Although the Jesuits produced a large number of rules, precepts and orders regulating spiritual and temporal missionary life, they made relatively few references to the administration of baptism to the natives. This was in part due to the well-known Jesuit flexibility and adaptability to local customs and beliefs, which limited the validity of general rules but was mainly caused by the sense of urgency associated with baptism. Since the administration of baptism was perceived as a critical issue when dealing with gentiles, this reduced the attention the Jesuits paid to the matter in the first moments of the establishment of a mission.4 As soon as the new communities evolved in their doctrinal knowledge and were integrated into the colonial system, references to the administration of the sacrament and native response tended to disappear. The Chilean case represents a significant exception due to the repeated rebellions and subsequent
3 The term curandero-hechicero will be used throughout the text to emphasise the duality of native perceptions and to represent the everyday activities of the healer-sorcerers at the fringes of Spanish America. These two terms were both used in Jesuit sources, while native populations had various ways of describing this concept in their own languages.
4 J.W. O’Malley, S.J., I primi Gesuiti (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1999), pp. 29–59; M. Catto,
‘Missioni e globalizzazioni: l’adattamento come identità della Compagnia di Gesù’, in M.
Catto (ed.), Evangelizzazione e globalizzazione: le missioni gesuitiche nell’età moderna tra storia e storiografia (Rome: Società editrice Dante Alighieri, 2010), pp. 1–16.
ADMINISTRATION AND NATIVE PERCEPTIONS OF BAPTISM 151 threat of apostasy which increased missionary concerns about local conversions for the entire colonial period.5
Jesuit efforts to baptise local populations on the fringes of America shared common practices. The scepticism about adult doctrinal ability and the fear of apostasy and abandonment of the missions led to an extremely cautious administration of the sacrament, especially in the first moments of missionary efforts, such that baptism was generally conferred only to the dying, with the exception of candidates with a good disposition. The rules given by the Paraguayan provincial Diego de Torres Bollo to Orazio Vecchi and Martín de Aranda for the establishment of the Arauco mission in 1608 illustrate this:
Never baptise Indians nisi in casu mortis, first: if they have refused to reject their women those who have more than one. Second: if there is no certainty concerning their peaceful condition. Third: if they have not asked for baptism in a while. Fourth: if they do not perfectly understand the statements of our holy faith and recite doctrine by heart. … In case of imminent death, it is enough the understanding of the principal mysteries of our holy faith. In the same way, do not baptise infidel infants extra periculum mortis, without their parent’s permission and presence, if they live in a warlike condition with a high probability of returning to their traditional customs.6
The unstable political circumstances of the southern fringes forced missionaries to face the challenge of apostasy, a common native response to the evangelisation process. For these reasons, the new Jesuit rules strictly limited the administration of baptism to the dying and those natives able to understand the Christian doctrine. Although these rules were directed to the specific Araucanian context, they outlined common missionary concerns. Doctrinal knowledge, abandonment of traditional practices, voluntary acceptance of the sacrament and peaceful political conditions were considered crucial requirements for native access to baptism in the borderlands. Moreover, continuous pastoral care of the neophytes and a stable community were important prerequisites for baptism, since daily Christian education was considered the first essential barrier against local idolatries and apostasy. Nevertheless, the missionary quest for souls and the widespread illnesses led to some exceptions, such as those among the non-sedentary Abipones of Chaco in 1591, where Juan Fonte and
5 See, e.g., the debate inside the Chilean province concerning the suspension of the missions in Arauco and Valdivia in 1675 due to the limited results of evangelization (ARSI Provincia Chilensis 5, fols. 170–73, P. de Sotomayor, ‘Preguntase si sera conveniente el que la Compañía de Jesús prosiga o no con las misiones que tiene en el estado de Arauco? Ponense las razones por una y otra parte, 31 Jan. 1675’; ARSI Provincia Chilensis 5, fols. 177–7v, G.B. Camargo,
‘Propuesta de las razones que militan en favor de la asistencia de la missión de Valdivia y de las que ay en contra de ella’, 22 April 1675).
6 F. Enrich, Historia de la compañía de Jesús en Chile (Barcelona: Rosal, 1891), p. 143.
Francisco de Angulo decided to baptise local infants even though a permanent priest could not be provided due to the warlike conditions and local mobility.7
Among the north-western Mexican missions, after the baptism of infants a programme of catechesis, usually lasting eight days, was offered to the adults.8 However, this period could vary according to every candidate’s disposition and preparation. In 1597 a Tepehuan man surprised local missionaries by learning the main prayers and commandments of the Church in only three hours, being immediately baptised.9 On the other hand, in the mission of Santa María de las Parras, among the Laguneros of the state of Coahuila, an old man traditionally adverse to Christianity was finally baptised after two months.10 Scepticism towards potentially recalcitrant adults generally resulted in a longer preparation, while younger catechumens, who demonstrated particular ability and sacramental predisposition, were usually baptised more quickly.
