Relationship Between American Indians And Christian Relations

Guaraní Indians and Jesuit Relations

Beginning in 1609, the Jesuit Priests founded a widespread chain of missions, also known as reducciones, in the borderlands of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Contrary to popular belief, as a result of the media from movies such as the Mission, these missions experienced an extremely tumultuous history. In fact, most Guaraní’s rejected Catholicism for decades and they did not willingly convert because they believed that Catholic principles greatly contradicted their aboriginal beliefs. Not only did the Guaraní’s hold extremely different beliefs from the Jesuits, but they also thought that the Jesuits were taking advantage of them through the encomienda labor system the priests enforced. Consequently, the Guaraní Indians and the Jesuits did not band together, as many believe, when the Jesuit missions
Although the Guaraní attempted to work with the Spanish, they were still unable to give up certain aboriginal ways that repulsed the Spanish. For example, the Guaraní people were cannibals who even consumed the corpses of their own dead. (McNaspy, C.J. Pg. 56). Actions such as these warded off others, as the Europeans were not used to people having to commit atrocities such as this in order to secure their own survival. Unlike the Guaraní who lived day to day in the previously unsettled lands of South America, the Europeans were used to a life where they did not have to get in touch with their indigenous roots to survive since the European land they formerly inhabited had been settled for centuries. This in turn, allowed the Spanish to live civilized lives. Therefore, the Europeans did not completely understand what actions Indian tribes had to commit, such as cannibalism, in order to prevent their extinction. (McNaspy, Pg.