Reductions

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A church was always at the center of the reductions; this one is in Loreto, Baja California Sur.

Reductions (

missionaries in Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies (the Philippines). In Portuguese-speaking Latin America, such reductions were also called aldeias. The Spanish and Portuguese relocated, forcibly in many cases, indigenous inhabitants (Indians or Indios) of their colonies
into urban settlements modeled on those in Spain and Portugal. The Royal Academy of Spain defines reducción (reduction) as "a grouping into settlement of indigenous people for the purpose of evangelization and assimilation."
Jesuits), or secular, under the control of Spanish or Portuguese governmental authorities. The best known, and most successful, of the religious reductions were those developed by the Jesuits in Paraguay and neighboring areas in the 17th century. The largest and most enduring secular reductions were those imposed on the highland people of the former Inca Empire of Peru during the rule of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo
(1569–1581).

During the early stages of

Christianisation of the Americas, Spanish Catholic authorities might establish ecclesiastical missionary proto-parish subdivisions - Spanish: doctrinas; singular: Spanish: doctrina, lit.'doctrine' – for the indoctrination of the faith.[6][7]

The Caribbean

The policy of reductions was begun in 1503 by Spanish colonists on

detribalize the residents to create a generic, pan-Indian population, disregarding their numerous tribes and different cultures.[10]

North America

The Spanish began creating reductions in Mexico shortly after

Hernan Cortés's conquest in the 1520s. They were begun in Baja California in the 17th century and California in the late 18th century. Reductions in Mexico were more commonly known as congregaciones.[11]

South America

Jesuit order of the Catholic Church.[13]

The Philippines and Micronesia

In the

babaylan). In some cases, entire villages would move deeper into island interiors to escape the reductions.[16]

A similar policy was implemented in the nearby Mariana Islands during the Spanish–Chamorro Wars (1670–1699).[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Reducciones". Dicionario de la Lengua Espanola. Real Academia Espanola. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  2. Hispanic American Historical Review
    , vol. 29, (1947) no. 3, pp. 349–369
  3. The Americas
    , vol. 12, no. 2, Oct 1955, pp. 115–137
  4. ^ Austin, Shawn Michael (2020). Colonial Kinship. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. pp. 219–220. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  5. ^ Altman, Ida. Life and Society in the Early Spanish Caribbean: The Greater Antilles 1493-1550. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 2021, pp.33, 46
  6. ^ "doctrina" [doctrine]. Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish). Madrid: Real Academia Española. 2023. Retrieved 22 May 2023. En América, distrito eclesiástico servido por un sacerdote expresamente nombrado para adoctrinar a la población indígena. [...] En América, pueblo de indios recién convertidos, cuando todavía no se había establecido en él parroquialidad o curato.
  7. ^ Sparks, Garry, ed. (3 July 2017). "Highland Maya Theological Production". The Americas' First Theologies: Early Sources of Post-Contact Indigenous Religion. AAR Religion in Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 213. . Retrieved 22 May 2023. This particular use of the term doctrina by Dominicans to refer to a specific kind of geographic locale that predated the parish in the region should not be confused with the other more general understanding of doctrina as doctrine, teaching, or instruction in the religious or non-religious sense [...].
  8. .
  9. ^ Mumford, Jeremy Ravi (2012, Vertical Empire: The General Resettlement of Indians in the Colonial Andes, Durham: Duke University Press, p. 44
  10. ^ Stern, Steve J. (1993), Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, p. 80
  11. ^ Leal, Juan Felipe and Rountree, Mario Huacuja (2011), Economic y sistema de haciendas en Mexico, Juan Pablos, Editor, D. R. Voyeur, pp. 22-23
  12. ^ Mumford, p. 190
  13. ^ Caraman, Philip (1976), The Lost Paradise: the Jesuit Republic in South America, New York: Seabury Press.
  14. .
  15. . Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  16. .
  17. .

Further reading

Hispanic American Historical Review
, vol. 29, (1947) no. 3, pp. 349–369