The next most interesting field of missionary activity was South America, where the Jesuits came to set up the remarkable commonwealths of which their admirers still speak with unstinted admiration. We must defer until a later stage the full consideration of these communities, and can only tell here the story of their origin and early fortunes. The natives of Paraguay had been so brutally treated by the Spaniards that when, in 1586, the Jesuits entered the country, they found it exceedingly difficult to disarm their apprehensions. They scattered over the country, winning thousands of the natives by their kindly and humane aid, but usually leaving them, after baptism, to their original ways. The mission was better organised in 1602, and definite Christian settlements began to appear. As a natural result of their sympathy with the natives they soon quarrelled with the Spaniards. While the Spaniards expected the missionaries to make the natives more pliant and submissive to their authority, the Jesuits reported that the natives would have nothing to do with the European colonists, whom they denounced for their cruelty and rapacity. The Spaniards retorted that the Jesuits sought to keep the trade in native products and industries for their own profit, and a bitter controversy was provoked. In 1610 the Jesuits obtained from Philip III. permission to colonise, and founded the first of their "reductions," or industrial settlements. For many years the work proved extremely difficult. The natives appreciated the protection of the Jesuits, who obtained a royal order that none of their converts could be enslaved, but were little attracted to their creed. At the least pressure they would return to the forests, and could only be recovered with great labour. More workers came from Europe, however,--by 1616 there were a hundred and fifty Jesuits in Paraguay,--and more settlements were founded. By the year 1632 there were twenty "reductions," each containing about a thousand families. Not only was the ground assiduously tilled, but Jesuit lay-brothers taught the arts and crafts of civilisation, and even formed an armed and trained militia for defence. The children were taught and decently clothed, and the evenings and days of rest were brightened by song and dance. The hours of prayer, work, and sleep were appointed by the two Jesuit fathers who controlled each reduction; idleness was severely punished and industry rewarded with presents of knives, or mirrors, or trinkets; the products of their industry were distributed each week; and a very close observation was kept on the morals of all the members.