Markéta Křížová
Problem of (proto)National  /  Ethnic  /  
Regional Identities of Jesuit Missionaries
from Central Europe in America
Working Paper Series of the Centre for Area Studies
No. 5
Markéta Křížová
Problem of (proto)National  /  Ethnic  /  
Regional Identities of Jesuit Missionaries
from Central Europe in America
Markéta Křížová
Problem of (proto)National  /  Ethnic  /  Regional Identities of
Jesuit Missionaries from Central Europe in America
This text arose out of the project of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic
GAP405/12/1242 (Bohemical Sources for the comparative study of Spanish
colonial expansion of the Early Modern Era)
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5
PROBLEM OF (PROTO)NATIONAL  /  ETHNIC  /  REGIONAL
IDENTITIES OF JESUIT MISSIONARIES FROM CENTRAL
EUROPE IN AMERICA
The theme of Christian missions in America, Asia, or Africa belongs to those relatively
amply studied within the frame of early modern history, especially with regard
to the history of European overseas expansion. However, the questions that historians
have posed to the plentiful and diverse sources have for a long time been simple
and monotonous. Research has focused on biographic details, on the exotic settings
of mission regions and their descriptions by missionaries, or on the fact that missions
opened the path for the explorations and colonization of the newly discovered continents.
Only in the second half of the 20th century, as a result of new approaches in
historical studies, have historians begun to pose new questions to these notoriously
known sources. Within the frame of such methodological innovations as transnational
history or Atlantic history, the Catholic and Protestant missionary societies
have been presented as examples of transnational communities, that is, communities
composed of members of various origins, spread over the globe, creating and reinforcing
their identities through specific discourse and rituals.1
The present text deals with a specific group of missionaries: members of the
Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, from a specific region – Central Europe, more specifically
from lands of the Bohemian Crown – and in a specific location – the possessions
of Spain in America, in particular the northern frontier of the Viceroyalty of
New Spain (contemporary Mexico) where many of those missionaries from Central
Europe were engaged in the period 1680–1767.2
The choice of protagonists and the
setting was not random. The Jesuits are an especially attractive object of study, as they
left behind ample documentation, were mostly well-educated, reflective and, at the
same time, so noticeable that they also invited their contemporaries – their support-
1	 For the example of the entire Catholic Church as a transnational community (however, mostly in an
early modern history perspective), a community whose centre in Rome “coordinates and shapes the actions
of the subsidiary field units by supplying them with general norms, symbolic leadership, and authoritative
decisions” while “each of the field units possesses, in turn, a certain autonomy vis-à-vis the center; the field
units make demands on the center, may provide it with new ideas, and often generate key resources for the
center, for example, loyalties, money, and skills”, see Ivan VALLIER, “The Roman Catholic Church: A Transnational
Actor”, International Organization 25  /  3 (1971), pp.  479–502.
2	 For factual overviews of Jesuit mission enterprises in America see, for example, Ignacio del RÍO, Conquista
y aculturación en la California jesuítica, 1697–1768, México 1984; Graham CUNNINGHAME, A Vanished
Arcadia: Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay, 1607–1767, London 1988; Manuel MARZAL,
La utopía posible: Indios y jesuitas en la América colonial, Lima 1994; Nicholas p. CUSHNER, Why Have You
Come Here? The Jesuits and the First Evangelization of Native America, New York 2006.
6
ers as well as their opponents – to comments and recordings.3
As missionaries, they
not only crossed the political borders and even the borders of continents into which
they were born, but at the same time faced the need to rethink and reformulate their
sense of belonging and become aware of themselves as individuals and as members of
several more or less clearly delineated imagined communites. As protagonists of the
colonial thrust to the overseas regions and simultanously as those who defied to put
themselves inconditionally in service of the imperial  /  proto-national interests, they
present themselves to the historians as almost model actors for studies of global and
transnational history. But, as will be shown, such an approach could be misleading.
The historian who wants to follow the steps of the Jesuit missionaries from Central
Europe is compelled to cross the boundaries as well – the boundaries of traditional
historiographical imagery of clear-cut differences and vocabulary; the boundaries
of national and regional historiography; and the boundaries that separate historiography
from other social sciences, such as anthropology, theology, sociology – and
set out for the slippery ground of indirect interpretation and thick description, as
each of the actors in the processes under consideration perceived his own role differently.
But also the Latin American historians who wish to include the missionaries
into the early story of their national histories, at times, struggle to understand the
context from which they arose.4
The study of Jesuit missions could, in short, serve
as an example of entangled history, creating the need to reflect simultanously upon
the peculiarities and sometimes even minutious details of specific historical developments
in Europe, Asia, and America and at the same time not to lose from view
the global constellations of European overseas expansion. There is also the need to
find appropriate language to describe the ascriptions of territorial / cultural / linguis-
tic / political identities of the early modern historial actors.
In theory, all members of the order were supposed to abandon any former allegiances.
But very shortly after the founding of the order, complaints arose within
over the lack of ability of its members to comply with this requirement. In his letter
to Juan Antonio Balthasar, superior of the province (administrative unit) of New
Spain, Ignacio Visconti, the superior general of the Jesuit order, required that “any
shade of nationality” (cualquier sombra de nacionalidad) should be wiped out of the
missions.5
In Paraguay, the missionary Francisco Retz lamented in a report to Pro-
3	 Of course, Central Europe was not the only region within the frame of the Society of Jesus marked by
these problems. Uncertainty as for proper ethnic and territoral identity could be found also, for example,
in the texts of Jesuits from Alsace, subjects of the French king but members of the German Assistance; see
Bernd HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko. Eine Bio-Bibliographie, Wien  /  München
1995, p. 30, quoting the letters of Johann Jakob Baegert.
4	 As an example of text that aimed purposefully to approach the history of missions from various perspectives,
see Carlos LAZCANO and Denis PERICIC, Fernando Consag: Textos y testimonios, Ensenada
2001.
5	 Rome, 17-XI-1751, cf. Francisco ZAMBRANO, Diccionario bio-bibliográfico de la Compañía de Jesús
en México, México 1961–1977, vol. 15, pp. 235–236.) At the same period, Spanish Jesuit Ignacio Javier de
7
vincial Jerónimo Harrán the “sizeable favour to nationality” (demasiado afecto de
nacionalidad) manifested by some of his brethren.6
Still, the frequent usage of the
term should not lead us to the automatic relating of the Jesuit notions of nationality
to our own. Nacionalidad, against which Visconti voiced his grievances, could have
been an intense self-identification with a specific ethnic group, as well as loyalty to
a specific city, region, sovereign, culture, or close circle of friends or relatives.7
If we
succeed in untangling these interwoven and overlapping interests, we might come
closer to understanding how the Jesuit missionaries interpreted their position in an
equally multilayered and complex society of the early modern Atlantic world.
In the 19th and in the first half of the 20th centuries, Central European historians
strived to identify the ethnic / national origin of the Jesuit missionaries, and
eventually identified themselves as the first protagonists of their own nations who
took active part in the processes of the conquest of America. These historiographical
efforts to “nationalize” the Jesuits will be briefly reflected upon in the final part of
this paper. But first of all, other problems need to be explored, namely: (1) How did
the Jesuits from Central Europe perceive their ethnic / national / regional identities;
and how did their perception change in various contexts, at their home provinces,
on their way to new destinations, and in the American colonies? (2) How were these
Central European Jesuits perceived by other members of the order and by outsiders
in the New World setting?
Thus, in spite of the fact that the object of the research are the missions in the New
World, the present study could be categorized as an essay in the intellectual history
of Europe in the ways its inhabitants interiorized and developed the impulses coming
from the complicated processes of overseas colonization. Given the vast amount
of sources and the variability of settings and situations in which the identity problem
of the Jesuit missionaries arose, it would be impossible to deal with the theme
Estrada complained in a letter to Andrés Ignacio González that in the province of New Spain “reigns the nationality,
even though as yet does not win, and will not win” (reina la nacionalidad, aunque todavía no vence,
ni vencerá; Teméichic, 11-X-1731, cf. Bernd HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko,
p. 88). For the renunciation of all former allegiances after entering the order, see “Constituciones – Primero
Examen y general que se ha de proponer a todos los que pidieren ser admitidos en la Compañía de Jesús”,
in Ignacio de LOYOLA, Obras completas (Edición manual), eds. Ignacio IPARRAGUIRRE and Candido DE
DALMASES, Madrid 1952, pp. 382–383.
6	 Rome, 13-XII-1732, cit. por Martín M. MORALES, “Los diarios de transmigración y de la guerra guaranítica
de Tadeo Enis y Bernardo Nusdorffer (1752–1756): Invitación a la lectura”, in Desde los confines de
los imperios ibéricos: Los jesuitas de habla alemana en las misiones americanas, eds. Karl KOHUT and María
Cristina TORALES PACHECO, Frankfurt am Main / Madrid 2007, p. 207
7	 Similar problem arises with the word patria. For example, the Jesuit Georg Fraidenneg asserted that his
“fatherland” was the “castle of Picheloffen in Styria” where his father was steward (mi patria [es] el castillo de
Picheloffen en la Stiria, Letter of Georg Fraidenegg to Paolo Greppi, Puerto Santa María, 4-XII-1774, copy
of the document in Státní oblastní archiv [State Regional Archive] Žitenice, Czech Republic, fund Rodinný
archiv Lobkovicové hořínští (Family archive of the Lobkowitz from Hořín), cart. 36, cf. Bohumil BAĎURA,
“El caso de algunos ex-misioneros jesuitas: las gestiones para su liberación”, Ibero-Americana Pragensia 29
(1995), pp. 167–188, quote p. 185.
8
exhaustively. The following pages contain no more than a case study and present
some aspects of the theme for further consideration.
OUR WAY OF PROCEEDING
It is undeniable that the Jesuits conceived of themselves first and foremost as members
of the order. They often accepted this sense of belonging even before entering
it, as pupils or students of the Jesuit educational institutions, and then reinforced
it during the novitiate, on the basis of shared spiritual experiences (the “spiritual
exercises”), and in everyday interaction with their fellow members. In their role as
Jesuits, they competed with other orders8
while exhibiting ostentatiously “our way of
proceeding” (noster modus procedendi) in the arts, the education strategies, and the
mission enterprise.9
In the trope repeatedly used by Ignatius de Loyola himself, the
Society of Jesus was likened to a body in which the “head” guided and directed the
movement of its “members” in the manner best suited for accomplishing the ends
for which the body was created.10
The elaborate communication network that the
order established in order to keep the administrative control over members so widely
dispersed, including the letters and reports that circulated between residences, were
read aloud and discussed, which also helped to strengthen the feeling of working
together for a common cause and belonging to one body, the Society of Jesus, different
and separate from the rest of the society.
But wider circles of their self-identification also constituted the Roman Catholic
Church, perceived as “the” one and only Christian community, opposed to the “heresies”
of Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and the heathenish rituals of overseas barbarians.
Within the bosom of Catholicism, the Jesuits, as propagators of sacred truths,
were symbolically united and placed not only on equal standing with the saints and
martyrs of the Middle Ages, but also with the hundreds of thousands of neophytes
from remote missions of Asia, Africa, and America. At the same time, they were
Europeans, avowing a specific set of values and drawing upon a shared history faceto-face
with advanced civilizations of Asia or the hunters and gatherers of America
8	 Very telling was, for example, the bitter competition of the Jesuits and the Franciscans for the authorization
to pursue missions among the Moqui (Hopi) Indians in contemporary Arizona in the first half of the
18th century, see Sergio ORTEGA NORIEGA, “La crisis del sistema misional”, in Historia general de Sonora,
ed. Sergio ORTEGA NORIEGA, vol. 2, Hermosillo 1985, p. 149.
9	 The phrase – and with it, the conviction of a unique character of the Society of Jesus among other
Catholic orders – was attributed to Ignacio de Loyola by his first biographer Jerónimo Nadal. See Gauvin
Alexander BAILEY, “‘Le style jésuite n’existe pas’: Jesuit Corporate Culture and the Visual Arts”, in The Jesuits:
Cultures, Sicences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, eds. John W. O’MALLEY, Gauvin Alexander BAILEY, Steven
J. HARRIS, and T. Frank KENNEDY, vol. 1, Toronto / Buffalo / London 1999, pp. 44.
10	 Cf. Steven J. HARRIS, “Mapping Jesuit Science: The Role of Travel in the Geography of Knowledge”, The
Jesuits: Cultures, Sicences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, vol. 1, pp. 212–240, quote p. 216.
