Transcriber's Note: Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed; therefore, numerous inconsistencies in spelling, diacritical marks, etc., have not been reconciled. However, all spelling changes listed in the Corrigenda have been made in this etext. The cover for this e-book was created by the transcriber and is granted to the public domain.

WORKS ISSUED BY

——♦——

THE CONQUEST
OF
THE RIVER PLATE.

FIRST SERIES. NO. LXXXI-MDCCCXCI

THE CONQUEST
OF
THE RIVER PLATE
(1535-1555).

I.
VOYAGE OF ULRICH SCHMIDT TO THE RIVERS LA PLATA AND PARAGUAI.
FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN EDITION, 1567.

II.
THE COMMENTARIES OF ALVAR NUÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA.
FROM THE ORIGINAL SPANISH EDITION, 1555.

TRANSLATED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.

BY
LUIS L. DOMINGUEZ,
MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ARGENTINE GEOGRAPHICAL INSTITUTE AND OF THE ROYAL SPANISH ACADEMY OF HISTORY.

BURT FRANKLIN, PUBLISHER
NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Published by
BURT FRANKLIN
514 West 113th Street
New York 25, N. Y.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY
REPRINTED BY PERMISSION

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

COUNCIL
OF
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.

• CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq., C.B., F.R.S., President.
• Major-General Sir HENRY RAWLINSON, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.
  • Associé Étranger de L’Institut de France, Vice-President.
• Lord ABERDARE, G.C.B., F.R.S., late Pres. R.G.S.
• JOHN BARROW, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A.
• WALTER DE GRAY BIRCH, Esq., F.S.A.
• Rear-Admiral LINDESAY BRINE.
• ROBERT BROWN, Esq., M.A., Ph.D.
• The Right Hon. Sir MOUNTSTUART E. GRANT DUFF, G.C.S.I.
• ALBERT GRAY, Esq.
• R. H. MAJOR, Esq., F.S.A.
• E. A. PETHERICK, Esq.
• Admiral Sir F. W. RICHARDS, K.C.B.
• Lord ARTHUR RUSSELL.
• ERNEST SATOW, Esq., C.M.G., Minister Resident in Uruguay.
• S. W. SILVER, Esq.
• COUTTS TROTTER, Esq.
• Prof. E. B. TYLOR, D.C.L.
• Sir CHARLES WILSON, R.E., K.C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R.S., D.C.L., and LL.D.
• E. DELMAR MORGAN, Honorary Secretary.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS.]

ILLUSTRATION.

[Map of South America in the XVI Century.]

[CORRIGENDA.]

[INTRODUCTION.]

I HAVE the pleasure to present to the Hakluyt Society, in the accompanying volume, the first two historians who wrote on the conquest of the Rio de la Plata, which took place in the reign of Charles V, King of Spain and Emperor of Germany.

The first of these was a German, a native of Straubing, in Bavaria, whose name was Ulrich Schmidt. The second was a Spaniard, native of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, named Alvar Nuñez, better known by the surname which he took from his mother, Doña Teresa Cabeza de Vaca. This Alvar Nuñez was a grandson of Don Pedro Vera, who, in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholics, undertook to conquer the Canary Islands at his own cost. As his means, however, were insufficient for so great an enterprise, he borrowed money of a Moorish banker upon pledge. The security given by this inhuman father consisted of his two sons, the younger of whom was the father of Alvar Nuñez; and this transaction, characteristic of a soldier in those semi-barbarous times, seemed to presage the singular adventures in which the son of the latter was destined to take part.

Of the German’s lineage nothing is known. I believe him to have been an obscure individual, servant or agent, like the modern commis voyageurs or commercial travellers, for one of the wealthy houses of commerce established at Seville in the time of the Emperor, and concerning which I shall have something to say by-and-by.

Both the German adventurer as well as the Andalusian cavalier gave their names to the narratives of what happened to them in America, in the two books published together in the present volume.

Twelve years after the discovery of the river Plate in 1516, by Juan Diaz de Solis, two Spanish expeditions explored its shores. One of these had been sent out by the Emperor to India, under the orders of Sebastian Cabot, and the other, under the command of the pilot Diego Garcia, to take possession of that river. Cabot altered his course and went up the Paraná till he arrived at the Rio Paraguai in 1527, and Garcia made the same voyage the following year. Both these navigators shortly afterwards returned to Spain, having only left a small colony at Sancti Spiritus, in the neighbourhood of the present city of Rosario, which was soon transferred to Iguape, on the Atlantic coast, very near the limit fixed, by the treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, between the possessions of Spain and Portugal.

When Cabot returned to Spain in 1530, and told of the pieces of silver he had seen among the Indians of the Chaco, the King of Portugal sent Martin Affonso de Souza to establish himself in the extreme south of his possessions in Brazil; and this Portuguese captain, after examining the coast of the ocean as far as the entrance of the Rio de la Plata, founded at the close of the year 1531, in the island of San Vicente, the first regular colony on that coast where now stands the little city of Santos.

The vicinity of these two rival colonies—the much smaller Spanish one of Iguape, and the stronger Portuguese one in San Vicente—endangered the peaceful and tranquil possession of those lands; and for this reason the Spanish Government resolved on sending immediately a formal expedition which should permanently occupy the north of the territory belonging to it, according to the above-mentioned treaty, on that coast. This expedition was placed under the orders of the first Adelantado and Captain-General of the province of Rio de la Plata, Don Pedro de Mendoza.

With him sailed a ship belonging to some Flemish merchants established in Seville, and in this vessel went their servant, or agent, one Ulrich Schmidt, a native of Bavaria, whom the Spaniards called Schmidel, a name which was Latinized, according to the custom of that time, into Uldericus Faber.

This Bavarian remained in the province of the Rio de la Plata some twenty years, taking an active, though obscure, part in the events of the Spanish conquest of that part of America. In December 1552, he returned to his native country, visiting Seville in September of the following year, and Antwerp in January 1554. Thirteen years afterwards there appeared in Germany, in a collection of voyages published at Frankfort-on-Maine by Sebastian Franck, a narrative of Schmidt’s voyage under the following title:

“Warhafftige und liebliche Beschreibung etlicher fürnemen Indianischen Landschafften und Insulen, die vormals in keiner Chronicken gedacht, und erstlich in der schiffart Ulrici Schmidts von Straubingen, mit grosser gefahr erkündigt, und von ihm selber auffs fleissigst beschrieben und dargethan.”

This is the book translated into English, for the first time, from the original German, and now published by the Hakluyt Society. It is unnecessary for me to say that the translation is not my work.

The historical period embraced by the voyage of Schmidt extends from 1535 to 1552, and refers to the governorship of Don Pedro de Mendoza, of his successor, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, and to the principal part taken in the events of that period by Captain Domingo Martinez de Irala, under whose orders the author of the narrative continually served. Irala, actuated by personal ambition, defeated the plans of Mendoza, deserted Buenos Ayres, abandoned his second in command in the Chaco, occasioning his death and that of all those who had accompanied him across that great desert to the confines of Peru, and, when the second Adelantado, Alvar Nuñez, arrived, opposed him by intrigues and conspiracy till he contrived to depose and send him in chains to Spain, under the insidious and calumnious accusation of having committed all sorts of crimes.

Alvar Nuñez, after waiting judgment for eight years, was acquitted, and recompensed by the king, and to justify himself before the world he published a narrative of the events that had happened to him during his term of office, viz., from 1541 to 1544.

This record, the first published on the conquest of the Rio de la Plata and Paraguai, appeared in Valladolid in 1555, under the general title “Relacion y Comentarios de Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, de lo acaecido en las dos jornadas que hizo à las Indias.” The Relacion refers to his adventures in Florida, and was first published in 1542,[1] while the Comentarios appeared as a second part of the new edition of his voyages under the title just mentioned. This is the second book contained in the present volume.

[1] This part has been translated into English by Buckingham Smith, and published in Washington in 1851.

The Voyage of Ulrich Schmidt, and the Commentaries of Alvar Nuñez, are, as it were, the flint and steel which, when struck together, produce light.

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:—

• 1. The Voyage of Ulrich Schmidt, from 1534 to 1554;
• 2. The Commentaries of Alvar Nuñez, from 1541 to 1544;
• 3. The Captivity of Hans Stade, from 1547 to 1554.

The special merit of these three works is that their authors were eye-witnesses and actors in the events they narrate.

