THE MISSION

1.- Briefly explain the plot of the movie.

America, eighteenth century. The Mission fits in the tropical jungle that is above the Iguazu Falls. There a Jesuit, Father Gabriel ( Jeremy Irons) follows the path of a crucified Jesuit, with no more weapons than his faith and a flute. Upon being accepted by the Guaraní Indians, Gabriel creates the mission of San Carlos. His followers are joined by Rodrigo Mendoza, Robert De Niro, a slave extractor, mercenary and murderer, who finds his redemption among his former victims, becoming a Jesuit. After years of fighting together, they are divided by opposing positions in a dramatic battle for independence from the natives.

2.-Explain the historic presence of Jesuit Missions in Paraguay?

The film is set during the Jesuit Reductions, a program by which Jesuit missionaries set up missions independent of the Spanish state to teach Christianity to the natives. It tells the story of a Spanish Jesuit priest, Father Gabriel, who enters the South American jungle to build a mission and convert a community of Guaraní Indians to Christianity.

3.- In what ways is the Treaty of Madrid (1750) related with this movie?

In 1750 Spain and Portugal signed a treaty renegotiating a borderline between Spanish and Portuguese territories in South America, with Portugal taking control of a previously Spanish region on the Paraguay River. In this region were a number of mission communities, founded by the Society of Jesus, where thousands of native Guaraní converts lived. These missions (called "reducciones" or "reductions") were not simply spiritual centers, but thriving economic communities where converts worked together and prospered.

The Jesuit missionaries, who were ardent champions of the Pope, strongly opposed slavery, an institution long condemned by Rome. The Vatican had particularly condemned the enslavement of the newly discovered peoples of the Americas; but social acceptance of this teaching (as of the Church’s condemnations of dueling in the nineteenth century or of abortion today) was limited and partial. Spain had anti-slavery laws, but Portugal didn’t; and naturally the Guaraní  deeply resented the transfer of power. Once the Spanish withdrew, the only protection remaining to the Guaraní would be the Jesuit reducciones. The Portuguese, of course, wished to see the missionaries depart from the region together with the Spanish civil authority.

In the name of protecting the Order on the Continent, the missionaries were ordered to abandon and send their converts back to their native ways of life.
The movie tells the story of one company of missionaries who defy the order to leave their mission, defending the right of their converts to remain in their new home. Some of these priests, led by a novice named Mendoza, even actively lead the Guaraní in guerrilla warfare against the Portuguese forces who eventually arrive to expel them.

4.- What were the Jesuit Reductions?

The missions of the Jesuits, they were not simply spiritual centers, but thriving economic communities where converts worked together and prospered.

5.- How are Zamora and this movie related? You can use this link to find out

It is related because the project of the foundations of jesuits missions were work of Diego De Torres, who was of Zamora.