Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos
The Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos are located in the Santa Cruz department in eastern Bolivia. Six of these former missions collectively were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990. Distinguished by a unique fusion of European and Amerindian cultural influences, the missions were founded as reductions or reducciones de indios by Jesuits in the 17th and 18th centuries to convert local tribes to Christianity.
The interior region bordering Spanish and Portuguese territories in South America was largely unexplored at the end of the 17th century. Dispatched by the Spanish Crown, Jesuits explored and founded eleven settlements in 76 years in the remote Chiquitania – then known as Chiquitos – on the frontier of Spanish America. They built churches in a unique and distinct style that combined elements of native and European architecture. The indigenous inhabitants of the missions were taught European music as a means of conversion. The missions were self-sufficient, with thriving economies, and virtually autonomous from the Spanish crown.
After the expulsion of the Jesuit order from Spanish territories in 1767, most Jesuit reductions in South America were abandoned and fell into ruins. The former Jesuit missions of Chiquitos are unique because these settlements and their associated culture have survived largely intact.
A large restoration project of the missionary churches began with the arrival of the former Swiss Jesuit and architect Hans Roth in 1972. Since 1990, these former Jesuit missions have experienced some measure of popularity, and have become a tourist destination. A popular biennial international musical festival put on by the nonprofit organization Asociación Pro Arte y Cultura along with other cultural activities within the mission towns, contribute to the popularity of these settlements.
Location
The six World Heritage Site settlements are located in the hot and semiarid lowlands of the Santa Cruz Department of eastern Bolivia. They lie in an area near the Gran Chaco, east and northeast of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, between the Paraguay and Guapay rivers.The westernmost missions are San Xavier and Concepción, located in the province of Ñuflo de Chávez between the San Julián and Urugayito rivers. Santa Ana de Velasco, San Miguel de Velasco, and San Rafael de Velasco are located to the east, in José Miguel de Velasco province, near the Brazilian border. San José de Chiquitos is located in Chiquitos province, about south of San Rafael.
Three other former Jesuit missions – San Juan Bautista, Santo Corazón and Santiago de Chiquitos – which have not been named UNESCO heritage sites – lie east of San José de Chiquitos not far from the town of Roboré. The capital of José Miguel de Velasco Province, San Ignacio de Velasco was founded as a Jesuit mission but is also not a World Heritage Site as the current church is a reconstruction, not a restoration.
The name "Chiquitos"
, a 16th-century Spanish conquistador and founder of Santa Cruz "la Vieja", introduced the name Chiquitos, or little ones. It referred to the small doors of the straw houses in which the indigenous population lived. Chiquitos has since been used incorrectly both to denote people of the largest ethnic group in the area, and collectively to denote the more than 40 ethnic groups with different languages and cultures living in the region known as the Chiquitania.Properly, "Chiquitos" refers only to either a modern-day department of Bolivia, or the former region of Upper Peru that once encompassed all of the Chiquitania and parts of Mojos and the Gran Chaco.
The current provincial division of Santa Cruz department does not follow the Jesuits' concept of a missionary area. The Chiquitania lies within five modern provinces: Ángel Sandoval, Germán Busch, José Miguel de Velasco, Ñuflo de Chávez and Chiquitos province.
History
In the 16th century, priests of different religious orders set out to evangelize the Americas, bringing Christianity to indigenous communities. Two of these missionary orders were the Franciscans and the Jesuits, both of which eventually arrived in the frontier town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and then in the Chiquitania. The missionaries employed the strategy of gathering the often nomadic indigenous populations in larger communities called reductions in order to more effectively Christianize them. This policy sprang from the colonial legal view of the "Indian" as a minor, who had to be protected and guided by European missionaries so as not to succumb to sin. Reductions, whether created by secular or religious authorities, generally were construed as instruments to force the natives to adopt European culture and lifestyles and the Christian religion. The Jesuits were unique in attempting to create a theocratic "state within a state" in which the native peoples in the reductions, guided by the Jesuits, would remain autonomous and isolated from Spanish colonists and Spanish rule.Arrival in the Viceroyalty of Peru
With the permission of King Philip II of Spain a group of Jesuits traveled to the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1568, some 30 years after the arrival of the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Mercedarians. The Jesuits established themselves in Lima in 1569 before moving east toward Paraguay; in 1572 they reached the Audience of Charcas in modern-day Bolivia. Because they were not allowed to establish settlements on the frontier they built chapter houses, churches and schools in pre-existing settlements, such as La Paz, Potosí and La Plata.In 1587 the first Jesuits, Fr. Diego Samaniego and Fr. Diego Martínez, arrived in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located just south of where the future mission of San José de Chiquitos would be established. In 1592 the settlement had to be moved west because of conflicts with natives, although the remains of the original town exist in the Santa Cruz la Vieja archaeological site. The Jesuits did not start missions in the valleys northeast of the cordillera until the 17th century. The two central areas for their activities were Moxos, situated in the department of Beni, and the Chiquitania in the department of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. In 1682, Fr. Cipriano Barace founded the first of the Jesuit reductions in Moxos, located at Loreto.