It has seemed to me interesting and necessary to add to this volume an ethnographical map, which shows what were the indigenous tribes which occupied the country described by Schmidt, and the places in which the Guaraní family lived in that part of the province of Rio de la Plata, colonised in those days by the Spaniards. This map also shows, for the first time in the history of cartography, the demarcation of this same province entrusted by the King of Spain to his Adelantados, or governors, and the route opened by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca on his journey from the island of Santa Catalina to Asuncion, on the Paraguai.

The name of Rio de la Plata, given by the King of Spain to a territory so vast, and differing so widely now from what it was at the time of the conquest, creates some confusion and uncertainty in the mind of the reader of the events of that period. This can only be removed by a map which shows clearly what territories were held by the Spanish and Portuguese by virtue of the treaty of Tordesillas. Those who are cognisant of it are but few in number. When speaking or writing of the conquest of America, it is generally believed that the only title upon which were based the conquests of Spain and Portugal was the famous Papal Bull of partition of the Ocean, of 1493. Few modern authors take into consideration that this Bull was amended, upon the petition of the King of Portugal, by the above-mentioned treaty, signed by both Powers in 1494, augmenting the portion assigned to the Portuguese in the partition made between them of the continent of America. The arc of meridian fixed by this treaty as a dividing line, which gave rise, owing to the ignorance of that age, to so many diplomatic congresses and interminable controversies, may now be traced by any student of elementary mathematics. This line is shown on the accompanying map, and runs along the meridian of 47° 32′ 56″ west of Greenwich. The coast of the South American continent between the equator and the vicinity of the Tropic of Capricorn describes a great curve, closed on the west by the aforesaid dividing line, which enters the sea a little south of San Vicente, or Santos. West of this line were the Spanish possessions. A clear understanding on this point removes the confusion occurring at the present day, when the situation of affairs has undergone so marked a change, and explains how it is that Don Pedro de Mendoza, Alvar Nuñez, and Hans Stade remained at points of the coast called of Brazil, mentioned by those travellers; and how Alvar Nuñez, without leaving the province under his jurisdiction and command, marched through Spanish territory, from Santa Catalina, across the whole of Guaira, or province of Paraná, to Asuncion on the Paraguai. The name “Brazil”, or “tierra del Brasil”, at that time referred only to the part of the continent producing the dyewood so-called. Nearly two centuries later the Portuguese advanced towards the south, and the name “Brazil” then covered the new possessions they were acquiring, thus introducing the confusion to which I have referred.

The Voyage of Schmidt went through several editions, all incorrect, and rendered more so by the so-called elucidations and notes by their early editors. It was translated and published in Latin, English, Spanish, and other languages. These translations, however, were not made directly from the German, in which it was written, and thus the inaccuracies contained in the original were increased as they were turned into other idioms by persons who had no knowledge of the history, nor the slightest notion of the language spoken by the natives of America.

The first translation was done into Latin by Professor Gotard Arthus, for Theodore de Bry’s Collection of Voyages, 1597; and when Levinus Hulsius prepared his collection, in 1599, he found so many defects in it, that, instead of adopting it, he preferred translating it afresh. This version, in which there are many alterations and suppressions of the original text, must in justice be described as not less defective than the preceding one, without, however, being quite so bad. The Latin version of Hulsius served for the subsequent translations into modern languages—for instance, for that inserted by Purchas in his Pilgrims.

From the same collection of Hulsius the work of Schmidt was translated from Latin into Spanish by Dr. Andreas Gonzalez de Barcia, and published with his insignificant and incorrect notes in Madrid, 1737, in his Coleccion de Historiadores Primitivos de las Indias Occidentales. This is the version reproduced at Buenos Ayres a century later by Don Pedro de Angelis, compiler and editor of the manuscripts of the Argentine canon, Don Saturnino Segurola.

The translation now published by the Hakluyt Society, done directly from the original German, has the merit of presenting the work genuine and entire as it left the author’s hands. And as he was led into many errors of fact, proper names, geography, and chronology, the Society has done me the honour to ask me to explain them by notes and this brief Introduction.

The expedition of Don Pedro de Mendoza to the Rio de la Plata, and all the events referred to by Ulrich Schmidt, belong to the epoch of Charles V, Emperor of Germany and King of Spain. Although he was the son of a Spanish prince, this monarch was born at Ghent, and had been educated by Flemings. His ministers, his counsellors, the bankers who supplied him with the funds for his wars, were Flemings. Great was the favour enjoyed in Spain and Portugal by those very wealthy bankers and merchants, Fugger and Welzer of Augsburg, and Erasmus Schetzen of Antwerp. The first two had opened branches of their business at Seville, the centre at that time of trade with America, and the third had done the same at Lisbon, the metropolis of the Portuguese colonies in the Indies. The house of Erasmus Schetzen, as Hans Stade tells us, had sugar factories in the recently colonised captaincy of San Vicente, since converted into the province of San Pablo. One of his agents, Peter Rosel, had established himself there, and had acquired, in the name of Erasmus, the great factory established by the grantee, Captain-Major Martin Affonso de Souza, together with other partners.[3] Charles V had made a gift of the whole province of Caracas to the bankers Welzer, and the affairs of the Fuggers were so vast that the family name was adopted into the Castilian vernacular as fucar, explained by the dictionary of the language to signify a person of great wealth.

[3] Fray Gaspar da Madre de Deos, Memorias para a historia da Capitania de S. Vicente, 1797.

Charles V had inaugurated his reign by showing his partiality for the Flemings, by whom he was surrounded, bestowing on the Baron de la Bresa, his counsellor and majordomo mayor, the first contract for the exclusive privilege of introducing negro slaves into the West Indies, against the advice of his Spanish counsellors, who rejected the project of the famous protector of the Indians, Bartholomé de las Casas.[4] These favours shown to the Flemings gave rise to that picturesque phrase of Pedro Martyr de Anghiera, that the Flemings had gone with Charles V to Spain to destroy the vine after having gathered the vintage.[5]

[4] Antonio de Herrera, Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos, etc., Década 2, Libro 2, cap. 20; Quintana, Vida de las Casas.

[5] P. Martyr, Opus Epistolarum, carta 703.

This explains how the Spanish Government, exclusive and jealous of all foreign interference in its affairs in the Indies, allowed Germans and Flemings, with their vessels, their merchandise, and their men, to take part in such considerable numbers in the expedition of Don Pedro de Mendoza. The Flemings were at that time as much Charles’s subjects as the Spaniards, and the owners of the ships in which Schmidt and his countrymen sailed, were bankers—allies and favourites

of the young Emperor.

It appears that Schmidt was not enlisted among the soldiers of Mendoza, but came as an employé of the house of Welzer and Niedhart, who owned the vessel which took him. Its factor was the Fleming Heinrich Paine, and it was manned by eighty Germans. The cargo was destined to exchange for the silver which Sebastian Cabot, after his recent voyage of discovery, had made it believed in Spain, abounded among the Indians he had encountered on the Paraguai. The Rio de Solis then took the name of Rio de la Plata, and it was this magic word that raised the desires of so many in Spain to take part in the expedition of Don Pedro de Mendoza, that it was necessary to close the lists of applicants and hasten the departure of the armada, in order to calm the fever of emigration which prevailed on this occasion among persons desirous of making their fortunes rapidly. This expedition, as the historian Fernandez de Oviedo, who saw it sail from Seville, expressed it, “was a company fit to make a goodly show in Cæsar’s army and in any part of the world.”

Don Pedro de Mendoza began by establishing himself in the port of Los Patos, at the southern extremity of the island of Santa Catalina, which was included in his jurisdiction, as may be seen on the accompanying map. He then passed to the Rio de la Plata, and, on the 11th June 1535, laid the foundations of the city of Santa Maria de Buenos Aires. Soon afterwards he nominated as his second in command his intimate friend, Juan de Ayolas, and sent him with a detachment to explore the Rio Paraná, and open a road by means of this river to the Pacific Ocean, which was the advance or front limit of his province.

The brigantines, or little feluccas in which the explorer Ayolas set forth, were under the orders of the Biscayan, Domingo Martinez de Irala, and in his company went Schmidt, but it is unknown in what character. In his book he acquaints us with the events that happened to that expedition, and all those in which he took part, almost always in the company of his captain, Irala, with whose fortunes he linked his own from the beginning. Our only authority for this statement is the adventurer himself who has given his name to the book. I know of no document mentioning Schmidt, nor is he noticed by the chronicler Francisco Lopez de Gomara, by his successor, Antonio de Herrera, in his history of the Indies, or by Ruy Diaz de Guzman, himself born on the Paraguai, a grandson of Domingo Martinez de Irala, or, finally, by Alvar Nuñez in his Commentaries.

