth up, has left a very different
version of his history, in which no Donna della Cupidita or de la Victoria
even remotely flourishes. Nicolas Neenguiru was born
in the township of La Concepcion, of which in after-life he rose
to be the mayor. He married an Indian woman, not `une belle Andalouse',
and Dobrizhoffer says a friend of his, one Father Zierheim,
had him whipped publicly for petty theft when a young man.
At the time (1753) when, in company with another Indian,
one Jose, mayor of San Miguel, he headed the Indian revolt,
he was a man of middle age, tall, taciturn and grave, and not ill-looking,
though marked across the cheek with a disfiguring scar.
At no time was he even a lay brother of the Jesuit Order,
as by their rules in Paraguay no Indians were ever taken
either as lay brothers or as priests. So little was the man feared
by the authorities that, once the Indians' resistance was over,
Nicolas went to the Spanish camp, was quietly heard, dismissed,
and then continued in his office as the mayor of his native place.
The legend sprang from a mistake in Guarani, to which perhaps
a little malice gave its artful charm. In Guarani the word `Rubicha'
signifies a chief, whereas `Nfurabicha' means king. The two,
pronounced by one but ill acquainted with the language sound identical.
Nothing was more likely than that the Indians should call their general
their chief; had they thought really of settling upon a king, it is certain
that they would have chosen one of the family of some well-known chief,
and not an Indian merely appointed mayor by the Jesuits.
But be that as it may, General Neenguiru, though he has left
some interesting letters, which are preserved in the archives of Simancas,
showed no capacity for generalship.** Throughout the course of the campaign
he endeavoured to replace his want of skill by tricks and by intrigues,
but of so futile a nature that they were frustrated and rendered useless
at once. His first endeavour was to gain time, when he found himself
with seventeen hundred men opposed to Andonaegui, Governor of Buenos Ayres,
who had an army well equipped with guns, of about two thousand men.
Neenguiru wrote to Andonaegui, telling him that the Indians
were ready to submit, and then, whilst waiting for an answer,
set about fortifying the position which he held. Warned by a spy,
Andonaegui attacked at once, and drove the Indians from their trenches
like a flock of sheep, taking their wooden cannon, lances, and banners,
and killing thirteen hundred of them.

--
* `Account of the Abipones', vol. i., p. 32.
** The only man the Indians produced who showed any aptitude as a leader
was a chief called Sepe Tyaragu. At his death in action in 1756
Nicolas Neenguiru succeeded to his post.
--

A glorious victory, and, as Father Ennis says, `to be expected, and which,
had it chanced otherwise, must have covered the Spaniards and the Portuguese
with shame.' In fact, a victory of the same kind as those
which since that time have been most usual when well-armed European troops
have faced half-naked, ill-armed savages, but which, of course,
reflect no credit on the victor, or, at best, just as much credit
as a butcher rightfully receives when he defeats a calf.

But even after the victory over the Indians of Nicolas Neenguiru
the troubles of the allies were not quite at an end.
The usual dissensions between allies who mutually detest each other
soon broke out, and Gomez Freire, the General of the Portuguese,
only prevented a collision with the Spaniards by considerable tact.
After a short campaign of a few months, the allies entered
the rebellious towns and took possession of them all, with the exception
of San Lorenzo, which continued to hold out. A month or two served
to reduce it, too, and the whole territory of the seven towns
submitted to the power of the joint forces of Portugal and Spain.
The struggle over, Neenguiru was quietly again reinstated
mayor of Concepcion, the bruised wooden cannon duly set up
as monuments, the dead left on the plains and the `esteros'
for the chimangos* and the caranchos** to gorge upon, and, law's due majesty
once more vindicated, the conquerors set about, in 1757, to trace the limits
between the territories of the two Christian Kings.

--
* `Milvago Chimango'.
** `Polyhorus tharus'. In relation to the word `tharus',
which figures as a sort of scientific (or doggerel) cognomen
to this bird, Mr. W. H. Hudson once pointed out to me that,
like some other `scientific facts', it originated in a mistake.
The Pampa Indian name of the bird is `trare'. Molina (Don Juan Ignacio),
in his `History of Chile', happened to spell the word `thare',
instead of `trare', and then proceeded to make a dog-Latin form of it.
Thus the bird has received its present scientific name.
--

Most of the seven towns were half deserted, the Indians having fled for refuge
to the woods,* and the commission set to work upon its labours in a desert
which it itself had made. Out of the fourteen thousand Indians who had
inhabited the seven flourishing towns upon the Uruguay but few remained;
yet still the work of pacification and working at the boundary went on slowly,
for from 1753 to 1759 nothing of consequence was done.
In 1760 Ferdinand VI. died, and his son Charles III. succeeded him,
and still the boundary commission worked on hopelessly in Paraguay.
The Jesuits, who had worked unceasingly during the last eight years
to annul the treaty handing the seven missions over to the Portuguese,
at length, in 1761, obtained from Charles III. a treaty annulling
all that had been done, and providing that the seven towns should remain
part of the dominions of the Spanish crown.

