The Conquest of the River Plate (1535-1555)
Part 1
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.
WORKS ISSUED BY
The Hakluyt Society.
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.
With Notes and an Introduction,
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.
PAGE INTRODUCTION xiii
BIBLIOGRAPHY xli
VOYAGE OF ULRICH SCHMIDT 1
THE COMMENTARIES OF ALVAR NUÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA:--
CHAP. I.--Of the Commentaries of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca 95
CHAP. II.--How we departed from the island of Cabo Verde 98
CHAP. III.--Which treats of how the governor arrived with his armada at the island of Santa Catalina, in Brazil, and disembarked his troops there 100
CHAP. IV.--How nine Christians came to the island 101
CHAP. V.--How the governor hastened his journey 104
CHAP. VI.--How the governor and his people advanced into the interior 106
CHAP. VII.--Which treats of what happened to the governor and his people in his journey, and of the nature of the land 108
CHAP. VIII.--Of the troubles that the governor and his people underwent on their way, and of a kind of pine tree, and of the fruits of that land 112
CHAP. IX.--How the governor and his people found themselves starving, and appeased their hunger with worms from reeds 114
CHAP. X.--Of the fear the Indians had of the horses 117
CHAP. XI.--How the governor navigated the river Yguazú in canoes, and how, in order to avoid a cataract of that river, he carried the canoes one league by hand 119
CHAP. XII.--Which treats of the rafts that were made to carry the sick 122
CHAP. XIII.--How the governor arrived at the Ascension, where the Spaniards lived whom he had come to relieve 124
CHAP. XIV.--How the Spaniards, left behind through sickness, on the river Pequiry, arrived at the town of Ascension 126
CHAP. XV.--How the governor, wishing to re-people Buenos Ayres, sent reinforcements to those who had come there in the ship '_Capitana_' 127
CHAP. XVI.--How the natives kill and eat their enemies 129
CHAP. XVII.--Of the peace which the governor concluded with the Indian Agazes 131
CHAP. XVIII.--Of the complaints addressed to the governor by the pobladores against the officers of His Majesty 134
CHAP. XIX.--How the governor received complaints against the Indian Guaycurús 135
CHAP. XX.--How the governor informed himself concerning the complaint 136
CHAP. XXI.--How the governor and his people crossed the river, and how two Christians were drowned 139
CHAP. XXII.--How the spies, by order of the governor, went in search of the Guaycurús 140
CHAP. XXIII.--How the governor, pursuing the enemy, was informed that he was marching in front 142
CHAP. XXIV.--Of a panic among the Spaniards and Indians, caused by a tiger 143
CHAP. XXV.--How the governor and his people overtook the enemy 145
CHAP. XXVI.--How the governor pursued the enemy 147
CHAP. XXVII.--How the governor and all his people returned to the town of Ascension 149
CHAP. XXVIII.--How the Indian Agazes broke the peace 150
CHAP. XXIX.--How the governor set at liberty one of the captive Guaycurús, and sent him to summon his fellow tribesmen 152
CHAP. XXX.--How the Guaycurús came and submitted to His Majesty 153
CHAP. XXXI.--How the governor, after making peace with the Guaycurús, delivered the prisoners to them 154
CHAP. XXXII.--How the Apirús came and made a treaty of peace and submitted 156
CHAP. XXXIII.--Of the judgment passed on the Agazes by the advice of the monks, captains, and other officers of His Majesty 158
CHAP. XXXIV.--How the governor sent relief to Buenos Ayres 159
CHAP. XXXV.--How the three Spaniards and the Indians returned from their reconnaissance 161
CHAP. XXXVI.--How wood was prepared for the construction of two brigantines and one caravel 162
CHAP. XXXVII.--How the Indians came again and offered their services 163
CHAP. XXXVIII.--How the settlement of Ascension was burned 166