Schmidt relates that he was present at the foundation of Buenos Aires and its desertion six years afterwards, by order of Irala, who possessed himself of the command after the deaths of Don Pedro de Mendoza and his lieutenant Ayolas. Schmidt was also present at the events which took place during the governorship of the second Adelantado, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, from 1541 to 1544. He assisted at his violent overthrow and deportation under the direction of Irala, made all the journeys of exploration which, starting from Asuncion, ascended the Rio Paraguai to Matto Grosso, and explored all the country of the Cheriguanos, now known by the name of Moxos and Chiquitos, to the confines of Peru. He remained with Irala till the arrival on the Atlantic coast of the expedition of the Adelantado Sanabria, with whom Hans Stade sailed to America.

At the end of twenty years of travels and strange adventures, of combats with Indians, of anarchy, poverty, and disorder among the conquerors of Paraguai, when Domingo de Irala, by force of audacity and machiavelism, had definitely possessed himself of the government of this unfortunate colony, obtaining, a short while afterwards, the royal title of Governor, his faithful and inseparable companion Schmidt received a letter from the banker Niedhart, transmitted to him from Seville by the agent there of the wealthy Fugger, in which he begged him to return to Antwerp. Schmidt obtained leave of absence from his chief, set out on his journey, with six deserters and twenty of his Indian slaves, by the rivers Paraguai and Paraná to the river Iguazú, and thence crossed the province of Guaira by the route opened by Alvar Nuñez, arriving at the Portuguese colony of San Vicente. Here he met with the agent of Erasmus Schetzen, who gave him a passage to Lisbon in a vessel belonging to his principal, which was laden with a cargo of sugar and brazil wood. Schmidt landed at Antwerp on the 25th January 1554, as I have already said.

Hans Stade was a prisoner of the Tapiis, or Tupis, in the immediate vicinity of San Vicente, when Schmidt passed that way on his homeward journey, and only succeeded in obtaining his liberty one year later, embarking at Rio de Janeiro on one of the French ships which trafficked with the Indians occupying that magnificent bay. His adventures during his captivity were published at Marburg in 1557. It is very strange, therefore, that Schmidt should not make the slightest mention of his countryman, though he also was acquainted with Peter Rosel, agent of Erasmus Schetzen, in the Portuguese colony. It would seem most natural that they should have spoken on the misfortunes that had befallen Stade, and on the various fruitless efforts made to rescue him from captivity, and as to the means to be employed in order to restore him to his country. Not a word of all this do we find in Schmidt’s narrative.

The voyage of Ulrich Schmidt to the Rio de la Plata was published, as we have seen, at Frankfort-on-Maine in 1567, in the collection of Sebastian Franck, wherein also appeared for the second time that of Stade, side by side with his countryman Schmidt’s. This proves the interest taken in these narratives of travel in those days of theological controversies and religious wars, when the French Protestants were trying to set foot in Brazil, while Villegaignon, under the protection of Coligny, was taking possession of the port of Rio de Janeiro, one year after the abdication of Charles V and the accession to the throne of the sombre Philip II, whose tyranny became very soon insupportable in the Low Countries, which fell under his dominion by inheritance from his father.

The publication of these travels answered to the propaganda against Spain and the religious principles her soldiers were taking to the New World. The work of Stade had been written by Dr. Johann Dryandri, Professor of the University of Marburg, the centre of the ideas of Luther. That of Schmidt was adopted and published by his countryman, Sebastian Franck, who was a vehement Anabaptist, and by the Flemings de Bry and his friend Hulsius, one of the most active advocates of Church Reform, expelled from Ghent, his native place, by decree of the King of Spain during the most critical period of the struggle maintained by the Flemings for their national independence and their religious beliefs.[6]

[6] J. Asher, Bibliographical Essay on the Collection of Voyages and Travels edited and printed by Levinus Hulsius.

In those times there existed no periodical press or newspaper. The Spanish Government did not expose to the criticism of the world its colonial policy; silence was its inviolable rule. Availing himself of the right of his own defence, the Adelantado, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, deposed and accused by Irala and his party, had published, as we have seen, the narrative of his Government of the Rio de la Plata. Immediately afterwards there appeared in Germany the book of Ulrich Schmidt, containing the charges against Alvar Nuñez and the defence of the conduct of his enemy. These conquerors of Paraguai accused one another of disgraceful immorality and incapacity for the enterprize entrusted to them by the King. Ambition, as we gather from these books, overcame in them all feelings of honour and duty; and violence, sedition, perfidy, and bloodshed, were the means by which they sought to attain their ends.

The publication of these recriminations in Protestant Europe, which looked on with fear at the growth of the power of Spain by her conquests in the Indies, was a natural incentive to those who groaned under her yoke. Having no periodical press, they availed themselves of the narratives of voyages, which were awakening curiosity with respect to countries that had fallen under her dominion. Everything for them was new and wonderful. The unknown races, their primitive customs, their savage life, their nakedness, their arms and food, the virgin nature and splendid vegetation of the tropics, the fruits and new animals, the game and fish, differing from those in the old world, all excited the imagination, and, at the same time, opened a vast field for censure, and for inciting the multitude against the enemy who was taking possession with such admirable ease of the new lands which raised the enthusiasm of the first discoverer to such a pitch that he believed they had contained the earthly Paradise.

How could they help devouring with avidity “the veritable historie and description of a country belonging to the wild, naked, savage, man-eating people”, narrated by Hans Stade, who had been their captive? How could they fail to be interested in “the true and agreeable description of some Indian lands and islands which have not been recorded in former chronicles”, by one who, like Schmidt, had first explored them “amid great danger”?

It seems to me impossible that in the class of people to which Schmidt and Stade belonged, there should have been found men capable of writing narratives, though of scant literary merit. The art of writing was very uncommon in the middle of the sixteenth century. We know by whom Stade’s work was prepared; but we have not the same information with regard to that of Schmidt, though there can be no doubt that both were written, not by those who appear as their authors, but by more learned persons, enemies to the Spanish Government,[7] upon data recorded, badly or well, by the adventurers themselves, and from what they heard from their travelling companions.

[7] Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viajes y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del Siglo XV. Introduccion; Ilustracion 9.

The memory cannot retain for a long time names, and especially foreign names, and details of events happening in the midst of grave anxieties and dangers. For this reason Schmidt and Stade, who could not have taken notes at the time, ran into such great errors, that it is impossible to correct them with accuracy. The Castilian language is difficult to pronounce for men of Northern Europe, and much more is this the case with the Guaraní, which abounds with vowels and inarticulate sounds, with an accent at times guttural, at others nasal, or both combined. The Spanish Jesuit missionaries found themselves obliged to invent signs to represent these sounds. Nevertheless, there are words which, although pronounced in accordance with these signs, are now unintelligible to the natives.

It seems to me beyond all doubt that Guaraní was the general language of the whole of America to the east of the Cordillera of the Andes, from the sea of the Antilles to the extreme south of the continent. There were various dialects, as might be expected in a language without a literature, spoken by tribes living apart and hostile to one another. Traces of it occur north of the Amazon, as well as in the pampas of Argentina, and especially in Paraguai and in Guaira, the chief centre of the race in the days of the Spanish conquest. In Paraguai and its immediate vicinity the tongue spoken is nearly as pure as in the time of the Spanish missionaries Anchieta and Ruiz de Montoya, who wrote the vocabulary, and tried to adapt the language to grammatical principles and rules.

In the numerous notes I have placed at the foot of the pages, I have corrected the errors of Guaraní nomenclature committed by Schmidt, whenever they bear some resemblance to the true names of tribes and places referred to. Some errors were noticed by L. Hulsius (or Hulse) in 1599, who indicated those of well-known places and names, which in the first German edition appeared disfigured. For instance, “Demerieffe” for “Tenerife”, and “Petrus Manchossa” for “Don Pedro de Mendoza”. But neither Hulsius nor the other editors could correct them accurately, because they did not know a single word of the language of the natives, nor of that of their Spanish conquerors. These errors are still greater in the Latin version from which the Spanish and other translations were made.

