Barbara Ganson
O
n 16 February 1782 administrator Lucas Cano denounced Father Francisco Xavier Dominguez, a Franciscan, for having committed adultery with two married women: Margarita Arandí, a native Guaraní, whose husband had fled from the mission, and Petrona Sánchez, his own wife. Cano also requested the Spanish authorities place his wife in a casa de ejercicio (a religious institution which served as a kind of female asylum, workshop or prison) ‘among the women who led a bad life and that she remain there until she learned the graveness of her actions’.1 Cano learned of his wife’s infidelity with the Catholic priest from his mulatto slave Pasqual Cano, or possibly second-hand from his slave’s mother-in-law. According to the testimony of Pasqual Cano, his master, Lucas Cano, was busy writing something and asked him to bring candles from the living quarters of the priest. His master’s wife, Petrona, then offered to accompany her slave. It was around midnight when they arrived at the priest’s quarters and Petrona noticed an Indian woman hiding underneath the priest’s bed. Pascual testified that he heard some noises coming from the bedroom of the priest, such as furniture being knocked over, along with a guitar. He then saw an Indian woman come out onto the patio and ask for a knife in order to kill the administrator’s wife. Since there was none, she went back inside. When no one was willing to assist her, Margarita Arandí then stormed out. Another testimony from a Guaraní using an interpreter stated something different, affirming that his mother-in-law, a Mulata, had heard the two women fighting. Pasqual claimed that Margarita Arandí did not have sexual relations or an affair with the Franciscan priest; only that she washed his clothing and nothing else. Interestingly, the testimony of the slave was taken down during the investigation, even though his legal status could have been discounted. Nevertheless, the interrogators considered his testimony1 ‘Carta al Gov. Don Francisco Piera’, ‘Sobre el recurso echo por el Adm. del Pueblo Lucas Cano con el cura del miso Fr. Francisco Xavier Dominguez’, Archivo General de la Nación (Buenos Aires) (hereafter AGN), IX 36-9-6, 1782.
to be significant enough to include it in their investigation of adultery in this former Jesuit mission town.
This chapter will explore how differences in gender, race, ethnicity and social class were major considerations in how Spanish colonial authorities dealt with cases of adultery in late 18th-century Paraguay. What becomes evident is that the Jesuits, as representatives of the pope and the Catholic Church, had reinforced a patriarchal society in the reducciones [settlements] of Paraguay:
they shared or reflected the values of the more dominant Spanish culture in the Rio de la Plata. Those authorities who replaced the Jesuits following their expulsion in 1767 practised a double standard by which men of authority, mainly Spanish secular officials, could commit acts of adultery without suffering serious repercussions. Women, on the other hand, whether Guaraní or Spanish, were punished more severely for their infidelity and for having violated the moral values that regulated Spanish colonial society. This practice was contrary to canon law, which viewed adultery as a sin for both men and women. The codes of conduct for men tended to be far more lenient regarding marriage and sexuality, while women who engaged in extramarital affairs received greater condemnation in the town of Jesús de Tavanrangue.
Originally established by the Society of Jesus in 1685 with 150 Guaraní families, the Jesuits moved the mission of Jesús de Tavanrangue to a more favourable site at Mandi-i-soby and Capiibay, north of the Paraná river in what is today south-eastern Paraguay and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.2 In 1741, 1,850 Guaraní inhabited Jesús de Tavarangue; in 1757 its population was 2,082. Following the Guaraní rebellion against the terms of the Treaty of Madrid in the 1750s, 912 refugees migrated from the eastern Jesuit missions or were relocated there.3 According to the 1783 census, there were 1,747 almas (or souls) in Jesús de Tavarangué, who were divided into 24 cacicazgos (an aboriginal polity which assumed the form of a chiefdom).4 The local economy of Jesús de Tavarangue appeared sustainable. The Guaraní women grew corn, cotton and manioc, while men raised beef cattle, sheep, oxen, horses and mules.
In 1783 there were 9,292 head of beef cattle; 549 oxen; 565 horses; 342 mules;
531 sheep; and two burros.5
Censuses from the late 18th century indicate a small Spanish or creole presence. Lucas Cano, the 54-year-old Spanish administrator, was relatively advanced beyond middle age for the period. The document does not indicate
2 R. Carbonell de Masy and N. Levinton, Un pueblo llamado Jesús (Asunción: Fundación Paracuaria Missionsprokur, 2010), p. 28.
