Ruins of São Miguel das Missões

The São Miguel das Missões mission was built between 1735 and around 1745 as Mission San Miguel Arcángel. São Miguel das Missões was one of the many Spanish Colonial Jesuit Reductions in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. Spanish Jesuit missionaries founded the mission for Crown mandated Indian Reductions for Guaraní Indians, which had the goal of converting them to Christianity and protecting locals from the Portuguese slave traders known as the Bandeirantes.

The Treaty of Madrid in 1750 transferred sovereignty over the area from Spain to Portugal. The Spanish Jesuit missions were ordered to move to the retained Spanish territory west of the Uruguay River. The Guaraní tribes refused to comply with the order to relocate from their homelands, now deemed in Portuguese "territory", which led to the Guarani War. A joint Portuguese-Spanish army attacked and defeated the Guaraní, and the mission was destroyed.

The cathedral (Catedral Angelopolitana) built in the 1920s in nearby Santo Ângelo city, is modeled after the church at the São Miguel das Missões reduction.

• 
  Façade of São Miguel das Missões.
• 
  Interior view of the ruins of São Miguel das Missões.

Old church bell and native art in the Missions Museum, São Miguel das Missões.

The Spanish Colonial architecture of the ruins and the archeological site of São Miguel das Missões has been a protected part of the UNESCO Jesuit Missions of the Guaranis World Heritage Site, since 1984.[1] The protected area covers 1,229.8 square kilometres (474.8 sq mi). A history museum is adjacent.

• The Mission (1986) — film starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, about the Jesuit Missions and the Guaraní War. The film set represented what is known of the appearance of the 18th-century São Miguel das Missões.
• Guarani War
• Jesuit Reductions
• San Ignacio Miní
• Spanish missions in South America

Media related to Ruins of São Miguel das Missões at Wikimedia Commons