Jesuit reductions among the Guaraní
Mission towns where natives armed against slave raiders
In 1609 the Jesuits founded their first reduction, or mission town, among the Guaraní. Soon there were about thirty such towns, with a population exceeding 100,000 by the 1730s. They built Baroque churches, printed books in Guaraní and kept their own militia against Brazilian slave raiders. In 1767 the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits, and the reductions declined.
Wikipedia (English) · 17th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada — 21 years earlier
- 1598 Edict of Nantes — 11 years earlier
- 1600 East India Company founded — 9 years earlier
- 1610 Galileo's telescopic discoveries — 1 year later
- 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War — 9 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1598–1613 Time of Troubles — 11 years earlier
- 1612 Minin and Pozharsky liberate Moscow — 3 years later
- 1613 Election of Michael Romanov as Tsar — 4 years later
Africa
- 1591 Battle of Tondibi and fall of Songhai — 18 years earlier
- 1624–1663 Nzinga becomes Queen of Ndongo — 15 years later
Asia
- 1592–1598 Imjin War — 17 years earlier
- 1600 Battle of Sekigahara — 9 years earlier
- 1632–1653 Building of the Taj Mahal — 23 years later
Alive at the time
- Tokugawa Ieyasu (aged 66)
- Miguel de Cervantes (aged 62)
- William Shakespeare (aged 45)
- Galileo Galilei (aged 45)
- René Descartes (aged 13)
- Rembrandt (aged 3)
- Matteo Ricci (aged 57)
- Rudolf II (aged 57)
- Henry IV (aged 56)
- James I (aged 43)