The Jesuit Missions:

Ruins of the Jesuit establishments in the XVII and XVIII centuries. Constructions carried out in stone and invaded by an abundant vegetation from subtropical forests. Incorporated to World Heritage by the UNESCO.

The history begins at the beginning of the XVII century, when an important evangelising current of Jesuits arrived at an area known as the Guayrá. This area includes the basins of the rivers Paraguay, Paraná and Uruguay and it embraces areas of the territories of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The Jesuits founded together with the inhabitants of the place - mainly Guarani indians - about 30 towns , which copied the settlements already proven by the Franciscans.

After converting the Indians to Christianity and qualifying them in different occupations, the towns reached a high degree of social and cultural development, observing in great measure, the local customs.. Forming part of a multinational organisation, the Jesuits of different origins and academic formations, copied in all their missions the outlines of buildings, social organisation, education and production and achieved the almost total self- sufficiency, concentrating the activities which required more technology - such as printing or iron foundry - in only some of their settlements.

They had to move their settlements several times due to the continuous attacks of the bandeirantes coming from San Pablo (Brazil) who sacked the Guayrá looking for slaves for their plantations.

The missionary action extended up to 1767 when the Jesuits were expelled from the Kingdom of Spain and their colonial territories by Carlos III's order. The towns decayed until finally, at the beginning of the XIX century they were destroyed by attacks of Portuguese armies and the Paraguayan dictator Rodríguez de Francia.

By the end of last century they were rediscovered. They were covered by the thick vegetation of the Guaraní forest. Today there are only four towns in which one can learn from the ruins, what these missions were like. From the city of Posadas one can visit three of the missions (San Ignacio Miní in Argentina and Trinidad y Jesús on the Paraguayan margin of the river Paraná) and three of the smaller settlements (Santa María, Santa Ana and Loreto on the Argentine side)