The errors of Schmidt went so far in names of persons that he did not write correctly those of his chiefs, not even that of Domingo Martinez de Irala, under whose immediate orders he served for twenty years. Schmidt repeatedly insists on naming him Martino Domingo de Eyollas. Another of his chiefs was Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, whom he always names Abernunzo Cabessa de Bacha. The most curious thing is, that the editors who attempted to correct these errors, were not free from similar faults; even M. Camus,[8] who, in correcting that of Cabeza de Vaca, rendered it by Alvare Nugnez Cabera di Vacha; and M. Ternaux Compans, who supposed the settlement named “Duechkamin” by Schmidt, to be Tucuman,[9] because he did not know that neither the city nor the province of this name were founded at the moment to which he is referring.

[8] Mémoire sur la Collection des Grands et Petits Voyages, par A. G. Camus, 1802.

[9] Voyages, Relations et Mémoires originaux pour servir à l’histoire de la découverte de l’Amérique, etc., vol. v.

I believe that in my notes I have removed all these blunders, leaving some of them as they are, because they are incomprehensible and have no importance for history or geography.

In all this, and in chronology, the work of Schmidt is extremely defective, so much so, that I am unable to understand how the Spanish geographer Azara, recommending the merits of this adventurer, should have affirmed the following enormity in his Voyages dans l’Amérique Méridionale:—“Je fais grand cas de ce petit ouvrage, à cause de son impartialité et de l’exactitude des distances et des situations, choses en quoi personne ne l’égale.”[10] I do not accept this judgment, and in my notes and observations the reader will see if I have good reason for differing from Azara, whose merits I recognise, as I also know his grave faults.

[10] Voyages dans l’Amérique Méridionale, par Don Felix Azara; Paris, 1809; Introduction, p. 20.

Azara is one of the few who deny that the country was inhabited by a multitude of various nations, as many writers have asserted, and nevertheless enumerates and describes no less than thirty-two nations and more than fifty tribes. I maintain there was only one nation, the Guaraní; and in the province of La Plata, described by Alvar Nuñez and by Schmidt, the Guaranís were divided into twenty-one tribes, who differed only in their habits, or their arms, or in the nature of the country inhabited by them. These are the tribes entered on my ethnographical map. The others, mentioned by the writers in question, would be merely unimportant groups, designated by the name of their chief, or by some nickname applied to them by their neighbours or enemies. The tribes I record are the following: Quîrandís, Chanás, Charuas, Yarós, Arechanés, Minhuános, Timbús, Tobas, Mocobís or Mbocoys, Abipones, Agaces, Mepenes, Mbaiás, Payaguás, Guaicurús, Cheriguanos, Xarayos, Itatines, Guatós, Cariyós, Tapiis; all these are Guaranís. I do not treat of the other principal tribes, situated in the interior of the country between Paraná and the Andes, because they do not concern the narratives of Schmidt and Alvar Nuñez.

To the errors of Schmidt in nomenclature and distances must be added others of fact, doubtless more important. These also are rectified in the notes, which the reader will find in the corresponding place. In these, however, I have not touched on the subject of cannibalism attributed to the natives, because this deserves separate treatment here.

I believe there is not a single author of history and travel, at the time of the conquest of America, who has not admitted the assertion, and repeated it, that the natives were anthropophagi. Even the name cannibals was invented in the early years of the conquest. When Christopher Columbus established himself in Hayti, he asked the feeble, unarmed, and hospitable Indians he found there, for some information concerning other islands and their inhabitants, and they informed him that further on there were perverse men who made war upon them to rob and enslave them. These Indians of Hayti gave the name of Carib and Caniba to the islands inhabited by their enemies, called Caribes.

Columbus says, in the unique autograph document that is known concerning his first voyage of discovery,[11] that these Indians are held in all the islands to be very fierce, and that they eat live flesh (carne viva). He considers them, however, on the whole, equal to the others. This is the first origin of the tale of cannibalism, for the letter of Columbus, in which this statement is made, was immediately translated into Latin and published at Rome, and in this translation the Spanish words, comer carne viva, were interpreted by the Latin phrase, carne humana vescuntur. Long afterwards (from 1527 to 1559) the celebrated Bartholomé de las Casas wrote his Historia de las Indias, in which he gave an abstract of the journal of Columbus’ first voyage. In his summary, Las Casas relates what Columbus says, amplifying, correcting, or abridging, as he found convenient; and there the great discoverer appears repeatedly speaking of Indians who ate human flesh.

[11] Letter of the Admiral Christopher Columbus to Luis de Santángel, Contador Mayor de los Reyes Catholicos. (Navarrete Coleccion de Viages, tomo i, p. 167.) An identical letter was addressed by Columbus to the Contador Rafael Sanchez.

This alteration of the text of the letter of Columbus was repeated by the conquistadores and missionaries to justify the enslaving of the Indians and the horrible cruelty with which they were treated, commending in this way their perils and their labours in the military and spiritual conquest.

Cannibalism, under its name of Anthropophagy, originated with the fable of Polyphemus, and I am convinced that it is a calumny spread abroad from the time of Saint Jerome, when this brutality was attributed to the Scotch, down to the present day, when it is asserted that there are cannibals in Oceania and Africa.

I do not say this in defence of the Indians, but for the honour of human nature, not so bad as the creative genius of poets and authors of fiction have supposed it to be. That barbarous Indians are treacherous; that when they slay their enemies they will tear them to pieces and burn them, is beyond dispute. But that they will eat their flesh is a slander and a despicable falsehood founded on interested motives. I have yet to find the man who will tell me in good faith he has seen the Indians eat human flesh. Schmidt does not say it, nor does Alvar Nuñez, nor any other of the historians of America, though all repeat the tale; and there are some who, even at the present day, believe that the Fuegians, those unhappy savages of the extreme south of the continent, are cannibals.

In my new historical work, shortly to be given to the press, I shall treat of this interesting subject more at large; for the present I limit myself to the denial of a deed which I could only credit were I to see it with my own eyes.

These tales of cannibals and of Amazons, of giants and of pygmies, met with by certain travellers in unknown countries, are the brilliant spangles wherewith to dazzle the eyes of the vulgar anxious for marvels, and disposed to believe that in other parts there are men with tails, and women warriors who live without men, and monsters which have only existed in mythology and in fable.

I hope the readers of this Introduction, and of the notes, will be indulgent with respect to style, bearing in mind that what they read is a translation from the Spanish language in which I write.

I cannot terminate without giving my thanks to Mr. E. Delmar Morgan, Honorary Secretary of the Hakluyt Society, for the active co-operation he has afforded me in the preparation of this work.

Luis L. Dominguez.

16, Kensington Palace Gardens,
London, November 1890.

[BIBLIOGRAPHY.]

I.
ULRICH SCHMIDT.

ULRICH SCHMIDT’S voyage to the River Plate was published for the first time, in a Collection of Voyages, edited by the booksellers, Sebastian Franck and Sigismund Feyerabend, in the middle of the 16th century, at Frankfort-on-Main. The title of this collection is:

“Warhafftige Beschreibunge aller theil der Welt, darinn nicht allein etliche alte Landtschafften, Königreich, Provinzen, Insulen, auch fürnehme Stedt und Märckte (so denn allen Welt-beschreibern bekant seind), mit fleiss beschrieben werden, sondern auch sehr viel neuwe, so zu vnsern zeiten zu Wasser durch vil sorgliche und vormals vngebrauchte Schiffarten erfunden seyn, welche im andern disem nachfolgenden Buch von Schiffarten genañt auss rechtem grundt der Cosmography vnd Geometry erfunden, angezeigt werden. Dessgleichen auch etwas von New gefundenen Welten, vnd aller darinn gelegenen Völcker, ihrer Religion vnd Glaubens sachen, ihrem Regiment, Pollicey, Gewerb, handtierung vnd andern gebreuchen mehr, etc., auss etlichen glaubwirdigen (fürnehmer Scribenten) Büchern mit grosse mühe vnd arbeyt, etc.

“Durch Sebastian Franck von Wörd, zum ersten an tag geben, jetst aber mit sondern fleiss auff ein neuwes vbersehen, vnd in ein wolgeformtes Handtbuch verfasset. Anno MDLXVII.”

