Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
16 ships. They established a small settlement called Buenos Aires, for the
“good airs,” or fair winds, at the edge of the Argentine Pampas. Because
the Querandí and Charrúa refused to provide food for them and had no
gold for the taking, the ill-prepared settlers grew hungry and fractious.
Several bands of warriors attacked this first Spanish settlement, and the
colonists had to contemplate abandoning Buenos Aires. They had already
sent an exploratory party upriver from Buenos Aires in search of the Inca
Empire, which unbeknownst to them had already fallen to a small group
of Spaniards from Panama led by Francisco Pizarro. More than 170 men
ascended the Paraná and Paraguay Rivers in an attempt to reach Peru by
crossing the Gran Chaco. The Payaguá killed them all. Only one belea-
guered indigenous group found it expeditious to help the Spaniards.
After losing a battle against another small Spanish party from Buenos
Aires, the agricultural Guaraní of what is now Paraguay accepted the
Spaniards as great warriors and allies in their own struggles with the
surrounding bands. The Guaraní assisted the Spaniards of the Mendoza
expedition in founding Asunción in 1537. It was to be the first perma-
nent Spanish settlement in the Río de la Plata, as within four years, the
remaining 350 inhabitants of Buenos Aires abandoned the settlement
and moved to Asunción. Since there were only four Spanish women
in Asunción, the Spanish men emulated the native leaders and took
Guaraní women to serve them as concubines, servants, and food suppli-
ers. Guaraní chieftains were made to offer their daughters to Spaniards
in exchange for a military alliance against native enemies.
Having found no gold, the Spaniards adopted the native custom and
acquired the work of the indigenous women as a sign of wealth. “[I]t is
the women who sow and reap the crop,” one Spaniard observed (Service
1954, 35). Their children were mestizo (of mixed Native American and
European ancestry) and grew up speaking Guaraní rather than Spanish;
however, these first-generation mestizos came to see themselves as
European and remained loyal to the king of Spain. Eventually, the
first- and second-generation mestizos became the gentry of Paraguay,
and in the decades following the abandonment of Buenos Aires, they
provided the leadership for the numerous military expeditions against
neighboring Indian groups, gaining greater wealth and status with the
number of Indian slaves captured in battle.
Settler Politics and Society
Pedro de Mendoza died on his return voyage to Spain, and in his place
the king dispatched Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca to govern the small,