9
and Africa. The awareness of the cultural barrier appeared in virtually every report
and letter from any mission field. But sometimes it turned into a different sense of
superiority. Instead of differentiating between themselves as Europeans and their
non-European neophytes, the missionaries thought of themselves as educated members
of the upper class facing the plebs, or as inhabitants of the city feeling their predominance
over the peasants, European and non-European alike. Thus the Alsatian
Jesuit Johann Jakob Baegert compared the Indians of California to “stupid Tiroleans”,
or other Alpern, when he wanted to describe to his brother Georg the depths of their
rudeness and ignorance.11
On a more personal level, the Jesuits retained allegiances to their families, with
which they remained in regular written contact. In turn their family members supported
them materially by sending overseas money and unobtainable goods like
medicines or books, and, as will be shown with the example of the Silesian missionary
Georg Fraidenegg, sometimes used their political influence to help them when
they came into conflict with local authorities in the mission field. In addition, some
of the missionaries identified themselves as scientists, communicating to other members
of the respublica literaria the knowledge they acquired on their far-flung posts,
across national and even confessional borders – like the Jesuit from Bohemia, Georg
Joseph Kamel, mission apothecary in Manila, who corresponded extensively with the
prominent members of the Royal Society of London to whom he had sent repeatedly
plant specimens of the Philippine Islands and obtained scientific books for Dutch
merchants and naturalists.12
Others acted as agents of trade, promoting the commercial
interests of specific merchant groups, again across political and confessional
barriers. Even though this might seem surprising, there were some, although not
many, members of the Jesuit order who also pursued some commercial interests; for
example, Michal Sabel, a missionary from Bohemia , cooperated with a glassmaking
shop in southern Bohemia in marketing its products on the American continent in
close relation to Dutch traders from the island of Curaçao.13
And, last but not least, the missionaries maintained a close relation to their home
regions, states (patria), or ethnies.14
From the outside, the Society of Jesus was a
11	 [Johann Jacob BAEGERT], The Letters of Jesuit Missionary in Baja California, 1749–1761, trans. Elsbeth
Schulz-Bischof, ed. Doyce B. NUNIS, Los Angeles 1982, p. 171. The Latin originals of the letters were not
preserved; the edition was based on their German translation from the 19th century.
12	 Camell’s treatise Descriptiones fruticum et Arborum Luzonis etc. was included as an appendix of the
multivolume work of John RAY, Historia Plantarum, London 1705; smaller texts were published Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 21, 23–27, London 1699–1711. See also the letter of Georg Joseph
Kamel to John Ray, 28-X-1700, and the answer of Ray to Kamel, in: Edwin LANKESTER, ed., The Correspondence
of John Ray: Consisting of Selections from the Philosophical Letters Published by Dr Derham, and
Original Letters of John Ray, in the Collection of the British Museum, London 1848, pp. 377–378.
13	 Josef POLIŠENSKÝ and Lubomír VEBR, “Miguel Sabel y orígenes del comerico americano con el vidrio
de Bohemia”, Ibero-Americana Pragensia 5 (1971), pp. 93–116.
14	 In the present text I prefer to use the word “ethnie” – in the meaning given to this term Anthony D.
Smith, that is, “named human populations with shared ancestry, myths, histories and cultures, having an
10
supranational organization. Ostensibly, there was no discrimination against the nonSpanish
members of the order – many of them reached the highest posts, including
that of the superior general. But the sense of belonging to clearly delineated territorial
units and imagined communities defined on the basis of shared languages,
values, and symbols – was maintained and even supported by the members of the
order. The first phase of existence of the Society of Jesus was marked by competition
between various Spanish groups: the Basques, the Castilians, and the Aragonese.
Later, due to the rapid increase in membership, especially within the borders of the
Roman Empire, the “Spanish” or rather “Iberian” (that is to say, Spanish and Portuguese)
faction united to face the pressures from other ethnic groups, namely the
“Germans”; and in the 18th century, the situation worsened due to the ambitions of
an array of other “nations”. For example, at the end of the 16th century, the aspirations
of Portuguese Jesuits in Goa to gain predominance over the fellow members of
other nationalities was reprimanded seriously by the superior general of the order.
Also, as in other cases, the rivalry between the Iberian Jesuits and those coming from
other countries were reflected in frequent complaints to Rome in their annual letters
or reports.15
In addition to these inner conflicts were local competitions at various
parts of the globe; for example, in the Spanish colonies in America, the competition
among the criollos (native-born Americans) and gachupines (first-generation immigrants
from Spain) often was seen within the Society of Jesus.
STRANGERS IN A FOREIGN LAND
If we want to understand how these competitions were perceived by the Jesuits from
Central Europe, it would be useful in the first place to think of the Central European
region from the Jesuit perspective. Leaving aside the persistent debates concerning
the “objective existence” of the entity called Central Europe and its precise
delineation,16
it can be briefly stated for the moment that most of what is commonly
understood as Central Europe – the territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy north of the Alps, plus such specific territories as Switassociation
with a specific territory, and a sense of solidarity” – to that of more value-laden “nation”. See
Anthony D. SMITH, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, Oxford 1986, p. 32).
15	 Charles J. BORGES, “Racial Tensions of the Society of Jesus in India before 1759”, in Jesuits in India:
In Historical Perspective, ed. Teotónio R. de SOUZA and Charles J. BORGES, Macau 1992, pp. 63–64. The
existence of deep divisions within the Society of Jesus that “need not be exaggerated, but likewise the Society
should not be imagined as a multicultural paradise, as the religious formation it offered was not able to
overcome the national divisions” was also mentioned by Karl KOHUT, “Desde los confines de los imperios
ibéricos”, in Desde los confines de los imperios ibéricos: Los jesuitas de habla alemana en las misiones americanas,
eds. Karl KOHUT and María Cristina TORALES PACHECO, Frankfurt am Main / Madrid 2007, p. xix.
16	 See, for example, Robin OKEY, “Central Europe / Eastern Europe: Behind the Definitions”, Past & Present
137, The Cultural and Political Construction of Europe (1992), pp. 102–133.
11
zerland – was included into the German Assistance (an administrative unit) of the
Jesuit order.17
There were altogether five such assistances (named so because each fell
under the administrative purview of one of the assistants of the superior general of
the order), corresponding approximately to the major linguistic and political divisions
of Europe and their respective overseas possessions: Italian, Spanish (including
Central and South America, and the Philippines), Portuguese (with Brazil, the
west coast of India, China, and Japan), French (with eastern Canada and Siam), and
German. The assistances were further divided into smaller units, the provinces, to
make the management of local affairs easier. The German Assistance, established in
1558, was the most heterogeneous as it included not only the Catholic German states
but also originally France, Flanders, the Bohemian Kingdom, Poland, and Austria
(which itself embraced parts of modern-day Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia); it also
superintended the missions dispatched to Protestants in England and Scandinavia.
After France was made an independent assistance in 1605, followed by Poland,
Lithuania, and Muscovy in 1755, altogether six provinces remained within the German
Assistance: the Austrian, Bohemian (which also included Moravia), Upper German,
Upper Rhenish, Lower Rhenish, and Silesian. The last one was established in
1756; until that time, the region of Silesia was administered as part of the Bohemian
Province.18
The pattern of establishment of provinces closely followed the pattern of
the foundation of seminaries and colleges. It can even be said that the formation of a
province was largely due to the growth of the collegiate foundation, with a province
having on average about 20 colleges and (by the 18th century) usually one univer-
sity.19
In other words, even though the term province might create an impression of
a territorial unit, from the point of view of the Jesuits it was – equally as the whole
order – foremost a community of people and their residences; and this is of utmost
importance for the present study. It was to the people and houses, not to the territory
or political unit where these were located, that the members of the Society of Jesus
created and maintained their ties of allegiance and nacionalidad (nationality).20
The subdivisions of the German Assistance into provinces to a great degree
respected traditional regional boundaries within Central Europe; however, within
17	 In this way – that is, on the basis of administrative units of the Jesuit order – “Central Europe” was
defined by HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 22.
18	 Bernard DUHR, Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern Deutschen Zunge, Breislau / München / Regensburg,
pp. 1913–1928.
19	 HARRIS, “Mapping Jesuit Science”, p. 217.
20	 For example, the Jesuit missionary from Bohemia, Andreas Suppet, in describing his new province of
Chile specified that it consists of “150 persons”. (Unsere Provinz allhier bestehet dermal in hundert und funftzig
Personen, under welchen Spanier, Wälsche, Frantzosen, teutsche, Niederländer, Oesterreicher, Böhmen,
Sardinier, Sicilianer, Neapolitaner, Mayländer, Portugesesn, mi teinem Wort einige aus fast jeglicher Europäischen
Provintz … durch das Band geistlicher Liebe oder Apostolischer Gemeinschaft sich zwar vereinbaren. In:
Joseph STÖCKLEIN, Allerhand so Lehr- als Geist-reiche Brief-Schrifften und Reis-beschreibungen, welche von
denen Missionarios der Gesellschaft Jesu aus Beyden Indien bis anno 1731 in Europa angelangt sind, vol. 3,
no. 70, Augsburg / Graz / Wien 1726–1761, p. 28.)
12
these boundaries, at least in the case of the Bohemian Province, there were other
divisions, both ethnic as well as linguistic. Even though these theoretically should be
irrelevant for the Jesuit order, whose inner communication was based on Latin as a
universal, nationally unspecific language (however, even this was not respected – as
will be shown within the Spanish and Spanish American provinces, the Spanish language
was used extensively in oral as well as in written forms), on the level of Central
European provinces and the individual colleges and residences it soon revealed
that the linguistic and ethnic differences could not be easily overcome. In the period
when regional and linguistic patriotism was slowly turning to state nationalism,21
the question of language was acquiring accentuated importance. Thus, already in the
year 1568, Balthasar Hostovinus noted the existence of animosity between the German-
and Czech-speaking members of the Prague Jesuit college. As this author also
complained that the college had turned “German”, it is easy to decode his personal
opinion of the long-term competition between the two groups in Bohemia.22
This,
however, was rather an exception. Other Jesuit sources document that territorial loyalties
of the members of the order were prioritized over linguistic or ethnic ones. In
the catalogues of the province, specific persons are identified by their region of birth,
by terms such as Bohemus, Moravus, Noricus (from the region of Cheb [Eger in German]),
ex comitatu Glacensi (from the county of Kłodzko [Glatz in German]), Austriacus,
Tyrolensis, “from Klagenfurt”, etc. None of them, however, were ever identified
as Germanus, that is to say, as “ethnic” Germans. The term German (Germanus, or in
Spanish Alemán) as a generic term in the Jesuit discourse almost without exception
applied to the affiliation of the person, or to the province from the German Assistance;
just as the term Bohemian (Bohemus, or in Spanish Bohemo) denoted a person
who entered the Society in the Bohemian Province. In the present text, the two terms
will be used precisely in this sense and not to denote the (supposed) ethnicity or
political allegiances of the persons in question.
The Jesuit missionaries in the overseas regions usually maintained the closest ties
to the province in which they entered the Society, even though their birthplace might
be different (We will see this on the example of Joseph Neumann, born in Brussels).
The missionaries sent letters to the rectors of colleges where they passed their novitiate,
but also to their friends from these times.23
They also sent back exotic objects,
which influenced the image of the New World and other overseas regions in Central
21	 Otto DANN and Miroslav HROCH, “Einleitung”, in Patriotismus und Nationsbildung am Ende des
Heiligen Römischen Reiches, eds. Otto DANN, Miroslav HROCH, and Johannes KOLL, Köln 2003, pp. 9–18.
22	 The case was mentioned by Bernard DUHR, Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutschen Zunge im
XVI. Jahrhundert, Bd. I, Freiburg 1907, p. 537f; as an example of Jesuit actively defending the case of Czech
patriotism, see Bohuslav BALBINUS (Dissertatio apologetica pro lingua Slavonica, praecipue Bohemica, published
for the first time only in 1775).
