livi bacci - population

7/23/2019 Livi Bacci - Population

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The Population of Mainas, Upper Amazon, in the XVIII Century

Massimo Livi Bacci

Universit di Firenze, DiSIA, Viale Morgagni 59, 50134 Firenze, Italia (e-

mail: [email protected])


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La poblacin de Mainas, Alto Amazonas, en el siglo XVIIIMassimo Livi Bacci

Resumen

Al final del siglo XVIII termina un ciclo demografico importante para las

poblaciones del Alto Amazonas. En 1767 la expulsion de los Jesuitas termina el

experimento de las Misiones, iniciado en la cuarta decada del siglo XVII. La

poblacion de los pequenos asentamentos disminuye rapidamente, y el proceso de

fragmentacion de las numerosas "naciones" y etnias, ya iniciado desde la primera

intrusion iberica en la region, accelera. La ponencia analisa los factores politicos,

sociales y antropologicos de la catastrofe demografica en su fase final.

Palabras clave

Amazonas, misiones, Jesuitas, sistema demografico, viruela

The Population of Mainas, Upper Amazon, in the XVIII Century

Massimo Livi Bacci

Summary

The end of the XVIII century marks the conclusion of an important cycle of the

populations of Upper Amazon. In 1767 the expulsion of the Jesuits puts en end to the

experiment of the Missions, initiated in the fourth decade of the XVII century. There

is a sustained decline of the small indigenous settlements and an acceleration of theprocess of displacement and fragmentation of the numerous nations, or ethnic

groups, already initiated with the beginning of the Iberian intrusion in the region. The

paper discusses the political, sociological and anthropological factors of thedemographic catastrophe in its final phase.

Key words

Amazon, mission, Jesuits, demographic system, smallpox


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The Population of Mainas, Upper Amazon, in the XVIII

CenturyThe Upper Amazon is a vast expanse of land extending from the crest of the

Andes to the foot of the mountain chain and further east to the upper course of the

Great River. In this paper, I will deal with the population of part of this region, that inthe XVII and XVIII centuries was known as Mainas, after the name of one of the

many ethnic groups, or tribes, or nations as they came to be named. It can be

described as an irregular triangle, the base on the foot of the Andes and the top at the

confluence of the Amazon with his southern tributary Javar, approximately where

Colombia and Peru border with Brazil. The course of the Putumayo defines the

northern border of Mainas, and that of the Javar the southern one (Maps 1 and 2).

The base of the trianglealong the Andesextends approximately for 700

kilometers (from the equator to 6 south) , while the vertical axis extends for about

1000 kilometers (70 to 78 longitude west); the entire surface is of the same order ofmagnitude of the Iberian peninsula (Livi Bacci, 2012: ).

Only a few years after Cajamarca, the Spaniards attempted to cross the Andes

and explore the eastern reaches of the mountains with the numerous expedition led byGonzalo Pizarro (1540-41) that failed to progress into theselvaafter reaching the foot

of the mountains; his lieutenant, Francisco de Orellana, with 53 companions

descended the tributaries Coca and Napo and navigated the entire River until the

Atlantic and the island of Cubagua, off the Venezuelan coast. The first description of

the river and of some of the sparse populations encountered during the year-long

perilous voyage, is due to the Dominican Friar Gaspar de Carvajal who was amember of Orellanas expedition (Carvajal 1986). Spanish penetration in the eastern

slopes of the Andes, however, started in the 70s and 80s of the century, when

several gold placers were located and a few settlements founded: Sevilla de Oro,

Logroo, Zamora, Valladolid, often of ephemeral duration. Gold search was very

labor intensive and soon the harsh exploitation of Indian labor led to bloodyrebellions and bloodier repressions (1578 and 1599). In the district of Quijosthat

rebelled in 1578the population of indios tributariosdeclined by two thirds between

1576 and 1608 (Livi Bacci 2012: 36-37). The intrusion of the Spaniards east of the

