Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 2 of 2

by Robert Grant Watson

1778.

The new commercial regulations, however, as a whole, were extremely advantageous to the colonies as well as to the mother country. Buenos Ayres, in particular, from being a nest of smugglers, soon rose to be one of the most important commercial cities of the New World. To take one example. Before the new regulations of 1778, the export of hides to Spain averaged about 150,000 yearly. It soon rose to between 700,000 and 800,000, whilst in one year [1783], on the conclusion of peace with England, the export attained to 1,400,000. Instead of the former two or three ships, there now sailed annually from seventy to eighty from the river Plate to Spain. The population of the province of Buenos Ayres, under these altered circumstances, was doubled in twenty years, rising from 38,000 in 1778 to 72,000 in 1800.

Until the latter part of the eighteenth century the inhabitants of the province of Buenos Ayres, possessing ample lands safe from incursions of the Indians, had no particular object in extending their possessions further south than the river Salado. The further region was left to the Indians, and was a terra incognita until the publication in England, in the year 1774, of an account of Patagonia by Father Falkner.

Falkner was an English Jesuit who had been devoted to travelling as a missionary amongst the Indians, in which duty he had passed forty years. He pointed out how vulnerable by any naval power were the Spanish possessions in that region; and, on the publication of his book, the Spanish Government lost no time in instructing the Viceroy of Buenos Ayres to have the coast of Patagonia surveyed, with a view to the formation of fresh settlements. The command of the surveying expedition was given to an officer named Piedra, who sailed from Monte Video at the close of 1778, and passed three months in examining the shores of the gulf of St. Antonio, where he left an officer and some men to build a fort, conveniently situated for exploring the rivers Negro and Colorado, and for securing the entrance of those streams against invasion. A further inducement for making a settlement here was the number of whales and seals in the neighbourhood, which likewise contained extensive salt deposits.

In April 1779 a settlement was formed on the river Negro, and in the following year the whole of the southern part of the coast of Patagonia was surveyed. The only spot which seemed to afford a promising site for a settlement was St. Julians, which had the advantage of a constant supply of water some three or four miles inland. The Indians in the neighbourhood were friendly and ready to offer assistance, which was of great consequence to the first Spanish settlers in the cold months of June, July, and August. This colony, however, was destined to be short-lived, as the Spanish Government, in 1783, resolved to break up the Patagonian settlements, which were the occasion of great expense to Buenos Ayres, and the preservation of which seemed of doubtful utility. The settlement upon the Rio Negro was alone preserved.

The missionary Falkner had supposed that a hostile naval power might, by ascending the Rio Negro, surprise the Spanish territories in the interior and even in Chili. In order to determine this important point, and to survey the river and its affluents, an expedition was despatched from the Rio Negro. Starting from the settlement of Carmen in 1782, it was absent for eight months. It proved the possibility of ascending the river to the foot of the Andes. One surprising fact was brought to light, namely, that the Indians of the Pampas had not to drive their stolen cattle for more than three days’ journey over the Cordillera, from the lake of the boundary mentioned by Falkner, before reaching the fort of Valdivia, where they found a ready market. The party of Indians from whom the explorers learned this circumstance consisted of about three hundred people, who had left their country more than a year before for the purpose of collecting cattle for the Valdivians. They were now on their way homewards with about eight hundred head, each one of which bore the Buenos Ayres mark. Their return voyage down the stream was accomplished in three weeks.

In a work of this description I find considerable difficulty in giving due regard to the unities of time, &c. My object is to place before the reader, as well as I can, the general condition of South America at any one period; but the progress of events on that continent during the colonial administration was so irregular that it is scarcely possible to avoid appearing to give undue prominence to one particular region at a time, overlooking others which in these days may seem of equal or even greater importance. Thus whilst the province of Buenos Ayres was still a vast plain overrun by savages, Peru, subsequent to the Spanish invasion, had a long and interesting history. In deferring to so late a date in this volume any account of Buenos Ayres, which is to-day a place of the first importance in South America, I may seem to be wanting in a sense of comparative fitness. But on reflection the reader will perceive that for the first two hundred years of its existence Buenos Ayres possessed no history beyond that of its foundation. Its records during those years, in so far as the world in general is interested, may be comprised in a single sentence. It was on the collapse of the narrow, repressive policy of Spain, and the erection of Buenos Ayres into a Viceroyalty, that the history of that city and province may be said to commence. Notwithstanding its natural resources and its geographical importance, it was until that date, like Tucuman, merely the seat of a local government, one amongst several, dependent on the Viceroyalty of Peru. In the last quarter of a century, however, of its colonial existence it made colossal strides. The new prospects of commercial wealth absorbed the interests and thoughts of all; and whilst Europe was waving with the commotion caused by the French Revolution, this far-distant province of Spain, so favoured by nature and position, was steadily laying the foundations of its future importance and prosperity.

The Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres was subdivided into the provinces of—

(1.) Buenos Ayres, the capital of which was the city of that name, and which comprised the Spanish possessions that now form the Republic of Uruguay, as well as the Argentine Provinces of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fè, Entre Rios, and Corrientes;

(2.) Paraguay, the capital of which was Asunsion, and which comprised what is now the Republic of Paraguay;