7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
1/16
1
The Population of Mainas, Upper Amazon, in the XVIII Century
Massimo Livi Bacci
Universit di Firenze, DiSIA, Viale Morgagni 59, 50134 Firenze, Italia (e-
mail: [email protected])
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
2/16
2
La poblacin de Mainas, Alto Amazonas, en el siglo XVIIIMassimo Livi Bacci
Resumen
Al final del siglo XVIII termina un ciclo demografico importante para las
poblaciones del Alto Amazonas. En 1767 la expulsion de los Jesuitas termina el
experimento de las Misiones, iniciado en la cuarta decada del siglo XVII. La
poblacion de los pequenos asentamentos disminuye rapidamente, y el proceso de
fragmentacion de las numerosas "naciones" y etnias, ya iniciado desde la primera
intrusion iberica en la region, accelera. La ponencia analisa los factores politicos,
sociales y antropologicos de la catastrofe demografica en su fase final.
Palabras clave
Amazonas, misiones, Jesuitas, sistema demografico, viruela
The Population of Mainas, Upper Amazon, in the XVIII Century
Massimo Livi Bacci
Summary
The end of the XVIII century marks the conclusion of an important cycle of the
populations of Upper Amazon. In 1767 the expulsion of the Jesuits puts en end to the
experiment of the Missions, initiated in the fourth decade of the XVII century. There
is a sustained decline of the small indigenous settlements and an acceleration of theprocess of displacement and fragmentation of the numerous nations, or ethnic
groups, already initiated with the beginning of the Iberian intrusion in the region. The
paper discusses the political, sociological and anthropological factors of thedemographic catastrophe in its final phase.
Key words
Amazon, mission, Jesuits, demographic system, smallpox
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
3/16
3
The Population of Mainas, Upper Amazon, in the XVIII
CenturyThe Upper Amazon is a vast expanse of land extending from the crest of the
Andes to the foot of the mountain chain and further east to the upper course of the
Great River. In this paper, I will deal with the population of part of this region, that inthe XVII and XVIII centuries was known as Mainas, after the name of one of the
many ethnic groups, or tribes, or nations as they came to be named. It can be
described as an irregular triangle, the base on the foot of the Andes and the top at the
confluence of the Amazon with his southern tributary Javar, approximately where
Colombia and Peru border with Brazil. The course of the Putumayo defines the
northern border of Mainas, and that of the Javar the southern one (Maps 1 and 2).
The base of the trianglealong the Andesextends approximately for 700
kilometers (from the equator to 6 south) , while the vertical axis extends for about
1000 kilometers (70 to 78 longitude west); the entire surface is of the same order ofmagnitude of the Iberian peninsula (Livi Bacci, 2012: ).
Only a few years after Cajamarca, the Spaniards attempted to cross the Andes
and explore the eastern reaches of the mountains with the numerous expedition led byGonzalo Pizarro (1540-41) that failed to progress into theselvaafter reaching the foot
of the mountains; his lieutenant, Francisco de Orellana, with 53 companions
descended the tributaries Coca and Napo and navigated the entire River until the
Atlantic and the island of Cubagua, off the Venezuelan coast. The first description of
the river and of some of the sparse populations encountered during the year-long
perilous voyage, is due to the Dominican Friar Gaspar de Carvajal who was amember of Orellanas expedition (Carvajal 1986). Spanish penetration in the eastern
slopes of the Andes, however, started in the 70s and 80s of the century, when
several gold placers were located and a few settlements founded: Sevilla de Oro,
Logroo, Zamora, Valladolid, often of ephemeral duration. Gold search was very
labor intensive and soon the harsh exploitation of Indian labor led to bloodyrebellions and bloodier repressions (1578 and 1599). In the district of Quijosthat
rebelled in 1578the population of indios tributariosdeclined by two thirds between
1576 and 1608 (Livi Bacci 2012: 36-37). The intrusion of the Spaniards east of the
Andes, and the conflicts that followed, determined a fracture or a discontinuity in thenative society between the settlers of the plains and those of the mountains, linked inprecedence by not infrequent contacts (Taylor 1999). The eastern penetration of the
Spaniards led to the foundation of the city of Borja in 1619 on the banks of the
Maraon, just past the last turbulent rapids of the river through the Pongo (gate in
quechua). There, a bloody rebellion of the Mainas against the Spaniards took place in
1635, followed by a devastating repression. It is in the aftermath of the rebellion, in
1638, that the first Jesuits arrived, initiating their work of evangelization that led tothe foundation of dozens of Missions in the region and lasted until 1767, date of the
expulsion of the Order from the Spanish colonies.
