Coevolución: patrimonio y agroecosistemas

Introduction

The development of a Chiquitano identity did not occur through a monolithic process that began and ended during a clearly bounded period of time. Becoming Chiquitano was, instead, a series of multivalent processes that emerged under the Jesuit regime, but continued long after the expulsion of the order in 1767. In the post-Jesuit years, these processes refracted to follow different paths through a protracted era of secularization that altered the spatial, institutional and administrative organization of Chiquitos and reoriented the region’s indigenous communities.203 To demonstrate this more complicated understanding of identity formation, this chapter focuses on the changes that occurred during the first decade after the Jesuit expulsion; changes that have been thoroughly documented in a substantial body of archival sources. Written by colonial bureaucrats and ecclesiastical officials, these sources carefully outline Iberian imperial endeavors. Few of them, however, contain direct references to the actions and motivations of Indians. As a result, the documents that comprise this source base provide a wealth of

information regarding the time period in question, but offer only implicit indications about the importance of the events they detail for the native people of Chiquitos.

I have corrected for the official oversights in the documentary record by critically reading each source against the grain to discern indigenous voices and to uncover the processes through

203 _{Combés, Etnohistorias Del Isoso, 23-27. I employ Combés’s concept of ethnogenesis – the evolving self-identity} of different populations – to trace the emergence of ethnicities over time.

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which diverse native populations crafted and articulated ethnic identities. This analytical approach has enabled me to find evidence that the Indians responded to colonial changes in varied and unpredictable ways in large part because they belonged to separate communities and inhabited different reducciones. Although nearly all of the documents were written by Spanish bureaucrats and church officials with the express purpose of recording imperial endeavors, a number of these sources contain valuable if indirect or faint inferences about the motivations of native cabildo officers and, by extension, the broader indigenous mission populations they represented. While these kinds of documents comprise the majority of my primary source base, the rare documents that explicitly give account of the intersections between native peoples and Iberian institutions are crucial components of my historical inquiry.204 Employing this research design, I examine the cabildos as representatives of the broader indigenous populations of the Chiquitos missions in order to trace their evolving articulations of identity. In accordance with this methodology, I evaluate the ways in which cabildo officers negotiated and influenced post- Jesuit developments and demonstrate how they asserted authority and expressed conceptions of identity in their interactions with different Iberian interlocutors, primarily priests and colonial administrators.205

204 _{Fisher and O’Hara, “Introduction,” 19.}

205 _{David Block, Mission Culture on the Upper Amazon: Native Tradition, Jesuit Enterprise and Secular Policy in} Moxos, 1660-1880 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994). In his study of the Jesuit missions established among the hierarchical native cultures of Moxos, David Block demonstrates a stark divide between the cabildos and the common Indians. The indigenous populations of Chiquitos, however, were more politically and socially

egalitarian than those of Moxos and the divide between the elites of the native councils and commoners was narrower.

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The previous chapter concluded with a discussion of the cabildos and explained that members of these indigenous councils were elected by elite mission Indians to serve as representatives of their distinct parcialidades, and to govern the internal deliberations of the reducciones. This chapter focuses more narrowly on the cabildos and investigates the ways in which native justices maintained authority during administrative changes that occurred in the wake of the Jesuit expulsion. It examines how early post-Jesuit Iberian imperial developments, including the secularization of the missions and the introduction of Bourbon era economic initiatives, continued to influence the evolution of indigenous ethnic identities; a series of

processes that had begun to emerge a century earlier under very different sociopolitical contexts. As we will see, late eighteenth-century Bourbon fiscal policies and power struggles between Spanish colonial officials, secular priests, and different Indian communities altered the nature of the cultural politics through which the cabildos asserted their autonomy and articulated their identities. The methods used by native councilors to achieve these ends, however, were neither uniform nor unified.

Early post-Jesuit administrative modifications and regulatory reforms introduced by colonial bureaucrats impacted the cabildos of Chiquitos and the broader indigenous populations they represented by subtly redefining the basis of ethnic identities. The bishop of the diocese of Santa Cruz, Francisco Ramón Herboso y Figueroa, implemented the first regulations in

Chiquitos following the Jesuit expulsion. Herboso believed that sudden and dramatic changes could upset the province’s indigenous inhabitants and lead to widespread desertion of the mission towns; thus, he worked to execute a seamless administrative transition. To this end, the bishop’s new regulations preserved many sociopolitical elements developed under the Jesuit

