Cartography of the Guaranitic War

Abstract

The Guaranitic War (1753-1756) was the warlike event set off by the rebellious Indians against the demarcators and armies of Spain and Portugal. It was motivated by the rejection of six cabildos (Fundamental unit of local government in colonial Latin America) located east of Uruguay River, chief of Misiones and Jesuitical, upon contesting clauses of the Treaty of Madrid (1750). The main cause was the forecast of exchange of the Seven Peoples (Spanish) by the Colony of the Sacrament (Portuguese). This event produced considerable cartography. The conferences for the signature of the Treaty of Madrid, equally, promoted intense systematization of the existing cartography and the output of exclusive works about the regions of borders. In his corollary, cartography for the commissioner demarcators were organized. And, in the boundary work, the teams illustrated the dividing and the territories. In special, the divergent areas were written up to the details. In that process, there were created a cartography and an iconography of the war. It was specified to territoriality, the geography, the battles, the military marches, the missionary cities and their architecture. In this work, we privilege the cartographic/iconographic production of the missionary space representation, of the first commission of limits and of the Guaranitic War. All of the documents cited are reproduced, with the references to the collections, in my book The Guaranitic War (GOLIN, 1998) and The Frontier (GOLIN, 2002).