Editing Mainas missions (section)

=== 19th century ===
There was evidently a mission infrastructure in Mainas as late as the 1850s. [[William Lewis Herndon]], exploring the Amazon for the United States Navy, described missions in the Mainas region that traded various goods with Brazil. He further noted:<blockquote>I know of no legal establishment in the Missions—the law proceeding out of the mouths of the governors. Indians are punished by flogging or confinement in the stocks; whites are sometimes imprisoned; but if their offence is of a grave nature, they are sent to be tried and judged by the courts of the capital.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Herndon|first=William Lewis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_TZLAQAAIAAJ|title=Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon|date=1854|publisher=Robert Armstrong, public printer|location=Washington, DC|pages=181|id=Part I|author-link=William Lewis Herndon}}</ref>{{Sfn|Herndon|1854|p=181}}</blockquote>Herndon also observed that the indigenous inhabitants of the Mainas missions, unique among the 'Indians of Peru', had been exempted from the payment of a head tax, because 'these people had the forest to subdue, and were only able to wring a hard-earned support from the cultivation of the land'. He remarked that white settlers objected to this, and thought that 'some law compelling them to work' would be preferable.{{Sfn|Herndon|1854|p=215–16}}{{Efn|This head tax evidently had historical roots in medieval Spanish practices. See {{Cite book|last=Simpson|first=Lesley Byrd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yulMKeEYmOQC|title=The Encomienda in New Spain: The Beginning of Spanish Mexico|date=1982|publisher=[[University of California Press]]|isbn=978-0-520-04630-6|location=Berkeley, California|pages=150}} }}