Historical Account of the Missions of the Chiquito Indians in Paraguay

Fernández, Juan Patricio, 1661-1733Project Gutenberg · United StatesMar 2023

Rating 3.8
Word count
683K words
Chapters
69

Tags

Motivation and Growth Mission HistoryHistorical AccountIndian MissionsIndigenous CultureSpread of ReligionsReligious MissionParaguay RegionExotic CultureColonial AmericaMissionary Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Relacion historial de las misiones de indios chiquitos que en el Paraguay tienenAuthor: Fern醤dez, Juan Patricio, 1661-1733,Language: Spanish, Class: F2661: Latin America local history: Paraguay, Release Date: Jun 7, 2009

Editor's review

Written by the eighteenth-century Jesuit Juan Patricio Fernández, this historical account documents the Jesuit missions among the Chiquitos Indians in Paraguay and stands as an important primary source for the study of colonial-era missionary activity, ethnic contact, and local history in South America. Its value lies in the eyewitness descriptions of organizational structures, everyday life, and religious practice, though readers should remain aware of the stance and narrative framework imposed by the author's position. The original is in Spanish, and its early modern style makes for demanding reading; it is best suited as a source text for regional and missionary history rather than as an accessible general history, and should be cross-checked against other sources rather than treated as an objective whole.

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Reading tips

  1. First gain a basic understanding of the background of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Paraguayan mission districts, then proceed to the original text.
  2. While reading, note how the author represents local peoples and pay attention to his religious standpoint.
  3. Read in conjunction with other colonial-era historical sources or modern scholarship for comparison.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

What was the author's identity? The author, Juan Patricio Fernández, was a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit, and his account reflects a missionary perspective.
Can it be read without knowing Spanish? The original is in Spanish and belongs to early modern documentary writing; readers without Spanish will need a translation or scholarly paraphrase.
What region does it document? It mainly documents the Jesuit mission districts among the Chiquitos Indians in the Paraguay region and is a piece of local historical material from the South American colonial period.

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About the author

Fernández, Juan Patricio, 1661-1733 Author · Spanish · 1661–1733

Fernández, Juan Patricio (1661–1733), was a Spanish Jesuit missionary who worked among the Chiquitos Indians in Paraguay and wrote a history of that mission. His representative work, Relacion historial de las misiones de indios chiquitos que en el Paraguay tienen, records the founding and operation of the mission settlements from firsthand observation. Detailed and narrative in style, it is valued both as a historical source and as an account of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit missionary activity in South America. Public information on his early life and education is limited; what is known centers on his missionary career and this book. One work by him is held in the collection, commonly classified under inspirational growth.