The book of Schmidt appeared in the second part of this collection under the following title:

“Warhafftige vnd liebliche Beschreibung etlicher fürnemen Indianischen Landtschafften vnd Insulen, die vormals in keiner Chronicken gedacht, vnd erstlich in der Schiffart Vlrici Schmidts von Straubingen, mit grosser gefahr erkündigt, vnd von ihm selber auffs fleissigst beschrieben vnd dargethan.”

The next edition was published, in 1599, by de Bry in his great collection known as Grands et Petits Voyages, which appeared in German and Latin. The Latin title is:

“Collectiones Peregrinationum in Indiam Occidentalem et in Indiam Orientalem 25 partibus comprehensæ a Theodoro, Joann Theodoro de Bry, et à Math. Merian publicatæ. Francofurti et Oppenheimii, De Bry et Merian, 1590, 1634. Americæ Pars VII.—Schmidel, Verissima et jucundissima descriptio præcipuarum quarundam Indiæ regionum et Insularum, quæ quidem nullis ante hæc tempora visæ cognitæque iam primum ab Vlrico Fabro Straubingensi, multo cum periculo inuentæ et ab eodem summa diligentia consignatæ fuerunt, ex germanico in latinum sermonem conuersa, autore M. Gotardo Arthvs Dantiscano. Illustrata verò pulcherrimis imaginibus, et in lucem emissa, studio et opera Theodorici de Bry piæ memoriæ, relictæ viduæ et filiorum. Anno Christi M.D.XCIX.”

First edition, Frankfort, 1599; and second edition (three plates printed in the text), 1625.

The title of the German abridged edition of de Bry’s collection is:

“America, das ist Erfindung vnd Offenbahrung der Newen Weldt, deroselbigen Völcker Gestalt, Sitten, Gebräuch, Policey vnd Gottesdienst, in dreissig vornehmtste Schiffahrten kürtzlich vnd ordentlich zusammen gefasset vnd mit seinen Marginalien vnd Register erkläret: Durch M. Philippum Zieglerum von Würzburg, E.C. Vnd vber die Vorigen mit vielen newen vnd nothwendigen Landtaffeln vnd Kupfferstücken auffs schönste gezieret, vnd in Truck gegeben von Johan-Theodoro de Bry, Buchhandlern vnd Bürgern zu Oppenheim. Gedruct zu Franckfurt am Mayn, durch Nicolaum Hoffmann. Anno MDCXVII.”

In 1598 Levinus Hulsius had begun to publish his great collection of voyages, entitled:

“Sammlung von 26 schiffahrten in verschiedene fremde Länder durch Lev. Hulsium und einige andere aus dem Holländischen ins Deutsche übersetz und mit allerhand Anmerkungen versehen.”

Frankfort, Nurnberg, Oppenheim and Hanover, 1598 to 1660.

Schmidt’s voyage appeared in this collection, in 1599, under this title:

“Warhafftige Historien Einer Wunderbaren Schiffart, welche Vlrich Schmidel von Straubing, von anno 1534 biss anno 1554, in Americam oder Newenwelt bey Brasilia und Rio della Plata gethan. Was er in diesen Neuntsehen Jahren aussgestanden vnd was für seltsame Wunderbare Länder vnd Leuter gesehen: durch ermelten Schmidel selbs beschrieben, an jetst aber an Tag geben mit Verbesserung vnd Corrigierung der Stätt, Länder vnd Flussnamen, dessgleichen mit einer nothwendigen Landtaffel, Figuren vnd anderer mehr Erklerung, gezieret Durch Levinvm Hulsivm. Noribergæ, Impensis L. H. 1599.”

This book was reprinted by Hulsius in 1602 at Nurnberg, and in 1612 at Frankfort-on-Main.

There are 16 plates in the British Museum copy, but the map and two plates are missing. In this edition, dedicated to Johann Philip, Bishop of Bamberg, the following epilogue occurs: “And so after the lapse of twenty years, through the special grace and providence of Almighty God, I have returned to the place whence I set out; but meanwhiles I have in my peregrination of these Indian nations experienced no little danger to body and life, great hunger and misery, care and anxiety, sufficiently made known and set forth in this historical narrative. I say therefore let praise, honour and thanks be given to Almighty God who has helped me to come back once more so happily to the place whence I full twenty years before had started.”

And in the Latin edition of this same collection, a new version of Schmidt’s book was published under this title:

“Vera historia admirandæ cujusdam navigationis quam Huldericus Schmidel, Straubiugensis, ab anno 1534 usque ad annum 1554 in Americam vel novum mundum justa Brasiliam et Rio della Plata confecit, quid per hoce annos 19 sustinuerit, quam varias et quam mirandas regiones at homines viderit. Ab ipso Schmidelio Germanice descripta: nunc vero, emendatis et correctis urbium, regionum et fluminum, nominibus, Adjecta etiam tabula geographica, figuris et aliis notationibus quibusdam in hanc formam reducta. Noribergæ, 1599. Impensis Levini Hulsii.” 4to.

In 1707 a Dutch translation was published at Leyden in the collection of the bookseller Van der Aa, entitled:

“Naaukeurige versameling der gedenk-waardigste Reysen na Oost en West-Indien, mitsgaders andere Gewesten gedaan; Zedert Jaarhet 1535 tot 1541, Te Leyden, door Pieter van der Aa, 1706-7.” Fol. and small 8vo.

Schmidt’s voyage appears in vol. 48 of the smaller edition under this title:

“Gedenkwaardige Scheeps-Togten na Rio de la Plata in’t Zuyderdeel van America, en Verscheydene andere voorname Americaanische Landschoppen, verrigt onder der Spaanschen Admiraal Pedro de Mendoza, Anno 1535, en de Volgende Jaren.... Bescheven door Ulrich Schmidt van Straubingen.... Nu aldeerst uyt’t Hoogduytsch vertaald.”

The first edition in the Spanish language of the book of Schmidt appeared in the first volume of the collection entitled: Historiadores primitivos de las Indias Occidentales, que juntó, tradujo en parte, y sacó á luz, ilustrados con eruditas notas y copiosos indices, Don Andreas Gonzalez de Barcia. 3 vol., fol., Madrid, 1749. It is entitled:

“Historia y descubrimiento del Rio de la Plata y Paraguay.” (Translated from the Latin edition of Hulsius.)

This version of Barcia was reprinted, with all his notes, in the third volume of the Coleccion de obras y documentos relativos á la Historia antigua y moderna de las provincias del Rio de la Plata, ilustrados con notas y disertaciones, by Pedro de Angelis.—Buenos Aires, 1835-37. 6 vols., fol. The title of Schmidt’s book in this collection is:

“Viaje al Rio de la Plata y Paraguay, por Ulderico Schmidel,” 1836.

A French translation of the Latin edition of Hulsius was published in 1837 in the collection entitled Voyages, Relations et Mémoires originaux pour servir à l’histoire de la découverte de l’Amérique, publiés pour la première fois en français, par H. Ternaux-Compans.—Paris, 1837-41, 20 vols., 8vo.

The work of Schmidt is in the first volume, under this title:

“Histoire véritable d’un voyage curieux fait par Ulrich Schmidel, de Straubing, dans l’Amérique ou le Nouveau Monde, par le Brésil, et le Rio de la Plata, depuis l’année 1534 jusqu’en 1554, ou l’on verra tout ce qu’il a souffert pendant ces dix-neuf ans, et la description des pays et des peuples extraordinaires qu’il a visités. Ouvrage écrit par lui-même, et publié de nouveau après corrections des noms de villes, de pays et de rivières.”

II.
ALVAR NUÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA.

The first edition of this important narrative of the Adelantado Alvar Nuñez was published at Valladolid in 1555, in one small 4to. volume, together with his account of his travels and shipwrecks in Florida, which had been edited some years before. The general title of this book is:

“La relacion y comentarios del gobernador Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca, de lo acaecido en las dos jornadas que hizo á las Indias.” Valladolid, 1555. 1 vol. Small 4to.

The second part of this book is entitled:

“Comentarios de Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, por Pedro Hernandez, escribano del Adelantado.”

The second edition of the Comentarios is in the second volume of Historiadores Primitivos, by Barcia. Madrid, 1749.

The third edition is in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, by Rivadeneyra, vol. 22. Madrid, 1863.

Ternaux-Compans published a translation into French in the third volume of his Voyages et Relations. Paris, 1837-41.

L. L. D.

[THE MAP.]

