At the first settlement of South America great semi-feudal fiefs called _encomiendas_ were granted to the conquerors. One of the conditions of their tenure was that the _encomenderos_ (the owners of the fiefs) ‘should see to the religious education of the Indians’. Much the same kind of thing as to enjoin kindness and Christian forbearance upon the directors of a modern Chartered Company. But, in addition to the _encomiendas_, two other systems were in vogue called _yanaconas_ and _mitayos_, which were in fact designed to reduce the Indians to the condition of mere slaves. Herrera[58] says that the ‘_yanaconas_ were men destined from birth to perpetual slavery and captivity, and in their clothing, treatment, and the conditions of their toil, were differently treated from free men.’ In Paraguay these _yanaconas_ were known as ‘Indios Originarios’, and generally were descendants of Indians conquered in war; they, too, were in a condition of serfdom. They lived in the house of the _encomendero_, and could not be sold, and the _encomendero_ was (in theory) obliged not only to feed and clothe them, but to instruct them in religious truths. In order to see that these conditions were duly carried out, visitors were sent each year to hear what mutually the _encomenderos_ and the Indians had to say. Herrera[59] describes the Indians under the _mitayo_ system by the name of _mitayos tindarunas_, explaining that the word _tindaruna_ signifies ‘forced labour’. The chiefs had to provide a certain number of them every year to work in mines and manufactories, and so well was the labour in the mines known to be fatal, that the Indians upon being drawn for service disposed of all their property, and not infrequently divorced their wives. The _mitayos_ were at the beginning Indians who had not fought against the Spaniards, but had submitted to their rule. They were grouped in townships composed of portions of a tribe under a chief to whom the Spaniards gave the position of Alcalde. In the towns thus formed only the men between eighteen and fifty were liable to be drawn for service in the mines; originally their term of service was for only two months in the year, and for the remaining ten months they were in theory as free as were the Spanish settlers. By 1612 the abuses of their system had so diminished the number of the Indians that Don Francisco de Alfaro was named by the Spanish Government to report upon it, and to reform abuses where he found it possible. His report declared that the Guaranís and Guaycurús should not be made slaves of, and it abolished in their favour the forced labour which they had previously endured. The European settlers in Asuncion thought that this was owing to the influence of the Jesuits, and therefore they expelled them from the town. Recalled to Santiago, they founded there a college, and those who remained in Paraguay pushed on the mission-work. Brabo[60] points out that the first twenty reductions founded by the