This essay highlights the accomplishments of one of the foremost Jesuit missionaries
in seventeenth-century Paraguay, Antonio Ruiz de Montoya. Born in Lima, Montoya
distinguished himself as a chronicler of the first encounters between the Jesuits and
the Guaraní Indians of South America. He defended Indian rights by speaking out
against Indian slavery. Montoya spent approximately twenty-five years among the
Guaraní indigenous peoples who influenced his worldview and sense of spirituality,
which are reflected in his 1636 first account of the Jesuit reducciones in Paraguay,
Conquista espiritual hecha por los religiosos de la Compañía de Jesús en las provincias del
Paraguay, Paraná, Uruguay, y Tapé.