The Franciscan Provinces of South America Marion A. Habig The Americas, Vol. 2, No. 1. (Jul., 1945), pp. 72-92. Stable URL http: flinksjstor-org/sici%sici= 13-1615%28194507%292%3A1%3C72%3A TEPOSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 The Americas is currently published by Academy of American Franciscan History, Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at bhupulwww.jstororg/about/terms.hunl. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of « journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial us. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hutp:/www jstor.org/journals/aath him. 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For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org, hupulwwwjstor.ore/ Thu Dee 7 12:31:36 2006‘THE FRANCISCAN PROVINCES OF SOUTH AMERICA URING the three centuries of the colonial period, Franciscan friars devoted themselves to the Christianization and civili- zation of the natives and the spiritual care of settlers in all the regions now comprising th¢ nine Spanish American Republics of South America, in the Portuguese American Republic of Brazil, and even in the Guianas; and though the various units of the Franciscan Order suffered considerable reverses during the wars for independence and subsequent disorders of the nineteenth century, the sons of St. Francis are today in all these countries with the exception of Venezuela and the Guianas. “South America,” writes Dr. Leonard Lemmens, “became the largest mission field of the Franciscans in modern [colonial] times. Missionaries of the Order were here, and, if we except Guyana and Patagonia, remained in every country up to the time of the Revolu- tion, In some territories they were the first and for some time the only missionaries. Their number was never equalled by any other religious order. When other religious orders which partici- pated in the missionary work at the beginning restricted themselves afterwards to the sacred ministry among Christians, the Fran- ciscans followed the pagan Indians who withdrew into the virgin forests and plains, and continued the work amid a thousand dangers, in some places down to the present day” (Geschichte der Fran- ziskanermissionen, p. 269). ‘The history of the friars’ work in South America, however, is even less known than that of Spanish North America. Rippy- Nelson’s Crusaders of the Jungle, for instance, mentions only in passing the work of the Franciscans in some of the eight “ principal frontier mission fields of Spanish South America, 1600-1800; ” and they could very well have increased the number of “ principal frontier mission fields” by adding such Franciscan mission fields as (1) Putumayo, (2) Ucayali, (3) Cerro de la Sal, (4) Tucumin. These and others, at any rate, deserve no less to be ranked among the principal frontier mission fields of Spanish South America dur- ing the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the colonial period nine fully organized Franciscan Provinces were established in South America from 1553 to 16753 and during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries twenty-four additional Franciscan Apostolic Colleges were founded in Spanish South America. At the present day there are nine Provinces, three Independent Commisariats and ten Dependent Commissariats, nManton A. Hanic, O.F.M. 73 which have charge also of five Vicariates Apostolic and three Pre- latures mullius; and the total number of Franciscan friars in South America is now 2,432, with 335 friaries. Add to these figures the 3,671 friars and 346 friaries of North and Central America, and there are thus in the Americas of today 6,103 Franciscan friars and 781 Franciscan friaries. It may be well to mention that we shall follow the same method here as in the survey of the Franciscan Provinces of Spanish North America (THE Americas, I, 88-92). By Franciscans we mean the Order of Friars Minor, and hence the Capuchins are not in- cluded. First we shall present an outline of the missions of the nine Provinces of South America in this order: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and the two of Brazil. ‘The work of the Dutch friars in colonial Guiana and the islands of Curagao, Bonaire and Aruba will be described separately, following the section on Venezuela. The Apostolic Colleges are reserved for another study. At the end of each section we shall offer a brief bibliographical essay. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Besides the works mentioned in the general introduction (Tie AMicas, I, 91-92), especially: Conspectus Missionum; Lemmens, Geschichte; Civezza, Storia: Gonzaga, De Origine; Maas, Las Ordeness Parras, Gobierno; Teuxillo, Exbortacién; Ocaiia, Relacin; Streit, Bibliothece; and the Espasa Enciclopedia, ic will be well bbe wel to list the following for South America. ‘An English translation of Aleedo's Diccionario, mentioned together with the above, was published in London, 1812: The Geography and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies, 5 vols. A general history of the Franciscans in Latin America is that by Francisco Alvarez de Villanueva, Relaciin histrica de... los pp. Franciscanos en las Indias (Madrid, 1892). This is the only Franciscan reference given by Edwin Ryan, The Church in the South American Republics (Milwaukee, 1932). Helpful also are the following: Cartas de Indias, published by the Ministerio de Fomento, Madrid, 1877; Recopilacién de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1774); Juan Solérzano Pereyra, Politica Indiana, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1739); and to some extent Jorge Juan y Antonio Ulloa, Noticias Secretes de Americe of the eighteenth century, republished in London, 1826, and in Madrid, 1918, and also tcanslated into English: A Voyage to South America, 2 vols. (London, 1806). Filing as it does by excessive generalizations, che latter work has been misused, very much like those of Las Casas and Thomas Gage (A New Survey of the West Indies, published in London, 1677) (OF carly travel books may be mentioned: A. F. Fretier, A Voyage fo the South-Sea and along the Cousts of Chili and Peru in the Years 1712, 1713, and 1714 (London, 1717); F. Depons, Travels in South Americs, 2 vols. (London, 1807); and especially Alexander von Humbolt, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, 3 vols. London, 1852).