Education, Religion, and Corruption/Prosperity (A), (B), (C), (1), (2)

This chapter demonstrates the influential association of Protestantism and prosperity by explaining its historical focus on education and human capital building.Historically (and statistically), one key mechanism driving prosperity/transparency has been the Protestant emphasis on literacy so as to promote reading and understanding the Bible among wider circles (Becker & Woessmann, 2009). This contrasted starkly with the Roman Catholic practice of reciting parts of the Gospel in Latin scholarly language to mostly illiterate peasants (Androne, 2014). The teaching of God’s Word in vernacular languages created linguistic and methodical skills (i.e. exegetical understanding) that proved valuable beyond the religious realm. This practice also led to the accumulation of human capital, and thereby opened and perpetuated an important educational (and hence prosperity) gap between Protestants and Roman Catholics over time.As part of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits have competed with Protestant education but attaching less importance to the Scriptures in their schooling. Some South American areas influenced by Jesuit missions exhibit 10–15% higher human capital and income than the surrounding Catholic populations. Yet, Jesuit instruction has been largely elitist and far less encompassing than Protestant educational coverage and accomplishment.

Bourbon-Era Mission Reform

After the Spanish colonized California in 1769, Franciscans from the Apostolic College of San Fernando (Mexico City) established missions but implemented a new model to more rapidly integrate indigenous populations into colonial society as per the expectations of royal officials. The indigenous populations were to be congregated on mission communities organized on the grid plan and were to live in European-style housing. This article examines the reform of missions in the Sierra Gorda, Baja California, on the ex-Jesuit missions among the Guarani in South America, and then those in California among the Chumash. It analyzes the process of congregation and the mission urban plan, resistance, and demographic collapse resulting from congregation.

Jezuitské misie z Telče na sever Čech ve druhé polovině 17. století

The text deals with Jesuit missions to the north of Bohemia in the second half of the 17 th century with an emphasis on the missionary activities of the house of the third probation i n Telč. With regard to the process of re-Catholicization in the second half of the 17th century, Frýdlant (Friedland) and Liberec (Reichenberg) represented a specific region, as is evident from Jesuit sources about missions to the local region. Missions from Telč to northern Bohemia, which took place regularly in the second half of the 17th century, played a significant role in the process of re-Catholicization of the area. The Jesuits of Telč often headed to localities near the borders or in mountaino us areas, where non-Catholic religions persisted. It is probable some of the transitions to Catholicism were only of formal nature. Unlike in the past, however, the missionaries focused exclusively on non-repressive ways of converting to the faith to prevent further emigration. Their focus was on helping with the parish administration, confessions, and promoting Catholic customs. Missionary work also included acts of charity and caring for one’s neighbor.

“The Jesuit mission proves we were here”: The Case of Eighteenth-Century Jesuit Missions Aiding Twenty-First Century Tribal Recognition

Records indicate that during the French colonial period, Jesuits established four mission congregations within the territory now known as Vermont. These missions were established to preach to both French colonists and Native converts on Isle La Motte, on the Missisquoi River in Swanton, at Fort Saint-Frédéric on Lake Champlain, and in the area known as the Koas on the Connecticut River. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Abenaki peoples of Vermont have had a long and difficult road to gain state and federal recognition. These descendant communities have invoked the existence of Jesuit missions to the Abenaki as proof of the current tribal governments’ legitimacy. This is intriguing considering the blame for cultural destruction is often laid at the feet of Jesuit missionaries. This paper examines the relationship between historical and archaeological evidence of French Jesuits and the legal legitimization of the Abenaki of Vermont.

The Orientation of Jesuit Churches in the Chiquitos Missions of Eastern Bolivia

The Jesuit missions in South America were an important factor in the evangelisation of the continent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, although the history and cultural aspects of the distinctive settlements that the missionaries created for indigenous peoples have been examined extensively, studies that address issues relating to archaeoastronomy have only recently begun to appear, primarily in relation to the orientation of churches built for Guaraní peoples in the Jesuit Province of Paraquaria (Province of Paraguay). The current paper continues and complements these studies of the region with the first archaeoastronomical study of the nearby Jesuit missions of Chiquitos in eastern Bolivia, focusing on measurements taken at the ten mission churches, interpreted within the context of the surrounding landscape and the characteristics of the villages where the churches are located. Our results show that in contrast to the churches of the Province of Paraquaria, where north–south meridian orientations predominate, half of the studied Chiquitan Jesuit churches show potential canonical orientations that seem to be aligned to solar phenomena, with three exhibiting precise equinoctial orientation. In this paper I propose reasons for these orientations, including the possible relevance of illumination effects on significant internal elements within the churches – effects that were generally sought in Baroque church architecture.

Revisiting De Christiana Expeditione as an Artefact of Globalisation

For Europeans, Matteo Ricci's mission memoirs proved to be the most comprehensive and accessible book about China. Ricci's account of the early Jesuit mission was immensely popular, receiving translations into most European languages. Until the twentieth century, however, anyone who read Ricci's narrative was not reading what Ricci himself had written. Rather, they were reading a curated translation produced by one of his successors, Nicolas Trigault. The resulting work, De Christiana Expeditione apud Sinas, was an edited translation, substantially the same but often different than Ricci's original manuscript. This article reexamines Trigault's translation, on its own terms, as an artefact of globalisation. Not only does the adaptation reveal information about the Jesuit missions that Ricci's manuscript did not, but it also had a significant impact on European Catholics, as its dissemination inspired would-be missionaries to seek their vocations in China.

The Guenoa Minuanos and the Jesuit Missions among the Guaraní

The Jesuit province of Paraquaria included missions established within both sedentary and non-sedentary indigenous groups. This study examines the Guenoa Minuanos and their interactions with the Jesuit mission San Francisco de Borja. The Guenoa Minuanos were a non-sedentary group that lived in the Banda Oriental, or what is today Uruguay and Rio Grande do Sul. Some bands chose to settle on the missions and particularly San Francisco de Borja, while other bands allied with the Portuguese. This study focuses on the bands that settled on the San Francisco de Borja mission.

Missionary Men in the Early Modern World

How did gender shape the expanding Jesuit enterprise in the early modern world? What did it take to become a missionary man? And how did missionary masculinity align itself with the European colonial project? This book highlights the central importance of male affective ties and masculine mimesis in the formation of the Jesuit missions, as well as the significance of patriarchal dynamics. Focusing on previously neglected German actors, Strasser shows how stories of exemplary male behavior circulated across national boundaries, directing the hearts and feet of men throughout Europe toward Jesuit missions in faraway lands. The sixteenth-century Iberian exemplars of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, disseminated in print and visual media, inspired late-seventeenth-century Jesuits from German-speaking lands to bring Catholicism and European gender norms to the Spanish-controlled Pacific. The age of global missions hinged on the reproduction of missionary manhood in print and real life.