Andes, and the conflicts that followed, determined a fracture or a discontinuity in thenative society between the settlers of the plains and those of the mountains, linked inprecedence by not infrequent contacts (Taylor 1999). The eastern penetration of the

Spaniards led to the foundation of the city of Borja in 1619 on the banks of the

Maraon, just past the last turbulent rapids of the river through the Pongo (gate in

quechua). There, a bloody rebellion of the Mainas against the Spaniards took place in

1635, followed by a devastating repression. It is in the aftermath of the rebellion, in

1638, that the first Jesuits arrived, initiating their work of evangelization that led tothe foundation of dozens of Missions in the region and lasted until 1767, date of the

expulsion of the Order from the Spanish colonies.


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Map 1Mainas region

The arrival of the Jesuist implied also the end of the penetration of the

Spaniards in Mainas: their presence was limited to Borja that remained the

administrative center of the region, seat of a small garrison under the command of a

Lieutenant, and of a few Spanish families.

The missionariesvery few in numbers, as we will seeset to the desperate

task of making contact with the plurality of ethnic groups; inducing them to abandon

their settlements and accept to be reduced in new villages Missionson the

model that was taking shape in other areas of South America. The Missions wereorganized under the unchallenged leadership of a Father, sometime assisted by a

Brother and a viracocha(mestizo). This task proved to be a sisyphean job, due to thepaucity of missionaries, the difficult and precarious communications with the faraway


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headquarters in Quito, the high mobility of the natives, their sparse patterns of

settlement, the deep suspicion for the Europeans, nourished by past experiences, the

frequent presence of soldiers in the first attempts of evangelization.

In this initial phase, the evangelization that initiated among the indios Mainas

in the district of Borja, developed in the lower course of the rivers Huallaga andUcayali, southern tributaries of the Amazon, where some of the most numerous

Map 2The Main Nations of Mainas (stylizes location and extension)

nations lived, such as the Cocamas and the Xeveros. On the banks of the northerntributaries of the Great River, the Tigre and the Curaray, other Missions were

founded. In 1670 Santiago de la Laguna was founded on the Huallaga, close to the

confluence with the Amazon, and this mission became the seat of the Superior of the

Fathers, and the main center of the region. After 1720, the missionary effort reached

the Napo and the middle course of the Amazon, an area that came to be known as

Mision Baja.

During the 130 years of the Jesuits permanence in Mainas, there werenumerous signs of a population collapse. Father Figueroa noted that at the foundation


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of Borja, in 1619, 700 tributaries (indios head of households, between 3 and 4

thousand souls) were distributed in encomiendato 21 Spaniards. In the following

decades their number declined precipitously for the vexations suffered; many escaped

in the thick of theselva; all suffered a very high mortality. They were little more than

400 in 1638 when the Fathers arrived and 200 in 1661(Figueroa 1986: 160). At thislatter date, the indios of the district of Borja where about 1000, and some 500 were

fugitives in theselva, confirming the fact that running away was a primary

component of the demographic system of the region.

According to the same Father Figueroa, the indios in the Missions, in 1660,

numbered about 10,000, but after the smallpox of that year, only 7,000 remained, ofwhom 3,100 had been baptized and the others catecumenos (Figueroa 1986: 239),

part of them were killed by the epidemic and part escaped. Only a fraction of the total

population of the region, that Father Figueroa estimated in about 60,000 (Idem: 241)

lived in the Missions. Figueroa was a reliable observer: he thought that there were

about 40 small different nations (ethnic groups) in the region, each numbering not

more than 1,000 people, and only a score of them of larger dimensions. In his

opinion, since the first entradaof the Spaniards in 1619, the population had declinedby half. Relating the unlucky attempt to convert the Romainas and the Zaparos,

Figueroa wrote that an outbreak of catharro, moquilla y mal de costado and other

diseases had reduced the initial population of about 2,000 indios de lanzato only 300

(Idem: 233). In the latter part of the XVII century, rebellions, repressions, flights kept

in check the expansion of the Missions population. In 1719,in the 28 Missions livedabout 8,000 indios, including a few hundreds cathecumenos, only one thousand more

than those estimated by Figueroa in 1661, after the devastating smallpox epidemics,and notwithstanding the foundation of several new Missions.

