Both in Tucuman and Paraguay they were expected to lend themselves
to the enslavement of the Indians. In Chile Father Valdivia
was expelled from Santiago, and took refuge at Tucuman. There he found
the condition of affairs so intolerable that he went to Madrid
to solicit the protection of the King, Philip III., for his Indian subjects.

In 1608 Philip issued his royal letters patent to the Society of Jesus
for the conversion of the Indians in the province of Guayra.

The Bishop and the Governor, Arias de Saavedra (himself a Paraguayan
by birth), offered no objection, and the scheme of colonization
was agreed upon at once.

Thus the Jesuits obtained their first official status in America.

Fathers Simon Maceta and Jose Cataldino (both Italians)
left Asuncion on October 10, 1609, and arrived in February, 1610,
on the banks of the river Paranapane.*

--
* Paranapane = the White Parana, or, according to others,
the Parana without fish.
--

There they met the Indians amongst whom Fields and Ortega
had begun to labour, and there they founded the Reduction* of Loreto,
the first permanent establishment instituted by the Jesuits
amongst the Guaranis. Thus, in the woods of Paraguay,
upon a tributary of the Parana but little known even to-day,