Struggling Powers in the Movie The Mission :: essays research papers

The movie The Mission takes place in 1750 in South America. The main characters in the movie are Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro), who was a Spanish slave trader, and Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), who was a Spanish Jesuit. This essay will demonstrate the four struggling powers in the movie, the Guarani Natives, the Jesuits, the Spanish and Portuguese government, and the Cardinal. The Guarani Natives in South America did not like the Spanish at first because the Spanish were using them as slaves and killing them. The Natives were living a life of hiding, they were scared, they were poor, and they were starved. Later on they started to get along with the Jesuits as they start to Christianize them and build missions, and when the Spanish become nicer to them. At the end of the movie most of the Natives were killed off by the Portuguese Rodrigo Mendoza was a Spanish slave trader who went to South America to capture the Natives and turn them into slaves. Mendoza kills his brother in a fit of rage for taking his girl, and is taken to jail. After he is taken to jail he has to do Pennants for the Jesuits, and he begins to feel sorry for himself, and he stops killing. He then becomes a Jesuit and starts to help out the Natives by fighting the Portuguese. Mendoza is killed during a shootout by Portuguese in the mission. The Jesuits come to South America to build missions and spread Christianity to the Natives. Father Gabriel was one of these Jesuits. Their goal was to create peace between the Natives, the Spanish, and the Portuguese, and to build missions and convert the Natives to Christianity. The Jesuits were very helpful and caring to the Natives, for example when the Natives were being run down by slave traders the Jesuits came in to help them build homes and feed them. They also helped to build a foundation of knowing the Lord. The Spanish and the Portuguese government came to South America for land, and to use the Natives as slaves to work on Plantations. They believed that the Natives were animals, so they used them as cheap labor, however the Jesuits did not agree on using the Natives as slaves, so war broke out between the Jesuits and Natives, and the Portuguese.