This unpublished document gives a revealing look at the situation of the Franciscan Order in southern Brazil in the early nineteenth century. It was written in 1833 at the request of Msgr. Scipione Domenico Fabbrini, Chargé of the Papal Nunciature of Rio de Janeiro, by Frei Francisco de Monte Alverne, O.F.M., one of the better-known friars of the nineteenth century, and considered by many to be the greatest preacher in the Portuguese language since António Vieira, S. J.

To understand the deep pessimism and melancholy evident in his Plan of Reform, one has to understand some of the background on the Franciscan Order in Brazil, and to know a little of the life of Frei Francisco himself.

Indian warfare was general in the Internal Provinces of New Spain in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Spain was militarily weak in these frontier provinces so far from Mexico City and, to make matters even more difficult, the barbarian Indian tribes refused to recognize rules of good conduct in war and peace. Where weakness seemed likely to lead to defeat, the Indians thought nothing of employing abject submission, approaching the Spanish authorities with humble requests for peace, conversion, and a place where they might be permitted to settle into a quiet productive existence. Often the Spanish, either exhausted by combat or hopeful of Indian sincerity in such declarations, convinced themselves that the enemy would settle into a sedentary life under the gentle guidance of the friars. Unfortunately for the success of frontier policy, a treaty was only as valid as the number of presidial troops prepared to enforce it. Without force, the Indians, epecially the Apaches, returned to traditional pursuits of rustling livestock and attacks on weakly defended ranches or travellers. A continual history of incidents of this nature brought Spanish governors and frontier soldiers to a state of complete frustration.

Traditionally, historians of the Americas have found essential primary source material in the published diaries, journals, and travel accounts of European visitors and tourists. The pungent nineteenth-century commentaries of Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord Bryce are rarely omitted from general accounts of American history. The extensive writings of Alexander von Humboldt, partially scientific in nature and covering his travels during the first decade after 1800, similarly add to the perspectives of Latin American historians. When taken in conjunction with other sources, and when used carefully, the penetrating insights and strong impressions of such travelers can help reconstruct the past in a more detailed, often more colorful, way.