South America was a hotbed of colonial activity in the seventeenth century. Officially the continent was split between Spanish and Portuguese control by edict from the Roman Catholic Church, but the Protestant Dutch made inroads with their own settlements. Striking out from their haven ports, the Dutch acted as pirates, capturing ships and disrupting Portuguese sea traffic. Often cut off from the mother-country, Portuguese Brazil went on its own path of operating plantations worked by thousands of native slaves. With an ever-present need for more slaves, as well as promises of silver and precious stones hidden inland on the continent, adventurers called “bandeiras” made treasure-seeking expeditions. The well-armed bandeiras easily captured natives, the vast majority of whom died on the long journey back to Sao Paulo.
Farther south, a very different path had been ordered by the governor of Spanish Paraguay. Funds and support were dispatched to Jesuit missionaries to establish settlements and evangelize among the native Guarani. Towns were built, and locals readily adopted the European trades, rapidly expanding the economic potential of the region. The missions also offered protection against the slavers since converted natives were technically not to be taken as slaves.
It was not long before the reaches of the Guarani caught the attention of the bandeiras. The Guarani massed near the missions, making for an opportunity to capture masses of slaves in one action. Moreover, the slaves would be valuable in the markets of Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro for their skills. Though the bandeiras ignored the laws preventing enslaving Christians, most of the natives followed the law of not carrying weapons. Raids began in 1620, and they increased with such severity that even the natives who weren’t captured fled south, depopulating the region.
The Jesuits and native leaders were determined to fight back. Father Francisco Diaz Tano and other priests traveled to Europe, pressing King Felipe IV to allow natives firearms to defend themselves and Pope Urban VIII to condemn the bandeiras capturing converts. Even before those orders were passed, the governor of Paraguay dispatched reinforcements to the mission defenders and encouraged Guarani to be armed and trained.
Bandeiras parties soon came upon ambushes with well-armed opponents. The hills and forests where natives had been terrified to live now became places of terror for the bandeiras, who were attacked and pursued whenever they were discovered. A group of them took refuge in the remains of a mission near Mborore Mountain that bandeiras had destroyed some time before, and others joined them in an organized defense. More than 4,000 missionaries and Guarani converts marched on the makeshift fort. After a devastating battle, the bandeiras surrendered, pleading with the victors to grant them Christian forgiveness and allow them to flee. Instead, the victors decided swift punishment was due to the slavers and executed them for their crimes.
Months passed in Sao Paulo without word from their bandeiras expeditions to the upper reaches of the Parana River. Rumors trickled back that the natives had begun fighting back, which unnerved the plantations and government, even more so since there were no hard facts to back it up one way or another. The adventurers simply seemed to disappear.
Hard truth did arrive when Father Tano and his fellows returned from Europe with new laws and papal bulls that brought an end to Portuguese incursions into the area. By that point, the Paulistas were happy enough to leave it be.
The Guarani success was a splash that caused ripples all through the continent. Indigenous slavery practically ended within the Spanish realm with numerous uprisings to break the hold of plantation owners. Uprisings took place throughout Brazil, too, sponsored by Jesuits seeking better care and even freedom for those enslaved as well as Dutch adventurers looking to break Portugal’s hold on the region. The economy shifted away from huge plantations seeking cash crops at the expense of workers’ lives to family-run farms and businesses, creating a strong middle class by the eighteenth century. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, South Americans were eager to implement modern technology for manufacturing and transport, making the continent one of the major centers of production in the modern world.
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In reality, the defeated bandeiras escaped to Sao Paulo, where they spread the word of the armed uprising. The plantations and government dismissed Father Tano despite his documents from Europe, going as far as banishing all the Jesuits from the capital. Manuel Pires formed up an army of hundreds of bandeiras and thousands of Tupi warriors who marched to destroy the defenders utterly. Waves of bandeiras from Sao Paulo ravaged the region for years before trained armies of Guarani affirmed their defense of the region. The 1750 Treaty of Madrid moved the border westward, resulting in seven years of guerilla warfare until the last of the Guarani were defeated.
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