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administration, particularly the prominence of the native cabildo.206 _{As discussed in the second} chapter, the Jesuits structured their system of governance – including the cabildo – around the different linguistic and ethnic groups known as parcialidades in each of the ten mission towns. Herboso’s decision to maintain the native councils as well as other components of the Jesuit system allowed mission Indians to assert authority and to retain and affirm the separate identities of the different parcialidades to which they belonged – even if unintentionally. As we will discuss in the final chapter, however, the cabildos’ affirmation of identities linked to distinct parcialidades would become less common after colonial officials imposed new regulations during the final decade of the eighteenth that affected more dramatic changes. These regulations, inspired by political developments in the 1770s during the establishment of a military

government, culminated in an administrative overhaul in 1790 that effectively ended all

remnants of the Jesuit governing structure. Within the bureaucratic, cultural and socioeconomic contexts precipitated by these reforms, the appropriation and assertion of a cohesive Chiquitano identity gradually began to gain importance for the indigenous people of the province.207

Understanding the transformations of civil and ecclesiastical governance in Chiquitos is necessary for discerning the modalities used by native peoples to sustain their autonomy and express separate ethnic identities vis-à-vis evolving colonial initiatives and conflicts. Therefore, this chapter provides a summary of the first post-Jesuit regulations and policies that structured the spiritual and material administration of the missions. The chapter begins with a synopsis of the Jesuit expulsion in Chiquitos and the regulations introduced by Bishop Herboso in 1769. It

206 _{“Relación Informativa Presentada Por El Obispo de Santa Cruz de La Sierra Al Gobernador de Chiquitos, Sobre} El Estado y Modo General de Las Misiones de Chiquitos,” 1769, GRM MyCh 24. II, ABNB.

207 _{Oscar Tonelli Justiniano, Reseña Histórica, Social y Económica de La Chiquitanía (Editorial El País, 2004),} 114–16.

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then turns to an examination of the methods used by native peoples to mitigate the impact of the regime change and concludes with the years immediately preceding the establishment of a military government in Chiquitos – the focus of the following chapter.208

The Jesuit Expulsion and the Regulations of Bishop Francisco Herboso

On 27 February 1767, King Carlos III of Spain signed the Decreto de Extrañamiento – a royal decree to expel the Society of Jesus from Spain and all of its colonies.209 The acting president of the audiencia of Charcas, Juan Martínez de Tineo, was charged with overseeing the expulsion in Chiquitos and Tarija. In order to fulfill the directives of the decree successfully, Tineo had to provide safe passage for the expelled Jesuit priests to Lima where they would join other members of the order from Perú before embarking on their voyage to Europe.210 _{In an} official letter to the governor of Santa Cruz written in July of 1767, Tineo dispatched covert orders to carry out the expulsion.211 The orders included instructions to provide escorts for the Jesuits on their journey to Lima to as far as the Andean city of Oruro and to seize all mission assets and records.212

208 _{Tomichá Charupá, La Iglesia En Santa Cruz, 69. Ochoa became bishop in 1781.}

209

Carlos III, “Expulsión de Los Jesuitas,” April 5, 1767, Estante 6.01, 04 Caja 16, x1-1, ACSC. In a document drafted after the promulgation of his initial decree, Carlos III explains: “Reservo en mi real ánimo, usando de la suprema autoridad, que el todo poderoso ha depositado en mis manos para la protección de mis vasallos, y respeto de mi corona he venido en mandar extrañar de todos mis Dominios de España, y Indias, Islas Filipinas, y demás adyacentes a los regulares de la Compañía de Jesús, así sacerdotes, como coadjutores, o legos que hayan hecho la primera profesión, y a los novicios que quisieren seguirles, y que se ocupen todas las temporalidades de la Compañía en mis dominios.”

210 _{Menacho, Por Tierras de Chiquitos, 117–18.}

211 _{Juan Victorino Martínez de Tineo, “Oficio del Presidente de La Audiencia de La Plata al Gobernador de Santa} Cruz. Comunica a las Instrucciones para el Incumplimiento del Decreto de Extrañamiento de los Padres de La Compañía de Jesús.,” July 19, 1767, GRM MyCh 23. I, ABNB.

212 _{“Oficio Del Gobernador de Mojos Al Presidente de La Audiencia de La Plata, Solicita Los Libros de Entradas y} Salidas Que Manejaron Los Jesuitas En Cada Pueblo y Sobre El Régimen Que Llevaban En El Manejo de Su

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The governor of Buenos Aires, Francisco de Paula y Ursúa Bucareli, received one of the earliest official orders to expel the Society of Jesus from Spain’s American colonies. From Buenos Aires, Bucareli transferred the orders to President Tineo who declared the expulsion effective in the Jesuit missions under his jurisdiction.213 _{Tineo entrusted Lieutenant Colonel} Diego Antonio Martínez de la Torre, the interim governor of Chiquitos, with personally

executing the plan in the remote frontier province.214 _{To this end, on 21 August 1767, Martínez} de la Torre departed from the city of Santa Cruz for Chiquitos in command of eighty mounted soldiers.215