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
4/16
4
Map 1Mainas region
The arrival of the Jesuist implied also the end of the penetration of the
Spaniards in Mainas: their presence was limited to Borja that remained the
administrative center of the region, seat of a small garrison under the command of a
Lieutenant, and of a few Spanish families.
The missionariesvery few in numbers, as we will seeset to the desperate
task of making contact with the plurality of ethnic groups; inducing them to abandon
their settlements and accept to be reduced in new villages Missionson the
model that was taking shape in other areas of South America. The Missions wereorganized under the unchallenged leadership of a Father, sometime assisted by a
Brother and a viracocha(mestizo). This task proved to be a sisyphean job, due to thepaucity of missionaries, the difficult and precarious communications with the faraway
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
5/16
5
headquarters in Quito, the high mobility of the natives, their sparse patterns of
settlement, the deep suspicion for the Europeans, nourished by past experiences, the
frequent presence of soldiers in the first attempts of evangelization.
In this initial phase, the evangelization that initiated among the indios Mainas
in the district of Borja, developed in the lower course of the rivers Huallaga andUcayali, southern tributaries of the Amazon, where some of the most numerous
Map 2The Main Nations of Mainas (stylizes location and extension)
nations lived, such as the Cocamas and the Xeveros. On the banks of the northerntributaries of the Great River, the Tigre and the Curaray, other Missions were
founded. In 1670 Santiago de la Laguna was founded on the Huallaga, close to the
confluence with the Amazon, and this mission became the seat of the Superior of the
Fathers, and the main center of the region. After 1720, the missionary effort reached
the Napo and the middle course of the Amazon, an area that came to be known as
Mision Baja.
During the 130 years of the Jesuits permanence in Mainas, there werenumerous signs of a population collapse. Father Figueroa noted that at the foundation
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
6/16
6
of Borja, in 1619, 700 tributaries (indios head of households, between 3 and 4
thousand souls) were distributed in encomiendato 21 Spaniards. In the following
decades their number declined precipitously for the vexations suffered; many escaped
in the thick of theselva; all suffered a very high mortality. They were little more than
400 in 1638 when the Fathers arrived and 200 in 1661(Figueroa 1986: 160). At thislatter date, the indios of the district of Borja where about 1000, and some 500 were
fugitives in theselva, confirming the fact that running away was a primary
component of the demographic system of the region.
According to the same Father Figueroa, the indios in the Missions, in 1660,
numbered about 10,000, but after the smallpox of that year, only 7,000 remained, ofwhom 3,100 had been baptized and the others catecumenos (Figueroa 1986: 239),
part of them were killed by the epidemic and part escaped. Only a fraction of the total
population of the region, that Father Figueroa estimated in about 60,000 (Idem: 241)
lived in the Missions. Figueroa was a reliable observer: he thought that there were
about 40 small different nations (ethnic groups) in the region, each numbering not
more than 1,000 people, and only a score of them of larger dimensions. In his
opinion, since the first entradaof the Spaniards in 1619, the population had declinedby half. Relating the unlucky attempt to convert the Romainas and the Zaparos,
Figueroa wrote that an outbreak of catharro, moquilla y mal de costado and other
diseases had reduced the initial population of about 2,000 indios de lanzato only 300
(Idem: 233). In the latter part of the XVII century, rebellions, repressions, flights kept
in check the expansion of the Missions population. In 1719,in the 28 Missions livedabout 8,000 indios, including a few hundreds cathecumenos, only one thousand more
than those estimated by Figueroa in 1661, after the devastating smallpox epidemics,and notwithstanding the foundation of several new Missions.
Table 1Population of Mainas Missions, 1719-1798
Indios Indios Total Number of Population
Year baptised neophite Population Missions per Mission
1719 7586 380 7966 28 285
1727 5194 748 5942 22 270
1740 9549 1487 11036 32 345
1745 9976 2939 12915 41 315
1760 12229 34 360
1767 11620 154 11774 22 535
1769 9131 32 9163 22 417
1776 8857 70 8927 22 406
1786 9111 22 414
1798 4455 22 203
Source: Golob (1982), Tables 17, 20, 21 and 22, pp. 203-04
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
7/16
7
A synthesis of the population dynamic of the Mission indios can be found in
Table 1, where the total population of a varying number of Missions is reported; the
totals in the series are derived from a variety of sources, and refer to the 1719- 1798
period. These enumerations consisted in cuadros sumarios of the individual Missions
compiled by the Fathers or by the Visitors of the district, normally detailing a fewcategories such as the married, the unmarried, children and adolescents.
