Misiones Province

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1846 impression of San Ignacio Miní, a Jesuit Reduction, abandoned following the temporary abolition of the order in 1773.

In the 17th century, members of the Society of Jesus came to the zone. These missionaries began to build a string of Jesuit Reductions, that of San Ignacio being the most famous. In a few years, they managed to create 30 villages, wherein the Guarani, who had long been victims of the jungle and European slave-drivers alike, became skilled in agriculture and the arts, sharing in the Reductions' prosperity. In 1759, however, the Portuguese government, at the insistence of its anti-Jesuit chancellor, the Marquis de Pombal, ordered all Reductions in its territory (which then included much of today's Misiones Province) closed. The Marquis eventually prevailed on Pope Clement XIV to have the Jesuit Order suppressed in 1773. Once abandoned, the prosperous trade surrounding these Reductions quickly either vanished or degenerated into a brutal plantation economy, with the Guaranies its slaves.