Jesuit Missions

Introducing Jesuit Missions

In the early 17th century Jesuit missionaries established a series of Indian missions in a region straddling northeast Argentina, southeast Paraguay and neighboring bits of Brazil. Between 1631 and 1638, after devastating attacks by slaving expeditions from São Paulo and hostile Indians, activity was concentrated in 30 more easily defensible missions. These became centers of culture as well as religion – in effect a nation within the colonies, considered by some scholars an island of utopian progress and socialism, which at its height in the 1720s had over 150, 000 Guarani Indian inhabitants.

Seven of the now-ruined missions lie in the northwest of Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state, eight are in Paraguay and 15 in Argentina.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009