23	 Among many others can be mentioned the letter of Samuel Fritz from the Bohemian Province, who
obviously succeed in maintaining old allegiances while he established new ones, as he sent his regards from
the American mission to “our college” (unser Collegium) of St. Clement in Prague. (Letter of Samuel Fritz to
13
Europe,24
and, as is documented by the connection via letters between the Bohemian
Jesuits in the Philippines and in Mexico, they maintained ties with fellow missionaries
from the same provinces across great distances.
The loyalty to home provinces manifested itself also in the preference for certain
saints by the foreign missionaries. While the Italian Jesuits who often named their
missions after Our Lady of Loreto (Vergina Maria di Loreto) and petitioned their
home province to send them altar pictures and other decorations for their churches,25
the Jesuits from Bohemia preferred Saint John of Nepomuk. One of them, Anton
Ludwik Hüttel, was writing (in Spanish) from his mission to another Bohemian,
Andreas Michel: “There we dedicated ourselves to the feast of our holy protector
John of Nepomuk” (Aquí nos empeňamos en la fiesta de nuestro santo protector Juan
Nepomuceno).26
Notwithstanding, the Bohemians did not forget the local apparitions
of the Virgin Mary; in 1692, Wenzel Eymer asked his fellow Jesuits at home to send
him the depiction of Virgin of Brno.27
Within these home provinces and residences,
the missionaries were regarded as “their” members by reading aloud their letters and
unknown recipient, Quito, 17-IX-1685, in STÖCKLEIN, Allerhand so Lehr- als Geist-reiche Brief-Schrifften
und Reis-beschreibungen, vol. 1, no. 24, p. 66).
24	 Some exotic objects sent to the Bohemian Province have till today been preserved in the museum of
the former Jesuit College in Clementinum (Prague). See Alena RICHTEROVÁ and Ivana ČORNEJOVÁ,
eds., The Jesuits and Klementinum, Prague 2006. The already mentioned missionary from Moravia who had
been for many years serving on the Philippines, Georg Joseph Kamel, was sending various objects – especially
plant species – to the Bohemian Province via Mexico and Spain, as is proved by his letter to another
“Bohemian”, Šimon Boruhradský (Simon de Castro) in New Spain that was preserved in the Moravian Land
Archive in Brno. (Kamel to Boruhradský, Manila, 25-VI-1691, Moravský zemský archiv, Brno, FM G 11
557 / 6, ff. 55–56v, quoted by Simona BINKOVÁ, “Jezuitští misionáři z českých zemí v zámoří: Češi, nebo
Němci? Poddaní španělského krále, uživatelé latiny, španělštiny a domorodých jazyků”, in Literatura na
hranici jazyků a kultur, ed. Vladimír SVATOŇ and Anna HOUSKOVÁ, Praha 2009, p. 92).
25	 The special preference of the Italian Jesuit Gianmaria Salvatierra for Lady of Loreto was manifested not
only in his naming of various places after her but was also mentioned in his posthumous biography: [anon.]
Informe sobre la vida y virtudes del P[adr]e Juan Maria de Salvatierra, Archivo General de la Nación, México
(hereafter, AGN), Historia, vol. 300, f. 101–107.
26	 Letter of Hüttel to Michel, Sisoguíchic, 7-V-1764, AGN, Jes. IV-10 exp. 84, fol. 116r-116v). A third
Bohemian, Daniel Januske, asked in his memoria (that is, a list of necessary goods to be delivered to his mission)
for the year 1723 a “picture of St. John of Nepomuk (un retrato de S[a]n Juan Nepomuceno; Archivum
Societatis Iesu Provinciae Mexicanae, México (hereafter ASIPM), no. 1704). Silesian Franz Xaver Bischoff
named after this saint a safe haven on the coast of California. (Miguel del BARCO, Historia natural y crónica
de la Antigua California, ed. Miguel León Protilla, México 1973, p. 386) and also asked to be sent a picture
of this holy patron (Letter of Franz Xaver Bischoff to Joseph Göbel, La Purísima, 11-X-1759, British Library,
London, Add. 13986, No. 28, fol. 306r–306v). There were even some texts on this saint published in New
Spain, for example, Francisco María GALLIZZI, S. J., Vida del Glorioso San Juan Nepomuceno, Canónigo de
la Metropolitana de Praga, trad. del italiano Nicolás de Segura, México 1733. See Pavel ŠTĚPÁNEK, “San
Juan Nepomuceno en el Arte Español y Novohispano”, Cuadernos de Arte e Iconografía 6 (1990), pp. 11–53;
Karel DRHOVSKY et al., Johannes von Nepomuk. Der Heilige Mitteleuropas, Linz 2002.
27	 Letter of Wenzel Eymer to Johann Lober, 19-XII-1692, Moravský zemský archiv, Brno, Jesuitica 557VI,
f. 45, quoted after Zdeněk KALISTA, Cesty ve znamení kříže, Praha 1947, p. 91. Probably Eymer asked
for the reproduction of the famous painting of Our Lady of the Snows from the Jesuit church in Brno (mentioned,
among other famous Marian apparitions, in Wilhelm GUPPENBERG, Marianischer Atlas, Prag
1717, p. 563).
14
spreading the information about their feats among the younger generation, even
though in the catalogues of the order they might had been for many years already
listed as members of one of the American provinces.
For this continued loyalty to the province of origin, again an example from the
Bohemian Province can be mentioned. Missionary Joseph Neumann, born in Brussels
in a family serving at the Habsburg court in Vienna, entered the Society in Olomouc
and spent the next 15 years in the Bohemian Province before moving overseas.
Although clearly aware of his different ethnic origin, Neumann identified with his
new province and considered himself Bohemian even after relocating to America.
In 1730, after almost fifty years of mission service in New Spain, when he published
in Prague his Latin narrative on the Indian uprisings and he dedicated this opus
to “those Reverend Fathers of the Bohemian Province”, because although “born in
Brussels and relocated to Vienna”, he had been “admitted and entered [the Society]
in the Bohemian Province.” Then he asked his companions from Bohemia “to accept
this little work of mine as a proof of my love to you.”28
Another missionary, Eusebius
Franciscus Kino from Segno in Trentino (his original surname was probably Chini,
in German transcribed as Kühn), considered himself “Italian from birth and German
from education” (italiano por nacimiento, alemán por educación).29
The phrase indicates
that the missionary was able to admit not only the possibility of simultaneous
self-identifications but also their various forms, innate and acquired, through education.
And it leads us to another important aspect of the problem of self-identification,
namely the problem of language.
It arises clearly from the preserved sources that for the Bohemian Jesuits the various
languages fulfilled various functions. First of all, as it was already mentioned,
there were two vernacular languages used in parallel in the Kingdom of Bohemia
since the Middle Ages. After 1620, the position of the Czech language as a language
of literature and of administration was progressively weakened, but still was not altogether
forced out, even from the intellectual circles. Due to this situation, the cosmopolitan
community of Jesuits in the Bohemian Province (founded by foreigners who
still constituted a relatively large group even in the 17th and 18th centuries) on the
one hand preferred Latin in its inner communication, as was the rule in the whole of
28	 Historiam Missionum … dedico RR. PP. Provinciae Bohemiae, quae me quamvis bruxelis in Belgio natum,
& in Austriam Viennam translatum in Societatem JESU transmisitm ibidémque aluit, … Habete igitur in hoc
opusculo mei in Vos Amoris tesseram. (Joseph NEUMANN, Historia Seditionum, quas Adversus Societatis
Jesu Missionarios, Eorumque, Auxiliares Moverunt Nationes Indicae, ac potissimum Tarahumara in America
Septemtrionali, Regnoque Novae Cantabriae Jam toto ad fidem Catholicam propemodum redacto, Prague 1730,
unpag). Of interest is that when further in the text, in chapter II, Neumann repeated his biography, he first
specified that his father was “German” (erat is Belga, Patriaque Bruxelensis, Patre tamen Germano natus) and
then when writing about himself, used the words “this Austrian missionary” (Austriacus ille Missionarius).
29	 Letter of Kino to the Duchess de Aveiro, Cádiz 16-XI-1680, in Ernst J. BURRUS, ed., Kino escribe a la
duquesa. Correspondencia del p. Eusebio Francisco Kino con la duquesa de Aveiro y otros documentos, Madrid
1964, pp. 105–115.
15
the German Assistance. But its members were also required to master both dominant
land languages in order to be able to preach all of the inhabitants of the Bohemian
Kingdom. Already in 1583, the Visitator Oliver Manare ordered the novices whose
mother tongue was German to take daily classes in Czech and the Czechs in Ger-
man.30
As an internal joke, the bilingual Jesuits were sometimes called utraquistae
(Utraquists).31
For the Jesuits from the Bohemian Province, these two languages were clearly
tools of communication in family and personal circles. When the Jesuits in this
period wanted to communicate with the general public in the Kingdom of Bohemia,
they more likely used German than Czech. For example, the texts produced by some
of the missionaries after their expulsion from the Spanish possessions in 1767 and
their forced return
Europe, intended for the broader public, were written in German: such as the
Codex pictoricus mexicanus of Ignaz Tirsch or the vocabulary of Matthäus Steffel.32
On the one hand, Latin maintained its function as the language of science. Not only
the correspondence sent to the superiors and most of the letters sent to fellow members
of equal standing, but also the scientific treatises of the missionaries published
or meant to be published in Europe were therefore in Latin.33
The Czech language
appeared very seldom in Jesuit correspondence – mostly in the form of grammatical
Czechisms, or when the author did not know the proper term in Latin, or as a
way to conceal some confidential information.34
German was more frequent in the
letters; and what more, some missionaries from Bohemia and other provinces of the
German Assistance complained of not having the chances to use this language and
therefore forgetting it.35
The same was also true for their Latin, which they also did
not use in written and probably neither in oral communication within the order after
30	 Report of the Master of Novices from the year 1589 quoted by F. MACHILEK, “Reformorden und Ordensreformen
in den böhmischen Länder von 10.–18. Jahrhundert”, in Bohemia Sacra. Das Christentum in
Böhmen 973–1973, ed. Ferdinand SEIBT, Düsseldorf 1974, p. 77.
31	 Utraquism was a dogma proposed during the Hussite period in Bohemia and Moravia; it maintained
that the Eucharist should be administered “in both kinds” – sub utraque specie – as both bread and wine to
the congregation, including the laity. (On the origins and theological justification of Utraquism, see Howard
KAMINSKY, A History of the Hussite Revolution, Berkeley / Los Angeles 1967, pp. 97–140).
32	 Ignaz TIRSCH, Codex pictoricus mexicanus, Národní knihovna České republiky (National Library of
the Czech Republic), Oddělení rukopisů a vzácných tisků, sig. XVI B 18; Matthäus STEFFEL, Tarahumarisches
Wörterbuch nebst einigen Nachrichten von den Sitten und Gebräuchen der Tarahumaren, Moravský
zemský archiv (Moravian Land Archive) Brno, rkp. Františkova muzea, G 11 809).
33	 In Latin were written the already quoted Historia seditionum of Joseph Neumann, published in Prague
in 1730, as well as the botanical treatises of Johan Georg Camel and the astronomical and mathematical
treatises of Valentin Stansel and Karel Slavíček.
34	 Letter of Paul Klein to Johann Tanner, Sevilla, 4-III-1680, Okresní archiv Náchod, pozůstalost dr. Eduarda
Langera, inv. č. 472, ff. 375–379, cf. BINKOVÁ, “Jezuitští misionáři z českých zemí”, p. 92.
35	 Eberhard Helen from Westphalia confessed, according to the testimony of another German missionary,
that he had “already forgotten his German mother tongue” (seine teutsche [sic!] Mutter-Sprache schon
gäntzlich vergessen hatte, “Auszug vierer Brieffen R. p. Joannis Nentwig … , 1750–1754”, in STÖCKLEIN,
Allerhand so Lehr- als Geist-reiche Brief-Schrifften und Reis-beschreibungen, vol. 35, no. 754, p. 42). Same
16
relocating to the Spanish-speaking provinces of America.36
Again, their remarks give
proof of the fact that the Jesuits were not at all indifferent to what language they were
using and considering as their own.
Within the Spanish Assistance – that is, Spain and its American colonies – even
in the internal communication of the Society, Spanish predominated over Latin.
