[B] Excerpt from the ‘Annual Letter from the Province of Peru of this year of 1617’ (1617)

Letters and reports written by missionaries were sent to Rome annually, and included regular mention and significant detail of their destruction of shrines and battles with demons. Scholars often refer these to as ‘edifying’ letters (letters that are written to provide information, but also to boost the morale of members of the organisation). In this excerpt the structures and effects of colonialism are laid bare as the narrator, a Jesuit, outlines the clerical and secular authorities that support the implementation of the campaigns of extirpation of idolatry.