Soon after his arrival in Chiquitos, Martínez de la Torre discovered that there was popular support for the Jesuit priests among the native inhabitants of the missions and therefore the task of forcibly removing them from the province carried the risk of violent reprisals and even open rebellion.216 As a result, Martínez de la Torre and his men had to place their trust in the knowledge and judgement of the Jesuit missionaries and closely collaborate with them in order to carry out the expulsion process peacefully.217 _{Intending to avoid mounting tensions,} upon learning of the expulsion decree, the Jesuit Superior of Chiquitos dispatched a letter to each

Correspondencia y Otros,” 1768, GRM MyCh 2. VII, ABNB. Colonial administrators accused the Jesuits of burning mission records before their expulsion.

213 _{Ernesto J. A. Maeder, “La Organización de La Provincia de Chiquitos En La Epoca PostJesuitica: Diferencias y} Semejanzas Con La Provincia de Misiones de Guaraníes,” Revista de Historia Del Derecho, Instituto de

Investigaciones de Historia Del Derecho 16 (1998): 157–158.

214 _{“Expediente Obrado Sobre El Nombramiento de Gobernadores Para La Provincia de Moxos Al Coronel Don} Antonio Aymerich; y Para La de Chiquitos Al Capitán Don Diego Martínez, y Salarios Que Se Les Deben Asignar,” 1768, MyCh 22. folios 1 - 10, ABNB. Martínez de la Torre served as interim governor of Chiquitos before the Audiencia officially proclaimed the province to be an independent governorship.

215 _{Maeder, “La Organización de La Provincia de Chiquitos En La Epoca PostJesuitica,” 157–158.}

216 _{Tomichá Charupá, La Primera Evangelización, 121.}

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of the reducciones under his jurisdiction with special instructions devised to preclude widespread unrest and insurrection. In his letter, the Superior urged the priests to remain silent about the impending expulsion and instructed them to cooperate with the colonial officers sent to take inventory of the mission assets. His instructions also required at least one Jesuit missionary to remain in each of the reducciones to keep the peace until secular priests arrived from Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca to take charge of the province. Due to these cautious deliberations, the Jesuit expulsion in the Chiquitos province took eight months to complete.218 The entire operation extended from the first day of September 1767 until 18 April 1768.219

Even as the last remaining Jesuits made arrangements to leave Chiquitos, colonial Spanish officials transformed the province into an independent governorship and placed the mission towns under the authority of the diocese of the bishopric of Santa Cruz.220 _{While the} basic corporate structure established by the Society of Jesus continued to function in each of the reducciones – at least in its superficial form – ecclesiastical and civil officials from outside Chiquitos began to transform local political and economic affairs by implementing new policies, many of which were conflicting.221 A royal auto, issued 18 September 1767 and enacted in January of the following year, mandated the creation of a new civil governorship for the Chiquitos province separate from the administrative center of Santa Cruz.222 As an early step

218 _Ibid.

219 _{Tonelli Justiniano, Reseña Histórica, 91.}

220 _{“GRM MyCh 24. II, ABNB.”}

221 _{Cynthia Radding, “Historical Perspectives on Gender, Security, and Technology: Gathering, Weaving, and} Subsistence in Colonial Mission Communities of Bolivia,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society

15, no. 1 (2001): 111. The newly formed governorship of Chiquitos was separate from the governorship of Santa Cruz.

222 _{“Oficio Del Presidente de La Audiencia de La Plata Al Obispo de Santa Cruz, Comunica Que Con El Auto de 18} de septiembre de 1767 Se Aplacará El Genio Del Gobernador de Chiquitos,” 1768, GRM MyCh 23. IV, ABNB. In a

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toward instituting a nominally civil administration in the newly independent province, Coronel de Milicias Francisco Pérez de Villaronte Martínez replaced Martínez de la Torre as the governor of Chiquitos. Upon assuming the governorship, Villaronte faced the imminent challenge of creating and instituting guidelines for a new administrative structure to replace the system of governance created by the Jesuits. Realizing the scale and difficulty of this undertaking, Villaronte turned to the audiencia of Charcas and President Tineo for assistance. For his part, Tineo named Bishop Herboso as special envoy to the Chiquitos province and charged him with appointing secular priests to replace the Jesuit missionaries as the primary administrators of the mission towns.223

The appointment of replacement priests held special importance because it was a

directive expressly mentioned in the instructions that accompanied the royal decree of expulsion. These instructions clearly stipulated that secular clerics must be stationed in every mission town immediately upon the departure of the Jesuit missionaries. Colonial bureaucrats feared that the Indian neophytes of the province might abandon the reducciones if even one day were to pass without the supervision of non-indigenous, outside authority figures. Such a mass desertion, so they thought, would signal the end of the stable institutional presence in Chiquitos that the mission towns had afforded the Spanish crown for three-quarters of a century. Without this presence, they feared that the remote frontier province would become more exposed to illicit

letter dated January 1, 1768, President Tineo instructed Herboso to follow the auto issued during the previous year and create the governorship of Chiquitos.

