Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In the relative poverty of Paraguay, the settlers enjoyed political
autonomy from Spain and freely established a social system to their
own liking. Governor Irala divided the Guaraní into
encomiendas
(grants of Indian labor and tribute) among the individual Spanish set-
tlers. These
encomiendas
became a kind of permanent serfdom for the
indigenous peoples under Spanish rule. Spaniards in Asunción passed
these grants on to their mestizo sons. Succeeding generations of mesti-
zos moved from Asunción to establish other towns and other
encomien-
das
on the frontiers of Paraguay. Decline of the Guaraní population,
however, reduced the original size of the
encomiendas,
and by 1600,
a mere 3,000 Indians remained in Asunción. The
encomiendas
tended
therefore to involve personal labor more than tribute, giving the settlers
in Paraguay a reputation for laziness. “Having plenty of all things good
to eat and drink,” one observer said with some exaggeration, “they give
themselves up to ease and idleness, and don't much trouble themselves
with trading at all” (du Biscay 1968, 11).
Return to Buenos Aires
The Paraguayan settlers nonetheless desired the European goods
symbolic of their rank and sought to reestablish the river link to the
estuary of the Río de la Plata. The mestizo citizens of Asunción took
it upon themselves to establish the river port of Santa Fe in 1573,
and in 1580, they went downriver again to the estuary of the Río de
la Plata. Mestizos of relatively high social status in Paraguay figured
prominently among the 75 founders of the second permanent settle-
ment of Buenos Aires. They were led by Juan de Garay, a Paraguayan
descendant of one of the original members of Mendoza's expedition
of 44 years before.
European settlements in the region established the Paraná River as
a lifeline from Paraguay to Spain as well as to the rest of the Americas.
Since the independent native inhabitants of the Gran Chaco barred a
direct trade route between Paraguay and Peru, Buenos Aires soon sup-
planted Asunción. Its growth as the major Spanish port in the Río de la
Plata would subordinate Paraguay to Buenos Aires's commercial orbit.
In fact, during the next two centuries of the colonial period, Buenos
Aires would become the Atlantic portal to nearly all of South America.
As historian Juan Agustín García writes, “Buenos Aires was commer-
cially oriented from its beginnings” (García 1955, 104).
The foundation in 1580 of this small port on the estuary of the
Río de la Plata brought to an end a remarkable period of European