Table 1Population of Mainas Missions, 1719-1798

Indios Indios Total Number of Population

Year baptised neophite Population Missions per Mission

1719 7586 380 7966 28 285

1727 5194 748 5942 22 270

1740 9549 1487 11036 32 345

1745 9976 2939 12915 41 315

1760 12229 34 360

1767 11620 154 11774 22 535

1769 9131 32 9163 22 417

1776 8857 70 8927 22 406

1786 9111 22 414

1798 4455 22 203

Source: Golob (1982), Tables 17, 20, 21 and 22, pp. 203-04


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A synthesis of the population dynamic of the Mission indios can be found in

Table 1, where the total population of a varying number of Missions is reported; the

totals in the series are derived from a variety of sources, and refer to the 1719- 1798

period. These enumerations consisted in cuadros sumarios of the individual Missions

compiled by the Fathers or by the Visitors of the district, normally detailing a fewcategories such as the married, the unmarried, children and adolescents.

The criteria for dressing these summary tables were more or less homogeneous,

following the rules of the Church and of the Order; however the conditions under

which the information was gathered were far from being the same, and depended on

the geography, the environment and the social dynamic of each individual mission.New Missions were continuously created while others were abandoned; new ethnic

groups came to live in already structured Missions, while others took flight; several

Fathers had the responsibility of more than one Mission; different Missions were

combined while others split. As said above, in 1719 8,000 indios lived in 28

Missions, but renewed efforts for the evangelization of the Napo led to the foundation

of many new Missions, whose total number increased to 41 in 1745 with a total of

almost 13,000 soulsboth peak numbers for the entire period. When the Order wasdisbanded in 1767, the number of Missions had dwindled to 22, with less than 12,000

indios. After the expulsion of the Fathers the population remained more or less

constant for a while, but at the close of the century had dwindled to 4,500.

For reasons already mentioned, the comparability of the series is insecure, and

the data do not tell us much about the intrinsic dynamic of the Mission populationuntil the Jesuits expulsion, and under secular and then civil control in what remained

of the century. However, it is worth mentioning the fact that the number of Jesuitsoperating in the region had increased to about 30 in the final years of the Jesuit

experiment, attesting to the intensification of the evangelization effort (Golob 1982:

76)..

An improvement on the comparability of the data is obtained in Table 2: for

each time interval, the comparison has been restricted to those same Missions that

were enumerated both at the initial and at the terminal date . Between 1719 and 1740,

the population of 12 Missions has been compared; between 1740 and 1745, 14

Missions, and so on. The Table reveals that during the Jesuit era, population growth

was 1 percent per year, while after the expulsion a negative rate of growth sets in. Inthe Missions existing both at the beginning (1719) and at the end (1776) of the period

aggregate population had increased by two thirds, with a rate of growth of 0.9%.


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Let us assume that the Mission subsets considered in Table 2 were representative of

the entire converted Mission population. Now a rate of growth close to 1% could beconsidered as a symptom of a flourishing population, able to double its size in 70

years or so. This is a rhythm of growth seldom achievedover the long runby pre-

modern populations, normally plagued by high mortality, as it was the case of thenative populations of America. Hence the crucial question: if the populations of the

Amazonian basin suffered a demographic collapseas a variety of indicators appear

to confirm - why were the Mission populations flourishing? Unfortunately we lackthe detailed information that would, perhaps, solve the enigma, such as the

registration of births and burials. This information was almost certainly collected,

since registrations of marriages, baptisms and burials were keptas it is attested by

several sourcesbut they have been lost, or dispersed, or ended up in smoke when a

fire destroyed, in 1749, the general archive of the Jesuit missions that was kept in

Santiago de la Laguna. We cannot therefore understand whether the increaseachieved during the XVIII century was due to an excess of births over deaths, or to an

excess of neophytes newly immigrated over those that kept abandoning the house of

the Father.

