A Vanished Arcadia

It was Cunninghame Graham's passionate attachment to justice that drew him to tell the story behind the iniquitous destruction of the Jesuit missions in South America. This sad tale of calumny and intrigue inspired David Puttnam to make the award-winning film The Mission, directed by Roland Joffe. The Jesuits, from their first arrival in South America in 1550 until their expulsion in 1767, had been tireless in their defence of the Indian against enslavement by European settlers. To protect the Indians, the Jesuits established towns, known as reductions, in which agriculture, music and crafts flourished. Threats of relocation of the reductions led to the Guarani taking up arms, joined by an Irish Jesuit, Thadeus Ennis. The Indian army was all but wiped out in 1756, doubtless making the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish dominions a decade later a less troublesome operation.