SÃO PAULO – The state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, is marking in 2026 the 400th anniversary of the Jesuit missions, which aimed to evangelize the Indigenous Guarani people and protect them from enslavers.
The commemoration is promoted by the state government and a number of social sectors, but has been criticized for largely overlooking the central protagonists of that history: The Guarani communities that still exist and continue to face numerous challenges in Brazil.
On the one hand, it is being promoted by the so-called nativist movement, whose members trace part of their identity to the Jesuit missions and take pride in the region’s gaúcho culture. For that social segment, the term missioneiro is closely tied to the origins of its identity and has commercial and tourism-related implications.
“[T]here’s also an academic sector that has been promoting the commemoration,” said Jesuit Father Luiz Fernando Rodrigues, a history professor at Rio Sinos Valley University, which is run by the Society of Jesus in Rio Grande do Sul.
Speaking to Crux Now, Rodrigues said researchers have been organizing conferences on the missions and their impact on the Guarani people.
“That’s a good opportunity to think about the role of the Church in the evangelization of different human groups, now that we have a different approach and a different anthropological consciousness,” he said.
Rodrigues emphasized that the Jesuit missions – sometimes called reducciones or “reductions” – were not only an evangelization project but also a concrete effort to protect the Guarani from the most brutal forms of colonization.
“To a certain extent, the Jesuits allowed the Guarani to preserve some of their traditional social structures, such as the role of caciques as community leaders,” he said.
“We should use this occasion to distance ourselves from any romanticized view of the missions and analyze them in all their complexity. At the same time, Indigenous people must be at the center of that reflection,” Rodrigues argued.
He said the Guarani have largely been treated as secondary actors in the current commemoration.
The commemoration of the missions in Rio Grande do Sul certainly raises complex questions, many of which were the subject of a 1986 film, The Mission, written by Robert Bolt and directed by Roland Joffé, starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, with Ray McAnally, Aidan Quinn, Cherie Lunghi and Liam Neeson in supporting roles.
History of the missions
The first of those missions were established in the western part of what is now the Brazilian state of Paraná in 1610, when the region was under Spanish control and known as Guairá. By 1628, 13 missions – or reductions – had been established there.
But they were constantly targeted by Spanish encomenderos – who controlled vast tracts of land and relied on Indigenous slave labor – and Portuguese bandeirantes – explorers from São Paulo who sought precious minerals and captured Indigenous people to sell as slaves along the Brazilian coast.
The constant attacks led to the destruction of 11 missions by 1629. That was when the Jesuits decided to leave the region and move south to what are now the Argentine province of Misiones and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.
By then, St. Roque González, a Jesuit from Asunción, had already established the mission of St. Nicholas in Rio Grande do Sul in 1626, after lengthy negotiations with the local Guarani leader Nheçu. Thousands of Guarani were taken to the new missions in a long and dangerous journey. Many of them perished along the way.
The relocation, however, proved successful, and the missions quickly flourished. Throughout the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century, they became powerful economic centers, producing crops and cattle that supplied other parts of colonial Brazil.
As an evangelization project, the reductions also appeared to be successful. The Jesuits managed to impose a strict Catholic discipline on the thousands of Indigenous inhabitants who lived in each mission.
The Guarani’s daily routine was entirely filled with work and prayer, as described by Father Clovis Lugon, a Swiss-born Jesuit who authored a book about the subject now regarded by most historians as an uncritical work glorifying the Jesuit missions.
The mission residents led what appeared to be exemplary Catholic lives, receiving all the sacraments, avoiding vice, dedicating themselves to work, and spending their free time in pious activities.
The reductions reproduced the European Counter-Reformation mentality in most respects. They were planned as model cities, with a church and a central square surrounded by residences, along with workshops, schools, hospitals, and communal houses for single women and widows.
The residents learned and practiced several skilled trades in addition to farming. Some reductions became famous for exporting musical instruments to Europe. High-quality ceramics, basketry, and devotional objects such as sculptures, church façades, and altars were also among their specialties.