However, a key to the solution of the enigma exists. We know that the Fathers were

engaged in a systematic action of exploration and contact with new ethnic groups, in

the attempt of recruiting and attracting in the Missions new souls to be converted.

During the XVIII century, for instance, the Fathers of theMision Bajarepeatedly

consulted in view of the organization of an annual entrada,in search of new recruits

in order to contrast the decline of the Missions. In a long report relating the events of

the period 1750-1761, Father Widman details the expeditions organized by theFathers as well as the number of Indios brought back to the Missions. In those 12

years, 38 expeditions were organized, and a total of 2692 indios had been captured,

recruited or convinced to migrate to the Missions: an average of 228 indios per

year and 71 per expedition (Golob 1982: 275).

In the Mission of San Joaquin de Omagua some indios were regularly

designated in order to escort the Father whenever he organized an expedition, a

symptom that this was a normal mean of evangelization (Uriarte 1952: I, 134) . In theMissions of Paraguayin the valleys of the Parana and Uruguay rivers - as well as in

the Mojos Missions in eastern Bolivia, after an initial phase of active evangelization,through entradasand ad hoc expeditions, proselytism was kept to a minimum and the

Table 2 - Population change in Mainas Missions, 1719-1776

Population at Population at Number of Missions % Population change % population change per Mean Mission Mean Mission

Initial and terminal dates initial date terminal date Compared between initial and year between initial population at population at

terminal date and terminal date initial date terminal date

1719, 1740 8443 10623 12 25,8 1,09 704 885

1740, 1745 4964 5355 14 7,9 1,52 355 383

1745, 1767 5991 7817 13 30,5 1,21 461 601

1767, 1769 7998 7670 14 -4,1 -2,09 571 5481769, 1776 8243 7909 17 -4,1 -0,59 485 465

1719, 1776 3406 5738 68,5 1,03* 704 465

Note: At each pair of dates, initial and terminal, the same Missions have been compared. During the 1719-40, population increased in 7 of the 12 Missions, declined in 4 and

remained unchanged in 1. In the following periods, the number of Missions whose population increased, declined or remained unchanged was, respectively: 1740-45, 6, 7 and 1;

1745-67: 9, 4 and 0; 1767-69:8, 6 and 0; 1769-76: 3, 14 and 0.

* Rate of increase (1,03%) for 1719-67 is the eighted average of the rates for each period, with weights proportional to the number of years in each interval


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Missions thrived because of their own demographic dynamic. Mainas was a different

case, its mobile and fluid way of life required a continuous action of recruitment in

order to counteract their propensity to escape from the order imposed by the Fathers.

Over 200 indios were, every year, induced to join the Missions: in other words,

immigrationin that particular periodwas about 2% per year, or an immigrant forevery two or three newborn. In spite of this considerable inflow, the population of the

Missions was stationary over the period considered, evidence that the process of

immigration and emigration must have been a major factor of the mission indios

demographic system. A system in a continuous tension in order to keep in balance the

repeated flights with new recruitments, as attested by a number of reports andchronicles.

Modern historiography assigns a central and prominent role to smallpox in

determining the post-contact demographic developmentoften disastrousof the

native populations of America. The news of an approaching epidemic would spread

terror among the indios and put the Fathers in a state of deep worry and

apprehension. The Fathers knew that in the wake of their action for converting theheathens came the tinieblas de las pestilencias. But, as I have argued elsewhere,

smallpox although amajor factor of the demographic disasters of American natives,

was not necessarily the major factor. Because of the European intrusion, societies

were de-structured and dislocated; slavery, forced labor and forced migration had

negative demographic consequences; violence and a variety of new diseases affectedmortality.

There are also solid epidemiological foundations to the theory that smallpox(and other epidemics) was one of the actors - and not the sole or principal actorof

the natives demographic collapse (Livi Bacci 2005: 49-52). In a virgin population

(that is, never exposed to the virus contagion, as the American populations were),

and therefore not immune, the first outbreak of smallpox would cause a very high

mortality, that could theoretically reach 30 percent or more of the individuals.

