Black-Robe Shamans: The Jesuits and the Guarani Land-Without-Evil

Abstract

The Jesuits utilized the appropriation of the Tupí-­‐Guaraní culture and spiritual practices as a means of quasi-syncretic evangelization in the Southern Cone. However successful, this doctrinally controversial activity fueled the fire of suspicion against the Jesuits within the Church and -- along with the resistance by the Jesuit reductions to slave raids, their high degree of sociopolitical autonomy, and economic success -- contributed to the eventual expulsion of the order from the Americas in 1767, after which the majority of their missionary work was undone.