Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
landlocked colony of Paraguay. (
Paraguay
originally referred to the
Spanish-held area around Asunción. In the following centuries the
term was extended to encompass territories to the north and at vari-
ous times included regions beyond the boundaries of the modern-day
nation of the same name.) Cabeza de Vaca was famous for his earlier
adventures as one of only three survivors of Juan Ponce de León's
expedition to Florida and the Mississippi River; after being stranded in
a shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico, Cabeza de Vaca had walked across
Texas and Mexico all the way to Mexico City.
Cabeza de Vaca brought more European settlers, all male. Together
the Spaniards and Guaraní warriors subdued rival tribes in the sur-
rounding territory, but in an attempt to cross the Chaco region, Cabeza
de Vaca nearly exhausted the resources of Asunción. Meanwhile, the
settlers belatedly learned that Pizarro had already claimed the wealth
of the Inca. Subsequently, because it was a land with no gold, Paraguay
lost its attractiveness for Spanish immigration, and few additional
Europeans arrived to challenge the influence of the original settlers.
Dissension nonetheless broke out among members of the Spanish
and mestizo community, many of whom disliked Governor Cabeza de
Vaca.
At issue was the division of the dwindling number of Guaraní.
Soon after the Europeans arrived, diseases previously unknown to the
American natives ravaged the indigenous population. Mestizos gained
the immunities to European diseases from their fathers, and their
population in Paraguay expanded as the number of Guaraní women
and servants declined precipitously. In the semitropical environment of
Paraguay, the native death rates from successive epidemics of smallpox,
influenza, and other diseases rose to 40 percent within just one decade.
For this very reason slaving expeditions were sent out to replenish the
numbers of indigenous servants and concubines of the Spaniards and
later of the mestizo gentry.
The economic crisis caused by the decline of the Guaraní population
and the unpopularity of Governor Cabeza de Vaca spurred a faction of
Spanish settlers to mount the first coup d'état in the Río de la Plata.
The victorious faction returned Cabeza de Vaca to Spain in chains. A
veteran of the original Mendoza expedition, Domingo de Irala became
governor. The Guaraní too had grown desperate by their situation, rav-
aged by disease and the excessive Spanish demands for Indian servants,
female labor, and foodstuffs. A number of Guaraní rebelled against the
Spaniards in 1545, but the settler community put down the uprising
with the aid of “loyal” Indians.
