Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
For most of the colonial period, Córdoba served as the economic and
administrative capital of the Río de la Plata. It was the most populous
district in the region, eventually numbering more than 40,000 people.
As the Spanish administrative and religious center, Córdoba boasted
elegant government houses, churches, convents, and monasteries. Both
the governor and bishop lived here, and the colonial university and
headquarters of the College of Jesuits were also located in Córdoba.
Cattle and mule production supported the city's prestige and impor-
tance. Spaniards (and Portuguese) settled on cattle- and mule-breeding
estates on the Pampas east of the city. Córdoba's Jesuit college operated
several
estancias
(ranches) that yearly dispatched approximately 1,000
mules.
Córdoba's merchant community was large. In 1600, merchants
imported slaves for the Potosí market, paying in specie and flour for
export. These tradesmen later dealt in as many as 30,000 mules and
600,000 pesos' worth of commerce annually. Merchant factors (agents)
from Córdoba came to Buenos Aires to buy mules from local breeders
at three pesos per head. After marking the mules with their distinctive
brands, the factors had them driven overland to Tucumán and Salta to
be wintered prior to the next year's fair. In Potosí, these same mules
brought up to nine pesos per head. Cattle too were rounded up and
driven overland in much the same fashion.
Spanish commercial development at Córdoba marginalized the orig-
inal inhabitants of the area, known as the “bearded” Comechingón.
Early Spaniards never explained the mystery of the natives' facial hair,
for indigenous peoples did not have beards, or the origin of their
unique name “Skunk Eaters.” The Comechingón did not easily yield
their homeland to the Spaniards, nor were they prepared, like the
agricultural Diaguita, to accommodate themselves at the bottom of
Hispanic society. Instead their resistance was particularly fierce. They
fought in squadrons of as many as 500 men but only at night and “they
carried bows, arrows, and spears” (Steward 1946, II: 683-684).
Smaller cultural groups like the Sanavirón and Indama of the Sierras
de Córdoba and San Luis were interspersed among the groups of the
dominant Comechingón culture. The Spaniards could count on these
independent and mutually hostile groups to remain disorganized and
to offer little resistance; therefore, the Spaniards, with their technologi-
cal advantages of steel weaponry, gunpowder, warhorses, and Indian
alliances, powerfully outmatched the Comechingón. But neither did
the Spaniards totally annihilate these so-called bearded Indians. Those