Their cultural life also reflected European traditions. Sacred and classical music was both performed and composed in the missions, along with devotional theatrical productions.
The reductions suffered a fatal blow with the Treaty of Madrid, signed by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns in 1750 to redefine the borders between Portuguese Brazil and the Spanish colonies. Under the agreement, the Jesuits were required to move the missions to the western bank of the Uruguay River, abandoning Rio Grande do Sul.
Both the Jesuits and the Guarani rejected the plan, leading to the Guarani War of 1756. Led by cacique Sepé Tiaraju, more than 1,500 Guarani were killed by joint Spanish and Portuguese forces, including Tiaraju himself.
In 1759, the Marquis of Pombal, Portugal’s secretary of state, expelled the Jesuits from the kingdom and all its colonies. Eight years later, the Spanish Crown followed suit. Other religious orders and the diocesan clergy took over the missions, but without the Jesuits they quickly declined.
Historical complexities
In Rodrigues’ view, the Jesuits struggled to preserve what mattered most – human life – and did so with the tools available to them at the time, limited and controversial as they were. It was, in a way, an experience of love and self-giving despite all its cultural and political contradictions.
Roberto Liebgott, regional coordinator of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), an agency of Brazil’s Bishops’ Conference, agrees with Rodrigues. In his opinion, the only reason to commemorate the 400 years of the missions is to “recognize the Guarani’s resilience, support their struggle for their traditional lands, and demand respect for their rights.”
“We must be historically honest. It makes no sense to portray the missions as places of perfect harmony while erasing their contradictions. The Guarani must have their voices heard,” Liebgott said.
The lives of the Guarani mbya – the branch of the Guarani people most directly affected by the reductions – have not been easy in Rio Grande do Sul. According to a recent census, around 4,100 Guarani mbya live in 70 villages across the state.
“Among those 70 villages, only six have been officially recognized as Indigenous territories and granted to the Guarani,” cacique Eloir de Oliveira told Crux Now.
Several Guarani mbya communities have been living on occupied farmlands or public land while waiting for the completion of the land demarcation process.
“Some villages are located along state highways and lack sanitation, education, and healthcare,” said de Oliveira, who also serves as president of the Guarani People’s Council in Rio Grande do Sul.
The Guarani were not informed about the 400th anniversary commemoration and were not invited by the state government to participate. They ultimately filed a lawsuit questioning the process.
“The government then informed us that it had distributed money among several municipalities to promote the celebrations, but there was no money left for us,” de Oliveira said.
The Guarani eventually reached an agreement with the state government, which will finance a gathering of Guarani mbya from Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil.
“It will be something positive to see our relatives again, but the gathering will not bring any concrete improvements to our lives,” he lamented.
In de Oliveira’s view, the Guarani escaped slavery in the missions, but life there was not all that different, given that they still had to work for the Jesuits and were subject to their authority.
“It’s a collective trauma for us. And we continue to be marginalized and excluded. At the missions, where tourists pay to visit, we’re only allowed to sell our handicrafts,” he said.
De Oliveira argued that the Church, like the state, has an eternal debt to the Guarani people.
“The Church should launch programs to help the Guarani. It could buy land for communities that are living along the roads, for instance,” he said.
Over the past couple of decades, Catholics in Rio Grande do Sul have promoted the canonization of Sepé Tiaraju. It is not only a way of honoring the Guarani leader’s memory but also of arguing that, despite all the controversies, the encounter between the Guarani and the Jesuits produced some positive outcomes.
“He was a great spiritual leader and fought for our people. Unfortunately, he was under Jesuit control. But recognizing his sainthood would be important,” de Oliveira reflected.
Argentine historian Federico Gomez, an expert on the history of the Jesuit missions, told Crux Now that the growing interest among Brazilians in the missions is welcome.
“Brazilian scholars couldn’t criticize the bandeirantes in the past because they were portrayed as heroes who expanded Portuguese colonial territory. That phase is over, and now there is much greater integration with Paraguay and Argentina,” Gomez said.
Now, Brazilians can once again study a chapter of their history that had long been neglected, he added.