Talk:Provincial superior

Indians and jesuits

In this article is written:

A unique case was eastern Paraguay, where the Spanish colonial authorities allowed the Jesuit missionaries to establish both the Catholic faith and a unique, humane regime for the local Guarani Indian tribes, making their provincial superior the governor of the first autonomous Indian reserve, known as the (Jesuit) Misiones or Reducciones, until 1667, ten years after a Guarani rebellion against increased abuse by the regular colonial authorities: the territory lost its status and was divided up between Spain (then under the viceroyalty of la Plata, previously part of Upper Peru) and Portugal (Brazil).

About this thema writes Britannica:

In the 17th century the Jesuits established missions (reducciones) in eastern Paraguay among the Guaraní of the Paraná River. Eventually about 30 large and successful mission towns constituted the famous “Jesuit Utopia,” the Doctrinas de Guaranies. In 1767, however, the expulsion of the Jesuits was followed by the scattering of mission Indians, who were often taken into slavery, and the confiscation of Indian land.

If we compare the two articles, we immediately notice that in the article "Provincial superior", in the chapter "Politics" - some claims are not only not supported by credible sources, but that the claims of one (Wikipedia) and the other (Britannica) are in they oppose in many things.

1. First, the year: in Wikipedia the decisive year is 1667, while in Britannica it is 1767 - so a whole 100 years difference.
2. Further: Wikipedia does not say anything about the real situation, or it turns things upside down. So the actual facts and order would be:
   1. Jesuits founded reductions among the Guarani Indians. These provinces are under Spanish rule, which is favorable to Jesuit work.
   2. Argentina sold some provinces to Brazil. Now they belong to Portugal, where the enlightened Pombal is an implacable enemy of the Jesuits
   3. Slave traders and other capitalists asked Native Americans to move from areas that were rich in gold and other resources
   4. Jesuits try to persuade the Indians to move, as they had no chance to resist the better armed Brazilians or the Portuguese, where Brazil belonged at the time. The Indians disobey and resist the resettlement. The authorities in Portugal, or the dictator Pombal, who hated the Indians, sent an army against them, which killed the rebels almost to the last. Pombal uses the events to blame the rebellion on the Jesuits, who are then driven out by force and his reductions, and the reductions are destroyed by fire and sword. In his hatred of the Jesuits, Pombal won over to his side almost all the European rulers who demand from the Pope that he must ban the Jesuit order. This happened soon after, in 1773.
3. The Wikipedia article above, however, turns things upside down. The author must not have read a very thorough article on the subject, namely: see this article on the English Wikipedia: Suppression of the Society of Jesus--Stebunik (talk) 18:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)