However, general mortality would probably be lower becauseeven in a virgin

populationsome would escape contagion (because of chance, isolation,

biogenetical constitution). In any case, the first outbreak would cause a real

catastrophe, a deep demographic wound: a 30 percent fall of the population cannot beotherwise defined. Similar catastrophes were not uncommon in the ancien rgime(let

us think of the plague, unknown in America, but common amongEurasian

populations) and that could be healed through a normal demographic rebound in the

years following the crisis. Further smallpox outbreaksafter 10, 20 or more years as

it was the case in America in the XVII and XVIII centurywould cause a mortality

lower than the first one, and for several reasons. Let us see why.The first reason is that those that survive contagion acquire a permanent

immunity. In a small community the epidemic burns out for the lack of combustible,

because the individuals are either dead or immune, and this is the reason for theperiodicity of some epidemics. A subsequent epidemic can take place only when a


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sufficient number of susceptible, not immune individuals (those born, or immigrated,

after the first epidemic) had been re-created, and its impact would be lower than the

first one because part of the population (the smaller the farther away is the second

epidemic from the first one) would be immune.

There are also other reasons for the decline of mortality in subsequentepidemics. The first is that a fraction of the population escapes or avoids

contagion, and this fraction tends to increase with time because symptoms tend to be

recognized and contact is avoided. Secondly, there is also an useful process of social

learning: fear is dominated and the sick are not left alone without care, food or water;

empirical remedies are tried and retained if beneficial. The rate of survival maytherefore increase. Many were dying because since they all got sick at the same

time, they could not cure each other, and there was nobody who would give them

bread or other things said Motolinia when commenting on the great 1520 smallpox

epidemic in Mexico (Motolinia 1973: 14). In the third place, there is a process of

selection among those who survive that favours the more resistant individuals who

may pass their favourable traits to the next generation thus diminishing their

vulnerability. Finally there is an almost universal law, verified in innumerablehistorical cases, that implies a rebound after an epidemic shock, or a temporary

surplus of births over deaths. The birth rate increases because of an increase of unions

among survivors who have lost their partners and in many cases also for an increase

in fertility. The death rate declines because the epidemic has wiped away a higher

proportion the vulnerable ones, be they children, old people or frail individuals.

There is no evidence that the smallpox epidemic of 1589 - that hit Peru and avast extension of the south American continentreached the Amazonian region. The

epidemic was said to have caused 7,000 victims in the Quito region (Heredia 1924:

5), but it is possible that its relative isolation shielded the Andean eastern valleys and

the upper Amazon from the contagion. But this relative isolation was soon broken

through the intensification of the contacts with the new cities settled by the Spaniards

Quito, Jaen, Moyobambaand, later on, because of the penetration of the

Portuguese that were expanding upriver from Par. In 1642 smallpox hit Borjas

district Golob 1982: 198): if this was for the first time, we dont know. In 1648, the

Franciscan Friar Laureano de la Cruz, in his third and last year of residence in theriver islands of the Omaguas, describes with precision the explosion of smallpox in

one of the islands he visited, where he was retained by the rising waters of the river in

the rain season. The plague reached the island from downriver and during the night

fell sick an old woman and a boy, in two different huts, and then the infection spread

everywhere in such a way that after a little more than a month everybody, children

and adults, fell miserably sick. Laureano describes the foul smell and the pustules ofthe sick, their suffering and lamentations, and adds that when he departed from the

island one third of the population had died and most of the survivors were

convalescent (Cruz1900: 89-91).


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The following outbreak, in 1660 that consumed large numbers of people

reduced the population of the Missions from 10,000 to 7,000, according to Figueroas

estimates, because of the high mortality and the many flights (Figueroa 1986: 239).

Another general outbreak followed in 1669 . Father Lucero, than in charge of the

Mission of Santiago de la Laguna, reports about the epidemic of 1680. The news thatsmallpox was raging in the upper course of the Huallaga spread downriver; the

Cocamas living in Santiago decided to run away (it was the 23rdday of June, with 75

canoes), while Xitipos eand Chepeos remained in the village. The epidemic reached

La Laguna and the annexed fractions in October and lasted until the following May.