The Jesuits from the German Assistance therefore had to master this language,
preferably even before departing to the missions. In the mission field they had to
study the local native languages, not only to be able to communicate with their
neophytes but also to conceive, through the language, the unfamiliar reality of
the New World. As a result, those scientific treatises that the Jesuits published or
meant to publish in America were invariably written in Spanish.37
Moreover, they
even communicated among themselves in this language.38
This, however, might
have come from need more than from personal decision, as the Bavarian missionary
Joseph Och noted in his autobiography that the German missionaries were
harassed and mocked if they spoke to each other in their mother tongue in the
presence of Spaniards. “The German language they consider as the language of
heretics, so they always said to us: Speak in a Christian fashion!” (Die deutsche
Sprache halten sie für eine ketzersprache, deßhalb sagen sie uns immer: reden sie
doch christlich!).39
Some even Hispanicized their names, changing to Esteyneffer
for Steinhöffer and de Castro for Boruhradský. Probably one of the reasons was the
difficult pronounciation of Czech and German names; however, the missionaries
used the Hispanicized forms even in mutual communication and in letters sent
to their home province. Still, even though they tried to master Spanish in a short
time, the Jesuits from the German Assitance were not completely accepted by the
Spanish-speaking population in America. Their letters abound with complaints of
complaints were voiced by Johann Jakob Baegert in a letter to his brother Georg (San Luis Gonzaga, 23-IX-
1757, in [BAEGERT], The Letters of Jesuit Missionary in Baja California, p. 190).
36	 Anton Maria Bentz from Bavaria apologized in one of his letters for becoming increasingly German,
as his Latin worsened considerably for the lack of practice. (Letter of Anton Maria Bentz to Georg Paur,
Cumuripa 16-VI-1752, in Peter Masten DUNNE and Ernest J. Burrus, eds., “Four Unpublished Letters
of Anton Maria Bentz, eighteenth-century missionary to Mexico”, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 24
(1955), pp. 369–377, quote on p. 376).
37	 For example, [Johann NENTVIG], Descripción geográfica, natural y curiosa de la Provincia de Sonora,
por un amigo del Servicio de Dios, y el Rey Nuestro Señor [1764, remained in manuscript], ed. Germán
Viveros, México 1971; Juan ESTEYNEFFER, Florilegio medicinal [published 1712], ed. María del Carmen
Anzures y Bolaños, México 1978.
38	 For example, the letter of Bohemian Jesuit Christian Malek sent to another Bohemian, Andreas Michel,
México, 12-I-1763 (AGN, Jesuitas, leg IV–10, exp. 33) In the already quoted letter of Johan Georg Camel to
Simon Boruhradský (de Castro), sent from Manila to New Spain in 1691, the author switches from Latin to
Spanish to German and back to Spanish. Therefore, it is also a proof of the multilingualism of the Jesuits.
39	 [Joseph OCH,] “P. Joseph Och’s, Glaubenspredigers der G.J. in Neumexico, Nachrichten von seinen
Reisen nach dem spanischen Amerika … ”, in Christoph Gottlieg von MURR, ed., Nachrichten von verschiedenen
Ländern des spanischen Amerikas. Aus eigenhändigen Aufsätzen einiger Missionare der Gesellschaft
Jesu, vol. 1, Halle 1809, 1811, pp. 1–292, quote pp. 12–13.
17
“mockery and humiliation” they had to endure because of their inadequate language
skills or bad pronunciation.40
From the point of view of the Spanish Crown, in spite of the familial-political ties
between the ruling families of Spain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the region of
Central Europe was perceived as a foreign territory. This was also the reason for the
relatively late participation of Jesuits from this part of Europe in the overseas missions,
given the fact of the cautious posture of the Spanish Crown towards the entry of foreigners
into its American possessions. Only in the year 1664, under the pressure of a
considerable shortage of religious workers in the New World, the Spanish king, Philip
IV, made possible the entry of those foreign missionaries into Spanish possessions in
America who came from provinces ruled by the members of the house of Habsburg.
In the same year, the Jesuit general Paulus Oliva announced the news to the provincials
in Central Europe.41
Afterwards, the number of foreign missionaries in Spanish
America rapidly increased; in the middle of the 18th century, about one-third of the
hundreds of Jesuits came from other countries than Spain – from Italian and German
states, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as from Ireland or France.42
After the easing of the restrictions, the new missionaries were recruited by means
of circular letters sent by the superior general of the Society of Jesus from Rome to
the individual European provinces, and by the provincials to all the residences and
colleges subjected to his authority. These letters were supplemented with petitions of
the procurators of the overseas Jesuit provinces that needed new persons to assist with
the evangelization of the New World. The procurators were also in charge of arranging
the journey for the selected Jesuits. The final selection of the future missionary was
placed fully into the hands of the superior general. The interested members (Indipetae,
literally “those asking to be sent to the Indies”) sent him their petitions, accompanied
by the recommendations of the rectors of their residence. The final approbation was
preceded by a detailed inspection of every candidate, including his talents and capacities,
both physcial as well as spiritual. Some of the petitions were refused two, three, or
(in at least one case) fourteen times, but they nevertheless continued to ask to be sent
to regions considered the most dangerous and poorest in the world.43
40	 Missionary Andreas Suppet writing from Chile, cf. MORALES, “Los diarios de la transmigración y de
la Guerra guaranítica de Tadeo Enis y Bernardo Nusdorffer (1750–1756)”, pp. 197–230, quote p. 208.
41	 The circular letter of the general in Anton HUONDER, Deutsche Jesuitenmissionäre des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts.
Ein Beitrag zur Missionsgeschichte und zur deutschen Biographie, Freiburg 1899, p. 211.
42	 Theodore TREUTLEIN, “Non-Spanish Jesuits in Spain’s American Colonies”, in Greater America (Essays
in Honor of H. E. Bolton), eds. Adele OGDON and Engel SLUITER, Berkeley 1945, pp. 219–242.
43	 A collection of 14,300 of these petitions from the period 1585–1772 is preserved in the main archive
of the Society of Jesus in Rome (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, hereafter ARSI). Some of them were
published already in the 17th and 18th centuries in order to promote missionary fervor in younger generations
of Jesuits: examples in Anton HUONDER, Deutsche Jesuitenmissionäre des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts,
pp. 207–210. See also Joseph MASSON, “La perspective missionnaire dans la spiritualité des jésuites”, in Les
Jésuites, spiritualité et activités, jalons d’une histoire, ed. Alain GUILLERMOU, Paris / Roma 1974, pp. 138–139;
Theodore TREUTLEIN, “Jesuit Travel to New Spain, 1678–1756”, Mid-America 19 (1937), pp. 104–123.
18
What was the motivation of these Jesuits to apply for the mission service overseas?
In their petitions they expressed not only their religious enthusiasm and longing for
martyrdom, but also gave voice to their firm self-identification with the body of the
Society of Jesus, regardless of regional differences. But these soon arose after their
transition overseas. The preponderant majority of the Jesuits from Central Europe
worked as missionaries of the field, only a few were engaged at universities and Jesuit
residences. Even though (as will be shown below) there was a certain discrimination
of the foreign Jesuits within the colleges in America,44
they mostly did not ask for
important positions, and when such were offered to them they insisted on being sent
to the remote missions. This sometimes caused certain tensions among them and the
“less fervorous” local Jesuits. An anonymous text from the 18th century mentioned
that “for going to the Indies ask always those most spiritual” (piden ir a las In[dia]s
siempre son de los mas espirituales).45
Furthermore, the majority of Europeans never
identified fully with the American milieu, even though they recognised their belonging
to the new provinces – the New World for them remained a barbarous, pagan
country to be transformed and redeemed.46
Nonetheless, the high representatives
of the order often described the German Jesuits as especially apt for missionary service,
best resistant to the inclemencies of the weather and the general inhospitability
of the New World.47
A persistent stereotype of the German inclination to discipline
remained in existence in the Spanish colonies in America until the end of the 18th
century.48
Both of the aspects of the mission enterprise most prominent to foreign Jesu-
its – the longing for personal sacrifice in the “strange land” of America and the feeling
of discrimination form part of the Spanish fellow members of the order as well
as the laics – is clearly present in the letters of the missionary Jacob Baegert, sent to
44	 German Jesuit Bartholomäus Braun in a posthumous biography of another Jesuit from Germany, Franz
Hermann Glandorff, vigorously refuted the “stupid rumor, that so often is heard: that the missions are an
honorable exile” (el vulgar rumor, que tal vez suele oirse, y es: que las Missiones son un honrado destierro;
Bartolomé BRAUN, Carta del p. visitador de la provincia Tarahumara sobre la apostólica vida y santa muerte
del padre Francisco Hermano Glandorf, México 1764, p. 6).
45	 [anon.], Arbitrios que se deben tomar para la dotación de religiosos jesuitas destinados a las misiones
de las Indias, AGN, Jesuitas, leg. I-11; exp. 96.
46	 For the goals of the Jesuit missionaries in general, see Markéta KŘÍŽOVÁ, La ciudad ideal en el desierto:
Proyectos misionales de la Compañía de Jesús y la Iglesia Morava en la América colonial, Praha 2004 (Ibero-Americana
Pragensia Supplementum 12 / 2004); idem., “The Ideal City and Lost Paradise: The Society of
Jesus and the Moravian Church in the New World”, Acta Comeniana 15–16 (2002), pp. 141–168.
47	 The anonymous and undated discourse, probably from the 18th century, on “going, or not going to the
Indies and the conversion of the infidels” (“Discurso sobre yr, o no yr a Yndias y combersion de Ynfieles”,
AGN, Archivo Histórico de la Hacienda, leg. 278, exp. 49) quoted Saint Francis Xavier who appreciated
the abilities of “Germans and Flemings especially, … being the most suitable [for missions]” (Alemanes y
flamencos por ser … mas aproposito para ello).
48	 HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 91, quoting a letter of governor
of Sonora, Juan Claudio de Pineda, to Jesuit missionary Andreas Michel (from Bohemia), San Carlos de
Buenavista, 29-XI-1766, AGN, Archivo Histórico de la Hacienda, 333 exp. 9, unfol.
19
his brother (also a Jesuit) and then circulated in a manuscript among the members
of the family. Even though Baegert proclaimed that the mission was sent to him by
God and he “would not want to change this at any time for anything in this world”,
he complained even before leaving the Spanish port of Cadiz that even though the
“missionaries that are sent by the Spaniards from foreign provinces to serve their
American people, [they] are not looked upon as guests and foreigners nor with any
living compassion; they treat them as if they were one of their possessions. They
do it in such an unkindly and cavalier fashion that one can only be astonished.”49
Similarly, the Bohemian Franz Hlawa complained to the provincial of New Spain
in 1760: “I am a foreigner and according to some these should not be admitted to
missions” (soy extranjero y éstos según algunos ni han de ser admitidos de los hijos en
las misiones).50
The prejudices they had to face were – apart from the fact of sharing
German as a language of communication – important factors that pushed the missionaries
from the German Assistance together and helped maintain their feeling of
separate identity.
And so, even though the official catalogues of the order never contained the
denomination Germanus, the formulations such as “we the Germans” (nosotros
los alemanes) abounded in the letters of the missionaries.51
It denoted not only
the affiliation to the province or assistance but also the awareness of the shared
mother / communication tongue and maybe even the sense of common culture,
different from – and sometimes perceived as superior to – that they found in their
new place of work. The last aspect was clearly important, as the Jesuits from Central
Europe often viewed the colonial cities, institutions, and society in general with disdain,
comparing it with their home provinces. For example, the Jesuit from Bohemia,
Wenzel Eymer, described in his letter from December 1692 the capital city of Mexico
in rather unfavorable terms: “Mexico is a big city, but without city gates or walls.
49	 [BAEGERT], The Letters of Jesuit Missionary, p. 76.
50	 Letter of Francisco Hlawa to Provincial Agustín Carta, Ocoroni, 19-II-1760, AGN, Jesuitas II-29, exp.
29, cf. HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 88. An anonymous document that
recognised the fertility and mineral riches of the provinces of Sinaloa, Sonora, and Pimería Alta in northern
part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain warned against its being dominated by “foreign Jesuits, who posses
imporant missions, that in spite of these advantageous circumstances are of little use for [Spanish] king”
(Jesuitas extrangeros, que tienen Misiones poderosas, y no obstante estas apreciables circunstancias son de poca
utilidad al Rey; [anon.], Suscinta Relación [al Virrey] de la California, Sonora, Sinaloa y Pimeria [1763],
ASIPM, no. 1114).
