Mainas missions

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The Mainas (or Maynas) missions refers to a large number of small missions the Jesuits established in the western Amazon region of South America from 1638 until 1767, when the Jesuits were expelled from Latin America.^[1][2] Following the Jesuit expulsion, mission activity continued under Franciscan auspices.^[3]

Roughly 60 missions were founded in total.^[4] Scholar Anne Christine Taylor notes that, '[o]f all the western Amazonian mission establishments, that of the Jesuits of Mainas was by far the most important'.^[5] She estimates that, prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the many ethnic groups (called Indians or Indios) in the mission field had a population of approximately 200,000. The population declined rapidly and many of the indigenous people resisted Christianity or had little contact with the Christian missionaries.^[6] Throughout their existence, the Jesuit mission settlements, known as reductions, were marked by epidemic disease (often smallpox) that exacted a tremendous death toll on the indigenous people resident in them. Slave raids also took a toll on the population and many of the indigenous people avoided or escaped missions.^[6]

'Maynas' or 'Mainas' refers to the Maina people, indigenous to the area around the Marañón River.^[7] The area in which the missions were established includes the 21st century area of Maynas Province, Peru, and adjacent areas of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil. The Jivaro, Kokama, Cambeba, Secoya, and Yame were among the other indigenous peoples the missionaries sought to convert.^[8]