Father Lucero worked hard assisting and healing the sick, but the endeavor to assistso many people in such a torrid climate and with their pestilential stink cannot be

told; beside the Christians, he assisted many catechumens and gentiles: in less than

15 days I christened and confirmed 600 indios (Figueroa et al. 1986: 322-23).The

epidemic did not reach the Omaguas in the Maraon, and therefore the Cocamas that

had found refuge among them escaped the contagion.

For many decades the existing documentation does not mention other

epidemics, except some vague hints about an outbreak in 1740, but without victims(Sweet 1974: 82). In 1749 smallpox raged in the Missions of the Napo river, while

measles hit the Maraon (Heredia 1924: 25). In 1756 a group of residents of Borja

were infected while visiting Jaen, and brought back the disease determining a

general flight from the city, that in that same year was moved downstream. These

people brought the smallpox, of which 40 viracochas died, together with theLieutenant; the indios, with the permission of the Father, escaped to a place called

Puca Barranca, and there they planted their fields. In that way they escaped thecontagion and caused the move of the city in a better and more fertile location

(Uriarte 1952: I, 217).

We have further documentation for the epidemic of 1762: as in preceding

cases, the epidemic entered into Mainas brought from Moyobamba and Lamas; killed

100 persons in Borja and spread downstream reaching the Huallaga and Santiago de

la Laguna; as in the preceding century, the Cocamas took flight first on the Ucayalis

banks and then among the Omaguas with whom they remained for a year. In Santiago

over 200 Cocamillas and Panos died. But in Jeveros, a village of more than 2,000

souls, only a few died because the population took flight to theselvaon time (Idem:265). The flight from the Missions had become a well tested and efficient strategy of

survival. Father Uriartes journal provides another interesting information: Father

Esquini, an Italian Jesuit from Florence, operating among the Chamicuros, saved

many lives practicing inoculation (Idem: 265). In the deep of Amazonia and far away

from the Europe of Enlightenment!

Beside smallpox, other diseases were imported from the Old World, such asmeasles, a variety of influenzas, and other viral diseases compounded, adding to the

pathological complexity and high mortality of Amazonian populations. But there are

no reasons to assume thatafter the first impactthese were more vulnerable thanthe Iberian and European populations. Fevers, diarrhea, catarrh, pulmonary afflictions


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are often cited and were probably common. But smallpox was certainly the most

virulent new disease and its impact was surely destructive at its first appearance.

However, beside the episodes of 1660, 1680-81 and 1762 that certainly were

widespread and destructive, it does not seem to have been the major cause of the

decline. Over 80 years elapsed between the outbreak of 1680 and that of 1762without mention of major catastrophic epidemics. But the territory was immense, the

human density low, the isolation of many initialfociof contagion made difficult the

diffusion of the virus, the art of flight often rehearsed.

The Mission data collected by the Fathers during the XVIII century offer

further elements for the analysis of Mainas demography. Not many indeed, also

because the raw indicators of the age structure that can be calculated are of limited

use: indeed the Missions population cannot be assimilated to a stable population,

given the intense process of mobility, and not much can be inferred in terms of birth

and death rates. The statistical summaries for each Mission normally detail the

number of married people, as well the numbers of the widowed, of the adolescentsand of the children, each category with gender specification. Married males and

married females were equal in number; age limits of the various categories are

certainly not precise, and the number of married couples is assumed to be equal to the

number of families. But families did not coincide with households: in many nations a

household was composed of a plurality of families. Children were those below age 7,while the age limits of the adolescents were 7 year and the age at puberty, lower for

women than for men (presumably 14 and 16 years, as in other areas administered bythe Jesuits) .

There are many doubts as to the actual meaning of the various categories. In

some cases the category of the unmarried seems to include adults who were

widowed; we assume that all adolescents married around the age of puberty (in other

American Missions adolescent girls married at 14-15, and adolescent men one or two

years later), but this might not be true everywhere; it is not certain that the seventh

birthday marked the limit between children and adolescents (in some case there are

visible inconsistencies).

