The Portuguese Indipetae and the Recruitment of Jesuit Missionaries for the Indies in the Portuguese Assistancy, 1540–1759

Resumo

In the vast territories under Iberian influence during the early modern period, there was a persistent lack of Portuguese and Spanish personnel to fulfill the apostolic directive of preaching the gospel in those faraway lands. Unlike their European confrères, Iberian Jesuits had to balance the demands of the kingdom with the needs of the overseas missions. As the smallest assistancy in terms of human re- sources and the largest in terms of territorial reach, the Portuguese assistancy faced unique constraints. Drawing on a diachronic reading of hundreds of primary sources—including individual petitions to the missions and the official correspondence between the Portuguese province and the Jesuit curia in Rome—this research assesses the motivations and strategies employed in the Portuguese indipetae to serve overseas and the recruitment dynamics within the Portuguese Jesuit sphere. The article shows that candidates to the missions enlisted a variety of strategies in their petitions to serve in the Indies. In the Portuguese context, this included explicit references to Ignatian rhetoric and spirituality, religious vows, the talent for languages, and the desire to ‘die a good death.’ For temporal coadjutors, highlighting medical expertise could be particularly advantageous, given the great need for this ministry overseas. Overall, this research demonstrates that Portuguese Jesuits relied less on written petitions to the superior general in Rome than on appointment processes conducted at a local level, underscoring a recruitment system that was marked by flexibility and adapted to the unique Portuguese context.