In the 500 years of resistance to colonization, the most outstanding experience in the history of the Guarani was without doubt their presence inside the Jesuits Missions. Called by some historians the Christian Communist Republic of the Guarani, and defined as "a true victory of Humanity” by the French philosopher Voltaire.
It was in the beginning of the XVII century that the Guarani stopped facing on their own the so called ‘flags expeditions’ that destroyed their villages, killed thousands of them and enslaved them. They started to stay in the missions, creating more force and organizing themselves better for the conflict.
The Jesuits missions where the Guarani lived extended from the South of Brazil, Uruguay, North of Argentina, Paraguay to the Southeast of Bolivia. Besides some religious impositions, the Guarani could carry out their habits and their reciprocity economy in the missions, where the population in that time was more than 25 thousand people (more than the inhabitants of Buenos Aires and São Paulo together).
In the missions they could develop advanced technologies in the field of architecture, engineering, metallurgy, production of musical instruments and graphic impression. Just to give you an idea: in 1700 the first books were printed by the missions - the first one was “Martirologio Romano" and the second one "Flos Sanctorum" – only more than 100 years later Brazil and Argentina had their first books (1808 and 1810 respectively). In 1993 Unesco declared the missions Patrimony of humanity.
The epos of the Guarani, very well portrayed in the film The Mission of director Rolland Joffe's (1986), began to decline in 1756, when the Mission of São Gabriel was defeated by the armies of Portugal and Spain and the Guarani leader, Sepé Tiaraju, was murdered.
In February 2006, about 1500 indigenous leader from Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, met on the place where the Mission of São Gabriel was situated, to celebrate the memory and resistance of the Guarani people of the missions and their leader, Sepé Tiaraju.
The meeting was constituted as the first Guarani Continental Encounter, where decisions were taken to recover the strength of their organization and respecting their rights, mainly the recognition of their lands by the National States.
The rights of the peoples concerned to the natural resources pertaining to their lands shall be specially safeguarded. These rights include the right of these peoples to participate in the use, management and conservation of these resources.
Article 15 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169.