3 R.H. Jackson, ‘The population and vital rates of the Jesuit missions of Paraguay, 1700–1767’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 38 (2008): 401–31 (404).
4 Prov. Del Paraguay, Estado del Pueblo de Jesús, AGN 22-8-2; ‘Expediente que suspende los tributos y mayor servicio durante diez años a los Indios del Pueblo de Jesús que necesitan para conducir la Iglesia y nuevo Pueblo’, AGN 17-3-6, 1782.
5 Ibid.
A PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY IN THE RIO DE LA PLATA 93
the age of his wife, Petrona Sánchez. Lucas Cano and Petrona Sánchez had two sons, who are described as pursuing their studies, but sources do not indicate their level of schooling or type of studies. In all likelihood under the circumstances, the couple had had previous marital disagreements, since Petrona Sánchez had resided in Buenos Aires.
Although this judicial investigation occurred after the Jesuits had left the missions, the patriarchal legacy of the Society of Jesus remained. The Catholic missionaries had established a society in which men played all the significant political, economic and religious roles in the missions. Jesuit missionaries concentrated on the education of male Indian children, especially the sons of caciques who would then teach their parents and play influential roles in the Figure 4.1. Il Paraguai e Paesi Adiacenti. Venezia 1785. Courtesy of Geography and Maps Division, Library of Congress.
administration of the missions. Boys learned how to read and write, as well as do mathematics. Although Guaraní women provided extensive agricultural labour, girls’ education was largely relegated to the performing of domestic chores and the spinning of cotton and wool thread to make clothing for their families. Guaraní men, on the other hand, were trained to serve as militia soldiers, river-boat sailors, blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, printers, sculptors, scribes, musicians and pottery-makers, as well as handling livestock, among other tasks.
Gender separation took place not only in the workshops and on the mission ranches, but in the schools and during church services. While Guaraní boys and girls both studied the catechism, the children filed into the church in a separate line with boys entering first; men came next; and then girls, followed by women, all seated according to their gender. Catholic missionaries also enclosed elderly women, single women and orphans in a separate compound or asylum known as the coty guazú.6 These were shelters located next to the church where women’s honour and virginity were protected, as well as their physical wellbeing. Usually two or three elderly women raised the orphans and looked after the welfare of the young women. Women left these enclosures to work in the fields and then only in groups. Men exercised authority in the Indian cabildos or town councils, as well as in the militias established by the Jesuits to combat Indian slavery, beginning in the 1620s. 7 There were no female members on these councils or constables to patrol the streets of the missions.
Nonetheless, women were not without some influence and their voices can be heard in their testimonies.
Petrona Sánchez did not admit she had a fight with the Guaraní laundress, Margarita Arandí, in the bedroom of the priest at midnight. Petrona Sánchez sought out the Franciscan priest but directed her anger towards Margarita Arandí, having discovered her hiding under the priest’s bed. Sánchez, however, directly challenged colonial society’s dictates for elite women. She refused to adopt the submissive postures of obedience, especially after she had learned that her own husband had had an adulterous affair with a young woman named Thomasa, the daughter of Pedro Pablo Sánchez, a yerbatero (trader in yerba mate or Paraguayan tea). Thomasa was the daughter of her compadre [godfather; benefactor, influential friend]. Petrona Sánchez struck back at her spouse by committing adultery with the local priest in what became a public scandal known to all in the mission town. Sánchez stood by her by actions and strong sentiments about not loving her husband, having made publicly known his adulterous relationship. She denied having a physical confrontation with a
6 B. Ganson, The Guaraní under Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 72–9.
7 A. Ruiz de Montoya, The Spiritual Conquest: Early Years of the Jesuit Missions in Paraguay (1639), trans. by B. Ganson and C.M. Saffi (Boston, MA: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2017), p. 229.
A PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY IN THE RIO DE LA PLATA 95 woman of a distinctive social class and ethnicity because she appears to have lost the fight. Contrary to her own testimony, she left the room with facial wounds. It was not only a matter of her sense of honour; she may not have wanted to avoid bringing attention to the nature of their involvement with the priest.