Spiritual Conquest

Available for the first time in English, THE SPIRITUAL CONQUEST is a moving first-hand account of the early days of one of history's most remarkable social experiments, the Paraguay Reductions. In the early 1600's, a handful of unarmed members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) penetrated the forests of present-day Paraguay & surrounding territories, & gathered tens of thousands of semi-nomadic Indians into large & prosperous towns. After flourishing for nearly 150 years both materially & artistically with their Jesuit mentors, these oases of independent Christian Indian civilization fell victim to European colonists' violence & rapacity. De Montoya's book is a fundamental & frequently cited document of South American history & ethnography. He vividly evokes the vast country he describes: its forests, its mighty rivers, its wild animals, its varied native peoples. He tells of the Jesuit efforts to establish their Christian towns, the opposition of both European colonists & native chiefs & sorcerers; he depicts the naive piety of the Indian converts, the frequent occurrences of the supernatural, the ever-present reality of cannibalism , the grim fact of martyrdom, the day-to-day life of the indigenous people & of the Jesuits.De Montoya, Antonio R. is the author of 'Spiritual Conquest' with ISBN 9781880810033 and ISBN 1880810034.