Archibald Smith

Missionary College of Ocopa.—Its foundation, utility, downfall, and decree for its restoration.—Introduction of Christianity along the rivers MaraÑon, Huallaga, and Ucayali, &c. by the Jesuits and Franciscans.—Letter from Friar Manuel Plaza, the last great missionary of Ocopa, to the prefect of Junin.

Could the department of Junin boast of no other advantages than those which arise from the quantity of precious metal which it annually furnishes, it would be sufficient to substantiate its superior claim to the attention, not of the Peruvian government alone, but to that of all other countries in friendly and commercial relations with Peru.

Higher sympathies, however, than such as emanate from mere pecuniary considerations, must be awakened when it is remembered, that from a corner of this department the voice of Christianity has penetrated into vast regions of heathen and savage tribes, and reached the unsettled wanderers among the thickest entanglements of the woods, which occupy a great portion of the widely extended missionary territory of Peru. From Ocopa issued forth those zealous, persevering, self-denying, and enduring men, the great object of whose lives it has been, in the midst of danger, and in the name of the Saviour, to add to the faith of the church—and to civilized society—beings whose spirits were as dark and uncultivated as the woods they occupied from the confines of the rivers Mantaro and Apurimac on the south, to the river MaraÑon or Amazons on the north, and from the frontier provinces of the department of Junin on the west, to the great river Ucayali on the east. The missionary college of Ocopa is situated in latitude 12° 2´ south, in the province of Jauja, and at the distance of about twelve leagues to the south-east of Tarma. It was founded in the year 1725 by the commissary of the missionaries, Frater Francisco de San Joseph, with the intention of establishing missions for the conversion of the Indians, who ranged the wild frontier-land we have just alluded to. In the years 1757-8, it was erected by a bull of his Holiness Clement XIII. and schedule of his Majesty Ferdinand VI. into a college De Propagand Fide.[17]

This college has attached to it a church built of stone; and we are told that great numbers flocked there in former days, when its altars were decorated with rich donations, and its ecclesiastics celebrated for their saintly character. The missionaries of this college had subordinate religious settlements, or asylums, in other provinces of the department; as, for example, Huaylas, Huanuco, and also Tarma, at a place called Vitoc, at the entrance of the MontaÑa. The college was originally constructed to accommodate forty monks, and towards the close of the eighteenth century, when it was under the guardianship of R. P. Fr. Manuel Sobreviela, their number was eighty-four; part of them being distributed in the different settlements, and also in the villages of the neophytes among the wilds beyond the eastern summits of the Andes. The seminary, being under royal protection, was allowed from government six thousand dollars a-year as a charity. The great revolution, which wrested the country from the hands of the Spaniards, also deprived the college of its best support. The Patriots, in the midst of war, proscriptions, confiscations, and persecutions, spared not even this useful institution; the monks dispersed when deprived of government support, and only a few hoary brethren can now be traced among the number of these fugitive fathers. One of them, barefooted and bareheaded, we sometimes visited in his humble cell at San Francisco in Lima. His thoughts, abstracted from the scenes around him, usually dwelt among the tribes of the Huallaga and Ucayali; and with an enthusiasm which brightened up the eye of venerable age, he would point out, in the aisles and cloisters of this great conventual church of his order, the paintings that commemorated the martyrdom of such of his brotherhood as fell victims to the violence of savages whom they piously laboured to turn to Christianity.

