The
Jesuits, moreover, were the reverse of popular with the Spanish
landowners of Paraguay, for the reason that the missionaries had
collected together the Indians in self-supporting communities and towns,
thus depriving the colonists of the enforced labour which they now
looked upon as one of their rights.
These Jesuit settlements in Paraguay have been too fully dealt with to
need anything in the way of an elaborate description here. Let it
suffice to say that the famous communities were in many respects
socialistic. The land, for instance, throughout the mission areas was
held for the common good, and its produce was wont to be divided into
three parts--one of which was devoted to the Church, the second to the
State, and the third to the private use of the Indian agriculturalists.
It is now generally conceded that, in consideration of the gross,
sensual, and totally unintelligent human clay with which the Missionary
Fathers had to deal, their efforts were astonishingly successful. At the
same time, the labours of these Jesuits were carried on largely in the
dark--that is to say, fearing the influence of the white man upon their
converts, they refused admission to their land to any Spaniards.
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