Table 3 assembles the data of 6 Missions that are present in the enumerationstaken between 1740 and 1776, comprising approximately two fifths of the entire

Missions population. I have collapsed the data of the six small Missions in order to

give more robustness to percentages and ratios. But even so, it is only a small

population of a few thousand individuals, of the size of only a few ancien rgime

parishes in Europe. The indicators of Table 3 are quite similar to those of other

American populations: we may compare them with those calculated for the muchlarger population of the Mojos Missions (in eastern Bolivia, at the headwaters of the

Madera river, the main tributary of the Amazon), approximately for the same period

(Livi Bacci 2010: 159).


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Families were small, 4.3-4.7 members on average (even smaller were Mojos

families, 3.9-4.2); there were between 1.2 and 1.8 children per coupe (1.2-1.6 among

the Mojos); among children and adolescent the sex ratio (males to females) ratiovaried between 1.02 and 1.08 (1.07 to 1.18 among Mojo children). The young

(children and adolescent) were almost half the population (45-50 percent, against 46-

48 percent for the Mojos), while the married population represented a share of the

total (42-47 percent) lower than among the Mojos (46-48 percent). All these

indicators are compatible with a high pressure demographic system, with high

birth rates and high death rates, and good potential of growth in normal years that,

however, in the turbulent history of the Missions were neither frequent nor long ones.

Among the Guaranis of the Missions of Paraguayand in the years not upsetby epidemics and conflictsthe birth rate was around 55 per thousand and the death

Table 3 - Structure of the pPopulation of 6 Mainas Missions, always enumerated, 1740 to 1776

1740 1745 1767 1769 1776

Population

Married Men 744 804 1163 1221 1209

Married Women 744 804 1163 1221 1209

Widowers -- 104 51 76 59

Widows -- 186 132 198 197

Unmarried, Men and Women 256 -- -- -- --

Adolescent Males 398 348 686 233 218

Adolescent Females 312 372 453 147 129

Boys 491 486 662 1088 1113

Girls 499 466 693 1052 1063

Neophytes 91 161 20 -- --

Total 3530 3731 5023 5236 5198

Percentages, ratios and rates

Members per family (a) 4,74 4,64 4,32 4,29 4,30

Children per family 1,33 1,18 1,17 1,75 1,80

Chlldren and Adolescents per family 2,28 2,08 2,14 2,06 2,09

Males to Femals ratio (b) 1,10 1,02 1,18 1,10 1,12Widowers per 100 married men 17,2 18,0 7,9 11,2 10,6

Children per 100 population 28,0 25,5 27,0 40,9 41,9

Young per 100 population (d) 48,2 44,8 49,7 48,1 48,5

Married per 100 population 42,2 43,1 46,3 46,6 46,5

Annual rate of population change (%) 2,08 1,11 1,35 2,06 -0,10

Notes: (a) Total population per married couple; (b) Excluded the unmarried; For 1740,

the unmarried were considered to be widowed; (d) Young is the sum of children and adolescents


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rate around 45 per thousand, equivalent to a number of children per woman (TFR) of

7-8, to an expectation of life at birth around 25 years and to a potential rate of growth

of 1 percent or more (Livi Bacci 2008: 258-60 ). Amazonian demography was

probably very similar.

In the American missions the Fathers put at the center of their conversionactivity a few basic principles not to be subverted if a well ordered society was to be

achieved. Marriage could not be dissolved, family life had to be private and

promiscuousness had to be fought. The Fathers knew well that these principles could

not be imposed on adults newly dragged out of their traditional ways of life, and their

strategy was to concentrate their efforts of indoctrination on children and adolescentsin order to grow them as good Christians, obedient to the precepts concerning family

life. They sought an implicit educational monopoly on the very young, and at the age

of puberty the Fathers supervised that a proper marriage be concluded. In such a way,

the first Christianized couples were rapidly formed after the foundation of the

Mission. The action of the Fathers encountered in Amazonia many more obstacles

than in other parts of America, due to their small number strained (less than 30 in the

last decades of the Mission era) in the immensity of the region, the high mobility ofthe population, the instability of the Missions. Only in the largest and more structured

Missions, such as Limpia Concepcin de los Jeveros, Santiago de la Laguna or San

Joaquin de Omaguas, we have evidence of a well organized and regular

indoctrination of children, essential for the new religion to take solid roots.