The criteria for dressing these summary tables were more or less homogeneous,
following the rules of the Church and of the Order; however the conditions under
which the information was gathered were far from being the same, and depended on
the geography, the environment and the social dynamic of each individual mission.New Missions were continuously created while others were abandoned; new ethnic
groups came to live in already structured Missions, while others took flight; several
Fathers had the responsibility of more than one Mission; different Missions were
combined while others split. As said above, in 1719 8,000 indios lived in 28
Missions, but renewed efforts for the evangelization of the Napo led to the foundation
of many new Missions, whose total number increased to 41 in 1745 with a total of
almost 13,000 soulsboth peak numbers for the entire period. When the Order wasdisbanded in 1767, the number of Missions had dwindled to 22, with less than 12,000
indios. After the expulsion of the Fathers the population remained more or less
constant for a while, but at the close of the century had dwindled to 4,500.
For reasons already mentioned, the comparability of the series is insecure, and
the data do not tell us much about the intrinsic dynamic of the Mission populationuntil the Jesuits expulsion, and under secular and then civil control in what remained
of the century. However, it is worth mentioning the fact that the number of Jesuitsoperating in the region had increased to about 30 in the final years of the Jesuit
experiment, attesting to the intensification of the evangelization effort (Golob 1982:
76)..
An improvement on the comparability of the data is obtained in Table 2: for
each time interval, the comparison has been restricted to those same Missions that
were enumerated both at the initial and at the terminal date . Between 1719 and 1740,
the population of 12 Missions has been compared; between 1740 and 1745, 14
Missions, and so on. The Table reveals that during the Jesuit era, population growth
was 1 percent per year, while after the expulsion a negative rate of growth sets in. Inthe Missions existing both at the beginning (1719) and at the end (1776) of the period
aggregate population had increased by two thirds, with a rate of growth of 0.9%.
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
8/16
8
Let us assume that the Mission subsets considered in Table 2 were representative of
the entire converted Mission population. Now a rate of growth close to 1% could beconsidered as a symptom of a flourishing population, able to double its size in 70
years or so. This is a rhythm of growth seldom achievedover the long runby pre-
modern populations, normally plagued by high mortality, as it was the case of thenative populations of America. Hence the crucial question: if the populations of the
Amazonian basin suffered a demographic collapseas a variety of indicators appear
to confirm - why were the Mission populations flourishing? Unfortunately we lackthe detailed information that would, perhaps, solve the enigma, such as the
registration of births and burials. This information was almost certainly collected,
since registrations of marriages, baptisms and burials were keptas it is attested by
several sourcesbut they have been lost, or dispersed, or ended up in smoke when a
fire destroyed, in 1749, the general archive of the Jesuit missions that was kept in
Santiago de la Laguna. We cannot therefore understand whether the increaseachieved during the XVIII century was due to an excess of births over deaths, or to an
excess of neophytes newly immigrated over those that kept abandoning the house of
the Father.
However, a key to the solution of the enigma exists. We know that the Fathers were
engaged in a systematic action of exploration and contact with new ethnic groups, in
the attempt of recruiting and attracting in the Missions new souls to be converted.
During the XVIII century, for instance, the Fathers of theMision Bajarepeatedly
consulted in view of the organization of an annual entrada,in search of new recruits
in order to contrast the decline of the Missions. In a long report relating the events of
the period 1750-1761, Father Widman details the expeditions organized by theFathers as well as the number of Indios brought back to the Missions. In those 12
years, 38 expeditions were organized, and a total of 2692 indios had been captured,
recruited or convinced to migrate to the Missions: an average of 228 indios per
year and 71 per expedition (Golob 1982: 275).
