Reviewed by: Expecting Pears from an Elm Tree: Franciscan Missions on the Chiriguano Frontier in the Heart of South America, 1830–1949 David Block Expecting Pears from an Elm Tree: Franciscan Missions on the Chiriguano Frontier in the Heart of South America, 1830–1949. By Erick D. Langer. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2009. Pp. xiv, 376. $89.95 clothbound, ISBN 978-0-822-34491-9; $24.95 paperback, ISBN 978-0-822-34504-6.) The southeastern foothills of the Bolivian Andes, the “Cordillera,” rise to form a series of deep valleys, draining into the Chaco and Rio de la Plata basin. On this landscape, Erick Langer places his study of the Franciscan mission to the Chiriguano people in the first century of the Bolivian republic. He uses this case to comment on the general themes of the frontier in Latin American history and the role of the mission within it. However, it is the case itself, developed through meticulous archival research, that demonstrates Langer’s skill as a historian and makes his book a lasting contribution to the field. The master narrative of the book is the subjugation of the Chiriguano people. Migrating from the east, these Guaraní speakers reached the Cordillera in the late-fifteenth century and successfully resisted three centuries of Incaic and Spanish attempts to conquer them. They likewise defied the soft power of colonial mission systems sponsored by the Jesuits and the Franciscans. At the onset of Bolivian independence, the Chirguano retained control of their homeland and periodically raided along the frontier, forcing Bolivian settlers and republican authorities to recognize their power and accommodate their demands. However, the status quo began to change in the middle of the nineteenth century, influenced by increased economic activity collateral with an uptick in Bolivian silver production and the establishment of a Franciscan mission system in the region. By the end of the century, the Chiriguano no longer dominated the Cordillera. Franciscan priests and brothers, recruited primarily in Italy, established a string of mission stations along the southeastern periphery of Bolivia, and their presence, Langer argues, was the principal reason for the overthrow of Chiriguano autonomy. The missions, requested by the native people as a defense against settler incursions, forced the Chiriguano living in them into permanent alliances with Bolivian creoles. Once established, the missions and their Indian inhabitants formed a bulwark that allowed creoles to push back the frontier and subjugate its native people. In this work, Langer follows lines of research that he has developed previously. He demonstrates the give and take that characterized the relationship between Franciscans and Chiriguanos, the important role that the missions played in developing the frontier economy, and the meaning of conversion to both the native people and the friars. (The title of the book comes from a missionary’s comment that full conversion of the Chiriguano was as likely as expecting fruit from a tree that does not bear fruit.) In addition, Langer convincingly illuminates the importance of a variety of actors on the nineteenth-century frontier, notably agents of the republican state and the cattle ranchers, merchants, and settlers who increasingly populated the Cordillera. He is [End Page 621] less convincing when he ascribes the motivations and actions of the largely Italian missionary force to their coming of age in the Resorgimento. Without documentation from priests’ own pens, Langer’s treatment of the very important issue of European background remains informed speculation. A remarkable documentary corpus underlies the presentation, a part of which is photographic images that supports the written sources. Langer has discovered documents that describe individual Chiriguanos in considerable detail. The paramount chief, Mandeponay, appears as a major actor in the missions— creating and abandoning alliances with other Indian leaders, adroitly playing off the Franciscan priests and republican officials, taking advantage of economic opportunities where they presented themselves. Through diligence in the archives, Langer brings “commoners”—carpenters, schoolgirls, aspirants to mission office—into view. The book presents valuable new information on a region of South America that has not been extensively studied but was contested by Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay in the twentieth century. It documents the history of the Chiriguano, a large ethnic group subjected to Bolivian...