The Patriots having at length seen the national loss likely to result from neglecting the territory of the missions, and allowing the half-converted Indians to glide back again into their former savage and independent condition, for the want of officiating priests or zealous monks to continue the work of civilization, in which the Spaniards had engaged with so much spirit and success, it was resolved by the government of Peru, in March 1836, to annul the decree which, in November 1824, was passed to convert this religious college into a common school or academy of general instruction; which, however, was never established on a permanent footing. Besides other reasons of less moment which were assigned in the preamble of the decree for restoring the college to its ancient functions, it was stated that the civilization of the savage tribes of the interior, and their conversion to the holy Catholic faith, was an enterprise worthy of the intellectual light of the age we live in, and acceptable in the sight of the Almighty; that only for this purpose was the college intended at the period of its foundation; that measures had actually been taken by the government to induce missionaries to come from Europe for the re-establishment of this pious institution, and that therefore it was decreed that the missionary college of Ocopa should be placed precisely on the same footing as before the revolution, or the decree of the 1st of November 1824; that all its rents and property should be restored, and that whatever sums were assigned for the academy alluded to should be transferred to this missionary college; that the Archbishop should appoint a fit person to take charge of the college and receive all its revenues, and to pay from this fund the expenses of repairing the buildings and the passage-money of the expected European monks, whose arrival the Very Reverend Archbishop was required to encourage, while he superintended the necessary repairs of the college, and made such reforms in its regulations and rules as should best harmonize with the republican form of government. Nothing can better prove the decay of the missionary cause, and, we might perhaps add, the decay of practical religion in Peru, (since its own clergy want zeal and enterprise to act as missionaries,) than this document; and though the invitation be more immediately addressed to Spanish ecclesiastics, yet the decree is in that spirit which seems to open the door to any company or association, who, adhering to the Catholic form of religious instruction, may be pleased to extend their benevolence and Christianity to the fertile regions of the Amazons, where they may fulfil their mission far removed from the scenes of political anarchy or misrule, and far beyond the pale of all hostile influence which could impede the exercise of their sacred calling. Experience has long since sufficiently shown that these Indians of eastern Peru are neither incapable of intellectual improvement, nor deficient in those moral elements which form the groundwork of the social edifice; and if ever they should be instructed, and guided, and disciplined in the way of life, according to the Gospel, by active, honest, and enlightened teachers, who know that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, there may yet be exhibited on the banks of Ucayali, and on the fine plain del Sacramento, a great and virtuous people, concerned to know and to do their respective duties, where now cruel barbarism and savage superstition hold their cheerless sway.

To give a full historical account of the transactions of the missionaries of Ocopa, their various expeditions by different routes and with varying success,—or to enter into the interior economy of their college, and details of its discipline,—would be too copious a matter for the narrow space we have allotted for this subject, which in itself is one of no ordinary interest. And, to detach the history of the missionary exertions of the Jesuits of Quito and San Borja from the labours of the Franciscans of Lima and Ocopa,—to define the precise limits of the conversions by each of these religious orders independently of the other,—would not be free of intricacy; nor does it appear to be necessary to establish the degree of honour due to each, for they both toiled in the same thorny vineyard, and the latter creditably continued what the former had happily commenced. But, to give an idea of the origin of these missions, it may be well to refer back to the discovery of those regions in which they were planted.

The mouth of the MaraÑon was discovered by Vicente Yanes Pinzon, at the close of the fifteenth century; but Orellana, the Lieutenant-general of Gonzalo Pizarro, Governor of Quito, was the first to sail down its stream, from the point where the Napo joins it, to the ocean, in an armed vessel built at the place of embarkation on the latter river by order of Pizarro, who had himself undergone great hardships, and sacrificed most of his followers on an expedition of inland discovery. Orellana commenced this voyage in the year 1540 or 1541.

Some of the natives were friendly towards him, and others in canoes opposed his progress; and, as the men of one particular tribe were aided by their women in the combat, the Spanish captain gave their female warriors the name of Amazonas,—whence the appellation “Amazons,” which this great river still retains.

Another expedition, under Pedro de Ursua, was undertaken in 1560; but he and most of his followers fell victims to an ambuscade laid for them by the Indians. In 1602, Father Rafael Ferrier, a Jesuit missionary, descended the MaraÑon to the river Napo, which Orellana had navigated about sixty years before; and on his return to Quito, communicated his discoveries, and his ideas concerning the natives he had seen.

In the year 1616, some Spanish soldiers, stationed on the frontiers of Quito, pursued some Indians into their canoes on the MaraÑon; in the pursuit they descended this river till they came to the Maynas,—a tribe of Indians who showed such a disposition to amity and to become Christians, that, on the return of the soldiers to the frontier station of Santiago de las MontaÑas, so favourable a report was made of them to the Viceroy of Peru, that in 1618 he appointed Don Diego Baca de Vega as Governor of Maynas and MaraÑon; who was the first to subdue the people of these territories, and subject them to the dominion of Spain.