51	 Karel Slavíček, a Jesuit from the Bohemian Province who was sent to a mission to China (and whose
“Czech” ethnicity is not doubted by historians), identified himself and his companion, Ignaz Kögler from
Bavaria, as “we two Germans” (duo nos Alemanni; bilingual Czech-Latin edition of his letters, Karel
SLAVÍČEK, Listy z Číny do vlasti a jiná korespondence s evropskými hvězdáři, 1716–1735, trad. Josef Vraštil,
ed. Josef Kolmaš, Praha 1995, p. 24). The Bohemian Franz Xaver Pauer wrote to another member of the
Bohemian Province, Andreas Michel (in Spanish): “even though I am a useless countryman, still unfaltering
German”. (aunque soy inútil paisano, pero por fin alemán sin doblar, letter of Franz Xaver Pauer to p. Andreas
Michel, San Ignacio, 3-IX-1764, AGN Jes. IV-10 exp. 114, fol. 147r, cf. HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa
im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 32).
20
There are great amounts of dirt, richness and poverty in this land of silver. Its extension
is incomparably smaller than the New City and the Old City of Prague.”52
In the
same letter, the author repeatedly confessed feelings of homesickness and reminds
the addressee and all the friends and family members to send him letters as often as
possible, promising in return thorough and regular reports from the mission field.
The Central European Jesuits early understood that the society in the Spanish
colonies was profoundly divided into the criollo and the Spanish parts, a compeition
their order, willingly or unwillingly, was drawn into. On the one hand, the criollo
Jesuits did not conceal their patriotic feelings53
and with great probability tried to
persuade the foreigners to share them. They pretentiously gave them preference over
the brethren who came from Spain. According to a letter of Anton Maria Bentz to
his parents, upon the arrival of a new group to Mexico, the Germans were welcomed
“with all love”, while the Spanish novices were met with despise.54
But which side the
foreigners chose often depended on the momentous situation at a given time and
place. Johann Maria Ratkay from the Austrian Province (Slovenian in origin) noted
in his report to the provincial of Austria disapprovingly that “the Spaniards have here
generally the upper hand, the Mexicans on contrary are treated like their bond servants”
(Die Spanier haben hier durchgehends die Oberhand, die Mexicaner hingegen
warden geachtet als ihre Leibeigene).55
On the other hand, the already quoted letter of Wenzel Eymer from the year 1692
contains an indirect scorn towards local inhabitants, commenting not only on the
laziness of the colonists but also on the bad harvest, he asked rhetorically: “Who will
work, when so many Indians have died? The hunger will make even the whites to
work”. He also emphasised the notorious lack of interest of criollo Jesuits in the mission
work: “It is said that in the country there is a constant lack of priests, while in the
city of Mexico there are plenty.”56
Probably the existence of such divisions prompted
52	 Letter of Wenzel Eymer to Johann Lober, 19-XII-1692, Moravský zemský archiv, Brno, Jesuitica 557VI,
f. 45, quoted after KALISTA, Cesty ve znamení kříže, p. 91.
53	 Peruvian-born Jesuit José de Acosta dedicated his treatise Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Sevilla
1590) to the Infanta Doňa Ysabela Clara, daugther of the Spanish king Philip II, hoping that “that all I have
written may serve … [to] cause the people of [Peru] to receive more aid and favor from those to whose charge
His high and divine providence has entrusted them” (cf. HARRIS, “Mapping Jesuit Science”, p. 240). Thorough
analysis of the patritism of criollo Jesuits in the 18th century is offered by Alicia MAYER GONZÁLEZ,
Dos americanos, dos pensamientos: Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora y Cotton Mather, México 1998.
54	 “Welche uns, absonderlich die Teütsche, mit aller Lieb empfangen.… Al ser die spanischen Novitzen ersehen,
sagte er: diese hätten wohl können in Spanien verblieben, man braucht alhier Priester, die arbeithen
können. Eben also reden die Unserigen, so hierzuland gebohren seynd.” (Anton Maria Bentz to his parents,
México, 15-X-1750, in Peter Masten DUNNE and Ernest J. BURRUS, eds., “Four unpublished letters of Anton
Maria Benz, eighteenth-century missionary to Mexico”, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 24 (1955),
pp. 342–360, quote p. 351; see also [BAEGERT], Letters of a Jesuit Missionary, p. 100.
55	 Letter of Johann Ratkay to Nicolaus Avancinus, México, 16-XI-1680, in STÖCKLEIN, Allerhand so
Lehr- als Geist-reiche Brief-Schrifften und Reis-beschreibungen, vol. 1, no. 28, p. 81.
56	 Letter of Wenzel Eymer to Johann Lober, 19-XII-1692, Moravský zemský archiv, Brno, Jesuitica 557VI,
f. 45, quoted after KALISTA, Cesty ve znamení kříže, p. 91.
21
the Germans to rely more upon themselves. This strengthened due to the fact that
they rarely got a chance to occupy prestigious positions in the hierarchy of the order,
but they clearly predominated in the mission regions on the periphery of the viceroyalty.
There the foreigners did not conform to Spaniards but vice versa. Ferdinand
Konsag from Varazdin – on recommending the Spanish fellow missionary Sebastián
de Sistiaga to German procurator of the missions, Joseph Göbel – stated approvingly
that this criollo priest “has lived almost always among the Germans in the missions
and gets pretty well along with the Germans” (Aunque dicho sacerdote ha nacido en
este país, ha vivido casi siempre entre los alemanes en als misiones y se hace bastante
bien con los alemanes).57
The fact that the existence of shared cultural traits was important not only for
Bohemians and other minority groups who tried to find support in a larger group
of non-Spanish missionaries, together with the same feelings attracting parts of the
Jesuits from the German lands towards other Central European fellow missionaries,
can be documented by the popularity of the Bohemian saint Wenceslaus among all
of the Jesuits from the German Assistance. As recounted by the Bavarian missionary
Anton Maria Bentz in a letter to his parents, on 28 September 1750 “all of the
Germans without anybody [else]” celebrated this saint together.58
The Germans were
extremely interested in any information coming form Central Europe, and clearly
distinguished these specific news from information relating to the Society of Jesus
and the Spanish colonies in general.59
And, last but not least, the shared self-identification of all of the Jesuits of the German
Assistance as members of the same community within the larger body of the
Society was promoted also by the most important edition of their letter sent home,
the above-quoted collection Allerhand so Lehr- als Geist-reiche Brief-Schrifften und
Reis-beschreibungen, commonly known as Welt-Bott or Der Neue Welt-Bott. The
letters from members of German Assistance sent into their provinces of origin in
57	 Letter of Ferdinand Konsag to Joseph Göbel, San Ignacio, 17-IV-1751, British Library, London, Manuscript
collection, Add. 13986, fol. 300v, cf. HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 91.
58	 “Den 28., als an dem Tag des heyl. Wensezslai, tractieren uns vor der Statt in einem kleinen, aber lustigen
Orth zwey deutsche Brüder, Ch. Georg Haberl von Abensberg gebürtig, aus meiner lieben Provinz, und ein
anderer aus der böhmischen. Alle Teutsche waren beysammen, ohne einen [anderen] bey zu haben, und lebten
recht auf teutsche Arth.” (Anton Maria Bentz to his parents, México, 15-X-1750, in DUNNE and BURRUS,
“Four unpublished letters”, p. 353). Bavarian missionary Jakob Sedelmayr after discovering a source of fresh
water on an unexplored territory entrusted it to the protection of this saint. (Di gracias a Dios que en parte
tan seca a probeido este aguaje para facilitar el trancito al Santo Ebangelio; pues de este y por éste aguaje se
puede llegar sin tanto afán y rodeo a las Naciones del Desemboq[u]e. Pusele la Adbocacion de S[a]n Juan Nepomuseno.
(Jacobo SEDELMAYR, Relación de la entrada que se hizo … a las naciones gentílicas de los ríos
Gila y Colorado, Real Presidio de San Miguel de Horcasitas, 26-XII-1750, copy, Biblioteca Nacional, México
(hereafter, BN), Archivo Franciscano, 4 / 67.1).
59	 Hausberger mentiones the case of Joseph Göbel of Silesia, who in his office of procurador (that is, a
person residing in the capital city of Mexico and responsible for administering the necessary goods to outlying
mission posts) also supplied the “Germans” in these missions with news from Europe. (HAUSBERGER,
Jesuiten aus Mitteleurope im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 161).
22
the previous century were published chronologically, thereby randomly mixing the
texts from authors of various ethnic origins and presenting together a homogeneous
image of the feats of German Jesuits (Teutsche Jesuiten) accessible to the German
general public.60
The very fact of choosing only letters sent home by the members of
the German Assistance and the translation of the letters into vernacular testifies the
effort to accentuate the labour of a specific group from within the Society of Jesus,
identified by linguistic and territorial allegiance.
Oppositely, the members of the Bohemian Province had very strong and very specific
reasons for participation in the American mission project, reasons that made
evident another layer of their self-identification: their loyalty to the Catholic community.
The Kingdom of Bohemia had a notoriously bad reputation in Europe since
the 15th century as a country of heretics and apostates, threatening the stability and
order of the true Christian community. Already during the life of Ignacio de Loyola,
Bohemia became one of the first mission fields of the Society of Jesus. And, in fact,
the choice of words for describing the Bohemian “wilderness” and “desert” was very
similar to those that were used to describe the “barbaric” regions of the New World;
the Jesuits felt as watchmen on the walls of the Catholic faith.61
The uprising against
the Habsburg rule in the years 1618–1620 further strengthened the bad fame of
Bohemians and Moravians as notorious, treacherous, and rebellious Lutherans. Thus
if all Germany was identified as land of heretics by some Iberians (as was mentioned
in the letter of Andreas Suppet), even more distrust and mockery were aimed at the
Bohemians. Roughly fifty years after the end of the Thirty Years War, however, the reCatholization
bore its fruit and the Czech lands experienced a spiritual resurgence,
of which the interest of the young men to participate in the missions – the interest
that many times exceeded the possibility to be sent – was only one manifestation.62
Next generations of Bohemian Jesuits struggled actively to change the image of
their from bad to good, an effort that gave their mission work a very specific character.
The fact that the Bohemians themselves became protagonists of the great work of
60	 STÖCKLEIN, Allerhand so Lehr- als Geist-reiche Brief-Schrifften und Reis-beschreibungen, quote in
“Zuchtschrifft des Verfassers” in the first volume, unpag. (After Stöcklein’s death the edition was carried
on by Carl Mayer, Peter Probst, and Franz Keller.) For the analysis of the “patriotic” goals of the edition,
see HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleurope im kolonialen Mexiko; “El padre Joseph Stöcklein o el arte de
inscribir el mundo a la fe”, in Desde los confines de los imperios ibéricos: Los jesuitas de habla alemana en
las misiones americanas, eds. Karl KOHUT and María Cristina TORALES PACHECO, Frankfurt am Main  /
Madrid 2007, pp. 631–659.
61	 See Henry SULLIVAN, “El jesuita Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592–1667): Rector de la Universidad Carolina
de Praga (Bohemia) durante el Siglo de Oro”, Actas del Congreso “El Siglo de Oro en el Nuevo Milenio”, coord.
Carlos MATA INDURÁIN and Miguel ZUGASTI, Pamplona 2005, T. 2, pp. 1605–1612; John O’MALLEY,
The First Jesuits, Cambridge 1993, pp. 241–242.
62	 As documented Anna SKÝBOVÁ, “Zur Problematik des Patriotismus der böhmischen Kirchenhierarchie
am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts”, in Nations – Identities – Historical Consciousness. Volume Dedicated to
Prof. Miroslav Hroch, eds. Miloš ŘEZNÍK and Ivana SLEZÁKOVÁ, Praha 1997, pp. 203–339, since the 17th
century the “land patriotism” of clergy, at least, but also other upper levels of the society mixed the regional
and confessional self-identification.
