The Kingdom of God in Paraguay, II

...In these circumstances, Father Montoya, who was at that time in charge of the threatened settlements, was forced to the conclusion that in this world even the kingdom of Christ could not dispense with firearms...

...Had not this independent state of Paraguay recently robbed the man hunters of their valuable prey...

...all these officials were Indians, the Jesuits endeavoring to encourage the greatest possible degree of autonomy...

...All business was carried on by barter...

...Three days in the week the Indians had to work on "God's fields," and they could spend the other days in tilling their own land, but he who neglected his private property was called upon to devote a greater part of his time to working on the communal lands...

...Widows and their daughters, who lived in special "widows' homes," regularly received quantities of cotton, which they were required to spin into yarn, and this was then converted into clothing material in the weaving shops...

...In this way the Jesuits, basing their scheme on an accurate study of the capabilities and weaknesses of their Indians, had been able to set up in Paraguay that communist state which, two centuries later, humanity still regards approvingly as an ideal to be aimed at...

...During this campaign, 600 Indians and a German father were killed by the enemy...

...The natural products and home-manufactured wares of the country, such as sugar, wax, honey, tobacco, hides, tamarinds, cotton goods, leather, turnery-wares, and the like, were exchanged for European products...

...The Jesuits were, therefore, forced to set up their own granaries, in which the crops were stored under lock and key, and from which each Indian daily received his exact ration...

...Paraguay owed allegiance direct to the ruling monarch, and under the royal patent possessed complete autonomy, having its own courts of law and its own military organization...

...In well-armed troops, the Mamelukes traversed the country around their settlements, robbing and plundering on all sides...

...More than once it even happened that the natives slaughtered and devoured in the open fields the oxen which had been given to them for their ploughing...

...The missionaries themselves did not share in the distribution, and lived on a small stipend granted by the king...

...Near the latter stood the village hall together with the granaries in which the goods of the community were stored, and the artizans' workshops...

...At the beginning of the eighteenth century, some sixty thousand were thus dragged into slavery...

...The Jesuits had recourse to diplomatic pressure, enabling them to secure a postponement of the official surrender of these territories to Portugal, during which period they were able to organize an armed resistance, and the Spanish and Portuguese officers who were appointed to settle the new boundary line had to retire on encountering considerable bodies of Indian troops, leaving their task unaccomplished...

...the officials of this republic, elected as they were by popular suffrage, were merely selfless agents for the welfare of all...

...it was spacious, built of solid materials and usually extremely handsome...

...Part one of this narrative, which is taken from The Power and Secrets of the Jesuits soon to be published by the Viking Press, appeared in The Commonweal last week...

...By skilful management it was found possible to ensure the economic tillage of the soil with a general working day of eight hours...

...When the fortress of San Sacramento was beleaguered during a quarrel with the Portuguese, the republic of Paraguay, within eleven days, sent to the aid of the Spanish commander a corps of 3,300 cavalry and 200 sharpshooters with the necessary baggage train...

...They had themselves persuaded the Spanish crown to issue a decree that the fathers should not have a share in the produce of the settlements, but that on the contrary the Indians should receive the entire profit which accrued...

...The colonial authorities now thought fit to draw the attention of the Mamelukes to the existence of the Indian settlements, and to suggest that they should make these the object of their future forays...

...On his own land, the so-called abamba or "man's field," each native could plant what he wished, but the cultivation of the communal "God's field" was carried out under the supervision of the fathers, and the crops were stored in the granaries...

...This state of affairs had been brought about without any resort to force, indeed its introduction had been acclaimed by those concerned, and the national organization under which such a model mode of life existed continued to function for a century and a half...

...He who wished to buy an ox or a cow paid for it with so many yards of cloth...

...On one side of the church was the cemetery and on the other the collegiate buildings, including the school...

...should this course be fruitless, he became liable to penalties which might include whipping and imprisonment...

...The fathers were particularly successful in growing in a cultivated form the native plant, ilex paraguayensis, which they reared as a kind of tea plant...

...But the Mamelukes soon began their incursions into this latter district, receiving a good deal of encouragement from the Portuguese authorities...

...The narrow passes giving access to the country are closely guarded...