In 1743, Charles de la Condamine returned to Paris from Peru, where he had

led an official scientific mission, navigating the Amazon. His report to the AcademieFranaise, was rich in scientific observation on the natural life, the geography and the

anthropology of the River: only a century ago, the banks of the Maraon were

inhabited by a great number of nations that retreated in the interior as soon as they

saw the Europeans. One encounters, today, only a small number of villages of

natives, only recently brought out from the forest, themselves or their fathers, some

from the Spanish missionaries in the upriver course, some from the Portuguese

missionaries, in the downriver tract (La Condamine 1981: 70-71). A century later,

Gaetano Osculati, an Italian explorer, who also descended the Amazon, said of the

Napo: After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish America, these villages werecompletely deserted, and so went lost the meager fruits obtained by the missions.

Those barbarians, left to themselves, free to follow their inclinations soon returned to

their original autonomous state, and forgot in a short time what they had learned,

abandoning the Missions buildings and taking refuge in the wilderness and so

disappeared the villages on the Napos banksplaces that still are named onmodern

maps, although nothing is left and everything has returned to the primitive barbarianloneliness. (Osculati 1929 :90-91).

There are many other impressionistic testimonies of the depopulation of the

river, but few data. Those concerning the Missions, as shown in Table 1, point to arelatively stationary level in the last decades of the Jesuit presence in Mainas, and to


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a rapid decline in the last decades of the century. We have shown, however, that the

Missions demography had a potential for growth, more than offset by a large negative

migration. There is also some evidence that whilein the 1660sthe indios of the

Missions constituted a small fraction (perhaps 15-20 percent) of the total population

of the region, their share of the total was much higher (perhaps two thirds) a centurylater. We can summarize the situation as follows:

1)- During the Jesuit period, the Missions population was more or less stable,

in a rgime of demographic high pressure but with a good potential for natural

growth in years not affected by exceptional events;

2)- The relative stability of the population of the Missions, in the XVIIIcentury and until expulsion, was the result of the vigorous activity of recruitment of

new adepts by the Fathers and of the continued foundations of new Missions. This

action of recruitment was barely sufficient to compensate the emigration from the

Missions due to flights, or to the outright collapse of many Missions, whose duration,

on average, was very short (about 20 years);

3)- For the native population outside the Missions a sustained decline is highly

plausible, but there is no direct quantitative evidence.

The first point is in line with the observed population dynamic of other Jesuit

missions of south America; while the instability of the missions and the high innate

mobility of the riverine populations (point 2) is abundantly proved. But why did the

rest of the population decline? Three hypotheses can be advanced. The first is flight:the apparent depopulation was only due to the retreat in the thick of theselva,

removed from the riverine areas where most of the population of the Amazon basinlived. They just disappeared from human eye: the decline is therefore a visual

artifact.

A second possible explanation follows from the first: escaping the European

intrusion and retreating in theselvameant settling in areas less suitable to the indios

traditional ways of life, where adaptation and survival conditions were more difficult.

Indeed the potentials for survival were much higher in the riverine areas, from which

they retreated, than in the forest backlands.

The third explanation concerns the process of fragmentation that the European

intrusion brought about in the already dispersed pattern of aggregation of the nativepopulation. The various groups or nations were often very small, consisting of a

few hundred individuals: their dispersal often implied further fragmentation, and the

fall (for many of them) below a minimum numerical threshold. Under this

threshold, random fluctuations of births and of the sex ratio could easily compromise

the fertility potential, depress reproduction and cause extinction.


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