--
* Cardiel, `Declaracion de la Verdad', p. 430: `. . . llego alli despues
de la fuga y desamparo de los pueblos . . . saco a los dos Padres
que estaban muy afligidos por la soledad y alboroto.'
--

They triumphed; but their triumph added another step towards their ruin,
for the jealousy which they evoked by their persistent fight
raised up much animosity towards themselves in Spain. How great a share
they had in the resistance of the Indians cannot be known with certainty.
Papers preserved in the archives of Simancas charge them
with stirring up the Indians to resist;*1* but they are chiefly
from Valdelirios and others, who, naturally finding resistance,
put it down at once to the Jesuits, whom then, as now, it was the fashion
to abuse. The Indians themselves seem to have been perplexed,
no doubt encouraged by their priests on one hand, and on the other seeing
the commissary Altamirano, himself a Jesuit, calling upon them to submit.
In a pathetic letter written to the Governor of Buenos Ayres,
and dated `en la estancia de San Luis, Feb. 28 de 1756',
Primo Ibarrenda, of San Miguel, says:*2* `This our writing I send to you
that you may tell us finally what is to be our lot, and that you take
a resolution what it is that you shall do. You see how that last year
the father commissary*3* came to this our land to bother us to leave it:
to leave our towns and all our territories, saying it was the will of our lord
the King: besides this you yourself sent us a rigorous letter
telling us to burn our towns, destroy the fields, even pull down our church,
which is so beautiful (`tan lindo'), and saying also that you would kill us.
You also say, and therefore we ask you if it is the truth,
for if it is, we will all die before the Holy Sacrament; but spare the church,
for it is God's, and even the infidels would not do it any harm.'
They go on to say they have always been obedient subjects of the King,
and that it is impossible that his wish could be to injure them --
in fact, the letter of innocent men, half civilized,
and thinking justice, mercy, and right-doing were to be found
with Governors and Kings. Had many of the Jesuits chosen to take the field,
their knowledge of the country and the vast influence that they had
upon the Indians would have made the campaign perilous enough
even for the united military power of Portugal and Spain.
As it was, the miserable war dragged on for eight long years,
and for result ruined seven missions where before the Indians lived happily.
Then, when the fields were desolate, the villages deserted,
and the Indian population half dispersed, statesmen in Spain and Portugal
saw fit to change their minds, to annul the treaty, and to pass
a diplomatic sponge over the ruin and the misery they had caused.

--
*1* In a letter (Archivo de Simancas, Legajo 7,378, folio 128),
Valdelirios, writing to the governor of Buenos Ayres,
Don Jose de Caravajal y Lancastre, says: `Inagotables son los recursos
de los Padres para que se dilate y no se ratifique el tratado. . . .'
But he gives no proof except that they had sent petitions to the King --
surely a very constitutional thing for them to do.
*2* The letter was written originally in Guarani, and a certified
translation of it exists at Simancas, Legajo 7,385, folio 13.
*3* Altamirano.
--




Chapter X

Position of the Jesuits in 1761 -- Decree for their expulsion
sent from Spain -- Bucareli sent to suppress the colleges and drive out
the Jesuits -- They submit without resistance -- After two hundred years
they are expelled from Paraguay -- The country under the new rule --
The system of government practically unchanged



`No storm is so insidious' (said St. Ignatius) `as a perfect calm,
and no enemy so dangerous as the absence of all enemies.'

This dangerous state of calm without an apparent enemy in sight
was the position of the Jesuits in Paraguay in 1761. By desperate
efforts and intrigues in Spain they had kept their thirty missions
from being mutilated; their influence amongst the Indians
had never been more absolute. The governors of Buenos Ayres and of Paraguay
had tried a fall with them, and the honours of the struggle
were with the Jesuits. They had succeeded in getting put into force
the clauses of the `Laws of the Indies', which kept Spaniards
out of the Indian settlements. Even those sent against them
had been forced to testify to their utility*1* in Paraguay.
But throughout Spain and her enormous empire in America and in the East
perpetual hostility between the Jesuits and the regular clergy had been
going on for years. In every portion of America the Jesuits were unpopular,
the excuse alleged being their wealth and power;*2* but the real reason
was their attitude on slavery. After repeated grumblings of distant thunder,
at length the storm broke, and the decree for the expulsion of the Jesuits
in Spain and her dominions was signed, and the order sent to Bucareli,
Governor of Buenos Ayres, in June of 1767, to put it into force in Paraguay.
The reasons which induced King Charles III. to expel the Jesuits,
mysterious as they were, and locked up a dead secret in the royal breast,*3*
may or may not have been sufficient in Spain, but could in no respect
have held good for Paraguay, where there existed little scope
for court intrigue, and where the Jesuits were far removed from
their fellow Spanish subjects, and occupied entirely with their mission work.
Many and various have been the explanations which historians have set forth
for this decree. Certain it is in Spain this Order had attained
to considerable power, and that in Rome the abler of their Generals
occasionally kept the Popes in mental servitude.

