Jesuit missions in Amazonia: strategies of conversion and Indian agency in Maynas and Mojos, 1638-1767

Abstract

The Maynas missions were established in 1638, in the eastern fringes of the Audiencia of Quito's jurisdiction. Located in a strategic position in the margins of Marañón, Napo and Amazon rivers, Maynas was one of the most important experiments of the Jesuits in Spanish America, but the available studies on the region are still scarce. Central themes, like urbanization, strategies of evangelization and the responses of Amazonian Indians are not sufficiently problematized. As in other regions, Jesuits adapted to the Amazon reality Iberian municipal institutions such as councils, confraternities and militias. This project explores how native participation in municipal institutions and native appropriation of Christian doctrine influenced the formation of their identities. In Maynas, Jesuits experienced specific difficulties like great linguistic and cultural diversity, high number of missions, lack of missionaries and influence of Portuguese slavers. I argue that, in the emergence of municipal identities in the missions, the crucial factor was the permanence, under new conventions, of indigenous schemes of classification and evaluation, in the translation of the elements of urban life and Christianity. A comparison with Mojos missions, installed by the Jesuits in the lowlands of today's Bolivia, will provide new insights about the specific situation of Maynas: although in Mojos the Jesuits found the same difficulties already mentioned, missions achieved great material prosperity and demographic stability. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, systematic survey and consulting of the manuscripts and other documents conserved in Spanish archives and libraries are required. A research period at the University of Sevilla, Spain, for seven months, will allow access to archives and libraries that hold relevant materials. For that reason, this proposal summarizes the research's approaches and presents a plan followed by a detailed schedule of activities. (AU)