The author begins his 30-page introduction by observing: “The expulsion of the Jesuits from Portuguese America in 1759 and from Spanish America in 1767 were [sic] governmental actions that profoundly shocked colonial society. It is difficult to find any other single event of the same magnitude in the course of Latin-American history between the Conquest and the Emancipation.” He goes on to explain why the expulsion of one religious order meant so much: the predominant role it played in education, and its extensive and well-organized missions among the natives. Obviously, only the first of these reasons could be paralleled in the mother countries.
Other phases of Jesuit activity, such as the churches in the cities for Spaniards, criollos, and hispanicized natives, the extensive and far-reaching social work effected through numerous lay organizations directed by members of the order, and the circular missions conducted in urban areas were no less influential than the two forms of apostolate given such considerable prominence.
Besides these introductory pages used by the author to good effect in analyzing the reasons for the success of the Jesuits and the motives for their expulsion from Latin America, most of the second part of the volume (pp. 31-195) offers a series of eighteen readings—excerpts from various writers—under the following headings: “The Jesuits and the Dawn of a New Era,” “The Jesuits in the New World,” “The Expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil,” “The Expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish America,” “The Aftermath of the Expulsion.” Of special interest in the concluding appendix is a bibliographical note listing the key printed sources and authorities on Jesuit history, with emphasis on that of Latin America (pp. 199-207).
The reader soon realizes the inevitable unevenness of the eighteen excerpts reproduced here. There is a vast difference between such first-rate historians as Pastor, Bolton, and Boxer and mere stylists such as Madariaga, Southey, and Graham. The strange effusions of a Blas Garay are limited fortunately to a few pages.
The volume helps to bring home to the reader how fragmentary our knowledge is of many periods and phases of Latin American history. Despite all that is said about the education offered by the Jesuits, nowhere is the slightest hint given as to an approximate number of students taught by them at any given period from 1549 to 1767, or even how many Jesuits were engaged in teaching. The same is true of the Indians and their missionaries. And yet the respective numbers do make a vast difference in judging the activity of the Order and its alleged wealth. Even on the latter topic no guess is hazarded as to the value of its holdings. No comparison is ventured with modern institutions. For instance, does one of our universities today with its half-billion dollar endowment serve a larger number than all nine overseas provinces of the Jesuits? Their combined holdings amounted to only a fraction of a modern university endowment, and, without exception, they were deeply in debt throughout the colonial period.
Mörner’s volume has appeared appropriately in ample time to commemorate the expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America beginning in 1767 and extending to the close of 1769.