--
*1* Don Pedro Cevallos, Governor of Buenos Ayres, who was in Paraguay in 1755,
sent there to fight the troops of King Nicolas, found, as he himself says,
`no King, and no troops, but a few half-armed Indians.'
Writing to the King, he says: `Los Jesuitas son utiles en el Paraguay.'
*2* The figures in Chapter VII. serve to show that in Paraguay, at least,
they were not exactly millionaires. In Mexico, Palafox, the saintly
Bishop of Puebla, had set about all kinds of stories as to their riches,
but Geronimo Terenichi, an ecclesiastic sent to Mexico
to examine into the question of the Jesuits and their wealth,
after a year of residence, expressly says `they were very poor,
and laden with debt' (`eran muy pobres y estaban cargados de deudas'):
`Coleccion de los articulos de la Esperanza, sobre la Historia
del Reinado de Carlos III.', p. 435. Madrid, 1859.
*3* They were expressly proclaimed to be `ocultas y reservadas'.
Carlos III., in defence of his `occult' and `reserved' reasons,
said, `mis razones, solo Dios y yo debemos conocerlas'
(`Reinado de Carlos III.', vol. iii., p. 120. Ferrer del Rio,
Madrid, 1856). No doubt Carlos III. satisfied his conscience
with this dictum, but it is permissible to doubt whether the power
alluded to in such a cousin-like manner by the King was equally satisfied.
--

Some have accounted for the act of Charles III. as being but revenge
for the tumult of Aranjuez under the ministry of Esquilace,*1*
arguing that the Jesuits were in fact the authors of it, and that it was
but the precursor of a plot to dethrone the King and place his brother
Don Luis upon the throne, as being not so liberal in his ideas.
Others, again, have stated*2* that the Jesuits set about a calumny
that Charles III. was not the Queen's son by her husband,
but by a lover whom they said she had. The only reason which seems feasible
is that the King was worked on by the fear that the Order had risen
to too much power, and that if he did not at once take steps the monarchy
would be rendered but a mere appendage of the General of the Jesuits.*3*

--
*1* This celebrated tumult, generally known in Spain
as `el Motin de Aranjuez', and sometimes as `el Motin de Esquilace',
occurred on Palm Sunday, 1766. The ostensible reason
was an edict of the King (Charles III.) prohibiting the use
of long cloaks and broad-brimmed hats, which had been for long
popular in Spain. The tumult assumed such formidable dimensions
that the Walloon Guards were unable to quell it, but two friars,
Padre Osma and Padre Cueva, in some manner were able to stem
the confusion. The King and the court were so much disturbed
that they quitted Madrid and went to Aranjuez. There is no proof
that the Jesuits had any hand at all in the affair.
*2* Ferrer del Rio, in his history of the reign of Charles III.
*3* Such, at least, several of his letters to the Pope, Clement XII.,
would seem to indicate. It is not impossible that
the strenuous opposition which the Jesuits gave to the Inquisition
may have had something to do with their expulsion. Some of them
went great lengths in their attacks. P. Antonio Vieyra,
the celebrated Portuguese Jesuit, in his `Relac,ao~ Exactissima,
Instructiva, Curioza, Verdadeira, Noticioza do Procedimento
das Inquizic,ois de Portugal' (Em Veneza, 1750), is almost as severe
as Protestant writers have been against the Inquisition.
Particularly does he inveigh against the prison system of the Holy Office
(pp. 3-5, chap. i.). In the last chapter (p. 154), Vieyra calls Saavedra,
the founder of the Portuguese Inquisition, a tyrant,
and in recounting his deeds calls him `tyranno', `cruel', `falsario',
`herege', and `ladram' (a thief), and finishes by asserting
that the tribunal invented by such a man `had its roots in hell',
and that `its ministers could not go to heaven'.
--

Whether it is sound policy of any government to expel a race, or sect,
or order from its domains, no matter what the immediate exigencies
of the times seem to require, is a moot point. The expulsions of the Jews,
Moriscos, and Huguenots, and the dissolution of the monasteries
in the times of that true Protestant Henry VIII. of ever pious memory,
do not exactly seem to have had the effect upon the countries
where they took place that was at first expected by their instigators.
Expelled by Charles III., the Jesuits to-day in Spain have re-acquired
much of their influence. So that it seems that persecution,
to be effectual, must not stop on this side of extermination,
and this our Lord Protector Cromwell understood full well.

