Reductions

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (June 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 5,028 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Pueblo de indios]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Pueblo de indios}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Part of a series on
Spanish missions in the Americas of the Catholic Church
Missions in North America
Arizona Baja California California The Carolinas Chihuahua Florida Georgia Louisiana Mexico New Mexico Querétaro Sonoran Desert Texas Trinidad Virginia
Missions in South America
Chiloé Chiquitos Córdoba Itapúa Moxos Nahuel Huapi Mainas Eastern Missions Río Bueno
Related topics
Cargo system Mission Indians Reductions Andes Jesuit
Catholicism portal
v t e

Reductions (Spanish: reducciones, also called congregaciones; Portuguese: redução, pl. reduções) were settlements established by Spanish rulers and Roman Catholic missionaries in Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies (the Philippines). In Portuguese-speaking Latin America, such reductions were also called aldeias. The Spanish and Portuguese relocated, forcibly in many cases, indigenous inhabitants (Indians or Indios) of their colonies into urban settlements modeled on those in Spain and Portugal. The Royal Academy of Spain defines reducción (reduction) as "a grouping into settlement of indigenous people for the purpose of evangelization and assimilation."^[1] In colonial Mexico, reductions were called "congregations" (congregaciones).^[2][3] Forced resettlements aimed to concentrate indigenous people into communities, facilitating civil and religious control over populations.^[4] The concentration of the indigenous peoples into towns facilitated the organization and exploitation of their labor. The practice began during Spanish colonization in the Caribbean, relocating populations to be closer to Spanish settlements, often at a distance from their home territories, and likely facilitated the spread of disease.^[5] Reductions could be either religious, established and administered by an order of the Roman Catholic church (especially the Jesuits), or secular, under the control of Spanish or Portuguese governmental authorities. The best known, and most successful, of the religious reductions were those developed by the Jesuits in Paraguay and neighboring areas in the 17th century. The largest and most enduring secular reductions were those imposed on the highland people of the former Inca Empire of Peru during the rule of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo (1569–1581).

During the early stages of Christianisation of the Americas, Spanish Catholic authorities might establish ecclesiastical missionary proto-parish subdivisions - Spanish: doctrinas; singular: Spanish: doctrina, lit. 'doctrine' – for the indoctrination of the faith.^[6][7]