...Nevertheless, private ownership of property was not entirely abolished, and, side by side with communal property, there existed a system of individual ownership, although such wealth could not be acquired by the exploitation of others, nor could its growth constitute a danger to the community...

...Every citizen of this state was alike required to perform some kind of work, but the fathers saw to it that no one was called upon to exert himself unduly, and that ample leisure was allowed to the Indians for recreation and education...

...The relations with the kingdom of Spain were analogous to those of a modern dominion...

...In these circumstances, it was quite out of the question to persuade them of the necessity of reserving from their harvest sufficient grain for the following year's sowing or of providing reserves against unforeseen calamities...

...No form of property was hereditary, but all the children were brought up at the expense of the community...

...The Portuguese authorities then demanded that these settlements should be evacuated by their Indian inhabitants, a proposal which met with great opposition from the latter...

...Moreover, the Spaniards were soon afterward to be afforded ample evidence of the excellence of the Indian army, when they themselves had to take the field against them and suffered reverse after reverse...

...This occurred in 1750, when the courts of Madrid and Lisbon decided to settle their constant disputes regarding their respective frontiers at the expense of the Paraguay settlements, Spain agreeing under a treaty to hand over to Portugal seven districts in the Indian territories...

...The Mameluke troops therefore invaded Paraguay in rapidly increasing numbers, captured all the natives whom they could seize, and sold them in the ports...

...This armed force soon had an opportunity of proving its military skill...

...The settlements were only required to pay an annual tax, and, in case of war, to render military assistance only within the bounds of South America...

...Not only were the Indians protected against monetary temptations by the fact that natural products constituted the only form of wealth, but those in charge of this unique state were also never in a position to accumulate riches...

...The fathers not only saw that the foodstuffs stored in the granaries were systematically distributed, but also arranged for the clothing of the Indians...

...All the men and women received new garments once and the children twice a year, and thus the Indians in the Jesuit settlements were better, though more simply, dressed than the majority of the Spaniards in the adjacent territories...

...From the administrative point of view, moreover, the Indian state harmonized with the most modern democratic demands, for its citizens were not subject to the repressive measures of autocratic officials, their freedom being restricted only where necessary in the public interest...

...Only now did this extraordinary republic of Paraguay, which had its beginnings in a kind of Indian choral society, become a real state...

...This word was used to designate a horde of mestizos, descendants of European bandits and convicts, who had intermarried with Indian women...

...Near the cemetery was the widows' home, a part of which served as a hospital...

...Women could be punished by enforced confinement in the widows' home...

...thus the weavers, the smiths, the carpenters and other trades had their own alcaldes, the women elected a female overseer and in addition there was for the young people an alcalde, who looked after the children until they reached the age of seventeen...

...A troop of cavalry constantly patrols the neighborhood and reports on everything which it observes...

...a knife purchased a horse and a fish-hook a calf...

...In addition to these political organizations, there were regular trade guilds with native officials...

...The heads of each settlement were therefore required to submit to their provincial periodically detailed accounts of their income and expenditure...

...Everything that could ever be hoped for by a Utopian under a communist regime was here to be found translated into reality: the state ownership of natural products and of foodstuffs, the abolition of the monetary system which was the cause of so much unhappiness, the equality of all citizens of the state, the abolition of every form of material distress, provision for the needs of the aged, infirm, widows and orphans, the liability of all citizens to perform some kind of work subject to an eight-hour day, the education of children at the expense of the state, and freedom on the part of all to choose their own vocation...

...As he was able to convince the king that such a native army might be able to render useful service to the crown, his request was granted...

...In front of the church there was always a spacious square containing a statue, and around this square stood, usually arranged at right angles to one another, the one-storied dwellings of the Indians with their projecting roofs or galleries...

...The fathers immediately set up an efficient military system, armed the Indians throughout the country, and established cannon foundries and small-arms factories...

...in other respects, the Madrid government had no voice...

...Father Peramas gives the following account of the external appearance of one of these settlements: The church always formed the centre of the regular settlements...

...THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN PARAGUAY: II By RENE FULOP-MILLER WITH the same skill and mildness with which the Jesuits made use of the good qualities of the savages in the service of civilization, did they strive to overcome their weaknesses and deficiencies...

...Each settlement constituted a self-contained unit...