The dividing line between Spanish and Portuguese territories in the accompanying map differs only in one-and-a-half or two degrees of longitude from that drawn by M. Adolpho de Varnhagen in his Historia Geral do Brazil. The question about the present boundary of those territories has been settled by modern treaties.

It must also be remarked that the boundaries of the ancient Province of Rio de la Plata, in 1534, were very soon modified by the Spanish Government, who did the same thing by the four other Provinces into which the Continent of South America south of the equator was divided in that year.

L. L. D.

SOUTH AMERICA IN THE XVI CENTURY.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

A true and agreeable description of some principal Indian lands and islands, which have not been recorded in former chronicles, but have now been first explored amid great danger during the voyage of Ulrich Schmidt of Straubing, and most carefully described by him.

A true and agreeable description
of some principal Indian lands and islands,
which have not been recorded in former
chronicles, but have now been first
explored amid great danger during
the voyage of ULRICH SCHMIDT of
Straubing, and most carefully
described by him.

A true and agreeable description of
some principal Indian lands and islands, which have not
been recorded in former chronicles, but have now been
first explored amid great danger during the voyage
of ULRICH SCHMIDT OF STRAUBING, and
most carefully described by him.

IN the first place, when setting forth from Antorff,[12] I came in fourteen days to Hispania, to a town called Calles,[13] to which one reckons four hundred miles by sea. I saw before that town a balena, or whale, thirty-five paces long, out of which thirty tuns—of the capacity of herring tuns—of fat had been extracted.

[12] Antwerp.

[13] Cadiz.

Near the said town of Calles there were fourteen great ships, well provided with all ammunitions and necessaries, which intended to voyage to Riodellaplata[14] in India. Also there were two thousand five hundred Spaniards and one hundred and fifty Germans, Netherlanders, and Saxons.[15] And our chief captain was called Petrus Manchossa.[16]

[14] Rio de la Plata.

[15] Antonio de Herrera (Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano, Madrid, 1601-1616, viii, 5), who is the official authority, says that Don Pedro de Mendoza’s expedition was composed of 800 men, very good and distinguished people, and eleven ships. Others state that there were 1,500 and 1,700 men. Schmidt alone states the number as 2,650. By his contract with the Government, Mendoza was bound to take with him one thousand men in two voyages.

[16] Don Pedro de Mendoza.

Among these fourteen ships, one belonged to Messrs. Sebastian Neidhart and Jacob Welser, from Nürnberg, who had sent their factor, Heinrich Paeime, with merchandise to Riodellaplata. With these and others, as Germans and Netherlanders, about eighty men, armed with arquebuses and muskets, I went to Riodellaplata.

As we were now come there,[17] we set out from Sibylla[18] with the said gentlemen and the chief captain, in the aforesaid year, on the day of S. Bartholomew, and came to a town in Spain called S. Lucas[19] which is twenty miles’ distance from Sibylla. There we were compelled, on account of much blustering winds, to stay till the first of September of the year before-named (1534).

[17] i.e., to Spain.

[18] Seville.

[19] San Lucar.

And when we departed from there we fell in with three islands, which lie near to one another, the first of which is called Demerieff, the other Kumero, the third Palman,[20] and from the town of S. Lucas to these islands there is a space of about twenty miles.[21] At these islands the ships parted company. These islands belong to their Imperial Majesties, and are inhabited only by Spaniards, with their wives and children. And there sugar is made. We came with three ships to Palman, and remained there for four weeks, replenishing our store of victual.

[20] Teneriffe, Gomera, and Palma, three of the Canary Islands.

[21] From San Lucar to the Canary Islands there are about 500 English miles.

But afterwards our chief captain, Petrus Manchossa, being at a distance of eight to nine miles from us, and having commanded us to make sail, we having on board our ship our captain’s cousin, Jörg Manchossa,[22] who had fallen in love with the daughter of a burgher of Palma, and inasmuch as we were going to leave on the following day, the said Jörg Manchossa went ashore that very night, at twelve o’clock, with twelve of his good companions, and brought secretly with them, out of the island Palma, the said burgher’s daughter and her maid-servant, with all their clothes and jewels, and money also, and came aboard again, but secretly, to the intent that neither our captain, nor the aforesaid agent, nor anybody else on the ship might know aught about it; only the watch saw them, for it was about midnight. And as we were intending to depart from there in the morning, and were only about two or three miles away, a mighty wind sprang up, so that we needs must turn back to the same harbour, where we were lying before. When we there cast anchor, our captain, the aforesaid Heinrich Paine, would go aland in a small vessel, which is called pat or podell (bote). And as he went, and was about to land, there were awaiting him more than thirty men, armed with arquebuses, spears, and halberds with the intention of taking him, the said Heinrich Paine. At the same time one of his crew besought him not to land, but to return to the ship, which advice the captain would have gladly followed, but that he could not, seeing that the men on land had come too near to him in another little ship, which they had in readiness; however, he escaped at length in another ship which was near the land. When the armed men saw that the others did not fire upon, nor could take the captain Heinrich Paine, they caused the town of Palma to sound the alarm, swiftly loaded two great guns, and fired four shots at our ship (which lay not far off from the land). With the first shot they breached our earthen pot, which was on the poop and full of fresh water, whereby five or six pails of water were lost. Secondly, they shot in pieces also the mizzen, that is, the hindmost mast nearest the stern. Thirdly, they shot in the waist of the ship a big hole whereby a man was struck and killed. But with the fourth shot they missed us.

[22] Jorge de Mendoza. No known document mentions this Jorge de Mendoza, nor the rape alluded to by Schmidt. It is not likely that a relative of the chief of the expedition should have been on board a Flemish ship which was not under his immediate command.

There was also another captain, whose ship was lying by our side, and who intended to sail for Nova Hispania, in Mechseckheim[23]; he was on shore with one hundred and fifty men, who, when he knew of our quarrel, made peace between us and those of the town, on condition that Jörg Manchossa[24] and the burgher’s daughter and her maid-servant should certainly be delivered into their hands.

[23] Mexico.

[24] Jorge de Mendoza.

Then the stadthalter, and the judge, our captain, and the captain spoken of above, came aboard our ship, intending to make prisoners Jörg Manchossa and his paramour.[25] Thereupon he answered them that she was his wife, and she did not show herself in another light and they soon got married; the father, however, was very sorry and anxious, and our ship was through them badly treated by the firing at it. After all this, we left Jörg Manchossa and his wife ashore, for our captain would not have them any longer on board his ship.

[25] In orig.: “Bulschafft,” lit. love intrigue.

Now we again made ready our ship, and sailed to an island or land, the name whereof is S. Jacob, or, in Spanish, Sancte Augo (Santiago); there is a town belonging to the King of Portugal; the Portuguese entertain that town, and the Blackamoors are their subjects: this town is at a distance of three hundred miles from the said Island Palman, from which we sailed.[26] We remained there five days, and again furnished our ship with new and fresh victual, as bread, meat, water, and all that necessity demands at sea. The whole fleet, namely, fourteen ships, were now once more together. We then went again to sea and sailed for two whole months, and then arrived at an island wherein there was nothing else than birds, in such quantities that we killed them with sticks. Here we lay three days. This island is entirely uninhabited; it is in length and breadth about six miles either way, and is distant from the above-mentioned island, S. Augo, whence we sailed, fifteen hundred miles. In this sea there are flying-fishes and other marvellous great fishes of the balena kind, and great fishes called schaubhut, for that they wear on their heads a large trencher, with which they may become dangerous in fighting with other fishes; it is a wondrous great and evil fish. There are also other fishes which have on their backs a knife of whalebone, and are called in the Spanish tongue Peschespate,[27] and furthermore, other fishes which have on their backs a saw of whalebone, and are also evil fishes; their name is Peschedeferre,[28] and also there are several other rare fishes whose form, size, and other features I cannot at this time describe.

[26] All distances given by Schmidt are erroneous, and it is astonishing that Don Felix de Azara, a geographer, should have written to the contrary. By the distance given in miles between Palma, one of the Canary Islands, and St. Iago, one of the Cape Verd Islands, it may be seen that Schmidt’s miles are more properly Castilian leagues of 17½ in a geographical degree, the legal measure of distance in his time.

[27] Peje-espada, or sword-fish.

[28] Peces-sierras.