The Jesuits in the Chiquitania
While the mission towns in Paraguay flourished, the evangelization of the Eastern Bolivian Guarani proved difficult. With encouragement from Agustín Gutiérrez de Arce, the governor of Santa Cruz, the Jesuits focused their efforts on the Chiquitania, where the Christian doctrine was more readily accepted. Between 1691 and 1760 eleven missions were founded in the area; however, fires, floods, plagues, famines and conflict with hostile tribes or slave traders caused many missions to be re-established or rebuilt. The Chiquitos missions suffered from periodic epidemics of European diseases killing up to 11 percent of the population in a single episode. However, the epidemics were not as severe as they were among the Paraguayan Guarani to the east, mainly because of their remote locations and the lack of transportation infrastructure.The first Jesuit reduction in the Chiquitania was the mission of San Francisco Xavier, founded in 1691 by the Jesuit priest Fr. José de Arce. In September 1691, de Arce and Br. Antonio de Rivas intended to meet seven other Jesuits at the Paraguay River to establish a connection between Paraguay and Chiquitos. However, the beginning of the rainy season brought bad weather, and Arce and his companion only got as far as the first native village. The local Piñoca tribe, who were suffering from a plague, begged Arce and Rivas to stay and promised to build a house and a church for the Jesuits, which were finished by the end of year. The mission was later moved a number of times until 1708 when it was established in its present location.
Ten more missions were founded in the Chiquitania by the Jesuits in three periods: the 1690s, the 1720s, and after 1748. In the 1690s, five missions were established: San Rafael de Velasco, San José de Chiquitos, Concepción and San Juan Bautista. San Juan Bautista is not part of the World Heritage Site, and only the ruins of a stone tower survive near the present village of San Juan de Taperas.
The War of the Spanish Succession caused a shortage of missionaries and instability in the reductions, so no new missions were built during this period. By 1718 San Rafael was the largest of the Chiquitos missions, and with 2,615 inhabitants could not sustain a growing population. In 1721 the Jesuits Fr. Felipe Suárez and Fr. Francisco Hervás established a split-off of the San Rafael mission, the mission of San Miguel de Velasco. To the south, San Ignacio de Zamucos was founded in 1724 but abandoned in 1745; today nothing remains of the mission.
A third period of mission foundations began in 1748 with the establishment of San Ignacio de Velasco, which was not declared a part of the World Heritage Site. The church is nonetheless a largely faithful 20th-century reconstruction – as opposed to renovation – of the second Jesuit templo built in 1761. In 1754 the Jesuits founded the mission of Santiago de Chiquitos. This church also is a reconstruction, dating from the early 20th century and likewise is not part of the World Heritage Site group. In 1755 the mission of Santa Ana de Velasco was founded by the Jesuit Julian Knogler; it is the most authentic of the six World Heritage Site missions dating from the colonial period. The last mission in the Chiquitania to be established was founded by the Jesuits Fr. Antonio Gaspar and Fr. José Chueca as Santo Corazón in 1760. The local Mbaya peoples were hostile to the mission and nothing of the original settlement remains in the modern village.
The Jesuits in the Chiquitania had a secondary objective, which was to secure a more direct route to Asunción than the road then being used via Tucumán and Tarija to link the Chiquitania with the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. The missionaries in Chiquitos founded their settlements increasingly further east, towards the Paraguay River, while those south of Asunción moved closer to the Paraguay River by establishing their missions increasingly farther north, thereby avoiding the impassable Chaco region. Although Ñuflo de Chávez had attempted a route through the Chaco on an expedition as early as 1564, subsequent Jesuit explorations from Chiquitos were unsuccessful. The Jesuits were stopped by the hostile Payaguá and Mbayá, and by the impenetrable swamps of Jarayes. In 1715, de Arce, the co-founder of the first mission in San Xavier, set out from Asunción on the Paraguay River with the Flemish priest Fr. Bartolomé Blende. Payaguá warriors killed Blende during the journey, but de Arce struggled on to reach San Rafael de Velasco in the Chiquitania. On the return trip to Asunción he too was killed in Paraguay. Not until 1767, when the missions had encroached sufficiently on the hostile region and just before the Jesuits were expelled from the New World, did Fr. José Sánchez Labrador manage to travel from Belén in Paraguay to Santo Corazón, the easternmost Chiquitos mission.