...With much effort, and by making use of their fingers and toes, they were able to count up to twenty but could go no farther...

...True, the Jesuits were able to secure the issue of a special papal brief, in which the governor of Brazil was required under penalty of excommunication, to put a stop to this state of affairs, but as the Mamelukes were acting in the interests of all the man hunters and slave-dealers, the Pope's words went, of course, unheeded...

...From this time onward, each settlement had to maintain two companies of soldiers under the command of Indian caciques : officers and men wore uniforms of a Spanish pattern, and regularly held drills and maneuvers under the supervision of the fathers...

...In case of emergency, we could at once raise a force of 30,000 mounted Indians who are well acquainted with the use of sabre and musket, who can form squadrons and carry out their maneuvers correctly...

...At first, efforts were made to negotiate with the Jesuits with a view to dividing certain of the settlements situated on the frontiers into encomiendas, but the masters of Paraguay quoted the royal patents and talked of Gospel brotherhood, an argument which the colonial officials regarded as most irrelevant...

...In every settlement, the death penalty was totally abolished, and incorrigible malefactors could be punished only by banishment to distant settlements...

...In the early days, if the fathers gave the head of a household a cow which would provide three days' food for himself and his family, the Indian would usually devour the animal in a single meal, and would then come back the next day complaining to the missionaries that he was tortured by hunger...

...They soon recognized that, while the Indians possessed great aptitude for music and for work requiring manual dexterity, and learned to read and write fairly readily, they could by no possible means be taught to reckon...

...From the constitutional point of view, Paraguay might best be described as a confederation, for the settlements were completely autonomous in regard to their domestic affairs, only such matters as foreign trade and military service being dealt with by the settlements as a corporate state...

...To allow this to go on indefinitely would be tantamount to endangering European civilization in South America...

...Two fathers took charge of the settlement, serving as priests, doctors, teachers and overseers of the work to be carried out...

...This defect also rendered them totally incapable of any kind of "domestic economy" or of "taking thought for the future," and as, moreover, they were possessed of an insatiable appetite, it was all the more difficult to persuade them to make a reasonable distribution of their foodstuffs...

...Nevertheless, the royal patents could not be questioned, and therefore the whites had at first to leave the matter to the so-called "Mamelukes...

...Even the foreign trade of the republic was not conducted by means of money...

...Money was unnecessary in this country which depended solely on its natural resources...

...King Philip V had therefore every justification for describing the Paraguay army as the "military bulwark of Spain...

...He therefore petitioned the king of Spain for authority to supply the Indians with European weapons...

...They are then divided into two sides which attack each other, sometimes with so much ardor that it becomes necessary to sound the retreat lest an accident should occur...

...Such a state, founded as it was on the theory that the Indians possessed rights as human beings, and established as it was amid a colonial territory, the chief industry of which was the slave trade, could not but be regarded as a bold challenge to its neighbors...

...They are all paraded and drilled by the fathers...

...An Indian parish police force was responsible for the preservation of law and order, performing their functions with the greatest possible leniency and indulgence...

...This scrupulous apportionment of the products of the soil was accompanied by an equally careful distribution of the tasks required to be performed by the Indians...

...the so-called "Paraguay tea," or yerba mate, for a long time constituted one of the most important exports of the settlements...

...Should it be necessary to bring a transgressor to justice, he was first interrogated by the corregidor in the absence of witnesses...

...After exhausting every possible means of inducing the governor of La Plata to intervene, the Jesuits decided to evacuate the regions exposed to the incursions of the Mamelukes, and they removed 12,000 of their Indians down the Parana through the thick forests, into a more remote and less exposed district...

...A missionary wrote home at that period: Every Monday the local corregidor holds a parade on the square and has the troops drilled...

...the majority of them had no head for figures...

...Part of the land belonged to individual Indians, but most of it was the property of the community...

...The crops produced on "God's fields" provided resources for the maintenance of the sick, aged and infirm, as well as the cost of building houses, churches and farm buildings and the amount of the taxes remitted annually to the Spanish crown...

...The civil administration was delegated to a corregidor elected by the community, several regidores and alcaldes, together with a communal council...

...Under the guidance of the fathers, the natives administered justice, managed the food stores and supervised the normal progress of work...

...Privately owned land could not be sold, nor could the houses change hands...