In 1638, according to AlÇedo, the Jesuit fathers, Gaspar Cuxia and Lucas de la Cueva, settled several missions in the country of Maynas on both shores of the MaraÑon, which continued to flourish until the abolition of the useful society of Jesuits in 1767.[18]

At first the capital of Maynas was San Francisco de Borja, which, according to Ulloa, is situated in latitude 4° 28´ south, and 1° 54´ east, of the meridian of Quito. In this city an insurrection of the native Indians took place in the year 1635, which was happily quelled by the indefatigable Jesuits: but afterwards the town of Laguna on the east bank of the Huallaga, in latitude 5° 13´ south, became the principal seat or capital of the missions of Maynas, which extend from St. Borja along both sides of the river MaraÑon, embracing many villages or settlements, to the frontier possessions of Brazil at Tabatingo. From the MaraÑon the patriarchal government of the missionaries extended southward along the river Ucayali, and among several of the tribes on its banks, or in the adjacent woods, such as the Cocamas, Piros, and Conibos or Conivos Indians, whom the Jesuits of Quito had in a great measure converted to the faith; but they again revolted, and returned to their original wandering and savage mode of life, having put their pastors to death. After this unfortunate event, several fruitless efforts—especially in the year 1695, and also in 1764,—were made to reconvert these tribes, till at length the Franciscan missionaries of the college of Ocopa succeeded to a great extent in this hazardous undertaking.

But long before the establishment of this college of their order, two Franciscans,—the Fathers Andres de Toledo and Domingo Breda, both bent on making converts to the faith,—left Quito in the year 1636, and, having surmounted the greatest hardships by land and water, arrived at Para. They reported their arrival and discoveries to Santiago Raimundo de NoroÑa, Governor of San Luis de MaraÑon, in the united service of Spain and Portugal, for both countries were then under the sovereignty of the crown of Spain. The result of the intelligence thus derived was a further survey up the river, under the command of the Portuguese captain, Texera: and an account of the whole of these proceedings being transmitted from the Audiencia at Quito to the Count of Chinchon, Viceroy of Peru, he in the year 1639 sent back the flotilla of Texera to Para, conveying thither the Fathers Christoval de AcuÑa, and Andres de Artieda, Jesuits of Quito, and other able men, commissioning them, among other things, to survey minutely the river MaraÑon and its banks, and, having done so, to embark for Spain, and lay their account before the Council of the Indies; all which they accomplished in a creditable manner.

As early as the year 1631, Franciscan missionaries visited the environs of the river Huallaga, made converts, and entered the country of the Panataguas. Contiguous to Huanuco, and probably within the territorial limits of this ancient tribe, is situated at present the important and civilized Indian town called Panao, which is included in the curacy of Santa Maria del Valle.

From the Panataguas are supposed to have sprung several other tribes of distinct denominations, which had spread over the adjacent country, wherein Christianity had made but slow progress.

From the city of Huanuco the fathers of Ocopa penetrated, by Panao, MuÑa, and Pozuzo, to the port on the river Mayro, where they formed one of their earliest settlements: from this place they appear to have descended in canoes to the rivers Pachitea and Ucayali. This course is well marked on the map of those parts, published in Lima, in the year 1791, by the literary society entitled “Sociedad de Amantes del Pais de Lima.” This excellent map of the territory of the missions in Peru was dedicated to his Catholic Majesty, Charles the Fourth, Emperor of the Indies, by the said society, and the reverend fathers of the missionary college of Ocopa; whose superior or guardian, Fr. Manuel Sobreviela, enriched it with a plan of the rivers Huallaga and Ucayali, and of the pampa del Sacramento. In the above route from Huanuco, the Franciscans from the time they left their last christianized settlement, Pozuzu, (some years ago depopulated by the small-pox,) had to contend with the Amajes, Carapachos, Callisecas, and other savage tribes, occupying the territory between Pozuzo and the mouth of the Pachitea. From this spot, namely, where the Pachitea joins the Ucayali, to the river Sarayacu, which enters the Ucayali in latitude 6° 45´ south, several streams descend from the plains of Sacramento to join the Ucayali,—such as the Aguaytia, De Sipivos, and Manoa, the environs of which are inhabited or frequented by various tribes of Indians known by the names Sipivos, Conibos, Manoas, and Serebos, &c. Among these they made some converts; but the principal nation are the Panos, who inhabit the neighbourhood of the Sarayacu, and form a great part of the population of the town of the same name, which is the superior, or rather, at present, the only seat of the Franciscan missions on the Ucayali. This mission, founded by the Franciscan, Father Girbal, in 1791, was visited in February 1835 by Lieutenant W. Smyth and Mr. F. Lowe, in their journey “undertaken with a view of ascertaining the practicability of a navigable communication with the Atlantic by the rivers Pachitea, Ucayali, and Amazon.” They found it under the guardianship of the venerable Father Manuel Plaza, whose account of these parts forms an interesting document in the Mercurio Peruano. The climate of Sarayacu is described by this excellent missionary as more free from ague and dysentery than the settlements in low, sultry, and humid situations on the banks of the river MaraÑon; and Lieutenant Smyth and Mr. Lowe, who give an interesting account of the actual state of the mission, observe that “the climate seems very much like that of the island of Madeira;” and, like the city of Huanuco on the Huallaga, it is refreshed in the dry season by breezes that blow along the river.

