“A Bloodless and More Prolonged Martyrdom”: Jesuit Sacrifice and Native Suffering in Northern New Spain

In response to the 1695 murder of missionary Javier Saeta, Diego de Almonacir wrote a circular letter to New Spain’s northwestern missions.  The Jesuit Provincial acknowledged that the Fathers longed “with a thousand desires” to join their holy companion in death.  However, he urged the remaining missionaries to the Upper Pima to “prolong their bloodless martyrdom by continually risking their lives and by clinging tenaciously to the ministry despite brute obstinacy.”  The founder of the mission, Father Eusebio Kino, relished the commission.   Quoting it throughout his account of Saeta’s life and death, Kino argued that their bloodless martyrdom was the tougher lot, as it was “more laborious, hard, painful, and prolonged,” than a quick death by arrows, fire, or sword.  Perhaps Saeta’s blood sewed the seed, but their sweat and tears watered the plants and brought forth final spiritual fruit.     

And yet, even as tales of persecution united them to Christian history, many Jesuits also believed their everyday sacrifice forged intimate bonds with their native charges.  While they celebrated the martyrdom of fallen brothers, they also presented converts as long suffering children, in their own way innocent and victimized by the diabolic “common enemy.”  The indigenous role in suffering ranged from ignorant dupes to full-fledged cases of edification for European audiences.  As native communities endured dislocation, disease, and often unjust punishments many, Jesuits pointed out the similarities between missionary sacrifice and native suffering.            

This paper asks what was gained by identifying evangelists and evangelized as victims.   It suggests that the idea of mutual persecution helped Jesuits secure their place in a constantly shifting colonial situation.  Under the pressures of Apache raiding, endemic infection, labor demands, and secularization, Jesuits held up their sacrifice and native suffering as ways to explain setbacks and stake claim to their space.