Catamarca, divided from Tucuman by the sierras of Aconquija, is one of those subordinate provinces which, like Rioja, owes its independence rather to its insignificance and secluded situation than to any pretensions which the people can have to govern themselves; properly it should be a dependency of the government of Tucuman, to which the Congress annexed it in 1814.
When I applied to the Governor for some general statistical information as to the extent and resources of his province, he fairly confessed his own ignorance and utter inability to answer my queries; much less was it possible to obtain any satisfactory topographical data.
The inhabitants of the province are estimated at 30,000 to 35,000, of which about 4000 reside in Catamarca. The valley so called, and in which the greater part of this population is settled, runs from north-west to south-east, extending from the confines of Atacama to those of Rioja. On the eastern side it is separated from Tucuman first by the sierras of Ancasti and Ambato, and more to the north by the lofty chain of Aconquija: it is watered by a river which holds its course through it (said to have been once a much more considerable stream than at the present day), the waters of which are finally lost in the low sandy plains of the province of Santiago.
The climate is sultry, and the people, at certain seasons, are very subject to intermittent fevers. They produce corn and cattle enough for their own subsistence, and supply the adjoining provinces largely with their cotton, the quality of that of Catamarca being in higher repute than their own, for their domestic manufactures: considerable quantities of red pepper are also sent from thence to Buenos Ayres.
Catamarca, by the usual track, is about sixty leagues distant, south-west, from Tucuman. In a MS. by Dean Funes, in my possession, he places it in south latitude 28° 12´. The first Spanish settlement in this part of the country was formed by Juan Perez de Zurita, in the year 1558. He named it New England, and the principal town London, in celebration of the nuptials of his sovereign King Philip with our Mary. From thence, however, the Spaniards were shortly after expelled by the native Indians, and, removing to the valley of Conando, founded the town of Villagran. That district was subsequently abandoned from the same cause,—the continual hostility of the natives; and the population was finally settled in the valley of Catamarca.
The Calchaquis, who originally occupied those parts, were a warlike race, whose dominion extended from the confines of Peru over all the country lying between the ranges of the Cordillera on the west and those of Aconquija on the east. They derived their name from the valley of Calchaqui, which, in the Quichua language is strongly significant of the fertility of the soil; and for a long period they defended themselves against the Spaniards with an obstinate bravery, unequalled perhaps in any other part of South America, excepting Araucania. The history of those parts for the first century and a half, indeed, is little more than an enumeration of their bloody wars with the Spaniards, in which the latter were often defeated with serious loss, their towns besieged and destroyed, and they themselves obliged to fly before the brave defenders of the soil, whom they drove to desperation by their wanton cruelties and oppressive treatment. Amongst other instances of the outrageous and overbearing conduct of the conquerors which are recorded, one may serve as a sample, which Funes relates of Don Philip Albornos, who, being named Governor of Tucuman, some of the Caciques of the Calchaquis, at the time on good terms with the Spaniards, repaired to Tucuman to tender to him their customary tribute upon his appointment. Upon their arrival, instead of the welcome they expected, he wantonly ordered them to be publicly flogged, to have their heads shaved, and so to be sent back whence they came. The Calchaquis swore to be avenged: they secretly sent forth emissaries to rouse all the people of their tribes, especially those of Andalgala, of Famatina, of Copoyan, and Guandacol, who were known to be smarting under the yoke of their new task-masters, for that part of the country was nominally reduced to subjection by the Spaniards; and then, with an overwhelming force, at one and the same time, fell upon Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman, London, and La Rioja, carrying everywhere desolation, and sparing not man, woman, nor child. Never were the Spaniards in those parts reduced to such shifts; in vain they endeavoured to make peace, the Indians would listen to no terms, and this war raged for ten years, with great loss to the Spaniards, and the utter annihilation of many of their settlements. Nor was it till a large force could be spared from Peru that this formidable insurrection was put down.
The Spaniards, once masters again, retaliated as usual. Many tribes were exterminated; others capitulated with their conquerors to abandon altogether their native valleys, and were removed to a distance; amongst others a people called the Quilmes, inhabiting a part of the valley of Calchaqui, being reduced to about 200 families, after a long resistance, were sent to Buenos Ayres, where the Governor settled them a short distance from the city, at the place which still bears their name.
The labours of the Jesuits, however, were eventually more successful than all the military forces which were sent against the Calchaquis. The indefatigable missionaries reduced one tribe after another to a state of comparative civilization, and eventually removed the greater part of them from their native soil to form the nucleus of the Christian settlements which they were anxious to establish upon their own plan on the shores of the Vermejo, amongst the Indians of the Chaco. There they soon lost all importance, and the hostilities of other Indian nations, and a dreadful epidemic which broke out amongst them, in the year 1718, finally put an end to the existence of a gallant people, who had not only signalized their name by their successful wars against the Spaniards, but who, in times long before, had maintained their independence in spite of all the efforts of the dynasty of the Incas of Peru to reduce them to subjection.