‘And I will leave the matter, and tell the other benefits which, after God, by our agency, came to the natives of New Spain.’[14]
One would imagine, on reading the above extract, Bernal Diaz had never killed an Indian in his life, and that he had sacrificed his prospects in coming to Mexico solely to introduce ‘a Christian polity and justice’ amongst the inhabitants. Yet he was no hypocrite, but a stout sagacious soldier, even kindly, according to his lights, and with a love of animals uncommon in a Spaniard, for he has preserved the names and qualities of all the horses and mares which came over in the fleet from the Havana with Cortes.[15] The phrase, despues de Dios (after God) occurs repeatedly in the writings of almost all the conquistadores of America. Having, after God, conquered America, the first action of the conquerors was to set about making their fortunes. In those countries which produced gold and silver, as Mexico and Peru, they worked the mines by the labour of the Indians, the cruelties and hardships being so great that, in a letter of Philip II. to the Come de Chinchon, the Viceroy of Peru, dated Madrid, April 30, 1639, written fifty years after the discovery, he says: ‘These Indians flee, become ill, and die, and have begun to diminish greatly in number, and they will be finished soon unless an efficient remedy is provided shortly.’
In Paraguay there were no mines, but there were other methods of extracting money from the Indians. At the first conquest Paraguay was not the little country bounded on the west by the Paraguay, on the south by the Paraná, on the north by the Aquidaban, and on the east by Sierra of Mbaracavu, as it is at present. On the contrary, it embraced almost all that immense territory known to-day as the Argentine Confederation, some of the Republic of Uruguay, and a great portion of Brazil, embracing much of the provinces of Misiones, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and Matto Grosso, as well as Paraguay itself. How the little country, twelve hundred miles from the sea, came to give its name to such an enormous territory, and to have the seat of government at Asuncion, demands some explanation. Peru and Chile were discovered and occupied some time before the eastern side of South America. Their riches naturally drew great attention to them; but the voyage, first to Cartagena de Indias, and then across the isthmus, and the re-embarkation again on the Pacific, were both costly and arduous. It had been the ambition of all explorers to discover some river which would lead from the Atlantic to the mines of Peru and what is now Bolivia, then known as Alta Peru. Of course, this might have been achieved by ascending the Amazon, especially after the adventurous descent of it by Orellana, of which Fray Gaspar de Carbajal has left so curious a description; but, whether on account of the distance or for some other reason, it never seems to have been attempted.
In 1526 Sebastian Cabot left Spain with three small vessels and a caravel for the object of reaching the Moluccas or Spice Islands. It was his purpose to reach them through the Straits of Magellan. Being compelled by want of supplies to abandon his route, he entered a broad estuary, and ascended it under the impression that he had discovered another channel to the Pacific. He soon found his mistake, and began to explore the surrounding country. Fifteen years before, with the same object, Juan de Solis had entered the same estuary. On the island of Martin Garcia he was killed by a Chana Indian, and his expedition returned home. Hearing that there was much silver at the head-waters, he had called it the Rio de la Plata. If we take the head-waters of the river Plate to be situated in Bolivia, there certainly was much silver there; but Cabot was unaware that the head-waters were above two thousand miles from the estuary, and he was not destined to come near them. He did go as far as a point on the river Caracara, in what is now the province of Santa Fé, and there he built a fort which he named Espiritu Santo, the first Spanish settlement in that part of America. Whilst at Espiritu Santo, several exploring parties were sent to scour the country. One of them, under a soldier of the name of Cesar, never returned. Tradition, always eager to make up to history for its want of interest, asserted that after marching for years they reached a city. Perhaps it was the mystic Trapalanda of which the Gauchos used to discourse at night when seated round a fire of bones upon the pampa. Perhaps some other, for enchanted cities and Eldorados were plentiful in those days in America, alternating with occasional empires, as that of Puytita, near the Laguna de los Xarayes, Manoa, and the Ciudad de los Cesares, supposed to be situated near Arauco in the Chilian Andes. However, one of the party actually returned after years, and related his adventures to Ruy Diaz de Guzman,[16] the first historian of Paraguay. Thus it was that the stream of adventurers was ever seeking for a channel to the mines of Peru from the Atlantic coast. Cabot appears to have ascended the Paraná to the island of Apipé, and then, returning, entered the river Paraguay. Having ascended past what is now Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, Cabot encountered Indians from the north who told him of the mines in Peru and in Bolivia, probably unaware that Cabot knew of them already. At this point, encouraged by what he heard, he gave the name of Rio de la Plata to what had previously been known either as La Mar Dulce or El Rio de Solis. Like most names which are wrongly given, it remained to testify to the want of knowledge of the giver. Four years after, Cabot returned to Spain, having failed to attract attention to his discoveries. In the face of the wealth which was pouring in from the Peruvian mines, another expedition started for the river Plate. Its General—for in Spain the title was used indifferently by land and sea—was Don Pedro de Mendoza, a gentleman of Guadix in Almeria, and a member of the household of Charles V.