All the other missionary settlements in these parts having been abandoned since the downfall of the college of Ocopa, the consequence has been, that the Indians of those settlements have collected round their only remaining spiritual father and friend, Padre Plaza, at Sarayacu, where the population has thus been swelled to the number of about two thousand; and these semi-barbarous tribes honour their faithful pastor, and are very attentive to the service of their church, which is performed partly in the Latin and partly in the Pano tongue. Lieutenant Smyth and Mr. Lowe not being able to realize the object of their expedition by entering the MontaÑa at Pozuzo, and descending by the Mayro, returned to Huanuco, and descended by the river Huallaga, till they arrived at the river Chipurana, in the province of Maynas, which, according to the missionaries, enters the Huallaga in latitude 6° 30´ south. They ascended the Chipurana as far as they found it navigable; and thence, partly by land and partly by water, they proceeded to Sarayacu, in expectation of being able, through the guidance of Padre Plaza, to effect their expedition up the Pachitea,—an undertaking in which they unfortunately did not succeed, on account of the inundation of the rivers during the wet season, which lasts from November to May, and also for want of a sufficient supply of effects to exchange for the provisions necessary for the support of an escort of the mission Indians, without which the enterprise is not safe, nor indeed practicable, at any season. Nevertheless, Padre Plaza, before the visit of Lieutenant Smyth and Mr. Lowe, wrote to advise the government of his opinion regarding the communication with the district of his mission by the port of Mayro; and his letter on this subject was published at Cerro Pasco, after accounts had been received of the failure of the expedition undertaken by the gentlemen now mentioned, in company with the Peruvians, Major Beltran and Lieutenant Azcarate. It is to be feared that this reverend monk is too much stricken in years to be much longer able to preserve his usefulness; and, what is yet more to be lamented, at his death it is probable that all the labours of himself and his predecessors in the same field of conversion and civilization will have been thrown away. Friar Manuel Plaza is not likely to have a successor from the school of Ocopa, notwithstanding the decree respecting its restoration, while Peru continues to exhaust its best resources in war, either civil or defensive, against neighbouring states. To enable that country to consolidate its internal strength, and attend to the practical improvements of civil and religious institutions, it must have what the majority of its citizens sincerely long for,—an interval of quiet. Until domestic peace be acquired, the peace of the Gospel is not likely to be sent forth afresh to subdue the turbulent spirit of the Cashivo, or to replant and renew the settlements and friendships that were formerly established by the emissaries from Ocopa; friendships now for the most part forgotten, and settlements no longer to be traced, except on the map of their wide-spreading mission-land, already alluded to as dedicated by their order and the literati of Lima to the King of Spain. But since then the dynasty of kings has been destroyed; and zeal for the missionary cause, except in name and speculation, has almost vanished from the land, where it would appear that patriotism can only thrive on the ruins of all the best institutions of former days: and when the writer of the following letter shall be no more, the name of king and Saviour, if not also of friend[19] and patriot, may soon cease to be heard or honoured among the woods and glades in the now isolated and forlorn mission of the Ucayali.