São Miguel das Missões

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Ruins of the church.

Façade of São Miguel das Missões.

Interior view of the ruins of São Miguel das Missões.

Movie still from The Mission - the set recreates what São Miguel das Missões may have looked like in the 18th century.

São Miguel das Missões (Portuguese for the "St. Michael of the Missions") is a Unesco World Heritage site since 1983 located in the small city of São Miguel das Missões in northwestern Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil. It was also known as "São Miguel Arcanjo" and by its Spanish name "San Miguel." It is one of many Jesuit Reductions in Argentina and Brazil. Jesuit missionaries founded the mission in the 18th Century in part to catechise the Guaraní indian population and to protect the natives from Spanish and Portuguese slave traders.

The Mission was constructed from about 1735-1745. Despite the efforts of the Jesuits, the slave trade of the Spanish and Portuguese empires eventually conquered and the Mission was abandoned. The ruins of São Miguel das Missões are proteced by Unesco. Geographic coordinates for the site are: 28°32′36 S°54′15.

The Cathedral in nearby Santo Ângelo city is modeled after the São Miguel das Missões reduction.

The Mission, a 1986 film starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, is about the Jesuit Missions of the Guaraní. The mission in the photo still at the right is the film maker's recreation of São Miguel das Missões, or as an actor in the film calls it, the "great Mission of San Miguel."