Don Pedro had seen service in the Italian wars, and seems to have been a man of character and bravery, but wanting in the discretion and the necessary tact essential in the founder of a colony. In 1534 the expedition started, unfortunate almost from the first. In a ‘certain island’, as the historian of the expedition, Hulderico Schmidel, a German or Flemish soldier, calls Rio Janeiro, a dispute occurred between Don Pedro and his second in command, Juan de Osorio. At a court-martial held upon Osorio, Don Pedro appears to have let fall some remarks which Juan de Ayolas, the Alguazil Mayor (Chief Constable), seems to have taken up as an order for instant execution. This he performed upon the spot, plunging his dagger repeatedly into Osorio, or, as Hulderico Schmidel has it, ‘sewing him up with cuts’ (cosiendole à puñaladas). This murder or execution—for who shall tell when murder finishes and its legal counterpart begins?—rendered Don Pedro very unpopular with all the fleet; for, as Schmidel has it in his history,[17] ‘the soldiers loved Osorio.’ To be loved by the soldiers was the only chance a Spanish officer had in those times of holding his own. Both Schmidel and Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who had both been common soldiers, and who, curiously, both wrote histories, lose no occasion of vilifying officers who used the soldiers hardly. It is true that Bernal Diaz (who, unlike Schmidel, was a man of genius) does so with some discretion, and always apparently with reason. Schmidel, on the other hand, seems to have considered that any officer who interfered between the soldiers and the Indians was a tyrant, and hence his denunciation of Alvar Nuñez, under whom he served.
In 1535 the expedition entered the river Plate. Here Mendoza, with his usual want of judgment, pitched upon what is now the site of Buenos Ayres as the spot on which to found his colony. It would be difficult to select a more inconvenient place in which to found a town. The site of Buenos Ayres is almost level with the waters of the river Plate, which there are shallow—so shallow that large vessels could not approach nearer than ten to fifteen miles. Without a harbour, the anchorage was exposed to the full fury of the south-west gales, known as ‘pamperos’. However, if the site was bad the air was good; at least, it seems so, for a captain of the expedition exclaimed on landing, ‘Que buenos aires son estos!’ and hence the name. Here every sort of evil chance came on the newborn colony. The Pampa Indians, whom the historian Schmidel seems to have only known by their Guaraní name of Querandis, at first were friendly. After a little while they ceased to bring provisions, and the General sent out an expedition to compel them under his brother, Don Diego de Mendoza. It does not seem to have occurred to Don Pedro de Mendoza that, had the cacique of the Querandis landed in Spain, no one would have brought him provisions for a single day without receiving payment. However, Don Pedro[18] had come to America to introduce civilization and Christianity, and therefore, knowing, like Bernal Diaz and the other conquerors, his own moral worth, was justly indignant that after a day or two the Indians refused him more supplies. In the encounter which took place between the Spaniards and the Indians, Don Diego de Mendoza was slain, and with him several others. Here for the first time we hear of the bolas, or three stones united, like a Manxman’s legs, with strips of hide, with which, as Hulderico Schmidel tells us, the Indians caught the horses by the legs and threw them down. After this foretaste of European justice, the Indians besieged the newly-built town and brought it to great straits, so much so that, after three men had been hung for stealing a horse, in the morning it was discovered they had been cut down and eaten. In this desperate state Don Pedro despatched Juan de Ayolas to get supplies. He, having obtained some maize from the Timbu Indians, returned, leaving a hundred of his men in a little fort, called Corpus Christi, close to Espiritu Santo, the fort which Cabot had constructed. The friendliness of the Timbus induced Don Pedro to abandon Buenos Ayres and move to Corpus Christi. There he repaired with about five hundred men, all who remained of the two thousand six hundred and thirty with which he sailed from Cadiz. The horses he abandoned on the pampa; there they became the ancestors of the innumerable herds which at one time overspread the Argentine Republic from the Chaco to Patagonia, and whose descendants to this day stock the estancias of that country.[19]
From Corpus Christi Juan de Ayolas was sent out to explore the river, and try to find the long-sought-for waterway to the Peruvian mines. He never reached Peru, and Corpus Christi never saw him return. Mendoza waited a year, and then returned to Spain, leaving his garrison with provisions for a year, the bread[20] ‘at the rate of (á razon de) a pound a day, and if they wanted more to get it for themselves.’ On the passage home he died insane. The pious were of opinion that it was a judgment on him for the murder of Don Juan Osorio. Before he embarked, Don Pedro had despatched a relative, Gonzalo de Mendoza, to Spain to bring provisions and recruits. Gonzalo, having obtained provisions in Brazil, returned to Corpus Christi; thence in company with Salazar de Espinosa he headed an expedition up the river in search of Juan de Ayolas, who had been appointed successor to Don Pedro. With them went Domingo Martinez de Irala, a man destined to play a great part in the conquest of Paraguay.