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trade and opportunistic efforts for territorial consolidation on the part of multiple native polities and aspiring colonists who claimed allegiance to both Spanish and Portuguese crowns.224

The perceived necessity of installing Iberian administrators, as expressed by Tineo and Herboso, reflected the refusal of Bourbon officials to recognize the central position of the cabildos within the mission communities and, by extension, the Indians’ capacity for self- governance. This intransigent disregard for native sovereignty would influence the policies of subsequent administrations, lead to the hasty appointment of incompetent and unscrupulous priests, and give rise to conflicts between indigenous justices and colonial officials.225 Not all of the officials’ perceptions were ignorant or unwarranted, however. Population data compiled in census records of the Chiquitos missions taken during the transition from Jesuit to diocesan administration bear out the prevailing fears of desertion. The following tables summarize this data and show a total population decline of 16% between 1767, the year of the Jesuit expulsion, and 1768, the first year under the new regime. The census records also confirm the importance of the majority indigenous population for maintaining the missions and stabilizing the province – a reality not lost on Herboso.

224 _{Ibid., 97: Tamar Herzog, Frontiers of Possession: Spain and Portugal in Europe and the Americas (Cambridge,} MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 74–78. Jesuits working for both the Spanish and Portuguese crowns were instrumental in consolidating imperial territories throughout the Americas.

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Chiquitos Population Data, 1767 226

Chiquitos Population Data, 1768 227

Missions Parcialidades Families Widows Widowers Single Young Men Single Young Women Souls San Xavier 7 770 25 42 244 168 2,022 Concepción 11 745 15 61 741 620 2,913 San Miguel 4 322 10 24 387 380 1,373 San Ignacio 6 588 7 39 489 422 2,183 San Rafael 3 438 62 35 548 525 2,046 Santa Ana 4 388 4 34 481 476 1,771 San Joseph 3 608 2 29 471 350 2,038 San Juan 6 430 5 31 439 464 1,770 Santiago 5 420 6 13 332 403 1,579 Santo Corazón 3 546 0 44 561 582 2,287 Total 52 5,255 144 352 4,693 4,390 19,981

226 _{“Censo Realizado En La Provincia de Chiquitos, Incluye El Reglamento Elaborado Por El Obispo de Santa Cruz} de La Sierra, Para El Gobierno Temporal y Espiritual de La Provincia de Chiquitos,” 1767, MyCh, 24, I, ABNB. 227 _{“Censos y Padrones Elaborados de Los Pueblos de La Provincia de Chiquitos,” 1768, MyCh, 24. VI, ABNB.}

Missions Families Widows Widowers Single Young Men Single Young Women Souls San Xavier 720 31 51 890 789 3,201 Concepción 713 20 41 998 793 3,278 San Miguel 245 8 20 419 436 1,473 San Ignacio 731 4 34 797 837 2,734 San Rafael 562 20 26 798 778 2,746 Santa Ana 367 8 34 481 530 1,787 San Joseph 618 3 46 780 650 2,715 San Juan 425 10 19 559 515 1,953 Santiago 410 4 58 363 369 1,614 Santo Corazón 532 9 32 560 622 2,287 Total 5,323 117 361 6,645 6,319 23,788

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In addition to the responsibility of appointing secular priests to replace the recently expelled Jesuit missionaries, Bishop Herboso was also charged with creating and implementing guidelines for the priests to observe.228 To achieve this end, Herboso personally embarked on an official tour or visita of the mission towns nearest the city of Santa Cruz to assess the state of the province.229 After concluding the tour at the beginning of 1769, he dispatched two separate reports of his findings to the audiencia of Charcas. The first report, dated February 6 of that year, was accompanied by a set of ecclesiastical precepts comprised of 36 articles created to regulate the conduct of the secular priests.230 This section instituted several practices observed by the Jesuits and codified a number of general rules such as guidelines for the administration of the sacraments, the weekly responsibilities of the priests, directions for keeping parish records, including censuses, and pastoral edicts for encountering sorcery. The articles also included pastoral regulations for dealing with the arrival of forasteros – Indians who fled their labor