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91 chapter 4 Science and Expansion t he conflict between the first Jesuits who arrived in Peru at the end of the 1560s and Viceroy Francisco de Toledo over the proper way in which the Society of Jesus should fulfill its mandate in South America brought on a change in the priorities of the order. If originally the Jesuits were to tend primarily to the Christian population living in the main urban centers of the viceroyalty through the establishment of residences and colleges (in a manner similar to the practices of the Jesuits in Europe), by 1589, when José de Acosta published De Procuranda, missionary endeavors had replaced pedagogy as the main Jesuit ministry on the continent. The expansion of the order to Chile at the end of the sixteenth century, and to Paraguay at the beginning of the seventeenth, bears witness to this change in the Jesuit agenda. Despite this missionary expansion, it would be a mistake to consider the intellectual pursuits of the South American Jesuits solely linked to their evangelizing goals. Although the missionary ministry very quickly took precedence over pedagogy on the Jesuit agenda, the educational ministry was never forsaken by the order. In fact, the Jesuit expansion in South America was predicated on its members’ success as educators. The colleges fulfilled two key roles in sustaining the Jesuit missionary enterprise. On the one hand, as the example of the College of San Miguel in Santiago shows, the interest of the urban elites in providing a good education for their sons led to their financial commitment to the success of Jesuit institutions of learning. The endowments the colleges received from the vecinos (neighbors), correctly administered by Jesuit lay brothers, could free up some of the revenue needed to fund the missionary agenda of the order. On the other hand, the education of the Spanish youth in their own colleges allowed the Jesuits to identify and court those best suited to join their ranks. The expansion of the Jesuit institutional network, including the opening of novice houses and training centers in different areas of the continent, ensured that the students who decided to join the Society would receive training adapted to the local conditions in which they would have to work. Thus, students recruited in Peru spent their probation in Juli, where they were 92 Missionary Scientists taught Quechua and Aymara, while those recruited in Chile had to take Mapudungun classes at the College of San Miguel and in the novice house in Bucalemu . The Jesuit institutional network was thus instrumental to both the funding and the manning of the Jesuit missions in South America. The expansion of the Jesuit order in South America created an institutional network that quickly spanned the Peruvian viceroyalty. This influenced the corporate culture of the South American Jesuits and shaped their personal relationships . The constant mobility of Jesuit priests through this network, filling different pedagogical and missionary posts during their careers, encouraged the formation of lifelong friendships and collaborative relationships between the members of the order, as well as with the members of the communities where they were stationed. These contacts were of great importance to the members of the order who devoted time to the study of nature. In the following chapters, I will explore both the importance of the institutional network established by the Society of Jesus in South America and the importance of the interpersonal contacts this network allowed in the development of a truly collaborative way of understanding the study of nature. This collaborative aspect of Jesuit science is revealed in their use of informants—both native informants (as was discussed in the previous section) and, also, Spanish and European informants who came into contact with different Jesuit researchers as they moved during their careers to the different colleges and residences dotting the landscape of South America. The examples of Bernabé Cobo, a Spanish-born Jesuit who spent his life working in Peru and Mexico, and of Niccolò Mascardi, an Italian Jesuit who studied under Athanasius Kircher and devoted his career to evangelizing the native peoples of southern Chile and Argentina, will show how Jesuit researchers came to depend heavily on the peoples and settings with which they came into contact during their movement from one point to the next in the Jesuit network. Their scientific endeavors will also show how the content of Jesuit science in South America came to be determined both by these opportunities and by the needs of other members of the order...

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