In the Mission of San Joaquin de Omagua some indios were regularly
designated in order to escort the Father whenever he organized an expedition, a
symptom that this was a normal mean of evangelization (Uriarte 1952: I, 134) . In theMissions of Paraguayin the valleys of the Parana and Uruguay rivers - as well as in
the Mojos Missions in eastern Bolivia, after an initial phase of active evangelization,through entradasand ad hoc expeditions, proselytism was kept to a minimum and the
Table 2 - Population change in Mainas Missions, 1719-1776
Population at Population at Number of Missions % Population change % population change per Mean Mission Mean Mission
Initial and terminal dates initial date terminal date Compared between initial and year between initial population at population at
terminal date and terminal date initial date terminal date
1719, 1740 8443 10623 12 25,8 1,09 704 885
1740, 1745 4964 5355 14 7,9 1,52 355 383
1745, 1767 5991 7817 13 30,5 1,21 461 601
1767, 1769 7998 7670 14 -4,1 -2,09 571 5481769, 1776 8243 7909 17 -4,1 -0,59 485 465
1719, 1776 3406 5738 68,5 1,03* 704 465
Note: At each pair of dates, initial and terminal, the same Missions have been compared. During the 1719-40, population increased in 7 of the 12 Missions, declined in 4 and
remained unchanged in 1. In the following periods, the number of Missions whose population increased, declined or remained unchanged was, respectively: 1740-45, 6, 7 and 1;
1745-67: 9, 4 and 0; 1767-69:8, 6 and 0; 1769-76: 3, 14 and 0.
* Rate of increase (1,03%) for 1719-67 is the eighted average of the rates for each period, with weights proportional to the number of years in each interval
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
9/16
9
Missions thrived because of their own demographic dynamic. Mainas was a different
case, its mobile and fluid way of life required a continuous action of recruitment in
order to counteract their propensity to escape from the order imposed by the Fathers.
Over 200 indios were, every year, induced to join the Missions: in other words,
immigrationin that particular periodwas about 2% per year, or an immigrant forevery two or three newborn. In spite of this considerable inflow, the population of the
Missions was stationary over the period considered, evidence that the process of
immigration and emigration must have been a major factor of the mission indios
demographic system. A system in a continuous tension in order to keep in balance the
repeated flights with new recruitments, as attested by a number of reports andchronicles.
Modern historiography assigns a central and prominent role to smallpox in
determining the post-contact demographic developmentoften disastrousof the
native populations of America. The news of an approaching epidemic would spread
terror among the indios and put the Fathers in a state of deep worry and
apprehension. The Fathers knew that in the wake of their action for converting theheathens came the tinieblas de las pestilencias. But, as I have argued elsewhere,
smallpox although amajor factor of the demographic disasters of American natives,
was not necessarily the major factor. Because of the European intrusion, societies
were de-structured and dislocated; slavery, forced labor and forced migration had
negative demographic consequences; violence and a variety of new diseases affectedmortality.
There are also solid epidemiological foundations to the theory that smallpox(and other epidemics) was one of the actors - and not the sole or principal actorof
the natives demographic collapse (Livi Bacci 2005: 49-52). In a virgin population
(that is, never exposed to the virus contagion, as the American populations were),
and therefore not immune, the first outbreak of smallpox would cause a very high
mortality, that could theoretically reach 30 percent or more of the individuals.
However, general mortality would probably be lower becauseeven in a virgin
populationsome would escape contagion (because of chance, isolation,
biogenetical constitution). In any case, the first outbreak would cause a real
catastrophe, a deep demographic wound: a 30 percent fall of the population cannot beotherwise defined. Similar catastrophes were not uncommon in the ancien rgime(let
us think of the plague, unknown in America, but common amongEurasian
populations) and that could be healed through a normal demographic rebound in the
years following the crisis. Further smallpox outbreaksafter 10, 20 or more years as
it was the case in America in the XVII and XVIII centurywould cause a mortality
lower than the first one, and for several reasons. Let us see why.The first reason is that those that survive contagion acquire a permanent
immunity. In a small community the epidemic burns out for the lack of combustible,
because the individuals are either dead or immune, and this is the reason for theperiodicity of some epidemics. A subsequent epidemic can take place only when a
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
10/16
10
sufficient number of susceptible, not immune individuals (those born, or immigrated,
after the first epidemic) had been re-created, and its impact would be lower than the
first one because part of the population (the smaller the farther away is the second
epidemic from the first one) would be immune.