23
Catholic regeneration, bringing the light of the Gospel to other parts of the world and
mediating the results of their work to their home colleges, brought great satisfaction
to them and to all members of the Bohemian Province. The two Bohemians who died
violently in overseas missions, Augustin Strobach (killed in 1684 on Tinian Island,
one of the Mariana Islands) and Heinrich Wenzel Richter (died in 1696 in Peru),
were – apart from the medieval saints Wenceslaus, Ludmila, Adalbertus, and John
of Nepomuk – the only “genuine” Czech martyrs, and as such they were celebrated
in printed and pictorial eulogies.63
The descriptions of their sufferings, as well as the
trials of other Bohemian Jesuits, clearly fit into the Baroque literary taste, but at the
same time symbolically integrated Bohemia and Moravia into the community of the
Catholic faith. Thus, while often self-identifying themselves as Germans (members
of the German Assistance), the Bohemians, Moravians, and Silesians also preserved
their specific identity as members of the Bohemian Province, los bohemios.
After their move to the New World, the Jesuits in fact became the subjects of the
Spanish king. It can be assumed that they identified with their new ruler in spite
of – or maybe in addition to – their ethnic origin. In their letters, even in those sent
shortly after their departure from Bohemia, abound with formulations such as “our
sovereign, our king”.64
Many of the foreign missionaries – in spite of not forsaking
their ethnic origin, language and sense of belonging – identified with the new territory
a priori. Before starting on the journey to the mission, they already signed as
“missionary of the Philippines”, “of China”, etc.65
Almost without exceptions, they
spent the rest of their lives overseas, died, and were buried in their new homes.
Some of the foreign missionaries proved their loyalty through their deeds. The
Bohemian Samuel Fritz, who worked in the Amazonia in a region of accentuated Portuguese-Spanish
conflict at the end of the 17th century, defended the Spanish interests
in the region, and with the pretext of being a Spanish spy was imprisoned for more than
a year in the city of Pará.66
Also, Eusebius Franciscus Kino, an “Italian by birth”, during
63	 Emanuel de BOYE, Vita et obitus venerabilis p. Augustini Strobach … , Olomouc 1691; idem., Vita et
obitus Vener. Patris Henrici Wenceslai Richter … , Praha 1702; see also Jan ROYT, “Los PP. Misioner Augustin
Strobach y Enrique Richter en un Grabado Praguense del siglo XVIII”, Ibero-Americana Pragensia
33 (1999), pp. 137–141, for the description of the pictorial source. Strobach was also the only Jesuit from
Bohemia whose body has been transported back from the mission posthumously and buried in his natal
city of Jihlava-Iglau.
64	 Paul Klein to unknown recipient, Sevilla, 10-X-1679, Okresní archiv Náchod, pozůstalost E. Langera,
inv. č. 472, ff. 339–345, cf. BINKOVÁ, “Jezuitští misionáři z českých zemí”, p. 93. Binková rememebrs that
also the mining specialists from Krušné hory / Erzgebirge sent to New Spain at the end of the 18th century
by signing their work contract became (for the period of the contract) subjects of the Spanish king, with
all respective rights and duties; also the Bohemian botanist Tadeo Haenke became, when he entered the
expedition of Alessandro Malaspina sent to America and the Pacific, the “naturalist of the [Spanish] king”
(naturista del Rey, as he himself signed), being released for the time of the expedition from his subjection to
the Austrian emperor.
65	 BINKOVÁ, “Jezuitští misionáři z českých zemí”, p. 93.
66	 Fritz’s diary from this journey (1689–1691) was published in Historiadores y cronistas de las misiones,
ed. Julio TOBAR DONOSO, Quito / Puebla 1960, pp. 255–279.
24
the time of the War of Spanish Succession did not sympathize with the Habsburg contender,
as could have been expected from former subject of the Habsburgs, but with the
Bourbon Philipp V, to whom he dedicated his opus magnum: Favores Celestiales de Jesús
y María Santísima.67
The loyalty of the foreign Jesuits to their Spanish sovereign, however,
was seriously shaken in the year 1767 when, after years and sometimes decades
of faithful service, they were rejected abruptly and brutally by the king and expelled
from their new fatherlands. Some of the German ex-missionaries later vented their
resentment in memoirs and autobiographies in which they accentuated their German
allegiances and did not spare critique of the Spanish colonial system.68
Contrastingly, the non-Spanish Jesuits – and especially the Germans – were constant
objects of mockery and suspicion throughout the whole period of the order’s
activity in America. These fears grew stronger after 1700, when Bourbons substituted
Habsburgs on the Spanish throne, and became tangible in 1702 with a decree
prohibiting the entry of foreign clergymen to the American colonies, which even
included Spaniards who had resided before in Germany (however, the lack of missionaries
soon led to the revocation of the prohibition in 1715).69
During the War
of Spanish Succession, another missionary from the Bohemian Province, Michael
Sabel, was accused by the bishopric of Venezuela for trying to gain the support from
the South American colonies for the Habsburg pretendant to the Spanish throne,
Charles, against the new Bourbon king Philip V. It has not been proved plausibly if
Sabel was either guilty or innocent;70
however, the lack of confidence in foreign Jesuits
was widespread even in times of peace. Throughout the 18th century, for example,
rumors repeatedly appeared in Spain and Italy about the “kingdom” of Paraguay,
independent of Spain and ruled by the “Jesuit king” – of German origin – by the
67	 HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 32. Kino’s text remained in manuscript,
it was discovered in the AGN only in 1907 and published in the edition entitled Las misiones de
Sonora y Arizona, ed. Francisco FERNÁNDEZ DEL CASTILLO, México 1989.
68	 For example, [OCH] “P. Joseph Och’s, Glaubenspredigers der G.J. in Neumexico, … ”; [Bernhard MIDDENDORF],
“Aus dem Tagebuche des mexicanischen Missionarius Bernh. Middendorff”, Katholisches Magazin für
Wissenschaft und Leben 1 (1845), pp. 740–798; Ignaz PFEFFERKORN, Beschreibung der Landschaft Sonora samt
anden merkwürdigen Nachrichten von den inneren Theilen Neu-Spaniens … , 2 vols, Köln 1794–1795.
69	 Agustín GALÁN GARCÍA, “Jesuitas a indias durante el siglo XVIII: la historia de un esfuerzo europeo”,
in La Compañía de Jesús en América: Evangelización y justicia (siglos XVII y XVIII), Córdoba 1993, p. 90.
70	 Anâlola BORGES, La casa de austria en Venezuela durante la guerra de Sucesión Espaňola (1702–1715),
Salzburg 1963; the same, “Los aliados del archiduque Carlos en la América virreinal”, Anuario de Estudios
Americanos 27 (1970), pp. 328–359, deduced from the (not altogether clear) documentation that Sabel
really was involved in some kind of anti-Bourbon conspiracy; her conclusions reproduced José del REY
FAJARDO, “Miguel Alejo Schabel, S.J. Escritor, Aventurero y Misionero”, Boletín Universitario de Letras
1 (1993), pp. 169–195. On the other hand, POLIŠENSKÝ and VEBR, “Miguel Sabel y Orígenes del Comerico
Americano con el Vidrio de Bohemia”, pp. 93–11, refuted the conspiracy thesis vigorously and stated that
the bishop of Venezuela, on accusing Sabel, was only following his own political goals. The debate on the pages
of the Ibero-Americana Pragensia has resulted into a stalemate: Anâlola BORGES, “Las Actividades del
Misionero Checo en Europa y en América (1699–1713)”, Ibero-Americana Pragensia 8 (1974), pp. 188–194;
Josef POLIŠENSKÝ and Lubomír VEBR, “Un Poco de Polémica sobre las Actividades de Miguel Sabel”,
Ibero-Americana Pragensia 8 (1974), pp. 194–197.
25
name of Nicolaus I. The Bavarian Joseph Och, who was originally elected for missions
in Paraguay, remembered later that during his stay in Spain before departing
to the colonies in 1754 the rumours grew stronger as well as complicated his depar-
ture.71
One of the reasons for the widespread suspicion against the Germans were
the persistent worries about Lutheranism in Spain and its colonies as well as in other
Catholic countries;72
for others, it was the political ambitions of some of the German
sovereigns within and outside of the borders of the Holy Roman Empire that worried
the Spanish authorities.
Symptomatic was also the reaction of Spanish autorities in the rather bizzare case
of a Jesuit from Silesia, Joseph Göbel, who for many years served as procurator in
Mexico City and in this role communicated often with other Germans in the northern
missions. In 1767 Göbel’s family summoned him back to Europe (allegedly in
order to resolve some property issues). He travelled via Spain; on the Spanish-French
border he was taken into custody, as in his baggage were found higly suspicious
documents: letters signed by the names of several foreign missionaries in Sonora
and some lay persons. The letters were addressed to the “queen and mother Maria
Theresia” (reina y madre María Teresa) and her son, the Roman emperor Joseph II.
They discussed the possibility of Austrian colonization of this part of America as well
as evaluating its economic potential, asserting that such project would “render great
utility for the Spanish nation and the unique greatness to the House of Austria” (utilidad
para la nación espaňola y única grandeza para la Casa de Austria).73
Göbel asserted persistently that he wrote these documents himself, as a form of
diversion during his long wait to pass through Spain. Nevertheless, the authorities
took the case very seriously. Göbel was imprisoned for the rest of his life (dying in
1778 in Castillo de Alfajorín) just as one of the missionaries mentioned in the let-
71	 Der erdichtete Narrenkönig Nicolaus I. kam damals af dem Weltteater zum Vorschein; dieser hinderte
viel. Ich mit anderen waren nach paraguay bestimmt. Alle Briefe von dort aus wurden aufgefangen, und nach
Madrit geliefert; der Procurator … konnte in 4 jahren keinen Brief zu Händen bekommen, und weil man sagte,
daß der König Nikolaus ein Deutscher sey, trauete er sich nicht deutsche Patres dahin zu schicken. ([OCH],
“P. Joseph Och’s, Glaubenspredigers der G.J. in Neumexico, … ”, p. 12).
72	 For the omnipresent fear of Lutheranism in Spanish colonies in America, see Alicia MEYER, “Heresiah
that Burns in Hell: The Image of Martin Luther in New Spain”, in Peer SCHMIDT and Hans MEDICK,
eds., Luther zwischen den Kulturen. Tagun der Universität Erfurt anlässlich des 500. Jahrestages der Immatrikulation
Martin Luthers an der Universität Erfurt, Göttingen 2004, pp. 119–140; idem., “Lutero y Alemania
en la conciencia novohispana”, in Horst PIETSCHMANN, Manuel RAMOS, Cristina TORALES, and
Karl KOHUT, eds., México y Alemania. Percepciones mutuas en impresos, siglos XVI-XVIII, México 2005,
pp. 199–218.
73	 Letter of Martín Rojas to Göbel, “en el campo bajo el Cerro Prieto”, 9-II-1766, AGN, Hist. 288, fol.
103r–104r. Summary of the whole case, with enumeration of the relevant sources in Archivo Histórico de la
Nación (Madrid) and Archivo General de la Nación (México), in HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa
im kolonialen Mexiko, pp. 163–165. Apart from the archival sources quoted by this historian, there are copies
of the most important documents in British Library, Manuscript collection, Add. 13986 (Papers relating
to Spanish possession in America), Vol. 3, fols. 218–220, 318–341. So far it has not been confirmed if the
document really were written by Göbel himself or were an elaborate falsificate (as the language contains
numerous Germanisms) serving for discreditation of the Society of Jesus.
26
ters, Joseph Garrucho from Sardinia, was apprehended in Mexico and escorted to
Spain. There was a thorough investigation taking place in New Spain, and although it
did not bring satisfactory results – none of the suspected persons outside the Society
of Jesus who were supposed to assist the missionaries in their “treacherous” activities
were identified – it still caused great rumors and probably served as a strong
argument at the moment for the expulsion of Jesuits from the Spanish possessions.74
There are two possible explanations of the case: either Göbel was telling the truth
and (however absurd this might had sounded) was really the author of the treacherous
documents; or the scandal was started deliberately as an attempt to discredit
the Society of Jesus. Regardless of which one of the two possibilities is correct, it is
interesting how readily the Spanish authorities had accepted the idea of a widespread
conspiracy organized by the German Jesuits.
The case pointed to yet another aspect of the complicated situation of the German
Jesuit missionaries and ex-missionaries caught amidst the Spanish overseas
empire – the perception of the highest authorities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
of the Jesuits being “their” Austrian subjects, even after they departed for overseas.
