Luis de Bolaños was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

 friar

Friar

A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...

 and missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 evangelist

Evangelism

Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....

, initiator of the system of reductions (indigenous towns) in Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

 and northeastern Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

.

Bolaños was born in Marchena, Seville

Seville (province)

Seville is a province of southern Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is bordered by the provinces of Málaga, Cádiz, Huelva, Badajoz, and Córdoba.Its area is 14,042 km²...

, and entered the Franciscan order while he was very young, studying until he became a deacon

Deacon

Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

. Friar Alonso de San Buenaventura

Alonso de San Buenaventura

Alonso de San Buenaventura was a SpanishFranciscan friar and missionary evangelist. He entered the Franciscan order at the convent of Our Lady of Loreto in Espartinas, Seville. After being ordained priest, he enlisted a group of Franciscans for missionary work in Paraguay...

 passed by his convent looking for missionaries to work in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, and Bolaños joined his group. Twenty-two Franciscans departed from Spain in the 1572 expedition of the Adelantado

Adelantado

Adelantado was a military title held by some Spanish conquistadores of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.Adelantados were granted directly by the Monarch the right to become governors and justices of a specific region, which they charged with conquering, in exchange for funding and organizing the...

Juan Ortiz de Zárate

Juan Ortiz de Zárate

Juan Ortiz de Zárate Juan Ortiz de Zárate Juan Ortiz de Zárate (c. 1521 Orduña, Biscay (Spain) – 1575 Asunción, (Paraguay). was a Spanish Basque explorer and conquistador. He journeyed to the Americas as a teenager, where he took part in the conquest of Peru under Diego de Almagro....

. They arrived in Asunción

Asunción

Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay.The "Ciudad de Asunción" is an autonomous capital district not part of any department. The metropolitan area, called Gran Asunción, includes the cities of San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Ñemby, San...

 (the present-day capital of Paraguay) in 1575.

Bolaños was ordained a priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 in 1585. For fifty more years he worked on the evangelization of the Guaraní aboriginals. He created the system of reductions, settlements populated by natives and overseen by the friars of the Order, of which the Jesuit Reductions

Jesuit Reductions

A Jesuit Reduction was a type of settlement for indigenous people in Latin America created by the Jesuit Order during the 17th and 18th centuries. In general, the strategy of the Spanish Empire was to gather native populations into centers called Indian Reductions , in order to Christianize, tax,...

 would then become their most renowned examples. These towns "reduced" the originally nomad

Nomad

Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...

ic natives to fixed, stable locations, allowing the missionaries to better control and catechize them, while teaching them to read and write

Literacy

Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...

, to cultivate the land

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, to domesticate animals

Domestication

Domestication or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. In the Convention on Biological Diversity a domesticated species is defined as a 'species in which the evolutionary process has been...

, and to create manual artistic works

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

. The Franciscan friar founded reductions all over the basin of the Paraná River

Paraná River

The Paraná River is a river in south Central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina for some . It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language...

, in Paraguay, large parts of Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, and the Argentine provinces of Misiones

Misiones Province

Misiones is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamiсa region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes Province of Argentina to the southwest.- History :The province was...

 and northern Corrientes

Corrientes Province

Corrientes is a province in northeast Argentina, in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by : Paraguay, the province of Misiones, Brazil, Uruguay, and the provinces of Entre Rios, Santa Fe and Chaco.-History:...

.

Bolaños also wrote the first grammar

Grammar

In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...

 and lexicon

Lexicon

In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...

 of the Guaraní language

Guaraní language

Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...

, which were extremely useful for other missionaries. The Catechism

Catechism

A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...

 approved by the Third Council of Lima

Third Council of Lima

The Third Council of Lima was a council of the Roman Catholic Church in Lima, at the time the capital of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru. It was the most important of the three councils celebrated in Lima during the 16th century, since it definitively organized the Church in the Americas...

 in 1583 was translated by him, and the First Synod of Asunción

First Synod of Asunción

The First Synod of Asunción was a council of the Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Paraguay, in 1603. It was organized by the third bishop of the diocese, Friar Martín Ignacio de Loyola, in Asunción, gathering clergy and lay people from the eight cities of the Giant Province of the Indias.The...

 (1603) dictated that it be employed to teach Christian doctrine to the natives. Bolaños did not only teach by himself, but also employed selected natives to teach others.

In 1607 he founded the city of Caazapá

Caazapá

Caazapá is a city in Paraguay, founded in 1607, by Friar Luis de Bolaños. It is located in the Caazapá District and is the capital of the Caazapá Department...

.

Near the end of his life, Bolaños retired to the convent of Saint Francis in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, where he died in 1629, at the age of 80.