Exploring Trinidad's Jesuit ruins

We went over the road to the posada to have breakfast. It was without doubt the best breakfast of the trip so far! Everything was homemade. The scrambled eggs came from their chickens, there was honey from their bees, eight varieties of preserves made from fruit grown in their garden, home-baked white, brown, and rye bread, plus banana bread, fresh fruit and juice, yoghurt, tea, coffee, ham, cheese, and sausage. It was all delicious! We bought two jars each of kumquat marmalade and groseille jam to take to Rio with us 😀.

After breakfast, we walked up the road to visit the ruins of the Jesuit Guarani Mission.

Prior to colonisation by the Spanish, this part of Paraguay was inhabited by the Guarani people. They lived in family groups, sharing a common culture and language, sometimes cooperating with each other and sometimes in conflict. They were polytheists, but they also had a belief in a primal and creator god, and in a soul that survives death. Their traditional festivals with community songs, dances, and prayers, together with their disdain for material goods, meant that they had a lot in common with Christians which surprised and delighted the Jesuits when they arrived to convert the natives.

Unlike the original conquistadors, and the early evangelists, who tried to beat the natives into submission through violence, the religious order of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) founded by San Ignacio of Loyola, grouped the Guarani in towns separate from the Spanish settlers. This way, they protected them from foreign diseases. They also transcribed their language to preserve the Guarani culture. The missions established by the Jesuits were seen not only as a place of religious indoctrination but also as a place of safety from the Spanish.

Santisima Trinidad del Parana was the most complete urban complex of the 30 Jesuit-Guarani towns established in Paraguay. It was the last to be built and was in use for the shortest period. It was founded in 1706 by the Jesuit Juan de Araya with 608 Guarani families. By 1723, the town had 4000 inhabitants. The Church of Trinidad was built in the complex between 1740 and 1760. In 1767, the Spanish expelled the Jesuits from all of their colonies and by 1788 only 57 families remained in Trinidad. The town fell into ruin shortly after.

The amazing remains we see today allow us to understand the organisation of the town and the artistic and technological refinement that the missions achieved. The complex occupies more than eight hectares around a large main square. Around it are located the main church, the school, the workshops, and the Guarani houses. Trinidad also has a second church with a monumental bell tower.

We know a lot about the lives of the people who lived in Trinidad in the mid-eighteenth century. Drummers would walk through the streets at four o'clock each morning to wake the residents and call them to pray in the church. The prayers were always in the Guarani language and were sometimes followed by a communal mass. Breakfast was boiled meat and corn. In the mornings, the children were taught to read, write, do maths, and sing in Guarani, Spanish, and Latin. Some of them were instructed in a craft. Others went with their parents to herd cattle or to cultivate manioc root, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, corn, beans, and cotton. This was in their own fields, the lot that each family received for their livelihood, and in the communal fields which fed the widows and the needy. The women prepared the food, took care of the poultry, made the pots, and spun the cotton to make the clothes that everyone wore.

Everyone was clear about what they had to do. The beginning and end of each work shift was marked by the ringing of the church bells. Only two Jesuits lived in the town alongside 4000 Guarani, so we can be sure that the work was voluntary. Trinidad was a self-sufficient productive unit. Any surpluses were exchanged with those of the other mission towns.

We thoroughly enjoyed walking around this fascinating site and imagining what life must have been like for its inhabitants. We were also taken with the number of owls flying around in the morning sunshine!Read more