“Eles, porém, possuíam, como cristãos, a terra de seus antepassados gentios [...]”. Os litígios pueblerinos e o individualismo reducional no Paraguai colonial

Abstract

This doctoral thesis presents some circumstances that are part of the historical process of colonial Paraguay, including the provincial conflicts. Events that occurred for diferente reasons. In general, they would justify a practice of Jesuit temporality as well as the validity of privilege policies based on ancient traditions. Mosto of the time, they reveal a series of innaccuracies, both in the practical sense and in the application of those sentences. Exposed in this way, and however unusual the outcomes may have been, the conflict episodes allow us to better understand certain regional characteristics, oppositions and defenses of local identities. Therefore, what we have are analyzes of passages that describe an intended and successful “disorientation” through territories already consecrated since pre-colonial times and that needed to go through a series of “cuts” until reaching “measurements” that would transmit an identification of greater importance, while, properties. In order to better describe this reality, our research took into consideration part of the land policy and its productive and territorial development, that is, transformation, not as something that consolidated the purpose of conquest, but that came to represent a symbolic reuse of power over places and non-places that transmitted some importance to the indigenous people. It is no coincidence that the complexity of ethnic groups in disputed lands will be a very present fator in the following lines. By the way, what we describe contributes to an old discussion, which seeks to contextualize the process of transformation of Guaranization by non-Guarani ethnic minorities. In any case, what is precisely interesting in this thesis is to point out the possible ethnic diferences, temporal and, above all, those that expose the atitudes that prevailed on those occasions, since in practice the reductions occurred as a result of distinct historical ethnicities that maintained active territories common memory. More precisely, it does not seem unreasonable to recognize that behind the conception of conquest there continued to be very original narratives that took into consideration the origin time that needed to be overcome. For that reason, on many occasions, reductions perceived this type of control as a chance to not only recover past rights but also to establish new measurements. Intensely, some of them started to see those occasions as a possibility of expressing disapproval of the reduction project. Over time, for each situation it was necessary to resort to evidence that would justify the validity of their actions. Recognizing them in the course of some concerns even allows us to reflect on the weight of those individualities. Finally, if we use the case of provincial conflicts as if they were demonstrating the exhaustion of a historical narrative, it is with the intention of considering that there were difficulties in the reduction project.