Probably in reaction to the prolonged and unsuccessful investigation of Göbel and
his alleged allies, four members of the Bohemian Province – Andreas Michel, Georg
Fraidenegg, Ignaz Fritz, and Johann Nepomuk Erlacher – were kept in prison in
Spain for several years after their expulsion from the Spanish colonies in America
in 1767 together with all the other Jesuits, even though these were soon allowed to
return to their home provinces. After being notified of their inprisonment by the
relatives of the Jesuits, Empress Maria Theresia, through the Secretary of State, Count
Kaunitz, and the Austrian envoys in Madrid, for several years aimed at their liberation
(even though they finally succeeded, only two of the four prisoners returned
to the Bohemian Province: one died in Spain, the other in Italy on the way home).
Insteresting is that the Spanish minister, on the one hand, repeatedly asserted that the
Jesuit superiors had been deliberately chosing “foreign individuals” as missionaries
“to pursue their political aims” at the expense of the Spanish Crown.75
On the other
hand, he firmly asserted that by departing for missions, the German Jesuits became
the subjects of the Spanish king, with all the relevants rights and duties, and, as such,
their imprisonment was exclusively a matter of the Spanish authorities;76
an assertion
that the Austrian envoy, as well as the Jesuits themselves, firmly refuted.
74	 Viceroy Antonio Bucareli y Ursúa to Spanish minister, Count of Aranda, México 26-I-1772, in Víctor
RICO GONZÁLEZ, ed., Documentos sobre la expulsión de los jesuitas y ocupación de sus temporalidades en
Nueva Espaňa (1772–1783), México 1943, pp. 14–15.
75	 Enviaban allá continuamente a sus individuos extranjeros con preferencia a los nacionales por convenir
así a sus miras políticas (Letter of Marquis de Grimaldi to Count von Mahony, San Ildefonso, 21-IX-1767,
Archivo Histórico de la Nación, Madrid, Estado, leg. 35181, cf. BAĎURA, “El caso de algunos ex-misioneros
jesuitas”, p. 169. ­
76	 Relativamente a los tres jesuitas alemanes [the imprisonment of the fourth ex-missionary, Andreas
­Michel, was brought out only later by the Austrian authorities] que se hallan arrestados en estos Reinos, debo
27
Fellow Countrymen
On the basis of this as well as the many previously quoted cases, we could summarize
that the foreign Jesuit missionaries in the Spanish possessions in America, and
namely the “Germans” from Central Europe, preserved their specific identities, were
aware of them (as were the Spanish and Austrian authorities), and commented on
them frequently and vehemently, even though they were also adhering – consciously
or unconsciously – to other types of allegiances. There is no wonder, therefore, given
the fact of the rich sources preserved in the archives of the Society of Jesus and published
by the order that the historians of the 19th and 20th centuries readily brought
forth the Jesuits case within the frame of the nationalist history writing. They were
directly appropriating all of the Jesuits that were either born on or entered the province
on the territory of the modern nation-state as “their” fellow countrymen. Especially
German historians repeated eagerly the assertions from the Jesuits themselves,
beginning with Francisco Javier, that the Germans were more resistant to the changes
of the climate and the general inhospitality of the mission outposts.
In these efforts, however, the German historians clashed vigorously with representatives
of other Central European nations. In Bohemia and Moravia, historians
struggled persistently throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries
to distinguish between German and Czech members of the Bohemian Province. As
arguments served their places of birth (areas with concentrations of German- and
Czech-speaking), first and last names,77
language skills (if the catalogues revealed
that the novice was obligated to take classes of German, it was assumed that his
manifestarle que se han tomado a rodos los informes necesarios y que de ellos resulta haberse considerado a
estos individuos como vasallos espaňoles y como tales haber sido empleados en parajes de la dominación espaňola,
seňaladamente en América, adonde de ningún modo se les habría dejado establecer si fuesen vasallos
de otra potencia. (Letter of Marquis to Prince von Lobkowitz, San Ildefonso, 29-IX-1773, Státní oblastní
archiv Žitenice, fund Rodinný archiv Lobkovicové hořínští, cart. 36, cf. BAĎURA, “El caso de algunos
ex-misioneros jesuitas”, p. 183).
77	 Characteristic was the effort of Kalista to present the last name of the missionary Adam Gilg as the
Czech surname “Jílek”, his opinion in this case being readily accepted by other authors until GRULICH, Der
Beitrag der böhmischen Länder, p. 48, documented on the baiss of thorough analysis of his texts that first
language of Gilg was German, not Czech. A great problem for this type of study constitutes the fact that
names given in the Jesuit catalogues are often written in Latinized form, thereby concealing the original
ortography. Still, certain first names (in the first place Václav / Wenzel) were considered to be proof of a
person’s national allegiance; however, even bearers of these names (like the missionary Wenzel Linck) were
of German mother tongue. (BINKOVÁ, “Jezuitští misionáři z českých zemí”, pp. 89–90; Binková considers
the use of such evidence as a proof of national allegiance of the Jesuits as “treacherous” and asserts that
the whole question was probably “insignificant” from the point of view of the times. The same opinion she
voices in her article “Mover las fronteras: los jesuitas bohemios en México que participaron en las expediciones
a los ríos Gila y Colorado (Adán Gilg, Ignacio Xavier Keller y Wenceslao Linck)”, in Desde los confines
de los imperios ibéricos: Los jesuitas de habla alemana en las misiones americanas, eds. Karl KOHUT and
María Cristina TORALES PACHECO, Frankfurt am Main / Madrid 2007, p. 443–479. While I consent to her
doubts as for the usability of the sources, I still consider the question important even from the point of view
of the 18th century).
28
mother tongue was Czech78
), or Czechisms in their Latin and Spanish texts.79
The
most problematic in these efforts was the absence of distinguishing between ethnic
or linguistic (Czech) and land (Bohemian) affiliation.80
The German historians were
thus purposefully equating all members of the German Assistance with ethnic Germans,
while Czech historians declared all members of the Bohemian Province to be
ethnic Czechs.81
Of interest is, however, that most of the patriotic Czech historians
did not include the Silesian Jesuits among the “Czechs”, in spite of the fact that the
region has for a long time belonged to the Bohemian Kingdom and was part of the
Bohemian Province of the Society of Jesus (an independent Silesian Province was
established only in 1754). Here, with great probability, the anachronic application of
present-day political divisions was taking place.
Czech historians tried to “defend” the “Czech” Jesuits against the pretensions of
Germans, confirming the important contribution of the Czechs to the treasury of
culture. In the words of Otakar Odložilík, “German scholars … classified the natives
of Bohemia and Moravia as Germans, even when their names easily betrayed their
Czech origin. It seemed to me only just that missionaries from Bohemia and Moravia
should be treated as a separate group in order to present in a proper setting their
share in the planting of Christian civilization among the heathen of America.”82
It was
not by chance that the first important Czech edition of letters sent by the Jesuit missionaries
to their home province – Cesty ve znamení kříže by Zdeněk Kalista – was
78	 See, for example, the notes in the catalogue of the novitiate in Brno, Státní oblastní archiv (State Regional
Archive), Brno, Cerroniho sbírka, sign. II., no. 76.
79	 KALISTA, Cesty ve znamení kříže, pp. 203–204, states on Wenzel Eymer: “His name might arouse certain
doubts if he was Czech. But his national allegiance is proved – apart from his first name and his birth-
place – also his letters. … His Latin is full of Czechisms and in one letter, … moreover a letter addressed to
a German, he even adds few words in Czech. On the other hand, Eymer’s German was rather poor”.
80	 See Otakar ODLOŽILÍK, “Czech Missionaries in New Spain”, Hispanic American Historical Review 25
(1945), pp. 428–454. Similar posture assumed Oldřich KAŠPAR, Los jesuitas checos en la Nueva España
1678–1766, trans. Eva Mánková, México 1991.
81	 For the 19th century, the prime example of the German cohort of historians is HUONDER, Deutsche
Jesuitenmissionäre des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, who included among the “Germans” also missionaries from
the Bohemian Province – Hlava, Holub, Hostinský, Boryně, etc. – whose last names at least provoke one to
consider carefully their ethnic origin; for the 20th, see Hermann HOFFMANN, Schlesische, mährische und
böhmische Jesuiten in der Heidenmission, Breslau 1939; Renée GICKLHORN, Missionsapotheker. Deutsche
Pharmazeuten in Lateinamerika des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart 1943; but also Vicente SIERRA, Los
jesuitas germanos en la conqusita espirtual de hispano-América, Buenos Aires 1944. Josef GICKLHORN
and Renée GICKLHORN, Im Kampf um den Amazonenstrom: Das Forscherschicksal des F. S. Fritz, Prag
1943, p. 9, explain that their book is an attempt to achive general recognition for “our German missionary”
Samuel Fritz (Versuchen einer Gesamtwürdigung unsers deutschen Missionars). At the same time, Hugo­HASSINGER,
Österreichs Anteil an der Erforschung der Erde. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte Österreichs,
Wien 1950, labelled the Jesuits from Bohemia “Austrians”, applying the criterion of dynastic subordination.
The Czech cohort is represented, for the 19th century, by Jan Bohumír DLABAČ, Pamětní listové učených
Čechů, Moravanů a Slezanů z obojí Indie a jiných zámořských krajin do Evropy zaslaní, Praha 1813, who at
least still respects the land allegiances of the Jesuit missionaries “from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia”, and
for the 20th by the already quoted historians Zdeněk Kalista and Otakar Odložilík.
82	 ODLOŽILÍK, “Czech Missionaries in New Spain”, p. 428.
29
published during World War II, with an aim, albeit indirect, to encourage patriotic
Czech feelings. Moreover, precisely this edition can serve as classic example of the
manipulation with the “nationality” issue by the editor. Kalista quotes the Jesuit from
the Bohemian Province, Anton Xaver Malinský, who mentioned that the criollos in
New Spain “treat us, and especially the Germans, courteously” (Illi qui ab Hispanis
originem trahunt & his naguntur, Criollo vocantur, respeti Nostrum, praesertim
Germanorum, admodum affabiles). But Kalista translated the sentence differently:
“treat us, especially those coming from Central Europe, courteously” (lidé původu
španělského, kteří se zde narodí, jmenují se kreolové a jsou k našincům, zejména k
příchozím ze střední Evropy, velmi vlídní).83
But the Bohemian case was not the only one. There were (and still are) persistent
disputes over other prominent Jesuit missionaries, like Ferdinand Konščak (Konsag,
Consag), who was born in Varaždin, entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in
Trenčín in Slovakia (at that time located in the Kingdom of Hungary), and studied
in Graz and lectured in Zagreb, in the Austrian Province, before departing for missions.
Consequently, Konščak is alternately labelled as “Croatian”, “Slovakian”, “Austrian”,
or “Hungarian” in works of history, not mentioning the Mexican historians
who celebrate him as the founder of California.84
Similaraly is the different labelling
of the Italian / German / Austrian missionary Eusebius Franciscus Kino.85
Lastly, the
83	 Letter of Anton Xaver Malinsky to Constantino Caldalozzi, 16-VII-1732, Státní ústřední archive (State
Central Archive), Prague, JS 419, box. 148, folder Jos. 28, f. 11; KALISTA, Cesty ve znamení kříže, p. 134. A
similar shift is offered by the translation of the already quoted letter of Bohemian missionary Karel Slavíček
from China, whose expression “nos duo missionarii alemanni” was translated by Josef Vraštil as “we two
missionaries from Central Europe”. (Josef VRAŠTIL, ed., p. Karla Slavíčka, misionáře T. J., Listy z Číny do
vlasti (1716–1727), Přerov / Pardubice 1935; cf. Rudolf GRULICH, Der Beitrag der böhmischen Länder zur
Weltmission des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Königstein 1981, p. 17. Modern bilingual (Latin and Czech) edition
of Slavíček’s letters leaves the distorted translation with explanation in footnote that “the expression
duo nos Alemanni doesn’t mean nationality but origin from the former Roman Empire of the German Nation.
Therefore, today we would say ‘we two from Central Europe’. Central Europeans are put up against the
Portuguese. Czech nationality of Slavíček is confirmed by his … letter to French Jesuit Stephen Souciet from
2-X-1733, where he notes how his name is correctly written and pronounced”. (SLAVÍČEK, Listy z Číny,
p. 217, note 18 – notes by Josef Kolmaš). The whole present article is aiming to problematize these simplistic
notions of “translating” Jesuit notions of nationality for the contemporary usage.
