Nusdorffer, Bernardo (1686–1762)

Bernardo Nusdorffer (b. 17 August 1686; d. 18 March 1762), German missionary and writer. Nusdorffer, one of several non-Spanish Jesuits who worked as a missionary (in the Paraguay reductions), was born in Plattling, Bavaria, and entered the Jesuit order in 1704. He arrived with eight other German missionaries in the Río de la Plata in 1717 and spent most of his life in Paraguay as a missionary among the Indians. From 1732 to 1739 he was in charge of all of the Jesuit Guaraní reductions. In 1745, when he was the superior of the reduction of San Nicolás de Loreto, he wrote about the effects of alcohol among the Pampas Indians. He thought that its easy availability was leading to their destruction as a people. In 1747, again the provincial superior of the reductions, he wrote a lengthy account of the effects of the Treaty of Limits (1750), which transferred seven Guaraní missions to the Portuguese. In his Relación de todo lo sucedido en estas Doctrinas en orden a las mudanzas de los Siete Pueblos (1750–1756), Nusdorffer wrote that after receiving the order of transfer, he immediately took steps to find other land for the thousands of Indians who were being moved from their towns. Among Nusdorffer's writings are accounts of theatrical productions in Jesuit colleges of Paraguay, descriptions of the Indians within and outside the reductions of Paraguay, and several reports of the proceedings surrounding the opposition of the Indian towns to their forced evacuation. He died in San Carlos reduction in 1762.

See alsoMissions: Jesuit Missions (Reducciones) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Guillermo Furlong Cardiff, Bernardo Nusdorffer y su "Novena parte" (1760) (1971).

Additional Bibliography

Ganson, Barbara Anne. The Guaraní under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.

Several, Rejane da Silveira. A Guerra Guaranítica. Porto Alegre: Martins Livreiro-Editor, 1995.

                                  Nicholas P. Cushner