Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
11
The Argentina w e kno w today took
shape only after repeat attempts at coloni-
zation b y the S panish. M uch of S pain's
effort was initially aimed at staving off
Portuguese expansion in what today is
Brazil. The first E uropean known to hav e
laid ey es on the ar ea that would become
Buenos Aires was Juan Díaz de Solís, who
sailed up what is no w the Río de la P lata
and named it the Mar Dulce, or Sweet Sea.
Ferdinand Magellan retraced the r oute in
1520, thinking he had stumbled upon a
passageway that would take him to the
Pacific O cean. S ebastian Cabot r eturned
on a treasure-hunting expedition in 1526.
An ex change with local I ndians yielded
trinkets of gold and silv er, and so Cabot
renamed the M ar D ulce the Río de la
Plata, or Riv er of S ilver, in expectation of
riches he hoped to find. Then he returned
to Spain to convince the cr own that more
wealth was to be had in the r egion.
In 1535, Spain—victorious after having
conquered P eru, y et awar e of P ortugal's
presence in B razil—sent an expedition,
headed by Pedro de Mendoza, to settle the
region. Mendoza was initially successful in
founding S anta M aría del B uen Air e, or
Buenos Aires (1536), but the lack of food
proved fatal. M endoza, mor tally ill and
discouraged b y I ndian attacks, sailed for
Spain with a hundred of his men in 1537.
He died on the way, and his body was cast
out to sea.
The S panish had gr eater success in
other parts of the country. In 1573, Jerón-
imo Luís de Cabrera founded Córdoba in
central Argentina. The city was a J esuit
stronghold, and the r eligious order estab-
lished the U niversidad N acional de Cór-
doba in 1613, one of the oldest uniersities
in South America. Cór doba r emained an
important city thr ough much of colonial
Argentina. To this day , it 's Argentina 's
most impor tant education center , wher e
one out of five residents is a student.
Mendoza, in the shado ws of the Andes,
was settled in 1561 b y Pedro del Castillo .
He had pushed into the r
expedition based out of Santiago, in modern
Chile. In 1535, the Spaniards began explor-
ing the N orthwest, as they expanded do wn
through the recently conquered Inca Empire,
and founded the city of S alta in 1582.
In 1580, J uan de G aray resettled Bue-
nos Air es. H is expedition sailed fr om
Asunción, in P araguay, do wn the P araná
River. At the time, Asunción was a signifi-
cant city within the S panish Empire, and
Jesuit missions on the bor der of what is
today Argentina, B razil, and P araguay
thrived, pr oviding economic output and
the ability to contr ol the fr ontiers. Garay
had with him about 45 men and, uniquel,
one woman, Ana D íaz. D íaz's r ole has
been obscured by time, and it is unknown
whether she was a pr ostitute fr om Asun-
ción who accompanied the tr oops or
whether she should be exalted as a female
conquistador. I n any case, a woman 's
touch on the expedition pr oved to be the
charm. Upon the second attempt to colo-
nize, the city continued to gr ow into a
permanent, though small, colonial estab-
lishment. Ana Díaz's colonial landholdings
were on what is today Calle F lorida.
While today B uenos Air es is the cul-
tural and political capital of Argentina, it
was a backwater r egion for a long time
during the colonial period. M ore impor-
tant w ere Córdoba, S alta, the J esuit mis-
sions, and other parts of the country closer
to Lima and Asunción, the centers of
power in the S panish E mpire. B uenos
Aires was logistically important in defend-
ing the lo wer half of the S panish Empire
from the Portuguese. Constant skirmishes
continued between the two empir es, with
neighboring Uruguay as a disputed terri-
tory. Tiny Colonia, acr oss the Río de la
Plata from Buenos Aires, passed back and
forth, and its buildings reflect the styles of
the two ruling powers. With access to the
Río de la P lata and the open A tlantic,
however, it was inevitable that B uenos
Aires—at first a lonely outpost on the edge
of the vast Pampas—would grow to be one
of the continent's most important cities.
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