Afterwards we sailed from this island to another, named Riogenea,[29] at a distance of five hundred miles from the former, belonging to the King of Portugal; this is the island Riogenea in India, and the Indians are called Toppis.[30] We lay there about fourteen days. There Petrus Manchossa,[31] our chief captain, ordered Hans Ossorig,[32] as his sworn brother, to take the command over us in his stead, forasmuch as he was always melancholy, weak, and ill. But he, Hans Ossorig, very soon was belied and ill-spoken of to Petrus Manchossa, his sworn brother, even as though he had in his mind to cause a mutiny among the people against Petrus Manchossa, the chief captain. Thereupon he, Petrus Manchossa, ordered four other captains, named Johann Eyollas, Johan Salleisser, Jörg Luchsam,[33] and Lazarum Salvaischo,[34] that the aforesaid Johan Ossorig should be killed with a dagger or otherwise put to death, and should be exposed in the midst of the place as a traitor; and besides he ordered and proclaimed to the effect that no one should dare to pity Ossorig, for that he himself, whoever he might be, would meet with no better fate. Yet Ossorig was treated wrongly, God Almighty knows it, and may He be merciful to him, for he was a pious, fair-dealing, and valiant warrior, and kept well all the warriors.

[29] The discoverers were Spaniards, and this is proved by the name Rio de Henero, as the word Enero was spelt in the sixteenth century. The h was at the time aspirated (especially by the natives of Andalusia), and hence the name became corrupted into Jenero, changed afterwards into Janeiro by the Portuguese.

[30] Tupys.

[31] Don Pedro de Mendoza.

[32] Juan Osorio.

[33] Juan de Ayolas, Juan Salazar, and Jorge Lujan.

[34] If this name is rightly spelt, it may be one of the Flemish who took part in the expedition. In Barcia’s Spanish translation, Salvaischo is interpreted as Salazar; but there is no mention in any document of a Lazaro Salazar.

From there we sailed to Riodellaplata, and came into a river[35] called Paranau Wassu,[36] which is in width at its mouth, where one leaves the sea,[37] twenty-four miles. And from Riogenea to this river there is the space of five hundred miles. There we came to a haven, the name whereof is S. Gabriel, and there, in the said river Paranau, we anchored the fourteen ships.

[35] In orig.: “süss fliessend wasser.”

[36] Parana Guazú.

[37] Between Cape Santa Maria and Cape San Antonio there are 188 English geographical miles.

As we were constrained to ride at a gunshot’s distance from shore with the great ships, our chief captain, Petrus Manchossa[38] ordered to set the people ashore in the small ships, which are for that purpose intended, and are, therefore, called pat or podel.

[38] Don Pedro de Mendoza.

So by the grace of God we arrived at Riodellaplata, Anno 1535, and found there an Indian place inhabited by about two thousand people, named Zechurias,[39] who have nothing to eat but fish and meat. These, on our arrival did leave the place, and fled away with their wives and children, so that we could not find them. This Indian people go quite naked, the women having only their privities covered, from the navel to the knees, with a small piece of cotton cloth.

[39] Charúas.

Now the captain, Petrus Manchossa, commanded to bring the people into the ships again, and to convey them to the other side of the Paranau, where it is not broader than eight miles.[40]

[40] From the Island of San Gabriel to the place where Buenos Ayres was founded there are 29 English miles.

There we built a new town and called it Bonas Aeieres, that is, in German, Guter Wind.

We also brought from Hispania on board the fourteen ships seventy-two horses and mares.

Here, also, we found a place inhabited by Indian folk, named Carendies,[41] numbering about three thousand people, including wives and children, and they were clothed in the same way as the Zechurias, from the navel to the knees. They brought us fish and meat to eat. These Carendies have no houses, but wander about, as do the Gipsies with us at home, and in summer they oftentimes travel upwards of thirty miles on dry land without finding a single drop of water to drink.

[41] Quirandis.

And when they meet with deer or other wild beasts, (when they have killed them) they drink their blood. Also if they find a root, called Cardes,[42] they eat it to slack their thirst. This—namely, that they drink blood—only happens because they cannot have any water, and that they might peradventure die of thirst.

[42] Cardo, i.e., thistles.

These Carendies brought us daily their provision of fish and meat to our camp, and did so for a fortnight, and they did only fail once to come to us. So our captain, Peter Manchossa,[43] sent to them, the Carendies, a judge, named Johan Pabon, with two foot-soldiers, for they were at a distance of four miles from our camp. When they came near to them, they were all three beaten black and blue, and were then sent back again to our camp. Petrus Manchossa, our captain, hearing of this from the judge’s report (who for this cause raised a tumult about it in our camp), sent Diego Manchossa, his own brother, against them with three hundred foot-soldiers and thirty well-armed mounted men, of whom I also was one, straightway charging us to kill or take prisoners all these Indian Carendies and to take possession of their settlement. But when we came near them there were now some four thousand men, for they had assembled all their friends. And when we were about to attack them, they defended themselves in such a way that we had that very day our hands full. They also killed our commander, Diego Manchossa, and six noblemen. Of our foot-soldiers and mounted men over twenty were slain, and on their side about one thousand. Thus did they defend themselves valiantly against us, so that indeed we felt it.

[43] Don Pedro de Mendoza.

The said Carendies[44] use for their defence hand-bows and tardes[45] which are made in the shape of half-pikes, and the head of them is made out of flint-stone, like a flash; they have also bullets made out of stone with a long piece of string attached to them, of the size of our leaden bullets at home in Germany.

[44] Quirandis.

[45] Darts.

They throw such bullets round the feet of a horse or a deer, causing it to fall; it is also with these bullets that they killed our commander and the noblemen, as I have seen it done myself, but the foot-soldiers were killed by the aforesaid tardes.

Thus God Almighty graciously gave us the victory, and allowed us to take possession of their place; but we did not take prisoner any of the Indians, and their wives and children also fled away from the place before we attacked them.[46] At this place of theirs we found nothing but furrier-work made from marten or so-called otter; also much fish, fish meal, and fish fat. There we remained three days and then returned to our camp, leaving on the spot one hundred of our men, in order that they might fish with the Indians’ nets for the providing of our folk, because there was there very good fishing.

[46] This fight with the Quirandis took place at a few miles’ distance from Buenos Ayres, on the banks of the river which since then is called de la Matanza.

Every one received only six half-ounces of wheaten flour a day, and one fish every third day. The fishing lasted for two months, and if one would eat a fish over and above one’s allowance, one had to go four miles for it.

And when we returned again to our camp, our folk were divided into those who were to be soldiers, and the others workers, so as to have all of them employed. And a town was built there, and an earthern wall, half a pike high, around it, and inside of it a strong house for our chief captain. The town wall was three foot broad, but that which was built to-day fell to pieces the day after, for the people had nothing to eat, and were starved with hunger, so that they suffered great poverty, and it became so bad that the horses could not go. Yea, finally, there was such want and misery for hunger’s sake, that there were neither rats, nor mice, nor snakes to still the great dreadful hunger and unspeakable poverty, and shoes and leather were resorted to for eating and everything else.

It happened that three Spaniards stole a horse, and ate it secretly, but when it was known, they were imprisoned and interrogated under the torture. Whereupon, as soon as they admitted their guilt, they were sentenced to death by the gallows, and all three were hanged.

Immediately afterwards, at night, three other Spaniards came to the gallows to the three hanging men, and hacked off their thighs and pieces of their flesh, and took them home to still their hunger.

A Spaniard also ate his brother, who died in the city of Bonas Aeieres.[47]

[47] All this is exaggerated and incredible, though accepted as true by the pseudo-poet, Barco Centenera, in his Argentina poem.

Now our chief captain, Petrus Manchossa,[48] saw that he could not any longer keep his men there, so he ordered and took counsel with his head men that four little ships (called Parchkadienes[49]) should be made ready, which must he rowed, and three more yet smaller ones, which are called podell or patt.

[48] Pedro de Mendoza.

[49] Brigantines.

And when these seven little vessels were ready and equipped, our chief captain ordered all the people to assemble, and sent George Lauchstein[50] with three hundred and fifty armed men up the river Paranau in order to find out the Indians and so obtain victual and provisions. But as soon as the Indians were aware of us, they wrought us the most abominable piece of knavery, by burning and destroying all their victual and provisions and their villages, and then all took to flight; in consequence whereof we had nothing to eat but three ounces of bread a day. One half of our people died during this voyage through hunger, therefore we had to return again to the said place, where was our chief captain.

[50] George Lujan.