84	 Huonder, of course, included Konsag among the “Germans” (HUONDER, Deutsche Jesuitenmissionäre
des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, p. 111. For Konsag as Croatian, see M. D. KRMPOTIC, Life and works of
the reverend Ferdinand Koncak: 1703–1759, an early missionary in California, Boston 1923; for the combined
Mexican and Croatian perspective on Konsag, see the already mentioned book by LAZCANO and
PERICIC, Fernando Consag. Luis GONZÁLEZ RODRÍGUEZ, “El noroeste colonial y los países checos”, in
La antropología en México, vol. 5, ed. Carlos GARCÍA MORA, México 1988, pp. 251–164 (repr. Luis GONZÁLEZ
RODRÍGUEZ, El noroeste novohispano en la época colonial, México 1993, pp. 15–32) lumps him
simply together with the “Czechs”.
85	 For the case of Eusebius Franciscus Kino / Chini / Kühn, see HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa
im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 31, who quotes older historians (“Deutscher [und keineswegs italienischer!] Jesuit”:
Dietmar HENZE, Enzyklopädie der Entdecker und Erforscher der Erde, Lieferung 11, Graz 1986, p. 93;
“Österreicher”: Ernst BERNLEITHNER, “Österreichs Beitrag zur Kartographie Lateinamerikas”, Zeitschrift
für Lateinamerika 8 (1976), p. 91), besides the North American historians who celebrate Kino as “founder”
of the state of Arizona. To give one more example, Zdeněk KALISTA, “Los misioneros de los países
30
inappropriateness of lumping together all the Jesuits that originally came from the
territory of the Sacrum Romanum Imperium as “Germans” by German historians
should be mentioned, giving the political, cultural, and linguistic divisions among its
various constituent parts.
As for the Czech historians, another important aspect came to the fore. The Czech
national revival in the second half of the 19th century elevated Protestantism and
the Hussite tradition to principal symbols of national spirit, while Catholicism, and
especially the activities of the Jesuit order, within as well as outside the borders of the
Bohemian Kingdom, were identified with the “authoritarianism” of the Habsburg
dynasty and the oppression of the Czechs through Germans.86
The Baroque period
was for the Czech history “Dark Times”; its artistic as well as intellectual achievements
were downplayed purposefully.87
The same line continued in the Czech historiography
after the year 1918 (with some exceptions, like Josef Pekař or Zdeněk
Kalista).88
The problem of Jesuit missions was thus pushed to the very margin of the interest
of Czech historians, with the exception of the effort to identify the “first Czechs” who
left their footprints in remote corners of the world, as the Jesuits often assumed this
leading role.89
This was even more the case after the year 1948, when the whole corpus
of religious history was marginalized. The topic of Jesuit missionaries was thus
followed up only within the frame of the study of Czechs abroad – as such, it constituted
one of the prime areas of interest of the Center for Ibero-American Studies that
was in 1967 established at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Prague.
This approach matched the principal goal of the Center, that is, the effort to map the
documentation for early history of America in Czech and Slovak / Eastern European
checos que en los siglos XVII y XVIII actuaban en América Latina”, Ibero-Americana Pragensia 11 (1968),
pp. 117–161, here p. 126: labels the Slovinian Ratkay “Austrian”, no doubt because of his province of origin,
the Austrian Province. (To Ratkay HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko, p. 31).
86	 The “Czech soul” was identified with Protestantism not only by František Palacký, Dějiny národa českého
v Čechách a v Moravě, 5 vols., Praha 1836–1867; Tomáš Garrigue MASARYK, Česká otázka, Praha 1895.
87	 For the analyses of this historiographic discourse, see Marie-Elizabeth DURCREUX, “Několik úvah
o barokní zbožnosti a o rekatolizaci Čech”, Folia Historica Bohemica 22 (2006), pp. 143–177; idem., “Le
baroque dans le paysage tcheque et dans le mémorie historique du pays”, in Lumière et ténèbres. Art at civilisation
du baroque en Bohême, ed. Vít VLNAS, Paris 2002; Ivana ČORNEJOVÁ, “Pobělohorská rekatolizace
v českých zemích: Pokus o zasazení fenoménu do středoevropských souvislostí”, in Úloha církevních řádů
při pobělohorské rekatolizaci (Sborník příspěvků z pracovního semináře konaného ve Vranově u Brna ve dnech
4.–5. 6. 2003), ed. Ivana ČORNEJOVÁ, Praha 2003, pp. 14–24; Jaroslav PÁNEK, “Nástup rekatolizace ve
střední Evropě, in Rekatolizace v českých zemích (sborník referátů z konference v Jičíně, konané 10.9.1993),
Pardubice 1995, pp. 3–15; Jiří MIKULEC, Pobělohorská rekatolizace v českých zemích, Praha 1992.
88	 KALISTA, Cesty ve znamení kříže; idem., České baroko, Praha 1941; Josef PEKAŘ, Bílá Hora, Praha
1921.
89	 For example Otakar ODLOŽILÍK, Po československých stopách v Latinské Americe, Praha 1935; Vilém
MATHESIUS, ed., Co daly naše země Evropě a lidstvu, 2 vols., Praha 1940; Vlastimil KYBAL, “Czechs and
Slovaks in Latin America”, in Czech Contribution to World Culture, The Hague 1967.
31
archives and libraries and, when possible, to search for “Bohemicales” abroad.90
To
be sure, such an approach was partly necessitated by the lack of access to foreign
archives for historians from the Soviet bloc. But in the specific area of the study of
Jesuit missions, as well as in other fields (for example, history of 19th-century migrations),
it led to the continuation of efforts to identify the “Czechs” and leave aside
members of other nationalities.
The endeavours to “categorize” the missionaries according to their ethnicity and
(proto-)national affiliation manifested themselves in various national historiographies
of Central Europe;91
not mentioning the various Latin American historians who
are making use of the Jesuit missionaries for their own political goals and presenting
them as early protagonists of national sentiment within the Spanish colonies.92
The
overview of these approaches on the previous pages is probably not overly surprising,
given the persistence of the nationalist approach in the study of history. Of more
interest is probably the fact that such traditional approaches – the efforts to preserve
one’s position within the frame of the history of the world and to assert the contributions
of fellow countrymen to the rise and spread of European civilization – persist
until today in Czech and, more generally, in Central Europan historiography. This in
turn reveals its inherent conservativism and, more importantly, its identification with
the task of defending the national cause and corroborating it through references to
and appropriations of the great personalities of the past.
In the study of Jesuit missions, this strategy resulted in persisting separation of
the Czechs (and, eventually, Slovaks) from “foreigners” – which has continued also
after 1989. The authors of the encyclopaedia of Czech and Slovak Orientalists, Africanists
and Ibero-Americanists also included in their handbook some of the Jesuits
that met, at least partially, the national criterion; they included Joseph Neumann,
denominating him “Czech-German missionary in Mexico” (českoněmecký misionář v
90	 Simona BINKOVÁ, “Historia de las relaciones entre Bohemia y México en los siglos XVII y XVIII
(Fuentes guardadas en los archivos y bibliotecas mexicanos)”, Ibero-Americana Pragensia 18 (1984), pp. 67–
93; Oldřich KAŠPAR and Anna FECHTNEROVÁ, “Checos, moravos y silesios en el Nuevo Mundo en los
siglos XVII y XVIII. Registro Bio-Bibliográfico”, Annals of the Náprstek Museum 15 (1988), pp. 165–204.
For the goals of the Centre of Ibero-American Studies, see Josef POLIŠENSKÝ, “Condiciones actuales de la
historiografía checa sobre América Latina”, Ibero-Americana Pragensia 1 (1967), pp. 175–178; Josef OPATRNÝ,
“Los temas de la iberoamerikanística checa: Pasado y perspectivas”, Revista Europea de Estudios
Latinoamericanos y del Caribe 72 (2002), pp. 127–138.
91	 For example, GRULICH, Der Beitrag der böhmischen Länder, aims at a “land perspective”, purposefully
including “Czechs” as well as “Germans” (and Catholics as well as Protestants). HAUSBERGER, Jesuiten
aus Mitteleuropa im kolonialen Mexiko, pp. 26–33, presented a brief theoretical overview of the problem of
Jesuit (self-)identity and clearly explained his own posture in the issue (besides choosing the perspective
of region and province, not the nation). The collective volume edited by Karl Kohut aimed at resolving the
problem of national affiliations by switching the attention of contributors to “German-speaking” Jesuits
(jesuitas de habla alemana), deriving from the (supposed) unity of language also the idea of shared culture;
this is, however, not less problematic.
92	 Luis HERNÁN RAMÍREZ, “Samuel Fritz (1654–1725), defensor de la peruanidad en el territorio amazónico”,
Alma Mater, 13–14 (1997), pp. 29–33.
32
Mexiku).93
Additionally, Czech / Czechoslovak historiography in the socialist period
either ignored or gravely underestimated the central, that is, religious goal of the
missionaries. They were instead presented as “travellers”, “explorers”, or early protagonists
of science. The endurance of this perception of the Jesuits is clearly present
in the two biographical dictionaries already quoted. Such an approach, of course,
greatly skews their own perception of themselves as first and foremost the members
of the Society of Jesus – a perception that was definitive even for such a fervent
botanist as Georg Joseph Kamel.94
While after 1989 the historiographical discourse
and research interests pendulated from the ignorance or open despisal of the role of
Catholic religion – and especially the Baroque Catholicism, whose constituent part
the overseas missions belonged to – in Czech / Czechoslovak history to sometimes
uncritical praise of the same,95
the basic outline of the narrative remained the same.
In contrast, this contribution here was intended to demonstrate how limited or even
misleading such a narrative turns out to be, particularly if one tries to grasp the complexity
of transnational and transcontinental exchanges and encounters in the early
modern world between East Central Europe and Latin America.
93	 Jan FILIPSKÝ, ed., Kdo byl kdo: Čeští a slovenští orientalisté, afrikanisté a iberoamerikanisté, Praha 1999,
p. 349. But the same approach to Joseph Neumann as “historian and ethnographer” is maintained even by
Latin American historians, see Luis GONZÁLEZ RODRÍGUEZ, “Joseph Neumann, 1648–1732: Historiador
y Etnógrafo de la Tarahumara”, Ibero-Americana Pragensia XX (1986), pp. 141–158.
94	 “The development of a robust tradition in the natural sciences took place in the daily and local contexts
in which Jesuits found themselves. In this respect, we need to remind ourselves … [that] none of the Jesuit
explorers and authors were naturalists or geographers by training or profession [and] none travelled or
worked as naturalist or geographer per se”, adverts HARRIS, “Mapping Jesuit Science”, p. 214.
95	 To this change of approach, see Svatava RAKOVÁ, “Pobělohorské Temno v české historiografii 90. let:
pokus o sondu do proměn historického vědomí”, Český časopis historický 99 / 4 (2001), pp. 569–588; Jan
HORSKÝ and Zdeněk NEŠPOR, “Typologie české víry raného novověku: Metody a možnosti studia lidové
religiozity v 18. století”, Český časopis historický 103 / 1 (2005), pp. 41–89.
33
THE AUTHOR
Markéta Křížová is a historian and anthropologist, specialized in the colonial and
precolonial history of the USA and Latin America. As an Associate Professor, she
teaches and researches at the Centre for Ibero-American Studies of Charles University
in Prague. Her research focuses on European overseas expansion, colonial
history of America, and the problem of cultural encounters and competitions. She
received her MA degree in history and ethnology, and a PhD in Ibero-American
studies at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Her doctoral dissertation, La
ciudad ideal en el desierto: Proyectos misionales de la Compaňía de Jesús y la Iglesia
Morava en la América colonial [Ideal City in the Wilderness: Missionary Projects
of the Society of Jesus and Moravian Church in Colonial America], was published
in Prague in 2004. Her habilitation The Strength and Sinews of this Western World:
African Slavery, American Colonies and the Effort for Reform of European Society in
the Early Modern Era was published in 2008.
Contact:
Markéta Křížová
Středisko ibero-amerických studií (SIAS)
Univerzita Karlova v Praze
Hybernská 3
110 00 Prague, Czech Republic
E-mail: krizova_ibero@seznam.cz