There are also other reasons for the decline of mortality in subsequentepidemics. The first is that a fraction of the population escapes or avoids
contagion, and this fraction tends to increase with time because symptoms tend to be
recognized and contact is avoided. Secondly, there is also an useful process of social
learning: fear is dominated and the sick are not left alone without care, food or water;
empirical remedies are tried and retained if beneficial. The rate of survival maytherefore increase. Many were dying because since they all got sick at the same
time, they could not cure each other, and there was nobody who would give them
bread or other things said Motolinia when commenting on the great 1520 smallpox
epidemic in Mexico (Motolinia 1973: 14). In the third place, there is a process of
selection among those who survive that favours the more resistant individuals who
may pass their favourable traits to the next generation thus diminishing their
vulnerability. Finally there is an almost universal law, verified in innumerablehistorical cases, that implies a rebound after an epidemic shock, or a temporary
surplus of births over deaths. The birth rate increases because of an increase of unions
among survivors who have lost their partners and in many cases also for an increase
in fertility. The death rate declines because the epidemic has wiped away a higher
proportion the vulnerable ones, be they children, old people or frail individuals.
There is no evidence that the smallpox epidemic of 1589 - that hit Peru and avast extension of the south American continentreached the Amazonian region. The
epidemic was said to have caused 7,000 victims in the Quito region (Heredia 1924:
5), but it is possible that its relative isolation shielded the Andean eastern valleys and
the upper Amazon from the contagion. But this relative isolation was soon broken
through the intensification of the contacts with the new cities settled by the Spaniards
Quito, Jaen, Moyobambaand, later on, because of the penetration of the
Portuguese that were expanding upriver from Par. In 1642 smallpox hit Borjas
district Golob 1982: 198): if this was for the first time, we dont know. In 1648, the
Franciscan Friar Laureano de la Cruz, in his third and last year of residence in theriver islands of the Omaguas, describes with precision the explosion of smallpox in
one of the islands he visited, where he was retained by the rising waters of the river in
the rain season. The plague reached the island from downriver and during the night
fell sick an old woman and a boy, in two different huts, and then the infection spread
everywhere in such a way that after a little more than a month everybody, children
and adults, fell miserably sick. Laureano describes the foul smell and the pustules ofthe sick, their suffering and lamentations, and adds that when he departed from the
island one third of the population had died and most of the survivors were
convalescent (Cruz1900: 89-91).
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
11/16
11
The following outbreak, in 1660 that consumed large numbers of people
reduced the population of the Missions from 10,000 to 7,000, according to Figueroas
estimates, because of the high mortality and the many flights (Figueroa 1986: 239).
Another general outbreak followed in 1669 . Father Lucero, than in charge of the
Mission of Santiago de la Laguna, reports about the epidemic of 1680. The news thatsmallpox was raging in the upper course of the Huallaga spread downriver; the
Cocamas living in Santiago decided to run away (it was the 23rdday of June, with 75
canoes), while Xitipos eand Chepeos remained in the village. The epidemic reached
La Laguna and the annexed fractions in October and lasted until the following May.
Father Lucero worked hard assisting and healing the sick, but the endeavor to assistso many people in such a torrid climate and with their pestilential stink cannot be
told; beside the Christians, he assisted many catechumens and gentiles: in less than
15 days I christened and confirmed 600 indios (Figueroa et al. 1986: 322-23).The
epidemic did not reach the Omaguas in the Maraon, and therefore the Cocamas that
had found refuge among them escaped the contagion.
For many decades the existing documentation does not mention other
epidemics, except some vague hints about an outbreak in 1740, but without victims(Sweet 1974: 82). In 1749 smallpox raged in the Missions of the Napo river, while
measles hit the Maraon (Heredia 1924: 25). In 1756 a group of residents of Borja
were infected while visiting Jaen, and brought back the disease determining a
general flight from the city, that in that same year was moved downstream. These
people brought the smallpox, of which 40 viracochas died, together with theLieutenant; the indios, with the permission of the Father, escaped to a place called
Puca Barranca, and there they planted their fields. In that way they escaped thecontagion and caused the move of the city in a better and more fertile location
(Uriarte 1952: I, 217).
We have further documentation for the epidemic of 1762: as in preceding
cases, the epidemic entered into Mainas brought from Moyobamba and Lamas; killed
100 persons in Borja and spread downstream reaching the Huallaga and Santiago de
la Laguna; as in the preceding century, the Cocamas took flight first on the Ucayalis
banks and then among the Omaguas with whom they remained for a year. In Santiago
over 200 Cocamillas and Panos died. But in Jeveros, a village of more than 2,000
souls, only a few died because the population took flight to theselvaon time (Idem:265). The flight from the Missions had become a well tested and efficient strategy of
survival. Father Uriartes journal provides another interesting information: Father
Esquini, an Italian Jesuit from Florence, operating among the Chamicuros, saved
many lives practicing inoculation (Idem: 265). In the deep of Amazonia and far away
from the Europe of Enlightenment!
