The work of Schmidt, which in nearly all its details is in manifest contradiction to that of Alvar Nuñez, was published twelve years after the Commentaries, and was apparently written expressly to refute them, taking up the defence of Domingo de Irala, who is the principal figure of the picture, and whose seditious and immoral conduct had been denounced by Alvar Nuñez. The Hakluyt Society, in bringing together these two contemporary records of the Spanish conquest, leaves the reader to pass his own judgment on the issues raised.
This Society had published in 1874 another narrative, similar to that of Ulrich Schmidt, relating to the same historical period, the voyage of Hans Stade, also a German adventurer, who visited the southern coast of Brazil shortly after the sedition against Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca in Paraguai. Though edited with notes and explanations by the gallant Captain, afterwards Sir Richard Burton,[2] these have not thrown the necessary light to show the motive of Stade’s voyage, nor other circumstances essential to form a clear and precise idea how this other German adventurer is entitled to a place in the history of the Province of the Rio de la Plata as well as in that of the conquest of Brazil.
[2] Sir Richard Burton died in Trieste on the 20th October last, while holding the office of H.B.M. Consul.
When Alvar Nuñez returned a prisoner to Spain, the king appointed another Adelantado to replace him and continue the Spanish colonisation from which he had been so violently severed. This new governor of the Rio de la Plata was Don Juan de Sanabria, who died before starting on the voyage, and only after many difficulties his son, Don Diego, sailed from San Lucar de Barrameda in 1549 with three ships. In one of these Hans Stade embarked, on conditions identical with those under which Ulrich Schmidt had gone to America with Don Pedro de Mendoza. The armada of Sanabria was dispersed on the voyage; its chief arrived at the Antilles, and only two of the ships reached their destination.
Sanabria, just like Alvar Nuñez, bore the king’s orders to establish himself in the ports of the Atlantic coast, in proximity with the Portuguese colony of San Vicente, to take possession of the island of Santa Catalina, to found in its neighbourhood a colony on the border of the sea, in order to penetrate thence by land, crossing the whole province of Guaira, or Paraná, till he arrived at Paraguai.
The enterprise of Sanabria was, however, very unfortunate. The colonists, when their resources failed them, divided. A considerable number took refuge in the colony of San Vicente, impelled by necessity, and seduced by the Portuguese governor, Thomé de Souza. Hans Stade went with these, and as he understood something of gunnery, abandoned the Spaniards, and entered the Portuguese service as an artilleryman, when his chiefs and companions returned to Spanish territory and founded the colony of San Francisco, in 26° 20′ of south latitude.
The first seventeen chapters of Stade’s book refer to his stay in the province of Sanabria; the remainder to the time he passed in San Vicente, and his captivity among the Tupis who inhabited the surrounding country.
These three books are, as it were, fragments of the history of the first few years of the conquest of one part of South America. The series, arranged chronologically, is as follows:—