La presencia de los jesuitas en las islas Marianas: un balance historiográfico (1668-1769)

Abstract

This article is a historiographic balance of the conquest and evangelization of the Mariana Islands (XVII-XVIII Centuries). From the pioneering work of Marjorie G. Driver and Francis X. Hezel, historians, archaeologists and anthropologists have analyzed Jesuit missions not only as a complement to colonial power dynamics in Asia-Pacific, but also as a privileged field for analyzing inter-cultural encounters. Faced with essentialist approaches that question the “aboriginal” character of the current Chamoru of the Marianas, other studies question their supposed disappearance and appeal to their cultural continuity in historical time. It is also a small tribute to Marjorie G. Driver, pioneer in colonial studies on the Spanish presence in Micronesia, who left us on September the 20th in 2019, at the age of 95.

Keywords

• Jesuits
• Mariana Islands
• 17th Century
• 18th Centuries
• Pacific Ocean
• globalization