Beside smallpox, other diseases were imported from the Old World, such asmeasles, a variety of influenzas, and other viral diseases compounded, adding to the
pathological complexity and high mortality of Amazonian populations. But there are
no reasons to assume thatafter the first impactthese were more vulnerable thanthe Iberian and European populations. Fevers, diarrhea, catarrh, pulmonary afflictions
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
12/16
12
are often cited and were probably common. But smallpox was certainly the most
virulent new disease and its impact was surely destructive at its first appearance.
However, beside the episodes of 1660, 1680-81 and 1762 that certainly were
widespread and destructive, it does not seem to have been the major cause of the
decline. Over 80 years elapsed between the outbreak of 1680 and that of 1762without mention of major catastrophic epidemics. But the territory was immense, the
human density low, the isolation of many initialfociof contagion made difficult the
diffusion of the virus, the art of flight often rehearsed.
The Mission data collected by the Fathers during the XVIII century offer
further elements for the analysis of Mainas demography. Not many indeed, also
because the raw indicators of the age structure that can be calculated are of limited
use: indeed the Missions population cannot be assimilated to a stable population,
given the intense process of mobility, and not much can be inferred in terms of birth
and death rates. The statistical summaries for each Mission normally detail the
number of married people, as well the numbers of the widowed, of the adolescentsand of the children, each category with gender specification. Married males and
married females were equal in number; age limits of the various categories are
certainly not precise, and the number of married couples is assumed to be equal to the
number of families. But families did not coincide with households: in many nations a
household was composed of a plurality of families. Children were those below age 7,while the age limits of the adolescents were 7 year and the age at puberty, lower for
women than for men (presumably 14 and 16 years, as in other areas administered bythe Jesuits) .
There are many doubts as to the actual meaning of the various categories. In
some cases the category of the unmarried seems to include adults who were
widowed; we assume that all adolescents married around the age of puberty (in other
American Missions adolescent girls married at 14-15, and adolescent men one or two
years later), but this might not be true everywhere; it is not certain that the seventh
birthday marked the limit between children and adolescents (in some case there are
visible inconsistencies).
Table 3 assembles the data of 6 Missions that are present in the enumerationstaken between 1740 and 1776, comprising approximately two fifths of the entire
Missions population. I have collapsed the data of the six small Missions in order to
give more robustness to percentages and ratios. But even so, it is only a small
population of a few thousand individuals, of the size of only a few ancien rgime
parishes in Europe. The indicators of Table 3 are quite similar to those of other
American populations: we may compare them with those calculated for the muchlarger population of the Mojos Missions (in eastern Bolivia, at the headwaters of the
Madera river, the main tributary of the Amazon), approximately for the same period
(Livi Bacci 2010: 159).
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
13/16
13
Families were small, 4.3-4.7 members on average (even smaller were Mojos
families, 3.9-4.2); there were between 1.2 and 1.8 children per coupe (1.2-1.6 among
the Mojos); among children and adolescent the sex ratio (males to females) ratiovaried between 1.02 and 1.08 (1.07 to 1.18 among Mojo children). The young
(children and adolescent) were almost half the population (45-50 percent, against 46-
48 percent for the Mojos), while the married population represented a share of the
total (42-47 percent) lower than among the Mojos (46-48 percent). All these
indicators are compatible with a high pressure demographic system, with high
birth rates and high death rates, and good potential of growth in normal years that,
however, in the turbulent history of the Missions were neither frequent nor long ones.
