PROVINCE OF SANTA FÉ.
The first discoverers of La Plata, as has been already observed, fixed themselves in Paraguay, and established the seat of their government at Assumption, the capital of that province. In his way up the river, Sabastian Cabot built a fort, called Sancti-Espiritu, at the junction of the Carcarãna with the Paranã; Ayolas, a few years after, built another not far from it, to which he gave the name of Corpus Christi; but these, like Mendoza's settlement at Buenos Ayres, were very soon destroyed by the warlike nations which then inhabited the whole of the right bank of the river; and, for the first half-century, with their views solely fixed on making a nearer approach to Peru, the Spaniards concerned themselves but little about the conquest of the poorer lands they had left behind them. The ships, which during that time continued to arrive in the River Plate, with fresh adventurers from Spain, with an inland navigation before them, to Assumption, requiring as much time as the whole voyage out from Europe, were entirely dependent for the refreshments they required on the accidental good will of the natives. Once in the Paranã, if any accident befell them, for nearly a thousand miles there was not a single Christian port in which they could take refuge.
It was under these circumstances that Don Juan de Garay, a Biscayan hidalgo (in 1573), who had already greatly distinguished himself amongst his companions at arms in those parts, solicited and obtained permission to make a sally from Assumption, to endeavour to re-establish Cabot's fort at the mouth of the Carcarãna, and to found other settlements upon the right bank of the Paranã.
The whole force he could muster for this enterprise, when ready, consisted only of eighty men, a small party wherewith to attempt to seize upon lands defended by a numerous and warlike people, already elated by former victories over the Spaniards, though probably as large a one as his own means would allow him to equip; for in those days the whole charge of such undertakings devolved upon the projectors:—they were obliged to raise the means as they could, and their ultimate success of course were mainly depended upon the extent of their personal credit.
De Garay landed, in the first instance, with his followers, thirty or forty miles to the north of the river Salado, and, finding the natives disposed to be friendly, and the aspect of the country inviting, he determined there to make his first settlement, naming it Santa Fé de la Vera-Cruz.
The site originally fixed upon was where Cayestá now stands, upon an inferior branch of the Paranã; but, at a subsequent period, the Santa Fecinos removed lower down to the banks of the Salado.
Whilst part of his people were employed upon the works, De Garay embarked with the rest in a small brig which attended him, and descending the Paranã entered the Salado, and opened a communication with the natives established upon its banks. There an adventure attended him, which he little looked for. Just as he flattered himself he had established a friendly understanding with the Indians, their conduct was observed suddenly to change:—a great stir took place amongst them, and they began to betake themselves, to their arms, and to gather together in such numbers that the Spaniards, alarmed, and expecting to be attacked by them, were glad to get on board their little vessel, and make the best preparations they could for defence. From the mast-head fires were seen lighting in every direction, the well-known signal for war; and the man placed there to look out gave notice that the savages were pouring down towards them in vast numbers, not only by land, but by the river, in their canoes, apparently to attack them in their ship.
De Garay, pent up in a little creek, into which he had run his vessel, and believing his situation desperate, was exhorting his people at any rate to defend themselves to the last, when suddenly the man called out that he saw a cavalier, presently another, and another, and then several more, charging the Indians in their rear; nor was it long before they saw the whole host dispersed, routed, and flying before a party of horsemen. The Spaniards were as much astonished at this unlooked-for encounter as the Indians, nor could they imagine to whom they were thus indebted for their preservation at the moment they expected to have been overwhelmed without a chance of succour, though that they were some of their countrymen they could not doubt after seeing the horses.
The strangers were not long in making themselves known; they were soldiers from Tucuman, who, under their leader Cabrera, having founded the city of Cordova on the same day that De Garay had commenced his settlement at Santa Fé, were then scouring the country to take possession of it as belonging to his jurisdiction; De Garay in vain resisted this pretension, and claimed it as belonging to Paraguay, in right of prior possession and settlement: the others insisting with a superior force, he had no alternative but to temporise, and submit himself to Cabrera's orders, trusting to the higher powers to order the matter differently.
Fortunately for the settlement of this question ere it led to more serious consequences, the Adelantado Zarate opportunely arrived from Spain with a grant from the King, explicitly including in his government all settlements, which might be founded on either shore of the river for the distance of 200 leagues: he not only confirmed De Garay in his command at Santa Fé but took him into such especial favour, that, dying soon afterwards, he left him guardian of his only daughter; she, by his advice, married Don Juan de Vera and Arragon, who in consequence succeeded to the Adelantasgo, which greatly increased the influence of De Garay, who was immediately appointed lieutenant over all the Rio de la Plata, and furnished with full authority to carry into effect his own plans for reducing the Indians to subjection upon its shores. Armed with these powers he conquered some of the most warlike of the native tribes, and established the fame and power of the Spaniards far and wide throughout all those regions:—the last of his deeds was the foundation, in 1580, of the present city of Buenos Ayres, as has been before stated. Alter passing three years in superintending the laying out of the future capital of all those provinces, upon his return to Assumption, going incautiously on shore one night to sleep, he was surprised and killed by the savages. Paraguay lost in him one of her wisest and most valiant captains, whose death was greatly lamented, by the poor especially, to whom his beneficence was unbounded.
The importance of the settlements he founded was soon apparent; and in 1620 they were formed into a government independent of that of Paraguay, under the name of the Government of La Plata; it comprised all south of the junction of the rivers Paranã and Paraguay. Santa Fé in consequence became a dependency of Buenos Ayres; an arrangement confirmed in every territorial settlement subsequently made by any competent authority.
