Franciscanos en Valdivia, Chile (1769-1848). Practicas de conversion y la civilizacion al interior de las misiones huilliches

Abstract

The aim of this article is to understand the work of Christianisation in the missions of the Colegio de Propaganda de San Ildefonso de Chillán in Valdivia between 1769 and 1848. It investigates the spaces of evangelisation, particularly the daily experience inside the missionary establishments. The methodology contemplated the review of the Miscellaneous Affairs Fund of the College of Chillán, especially letters from the religious of the interior missions to the Prefect and annual reports of missionaries from Valdivia. Other materials on the process of Christianisation in Valdivia come from the Archivo Histórico de Santiago, the Revista Chilena de Historia y Geografía and the Publicaciones del Archivo Franciscano. The analysis of these writings shows the forms adopted by the internal regime of the missions of the Colegio de Chillán, when putting into practice the rules of the Regulations of Missions of 1775 (Iturriaga, 1992), which ranged from violent coercion -evidenced in the control of bodies by means of punishment and the retention of children and women- to multiple forms of persuasion and symbolic domination that were appropriated, adapted and resisted by different means by the Mapuche-Huilliche subjects who lived temporarily in the missions.