Among the Guaranis of the Missions of Paraguayand in the years not upsetby epidemics and conflictsthe birth rate was around 55 per thousand and the death
Table 3 - Structure of the pPopulation of 6 Mainas Missions, always enumerated, 1740 to 1776
1740 1745 1767 1769 1776
Population
Married Men 744 804 1163 1221 1209
Married Women 744 804 1163 1221 1209
Widowers -- 104 51 76 59
Widows -- 186 132 198 197
Unmarried, Men and Women 256 -- -- -- --
Adolescent Males 398 348 686 233 218
Adolescent Females 312 372 453 147 129
Boys 491 486 662 1088 1113
Girls 499 466 693 1052 1063
Neophytes 91 161 20 -- --
Total 3530 3731 5023 5236 5198
Percentages, ratios and rates
Members per family (a) 4,74 4,64 4,32 4,29 4,30
Children per family 1,33 1,18 1,17 1,75 1,80
Chlldren and Adolescents per family 2,28 2,08 2,14 2,06 2,09
Males to Femals ratio (b) 1,10 1,02 1,18 1,10 1,12Widowers per 100 married men 17,2 18,0 7,9 11,2 10,6
Children per 100 population 28,0 25,5 27,0 40,9 41,9
Young per 100 population (d) 48,2 44,8 49,7 48,1 48,5
Married per 100 population 42,2 43,1 46,3 46,6 46,5
Annual rate of population change (%) 2,08 1,11 1,35 2,06 -0,10
Notes: (a) Total population per married couple; (b) Excluded the unmarried; For 1740,
the unmarried were considered to be widowed; (d) Young is the sum of children and adolescents
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
14/16
14
rate around 45 per thousand, equivalent to a number of children per woman (TFR) of
7-8, to an expectation of life at birth around 25 years and to a potential rate of growth
of 1 percent or more (Livi Bacci 2008: 258-60 ). Amazonian demography was
probably very similar.
In the American missions the Fathers put at the center of their conversionactivity a few basic principles not to be subverted if a well ordered society was to be
achieved. Marriage could not be dissolved, family life had to be private and
promiscuousness had to be fought. The Fathers knew well that these principles could
not be imposed on adults newly dragged out of their traditional ways of life, and their
strategy was to concentrate their efforts of indoctrination on children and adolescentsin order to grow them as good Christians, obedient to the precepts concerning family
life. They sought an implicit educational monopoly on the very young, and at the age
of puberty the Fathers supervised that a proper marriage be concluded. In such a way,
the first Christianized couples were rapidly formed after the foundation of the
Mission. The action of the Fathers encountered in Amazonia many more obstacles
than in other parts of America, due to their small number strained (less than 30 in the
last decades of the Mission era) in the immensity of the region, the high mobility ofthe population, the instability of the Missions. Only in the largest and more structured
Missions, such as Limpia Concepcin de los Jeveros, Santiago de la Laguna or San
Joaquin de Omaguas, we have evidence of a well organized and regular
indoctrination of children, essential for the new religion to take solid roots.
In 1743, Charles de la Condamine returned to Paris from Peru, where he had
led an official scientific mission, navigating the Amazon. His report to the AcademieFranaise, was rich in scientific observation on the natural life, the geography and the
anthropology of the River: only a century ago, the banks of the Maraon were
inhabited by a great number of nations that retreated in the interior as soon as they
saw the Europeans. One encounters, today, only a small number of villages of
natives, only recently brought out from the forest, themselves or their fathers, some
from the Spanish missionaries in the upriver course, some from the Portuguese
missionaries, in the downriver tract (La Condamine 1981: 70-71). A century later,
Gaetano Osculati, an Italian explorer, who also descended the Amazon, said of the
Napo: After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish America, these villages werecompletely deserted, and so went lost the meager fruits obtained by the missions.
Those barbarians, left to themselves, free to follow their inclinations soon returned to
their original autonomous state, and forgot in a short time what they had learned,
abandoning the Missions buildings and taking refuge in the wilderness and so
disappeared the villages on the Napos banksplaces that still are named onmodern
maps, although nothing is left and everything has returned to the primitive barbarianloneliness. (Osculati 1929 :90-91).
There are many other impressionistic testimonies of the depopulation of the
river, but few data. Those concerning the Missions, as shown in Table 1, point to arelatively stationary level in the last decades of the Jesuit presence in Mainas, and to
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
15/16
15
a rapid decline in the last decades of the century. We have shown, however, that the
Missions demography had a potential for growth, more than offset by a large negative
migration. There is also some evidence that whilein the 1660sthe indios of the
Missions constituted a small fraction (perhaps 15-20 percent) of the total population
of the region, their share of the total was much higher (perhaps two thirds) a centurylater. We can summarize the situation as follows:
1)- During the Jesuit period, the Missions population was more or less stable,
in a rgime of demographic high pressure but with a good potential for natural
growth in years not affected by exceptional events;
2)- The relative stability of the population of the Missions, in the XVIIIcentury and until expulsion, was the result of the vigorous activity of recruitment of
new adepts by the Fathers and of the continued foundations of new Missions. This
action of recruitment was barely sufficient to compensate the emigration from the
Missions due to flights, or to the outright collapse of many Missions, whose duration,
on average, was very short (about 20 years);
3)- For the native population outside the Missions a sustained decline is highly
plausible, but there is no direct quantitative evidence.
