Another View of the Mission as a Frontier Institution: The Guaycuruan Reductions of Santa Fe, 1743-1810

Abstract

H TOSTILITIES between Guaycuruans of the Gran Chaco and Spaniards complicated life in the Upper Plata region for three centuries. The relationship between the two cultures, never static, was radically altered in the eighteenth century, as missions were founded. This article will analyze the mission on the Chaco frontier to discover what role it played in the larger history of Spanish-Guaycuruan relations. The focus will be on relations between two Guaycuruan groups who requested missions, Abipones and Mocobies, and the city of Santa Fe. In the mid-eighteenth century, Abipones numbered 5,ooo and Mocobies possibly 15i8,ooo.' The city of Santa Fe had 1,076 residents in 1662, about 1,500 in 1698, and between 4,ooo and 5,000 in 1793.2 Since Charles III's expulsion of the Jesuits, observers have debated the reasons for the ensuing failure of their Chaco reductions. These missions, settled from 1743 to 1765, were established to convert nonsedentary3 Guaycuruan peoples of the eastern Chaco to Christianity and to persuade them to lead sedentary lives subordinate to Spanish control. Two explanations have emerged.