The particular political situation of Chile forced the Jesuits to organise their baptismal efforts differently from north-western Mexico. The rebellion of 1598, which led to the destruction of the seven Spanish towns founded to the south of the Bío-Bío River, opened a period of Mapuche independence and substantial political autonomy. There the dispersion of native villages and the paucity of missionary personnel both hampered the evangelisation process and impeded the formation of stable communities. For this reason, Jesuit sacramental administration did not result in the general baptisms common in north-western Mexico, but rather in baptisms administered in articulo mortis. This policy could change according to particular political conditions.
There was, in fact, a clear relationship between wider native access to baptism and the peace treaties signed during the hispano-Mapuche parleys.11 The temporary pacification of the borderlands, which occurred especially during the Guerra Defensiva policy introduced by Luis de Valdivia in 1612, led to the administration of the sacrament no longer being limited to the dying, clearly contrasting with renewed missionary restrictions in the aftermath of the rebellions. Luis de Valdivia started to accept adults extra periculum mortis,
7 P. Lozano, Descripción corográfica del gran Chaco gualamba (Tucumán: Instituto de antropología, 1941), p. 114.
8 A. Pérez de Ribas, Historia de los triunfos de n.s. fé entre gentes las más barbaras y fieras del nuevo orbe (México: Layac, 1944), vol. I, pp. 288 and 344.
9 ARSI, Provincia Mexicana 14, fol. 24v, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de México de 1597, 30 March 1598’. See also ARSI, Provincia Mexicana 14, fol. 578, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de la Nueva España del año de 1610, 18 May 1611’.
10 ARSI, Provincia Mexicana 14, fol. 472v, ‘Carta anua de la provincia de la Nueva España de la Compañía de Jesús del año de 1606, 14 May 1607’.
11 For the Guerra Defensiva policy and the parlamentos de indios, see J.M. Díaz Blanco, Razón de estado y buen gobierno. La guerra defensiva y el imperialismo español en tiempos de Felipe III (Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla, 2010); A. Levaggi, Diplomacia hispano-indígena en las fronteras de América (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2002).
ADMINISTRATION AND NATIVE PERCEPTIONS OF BAPTISM 153 beginning in 1613 in Lebu, where 900 baptisms were administered.12 This trend reached its peak in 1619, when in the area of Arauco Valdivia baptised 300 natives a day, these receiving only a brief instruction in the catechism sufficient only for the acceptance of baptism.13 The favourable peaceful conditions were a strong inducement for the acceleration of the baptismal process, at the expense of doctrinal preparation.14 The impact of the changing political conditions on Jesuit baptismal policy is further demonstrated by the attitude of Lorenzo Chacón in the district of La Imperial in 1655, who refused to confer baptism on the applicants due to the ongoing rebellion, baptising only three or four adults extra periculum mortis.15 The Jesuit policy of administering baptism in Chile was, therefore, greatly influenced by the unstable military conditions in the borderlands, which periodically resulted in a wider or more restricted native access to baptism. As a result, the Mapuche baptismal conquest proved to be a discontinuous process, characterised by provisional expansions followed by violent setbacks, rather than a linear progression towards a widespread conferment of baptism on the natives.16
The information available on the administration of baptism by the Jesuits in the Chaco missions is extremely scarce. Paradoxically, the most significant data refer to the 17th-century, short-lived attempts, while the chronicles written during the actual missionary period between 1743 and 1767 are quite reticent on the issue. In 1641, among the Abipones under the local cacique Caliguila, Juan Pastor and Gaspar Cerqueira refused to administer baptism extra periculum mortis, ‘fearing that tired by the rigidity of Christian faith they could regret the missionary entrance and remain after baptism without pastoral care’.17 Due to the absence of stable pastoral care, the distance of the Guaycuruas from the Spanish towns and their mobility, the Jesuits administered baptism only in articulo mortis until the foundation of permanent missions in 1743, following the general precepts used in Chile.
12 Foerster, Jesuitas y Mapuches, p. 273; Enrich, Historia, vol. 1, p. 285.
13 Carta Anua de 1618–1619, 17 Febrero 1620, in C. Leonhardt, Iglesia. Cartas Anuas de la provincia del Paraguay, Chile y Tucumán, de la compañía de Jesús, 1609–1614 (Buenos Aires:
Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1927), p. 189; and A. de Ovalle, Historica relación del reyno de Chile y de las misiones y ministerios que ejércita en él la Compañia de Jesús (Santiago de Chile, 1888), vol. 2, p. 291.
14 For a Franciscan late colonial critique of the Jesuit administration of the sacrament in southern Chile, see M. de Ascasubi, ‘Informe cronológico de las misiones del reino de Chile hasta 1789’, in C. Gay (ed.), Historia física y política de Chile segun documentos adquiridos en esta república durante doze años de residencia en ella. Documentos (Paris, 1846), vol. I, pp. 300–400 (p. 321).
15 Enrich, Historia, vol. 1, p. 598.
16 For the acceptance of baptism as a linear process, see Foerster, Jesuitas y Mapuches.
17 Lozano, Descripción Corográfica, p. 186. See also ‘Carta Anua de 1641–1643’, in E. Maeder, Cartas anuas de la provincia jesuitica del paraguay, 1641 a 1643 (Resistencia: Instituto de Investigaciones Geohistóricas-Conicet, 1996), pp. 47–51.