based around the Jesuit Mission, the first reducao, Indian settlement, was founded in the early 17th century, 30 others followed. all in the new staates of Brasil, Argentina and Paraguay in the north-eastern corner of Rio Grande do Sul/Brasil, close to the Town of Santo Angelo, one of the most impressive Jesuit Mission.
what started out as an independent indigenous and self governing Indian settlement and could have been an integration and a great achievment of human kind, all turned sour. the chance in doing so was lost, when the catholic church in Rome feared, that the order of the Jesuits would become too powerful or too independent from the papal authority. Spanish and Portugues forces attacked the Missions in the 1750's, secretly supported by Rome, forcing the Jesuits to leave and capturing the Indians for Slave labour, but many where killed, the Missions dissolved, or razed to the ground, abandoned to nature, surviving only as ruins. the New Countries, Brasil, Argentina and Paraguay made great efforts to restore the bigger Missions |