The expedition went up the Paraguay to a place near Fort Olimpo (21° long., 58° lat.) about a hundred leagues above Asuncion. Here they sent out exploring parties in all directions to seek Ayolas, but without success. Irala remained with one hundred men at Fort Olimpo. Gonzalo de Mendoza on his return, being attracted by the sight of a fine site for a town, landed, and on the fifteenth day of August, 1537, founded Asuncion. Here the Spaniards first met the Guaranís, who were destined in after-years to be the converts of the Jesuits, and be assembled by them in their famous missions.
‘At the discovery of America,’ says Felix de Azara in his ‘Descripcion y Historia del Paraguay’, ‘the Guaranís were spread from the Guianas to the shores of the river Plate, and occupied all the islands of the Paraná extending up to latitude 20° on the Paraguay, but without crossing either that river or the river Plate.’ They had also a few towns in the province of Chiquitos, and the nation of the Chiriguanás was an offshoot from them. In Brazil they were soon all either rendered slaves or so crossed with the African negro that the pure race has been almost entirely lost, though the language remains under the name of the Lingoa Geral, and many words from it have been introduced into Portuguese spoken by the Brazilians, as capim, grass; caipira, half-caste, etc. In fact, so great is the number of these words, idioms, phrases, and terms of speech derived from Guaraní, that Dr. Baptista de Almeida, in his preface to his grammar published at Rio Janeiro (1879), computes that there are more words derived from Guaraní than even from Arabic in the Portuguese spoken in Brazil.[21] The Guaranís in Brazil were known either as Tupis, from the word tupy,[22] savage, or Tupinambás, from tupynambá, literally, the savage or indigenous men.
Jean de Lery, the well-known Huguenot pastor and friend of Calvin, passed a year on the coast of Brazil about 1558, having accompanied the expedition of the famous Villegagnau. In his book (‘Histoire d’un Voyage faict en la Terre du Brezil’) he always refers to the Indians as Toupinaubaoults, and has preserved many curious details of them before they had had much contact with Europeans. He appears to have had a considerable acquaintance with the language, and has left some curious conversations en langage sauvage et Français, in which he gives some grammatical rules. The language of conversation is almost identical with that of Paraguay, though some words are used which are either peculiar to the Tupis or obsolete in Paraguay to-day. His account of their customs tallies with that of the various Spanish writers and explorers who have written on the subject. Tobacco, which seems to have been known under the name of ‘nicotiane’ to Lery, he finds in Brazil under the name of ‘petun’, the same name by which it is called in Paraguay at present. He believed that ‘petun’ and ‘nicotiane’ were two different plants, but the only reason he adduces for his belief is that ‘nicotiane’ was brought in his time from Florida, which, as he observes, is more than a thousand leagues from ‘Nostre Terre du Brezil’. His experience of savages was the same as that of Azara, and almost all early travellers, for he says: ‘Nos Toupinambaoults reçoivent fort humainement les estrangers amis qui les vont visiter.’[23] Lery, however, seemed to think that, in spite of their pacific inclination, it was not prudent to put too much power in their hands, for he remarks: ‘Au reste parcequ’ils chargeyent, et remplisseyent leurs mousquets jusques au bout . . . nous leurs baillions moitié (i.e., la poudre) de charbon broyé.’ This may have been a wise precaution, but he omits to state if the charbon broyé was bailli at the same price as good powder. According to Azara, who takes his facts partly from the contemporary writers—Schmidel, Alvar Nuñez, Ruy Diaz de Guzman, and Barco de la Centenera—the Guaranís were divided into numerous tribes, as Imbeguas, Caracaras, Tembues, Colistines, and many others. These tribes, though apparently of a common origin, never united, but each lived separately under its own chief. Their towns were generally either close to or in the middle of forests, or at the edge of rivers where there is wood. They all cultivated pumpkins, beans, maize, mani (ground nuts), sweet potatoes, and mandioca; but they lived largely by the chase, and ate much wild honey. Diaz in his ‘Argentina’ (lib. i., chap. i.) makes them cannibals. Azara believes this to have been untrue, as no traditions of cannibalism were current amongst the Guaranís in his time, i.e., in 1789-1801. Liberal as Azara was, and careful observer of what he saw himself, I am disposed to believe the testimony of so many eye-witnesses of the customs of the primitive Guaranís, though none of them had the advantage enjoyed by Azara of living three hundred years after the conquest. It may be, of course, that the powers of observation were not so well developed in mankind in the beginning of the sixteenth as at the end of the eighteenth century, but this point I leave to those whose business it is to prove that the human mind is in a progressive state. However, Father Montoya, in his ‘Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay’, affirms most positively that they used to eat their prisoners taken in war.’[24]