The Missionary Réductions in New France: An Epistemological Problem with a Popular Historical Theory.

The article considers whether the Jesuit missionary activities in New France in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries were based on the establishment of missionary reserves for Amerindians in colonial Paraguay during the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries. It explores the historiography of early modern Jesuit missions, considering epistemological issues embedded in histories of the period. Books discussed include the 1900 biography "Samuel de Champlain" by Gabriel Gravier, the 1872 history "Glimpses of the Monastery" by Marie de l’Incarnation, and the 1976 history "Friend and Foe" by Cornelius Jaenen.