In the domestic dissensions, however, which succeeded the establishment of the Independent Government at Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé took an active part, and disputed the right of the newly-constituted authorities to interfere in the nomination of the provincial administrations. Under these circumstances, in 1818, Lopez, a military officer who had particularly distinguished himself in his resistance to the Central Government upon this point, obtained the command of the province, in which he has ever since been continued. Various circumstances have concurred to leave him not only in undisturbed possession of this local authority, but to render him in later times a personage of some importance in the political history of the Republic. The jurisdiction he lays claim to for the soi-disant province of Santa Fé extends as far south as the Arroyo del Medio, to the west to the lakes of Porongos, and to the north as far as the lands of the Indians of the Gran-chaco, or Great Desert, against whom he has enough to do to defend himself.
In old times Santa Fé under the protection of the Central Government, which spared no expense in constructing forts and maintaining the forces requisite to keep the Indians in check, was the central point of communication not only between Buenos Ayres and Paraguay, but between Paraguay and the provinces of Cuyo and Tucuman: the wines and dried fruits of Mendoza and St. Juan were brought there to be carried up to Corrientes and Paraguay, which in return supplied the people of those provinces, as well as those of Chile and Peru, through the same channel, with all the yerba-maté they required, of which the annual consumption in those provinces alone was calculated at from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 lbs.
The estancieros were amongst the richest in the Vice-Royalty; and their cattle-farms not only covered the territory of Santa Fé, but large tracts on the eastern shores of the river in the Entre Rios; from which they furnished by far the greater part of the 50,000 mules yearly sent to Salta for the service of Peru.
Their situation is now a very different one: the stoppage of the trade with Paraguay and Peru has reduced them to a wretched state of poverty; and their estrangement from the capital having left them without adequate means of defence, the savages have attacked them with impunity, laid waste the greater part of the province, and more than once threatened the town itself with annihilation.
The population has greatly diminished;—perhaps in the whole province there are not now more than 15,000 or 20,000 souls, a large proportion of which is of Guarani origin, the descendants of emigrants from the Jesuit missions in Paraguay, who abandoned them after the expulsion of their pastors in 1768.
This state of things is the more lamentable as Santa Fé might, under a different system, become one of the most important points of the Republic: once more under the decided protection of the Government of Buenos Ayres, not only might its own particular interests be vastly advanced, but the greatest benefits might result to the rest of the union.
Its situation offers striking facilities for carrying on a more active transit-trade between Buenos Ayres and the provinces north of Cordova. The river Salado, on which it stands, is known to be navigable for barges as high up as Matara, in the province of Santiago, and at no great distance from that city; if it were made use of there would be a saving of upwards of 250 leagues of land-carriage in conveying goods from Buenos Ayres to Santiago; but, even if this should turn out not to be so practicable as it is said to be, a direct road is open from Santa Fé which, passing by the lakes of Porongos, skirts the river Dulce, and falls into the high road from Cordova a few posts south of the city of Santiago; which, at the lowest computation, would still be 100 leagues short of the over-land route now used from the capital to the Upper Provinces by way of Cordova.
In any part of the world such a saving of land-carriage would be a considerable object; but in a country where the roads are just as nature has made them, and where the only means of transport for heavy goods are the most unwieldy of primitive waggons, drawn by oxen—the slowest of all conveyances,—not to speak of its expense, and the risks, independently of the wear and tear necessarily attending it, it becomes of the greatest importance. That it has not hitherto been available, is owing to the difficulties attending the navigation of a large river, not only against the current, but against a prevalence of contrary winds, which have rendered the passage of the Paranã up to Santa Fé even more tedious and expensive than the long over-land journey. But the introduction of steam-boats would at once obviate this, and enable the people of Buenos Ayres to send their heaviest goods to Santa Fé by water-carriage in less time than a horse can now gallop over the intervening country, for there is no reason in the world why the ordinary voyage thither should exceed at the utmost three days. I can hardly imagine a greater change in the prospects of a people than this would open to the Santa Fecinos.
There is, however, another point of view, of serious consequence to Buenos Ayres, in which for her own sake it concerns her to look to the advantages, if not to the necessity, of taking speedy measures to introduce steam-navigation upon the Paranã. Since the erection of the Banda Oriental into an independent state, the yearly imports into Monte Video have increased out of all ratio to the scanty population of that state:—it is very evident what becomes of the excess, and that not only the people on the eastern, but those on the western, shores of the Uruguay, are supplied through that channel. The government of Monte Video takes care so to regulate its duties as to make this a profitable trade:—whilst it cannot be denied that the inhabitants of Entre Rios and Santa Fé have quite as much right to traffic with their neighbours as those of Mendoza and Salta have to trade with Chile and Peru.
Buenos Ayres has already suffered a great loss of revenue in consequence, and this loss will yearly increase, to the great detriment of the national credit, for which she is responsible, and to the still further estrangement of the provinces from each other, unless she takes active means to counteract the evil:—those means are in her own hands. The introduction of steam-navigation, by establishing a cheaper communication between her own port and the Littorine provinces, will soon put an end to the profits of the over-land trade which is at present carried on through the Banda Oriental. It may, perhaps, be necessary, in the first instance, to grant some remission of the ordinary duties, in the shape of drawback or otherwise, upon goods reshipped for other parts of the republic in steamers, as well as upon all produce of the country received by the same conveyance in exchange:—but, whatever apparent sacrifice Buenos Ayres may make to promote this object, she may be assured she will be repaid a hundred-fold by the results.
If the confederation of these provinces is to be a real one, and for joint benefit, they must pull together, and help one another. They possess, in a singular degree, within themselves, the means of mutual aid and support, and, if properly applied, they can hardly fail to insure them a great increase of individual prosperity and national importance.
The reverse of the picture has been foretold in words which no man can gainsay:—"if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand."