Conquistador Without Sword: The Life of Roque González, SJ

Conquistador Without Sword vividly tells, for the first time in English, the story of Roque González de Santa Cruz, SJ. Son of one of the original conquistadors, Roque dedicated his intense life to the defense of the Guaraní Indians of Paraguay and became the main founder of the famed "Reductions" – havens for the Indians against enslavement by the colonists. Roque was the First American-born martyr who died while serving American Indians.

Thanks to research into contemporary documents, C.J. McNaspy, SJ, offers the hostile Indians’ defense in their own words. The irony of Roque’s martyrdom is that those who executed him were unaware that they were killing their most stalwart defender. Today, descendants of the Guaraní Indians regard Roque as their hero. Roque was a liberator and is the spiritual ancestor of today’s martyrs in Central and South America.

Roque González de Santa Cruz, SJ, was beatified in the Roman Catholic Church on January 28, 1934, by Pope Pius XI. Roque was canonized in the Roman Catholic Church on May 16, 1988, by St. John Paul II. His feast day is November 16.