Petrus Manchossa desired to have a relation from George Lauchstein, our commander, as to the circumstances of our voyage, why so few of them had returned, since they had only been absent for five months. To whom our commander answered thus: the people died for hunger, since the Indians burnt all the provisions, and then took to flight, as has been related before.

After all this we remained still another month together in great poverty in the town of Bonas Aeieres, until the ships were prepared.

At this time the Indians came in great power and force, as many as twenty-three thousand men, against us and our town Bonas Aeieres. There were four nations of them, namely, Carendies, Zechurias, Zechuas, and Diembus.[51] They all meant to go about to destroy us all. But God Almighty preserved the greater part of us, therefore praise and thanks be to Him always and everlastingly, for on our side not more than about thirty men, including commanders and ensign, were slain.

[51] Quirandis, Charúas, and Timbus.

And when they first came to our town, Bonas Aeieres, and attacked us, some of them tried to storm the place, others shot fiery arrows at our houses, which, being covered with straw (only the house of our chief captain, covered with tiles, excepted), were set on fire, and so the whole town was burnt down. Their arrows are made out of cane, and carry fire on their points.

They have also a kind of wood, out of which they also make arrows, which, being lighted and shot off, do not extinguish, but also set fire to all houses made out of straw.

Moreover they burnt down four great ships which were half-a-mile distant from us on the river. The people who were there, and who had no guns, hearing such great tumult of the Indians, fled out of these four ships into three others which were not far from these, and did contain cannon.

But seeing the four ships burning that were lighted by the Indians, the Christians set themselves on defence and fired at the Indians, who becoming aware of this, and hearing the firing, soon departed from thence and left the Christians alone. All this happened on St. John’s Day, Anno 1535.

All this having thus happened, our people had to return into the ships again, and Petrus Manchossa,[52] our chief captain, gave the command to Johann Eyollas,[53] and put him in his place to be our commander and rule us. But when Eyollas mustered the people, he found no more than five hundred and sixty men who were yet alive, out of two thousand five hundred, the others being dead and having been starved for hunger. God Almighty be gracious and merciful to them and to us. Amen.

[52] Don Pedro de Mendoza.

[53] Juan de Ayolas.

Johann Eyollas, our commander, now ordered eight small ships, Parchkadienes and Podells, to be made ready, and took with him on these ships four hundred men out of the five hundred and sixty, leaving the others, namely, one hundred and sixty men, in the four great ships to guard them, and he gave them a commander, named Johann Romero, and left them victual for one year, so that each soldier might have four ounces of bread or flour daily; he who wanted more was at liberty to find it.

When all this had been done and arranged as here described, Johann Eyollas[53] and the four hundred men sailed with the Parchkadienes and the Podells[54] up the river Paranau, and Petrus Manchossa,[52] our chief captain, sailed with us, and in two months’ time we reached the Indians, at a distance of eighty-four miles. These people are called Tyembus[55]; they wear on either nostril a small star, made out of white and blue stones. The men are tall of stature and erect, but the women, on the contrary, young and old, are very deformed, having all the lower part of their faces scratched, and always bloody. These people have nothing else to eat, and have all their lives through lived upon nothing else but fish and meat. They are reckoned to be fifteen thousand strong, or more. And when we came to about four miles’ distance from this people they took notice of us, and came to meet us in sign of peace, with over four hundred canoes, in each of which were sixteen men.

[54] Brigantines and boats.

[55] Timbus.

Such a skiff is made out of a single tree, eighty feet long and three feet wide, and must be rowed as the fishermen’s boats in Germany, only that the oars are not bound with iron.

When we met them on the water, our commander, Johann Eyollas, presented the chief of the Tyembus Indians, Zchera Wassu,[56] with a shirt, a red cap, a hatchet, and several other things. After this, Zchera Wassu went with us to their place, and gave us there fish and meat in abundance.

[56] Chera Guazú.

But if this said journey of ours had lasted ten more days, we would all have died of hunger, for even without that, fifty men out of four hundred who came in the ships had already died on this journey. But in this danger God mercifully helped us, be He praised and thanked for it.

In this said place we abode four years, but our chief captain, Petrus Manchossa,[57] who was full of infirmities, and was unable to move his hands or his feet, and who had spent during this voyage forty thousand ducats of his own in cash, could not remain any longer with us, and he sailed off in two small Parchkadienes to Bonas Aeieres to the four great ships, and took two of them with fifty men and sailed for Hispania. But when he was come nearly half-way, the hand of the Almighty so smote him that he died miserably. May God be merciful to him!

[57] Pedro de Mendoza.

But before his departure he had promised us to send two other ships to Riodellaplata, as soon as he himself or the ships should arrive in Spain, and this was faithfully laid down in his will. Accordingly, when the two ships arrived in Spain, and the councillors of His Imperial Majesty were informed of this, they speedily, in the name of His Majesty, sent two ships with people, provisions, and merchandise, and all necessaries, to Riodellaplata.

The commander of these two ships was called Alvanzo Gabrero,[58] who brought with him also about two hundred Spaniards and provisions for two years. He arrived at Bonas Aeieres (where the two other ships had been left) in the year 1539, with one hundred and sixty men.

[58] Alonso Cabrera.

The said commander, Alvanzo Gabrero, having come to the island Thiembus, to our chief, Johann Eyollas,[59] they ordered a ship to be sent to Spain, according to the will and order of the councillors of His Imperial Majesty, in order to report to them how all things were situated there in that country.

[59] Juan de Ayolas.

Then Johann Eyollas, our chief captain, held a council with Alvanzo Gabrero and Martin Domingo Eyolla,[60] and some other of his officers, and it was resolved to muster the men. And this being done, it was found that, together with those who had come from Spain, there were five hundred and fifty men. Of these they took four hundred men to themselves, leaving the other one hundred and fifty men at Thiembus, because there were not enough ships. They gave these men a commander, named Carolus Doberim,[61] who had been for some time page of His Imperial Majesty.

[60] Domingo Martinez de Irala.

[61] Carlos Dubrin.

After this had been resolved, they sailed with these four hundred men in eight small Parchkadienes up the river Paranau, in order to seek out another river, called Parabor,[62] where the Carios live, who have Turkish corn and a root named Mandeochade,[63] and other roots such as padades[64] and mandeoch parpie, mandioch mandapore, etc. The root padades resembles an apple, and has the same taste. Mandeoch parpie have the taste of chestnuts. Wine is made from mandepore,[65] and the Indians drink it. These Carios have fish and meat and great sheep, as big as mules. They also have wild boar, ostriches, and other wild beasts; also very many hens and geese.

[62] Paraguai.

[63] Manioc.

[64] Yams, or sweet potatoes.

[65] Mandioca or algarroba.

So then departing from the haven of Bonesperanso[66] with the said eight Parchkadienes vessels, we reached the first day, after a voyage of four miles, a nation called Curanda,[67] who abstain from fish and meat, and number over twelve thousand men, all of whom are fit for war. These people resemble the Thiembus spoken of before; they have little stones on their noses, and the men are tall, but the women are hideous; young as well as old have their faces scratched and always bloody. They are clothed like the Thiembus, from the navel to the knee with a small cotton cloth, as was described before. These Indians have great plenty of otter skins; also many canoes or skiffs. They liberally parted with us their fish, meat, and skins. We gave them in exchange glasses, paternosters, looking-glasses, combs, knives, and fish-hooks. We remained there two days, and then they gave us two Carios who were their captives, to show us the way, and help us with the language.

[66] Buena Esperanza, also called Corpus Christi, was the name given by Don Pedro de Mendoza, says Herrera, to the settlement founded by him four old Spanish leagues below the abandoned fort of Sebastian Cabot.

[67] Coronda.

Sailing further we came afterwards to another people called Gulgaises,[68] who number forty thousand men of war and abstain from fish and meat. These have also two little stars on their noses; they are situated thirty miles from the Curandas,[69] and speak the same language as the Thiembus[70] and Curandas. They dwell on a lake six miles long and four miles wide, on the left side of the river Paranau.[71] We stayed four days among them, and these men imparted to us of their poverty and we did the like by them.

[68] Guaicurús.

[69] Quirandis.

[70] Timbús.

[71] Paraná.

From thence we sailed further, and during eighteen days we did not find any people; then we came to a river flowing inland. And there we found a great multitude of people, called Machkuerendas.[72] These eat nothing but fish and a little meat, number over eighteen thousand men of war, and have many canoes or skiffs.