This study sets out to examine the interactions of the Spanish and Portuguese with the non-sedentary indigenous peoples that occupied what today is Uruguay, southern Rio Grande do Sul, and adjoining parts of Argentina through the lens of imperial efforts to define the boundaries in the disputed Río de la Plata borderlands in the Treaty of Madrid (1750) and the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1777). This is done through a perusal of the bi-national commissions created to delineate and map the border in the 1750s and 1780s, and the use of maps to validate territorial claims in the context of the evolving European definition of what constituted the control of territories outside of Europe. Related to this were the interactions between the non-sedentary peoples and the boundary commissions, and the process of the subjugation of much of the territory divided, at least on paper.
Chapter one offers a well-documented albeit somewhat myopic summary of the political and social organization of the non-sedentary populations that lived in mobile settlements known as tolderías, and the different “ethnic” names the Spanish and Portuguese created to try to categorize this folk. Chapter two outlines the Spanish–Portuguese conflict over the disputed Río de la Plata borderlands, and the mapping of rival territorial claims as a preliminary to the 1750 Treaty of Madrid and the 1777 Treaty of San Ildefonso boundary setting. Chapter three discusses the organization of the bi-national boundary commission, the difficulty of setting the boundary, and interactions with the commissions had with the non-sedentary peoples. Absent from the author’s discussion is the long history of Spanish–Portuguese conflict and particularly of the declared and undeclared war between the two countries in the 1760s and 1770s that set the stage for the Treaty of San Ildefonso, and a more detailed discussion of the role of non-sedentary indigenous peoples in the war. Having defined the boundary, chapter four and five discuss what can be called the subjugation of the territory just divided but that neither Spain nor Portugal controlled in its entirety.
This book would have benefitted from a closer reading of the literature on the Guaraní missions and particularly as it overlapped with his subject, and in bringing it to publication a more critical reading by anonymous peer reviewers. In his study, Erbig discusses projects to establish reducciones among the tolderías, including Jesuit projects to establish missions among the different non-sedentary groups in the region (61). The author noted, for example, several initiatives between 1749 and 1752 that did not come to fruition, and includes a table summarizing such projects the majority of which he notes were not established. Many of the projects certainly failed, but not all. An example is Jesús María de los Guenoas mission that Erbig says the Jesuits established in 1682 and was short-lived. The record shows, however, that the Jesuits established the mission around 1690, and that it existed for thirty years until the Jesuits merged it with San Francisco de Borja mission following a severe smallpox epidemic in the years 1717–18 that reduced the size of the mission population (Robert H. Jackson, Demographic Change and Ethnic Survival among the Sedentary Populations on the Jesuit Mission Frontiers of Spanish South America, 1609–1803: The Formation and Persistence of Mission Communities in a Comparative Context [Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2015], 247; Jackson, “La población y tasas vitales de las otras misiones jesuíticas de la Provincia de Paraguay y Moxos,” IHS: Antiguos jesuitas en Iberoamérica 6, no. 1 [Enero–Juni 2018]: 104–18, here 106).
In not examining in more detail the question of the failure of many of the projects to establish missions among the tolderías, Erbig missed an opportunity to understand the mentality of the non-sedentary groups beyond the role of the caciques or community leaders. A study of the contemporary Chaco mission San Fernando de Abipones suggested that men resisted mission life because farming was very similar to the gendered task of collecting wild plant foods that was generally done by women. Men gained status as hunters and warriors, and not by doing work normally reserved for women (Jackson, Demographic Change and Ethnic Survival, 128–30).
In chapter 5 (139–41), the author discusses the mostly Spanish raids on and the capture of toldería residents. One example was the Battle of Yi in 1702 and the capture of some five hundred people by the Guaraní mission militia that the author stated were distributed to the “recently” established mission San Francisco de Borja (actually founded in 1687) and Jesús. There is confusion regarding the second mission. Does the author refer to Jesús María de los Guenoas or Jesús Mission established in 1685 in what today is southern Paraguay? In discussing post-expulsion out-migration from the missions and settlement on tolderías, the author notes in an endnote (203n77) that Guaraní flight began at the time of crisis that followed the Treaty of Madrid and the effort to get the residents of the seven missions east of the Uruguay River to relocate. Guaraní flight actually began earlier. In 1735, the Jesuits reported that 8,022 Guaraní had fled the missions during an ecological crisis (Robert H. Jackson, Regional Conflict and Demographic Patterns on the Jesuit Missions among the Guaraní in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries [Leiden: Brill, 2019], 18–19). Erbig does not discuss the creation of Guaraní diaspora communities in the region he studies, and what interactions, if any, the tolderías had with these communities. One was La Viboras formed in 1758 by refugees from the failed resistance to the Treaty of Madrid. It existed until 1846 (Jackson, Demographic Change and Ethnic Survival, 167).
Detail of the 1691 General Census of the “Guaraní Mission Complex” showing the populations of San Francisco de Borja and Jesús María de los Guenoas Missions
Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 8, 1 (2021) ; 10.1163/22141332-0801P006-10
Detail of the 1720 General Census of the “Guaraní Mission Complex” showing the two missions merged
Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 8, 1 (2021) ; 10.1163/22141332-0801P006-10
Erbig used an impressive set of primary sources in this study, illustrated this volume with contemporary maps, and created a remarkable set of maps that tracked the movements of the mobile tolderías over time. He has given a voice to the non-sedentary indigenous peoples, although only a part of their history. On the other hand, while the author rails against other studies that render interactions between sedentary and non-sedentary indigenous peoples to a “diametric opposition” (165), he basically does the same in describing relations between the Guaraní on the missions and their non-sedentary neighbors that were more complex and nuanced than the author presents. The author talks about a monolithic “Guarani Mission Complex,” which is no different from the past practice of lumping together the different non-sedentary communities the author studies. For one, there was considerable variation between the mission communities, and the mission militia was generally mobilized at the behest of royal officials or the Jesuit leadership. Moreover, the missions changed over time. For example, the author discusses the creation of new mission ranches after the Jesuit expulsion in 1767. This was the project of the civil administrators of the post-expulsion missions who had a mandate to generate income to cover the costs of civil administration. The history of the interactions between the Guaraní and tolderías was just as important. Although it has an interesting and important story to tell, generally is well written, and contributes to the literature, at the same time, this study is disappointing.