The Viceroy Bucareli* to whom the task of the expulsion of the Order
in the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres and of Paraguay was entrusted,
was no ordinary man.** Appointed Viceroy of Buenos Ayres
after a distinguished career of public service, he found himself,
almost without warning, and without any adequate forces at his command,
obliged to execute by far the most important and far-reaching task
that had ever fallen to the lot of any Spanish Governor in America
to carry out. But as his services had not been chiefly in America,
he held the idea which at the time was generally received in Europe,
that the Jesuits possessed great wealth, had bodies of trained troops,
and so would resist all efforts at expulsion to the death.

--
* His full name was Don Francisco de Paula Bucareli y Ursua.
** Brabo (`Coleccion de Documentos', etc.) says of him,
`speaking of the petty jealousies and intrigues which
the decree of expulsion evoked: `En medio de tantas contrariedades,
crimenes y miserias destaca serena la figura de Bucareli,
no solo llevando a cabo con incansable celo su cometido,
si no atendiendo a suplir en la organizacion religiosa,
intelectual y civil los numerosos vacios que dejaba la falta
del absorbente y decisivo influjo jesuitico.'
--

Full of these visions, says Dean Funes,* he considered the order,
which was transmitted to him from Spain, as involving serious military risk,
and evidently seems to have looked on every Jesuit village
as a strong place of arms. July 22, 1767, was the day he chose,
keeping his design a secret, and preparing to strike in Corrientes, Cordoba,
Monte Video, and Santa Fe, on the same day, or rather night,
for the terror of the Jesuits was so great that he designed
to expel them all by night.

--
* `Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay', etc.,
vol. iii., cap. viii., p. 119.
--

On July 2 two ships arrived in Buenos Ayres bringing the news
that the decree had been put in force in Spain on April 2 with success.
As all the crew of both the ships knew what had happened in Spain,
concealment of his plan became no longer possible. Thus, had the Jesuits
possessed either the wish or the means to make an armed resistance,
they had ample time to stand on their defence.

Nothing was further from their minds, though they had complete dominion
over a territory as large as France, and which contained
a population of over one hundred and fifty thousand souls.*1*
For arms, they had as chief defence some `very long English guns,
with rests if they wished to use them, which were not very heavy,
and had a tolerable range.'*2* These were the preparations
that the Jesuits (who, not in Paraguay alone, but throughout
all the American dominions of the Spanish crown, ruled over
territories stretching from California to Cape Horn)*3* had made,
and they were found alone in the missions of Paraguay, where,
by a special permission of the Kings of Spain, arms were allowed
for defence against the Portuguese.

--
*1* Funes, `Ensayo de la Historia Civil', etc., vol. iii., cap. viii.
*2* `Tambien en algunos pueblos hay unas escopetas inglesas
muy largas con sus horquillas si se quieren usar
de ellas no son muy pesadas y tienen buen alcance'
(Funes, `Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay', etc.,
vol. iii., cap. viii.).
*3* There were in the year 1759 throughout the world 271 Jesuit missions,
1,542 religious houses, 61 cattle farms, 340 residences, 171 seminaries,
1,542 churches, and 22,589 Jesuits, whereof 11,293 were priests.
Of the above houses, missions, and churches, the greater portion
were in America (Ferrer del Rio, `Historia del Reinado de Carlos III.',
Madrid, 1856).

In the River Plate and Paraguay there were about 400 Jesuits,
of whom 300 were priests. The other hundred, according to Ibanez
(`Republica Jesuitica'), were `mostly poor devils
who were in want of food, and came into the Order for a meal.'
Ibanez rarely spoke the truth, not even when it would have been
expedient to do so; and certainly amongst these `poor devils'
could not have been included Asperger, the writer on Indian medicines,
and other distinguished men who inhabited the Paraguayan missions
as lay brothers.
--

Bucareli, who seems to have been a timid but honest and upright man,
made his first experiment upon the Jesuits of Buenos Ayres, Cordoba,
and Santa Fe. The colleges in all these places were suppressed
on the same night, and without the least resistance from their occupants.
He who suppresses a religious Order, takes a town or country, or, in fact,
puts into operation any of the forces of the law or military power,
always expects, no matter how exalted be his motives at the start,
to recoup himself from the treasure of the conquered. `Vae victis',
together with the vestments of the church, the plainsong, and the saints,
came as a pagan heritage to the new faith, and has been held as canon law
since Constantine looked at the sky and thought he saw a cross.

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