The first point is in line with the observed population dynamic of other Jesuit
missions of south America; while the instability of the missions and the high innate
mobility of the riverine populations (point 2) is abundantly proved. But why did the
rest of the population decline? Three hypotheses can be advanced. The first is flight:the apparent depopulation was only due to the retreat in the thick of theselva,
removed from the riverine areas where most of the population of the Amazon basinlived. They just disappeared from human eye: the decline is therefore a visual
artifact.
A second possible explanation follows from the first: escaping the European
intrusion and retreating in theselvameant settling in areas less suitable to the indios
traditional ways of life, where adaptation and survival conditions were more difficult.
Indeed the potentials for survival were much higher in the riverine areas, from which
they retreated, than in the forest backlands.
The third explanation concerns the process of fragmentation that the European
intrusion brought about in the already dispersed pattern of aggregation of the nativepopulation. The various groups or nations were often very small, consisting of a
few hundred individuals: their dispersal often implied further fragmentation, and the
fall (for many of them) below a minimum numerical threshold. Under this
threshold, random fluctuations of births and of the sex ratio could easily compromise
the fertility potential, depress reproduction and cause extinction.
7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population
16/16
16
References
BAYLE, C. (1951), Las Misiones, defensa de las fronteras Mainas,MissionaliaHispanica, VIII, n. 24, p. 433
BIEDMA, M. (1989):La Conquista Francescana del Alto Ucayali, edited by Julian
Heras and Antonino Tibesar, Iquitos, CETA-IIAP
CARVAJAL, G. (1986),Relacin que escribi Fr. Gaspar de Carvajal, del nuevo
descubrimiento del famoso Rio Grande, in CARVJAL, G., P. DE ALMESTO y A. de
ROJAS,La aventura del Amazonas, Madrid, Historia 16
CONDAMINE, Ch-M., de la (1981), Voyage sur lAmazone, Paris, MasperoCRUZ, Fr. L. de la (1900),Nuevo descubrimiento del Ro de Maraon llamado de las
Amazonas, Madrid, La IrradiacionFIGUEROA, F., (1986),Informe de las misiones del Maraon, Gran Par o Rio de
las Amazonas [1681]in FIGUEROA et al.,Informes de Jesuitas en el Amazonas,
1600-1684, Iquitos, IIAP-CETA
GOLOB, A, (1982), The Upper Amazon in Historical Perspective, Ph. D thesis, CityUniversity of New York, Ann Arbor, University Microfilm International
HEREDIA, J. F., (1924),La antigua provincia de Quito de la Compaia de Jess y
sus misiones entre infieles, 1566-1767, Riobamba, Ecuador
JOUANEN, J., (1941),Historia de la Compaia de Jess en la antigua provincia de
Quito, 1570-74, Vol. 1,La vice provincia de Quito, 1570-96, Quito, EditorialEcuatoriana
LIVI BACCI, M. (2008), Conquest. The Destruction of American Indios, Cambridge,
Polity Press
LIVI BACCI, M. (2012):Amazzonia. Limpero dellacqua, 1500-1800, Bologna, Il
Mulino
LIVI BACCI, M., (2010),Eldorado in the marshes. Gold, slaves and souls betweenthe Andes and the Amazon, Cambridge, Polity Press
MOTOLINIA, Fr T. (1973),Historia de los Indios de la Nueva Espaa, Mexico City,
Porra
OSCULATI, G (1929),Esplorazioni nellAmerica equatoriale, Milano, Alpes, 2 volsSWEET, D.G, (1974),A reach realm of nature destroyed. The middle Amazon valley,1740-50,Ph. D. thesis, The University of Wisconsin, Ann Arbor (Mich), University
Microfilms International.
TAYLOR, A.C, (1999), The Western Margin of Amazonia fro the Early Sixteenth to
the Early Nineteenth Century, inSALAMON F., and S.B. SCHWARTZ, The
Cambridge history of the native people of the Americas, III : South America, vol. II,
Cambridge, Cambridge University PressURIARTE, M.J, (1952),Diario de un Misionero de Mainas, edited by C. Bayle,
Madrid, Instituto Santo Toribio Mogrovejo, 2 vols
Top Related