CHAP. XXXIX.--How Domingo de Irala arrived 167
CHAP. XL.--What Gonzalo de Mendoza wrote 170
CHAP. XLI.--How the governor helped those who were with Gonzalo de Mendoza 172
CHAP. XLII.--How four Christians died of their wounds during this war 173
CHAP. XLIII.--How the friars took to flight 175
CHAP. XLIV.--How the governor took four hundred men on his voyage of discovery 177
CHAP. XLV.--How the governor left part of the provisions he had brought with him 179
CHAP. XLVI.--How he stopped to speak with the natives of another port and land 180
CHAP. XLVII.--How he sent for an interpreter to treat with the Payaguás 182
CHAP. XLVIII.--How the horses were embarked in the port 183
CHAP. XLIX.--How Juan de Ayolas entered the port where he and his Christians were killed 185
CHAP. L.--How the interpreter and those who had promised to come failed to do so 188
CHAP. LI.--How the Guaxarapos spoke with the governor 192
CHAP. LII.--How the Indians come and establish themselves on the shore of the river 193
CHAP. LIII.--How they erected three crosses at the mouth of the river Yguatú 196
CHAP. LIV.--How the Indians of the port of Los Reyes cultivate the soil 199
CHAP. LV.--How the Indians of Garcia settled in this place 202
CHAP. LVI.--How they spoke with the Chaneses 203
CHAP. LVII.--How the governor sent to find out the Indians of Garcia 204
CHAP. LVIII.--How the governor held a council with his officers and informed them of what was passing 205
CHAP. LIX.--How the governor sent an expedition to the Xarayes 207
CHAP. LX.--How the interpreters came back from the Xarayes 212
CHAP. LXI.--How the governor decided on entering the country 215
CHAP. LXII.--How the governor arrived at the Rio Caliente 216
CHAP. LXIII.--How the governor sent to discover the house which was further on 218
CHAP. LXIV.--How the interpreter returned from the Indian habitation 219
CHAP. LXV.--How the governor and his people returned to the port of Los Reyes 221
CHAP. LXVI.--How the Indians would have killed those who remained at the port of Los Reyes 222
CHAP. LXVII.--How the governor sent Captain Mendoza in search of provisions 223
CHAP. LXVIII.--How he sent a brigantine to discover the river of the Xarayes with Captain de Ribera 225
CHAP. LXIX.--How Captain Francisco de Ribera returned from his exploration 228
CHAP. LXX.--How Captain Francisco de Ribera reported of his discovery 229
CHAP. LXXI.--How the governor sent for Gonzalo de Mendoza 233
CHAP. LXXII.--How Hernando de Ribera returned from his exploration along the river 236
CHAP. LXXIII.--What befell the governor and his people in the port of Los Reyes 237
CHAP. LXXIV.--How the governor, having arrived with his people at the town of Ascension, was made a prisoner 239
CHAP. LXXV.--How the population assembled before the house of Domingo de Irala 243
CHAP. LXXVI.--Of the tumults and disturbances that took place in the country 245
CHAP. LXXVII.--How the governor was kept in prison 247
CHAP. LXXVIII.--How the insurgents ravaged the land and took possession of the property of the inhabitants 249
CHAP. LXXIX.--How the monks left the country 250
CHAP. LXXX.--How they tortured those who were not on their side 252
CHAP. LXXXI.--How they wished to kill a sheriff who had made them a requisition 253
CHAP. LXXXII.--How the insurgents gave the Indians permission to eat human flesh 254
CHAP. LXXXIII.--How the insurgents had to write to His Majesty and send him a report 256
CHAP. LXXXIV.--How they gave arsenic three times to the governor during the voyage 259
NARRATIVE OF HERNANDO DE RIBERA 263
INDEX 271
ILLUSTRATION.
Map of South America in the XVI Century.
CORRIGENDA.
Page 1, title, _for_ Von Straubingen, _read_ of Straubing. " 15, line 27, _for_ lakes ix, _read_ lake six. " 16, last line, _for_ salnaischo, _read_ saluaischo. " 24, note, _for_ for mof, _read_ form of. " 32, line 15, _for_ St. Catherine, _read_ Sta. Catharina. " 43, note, _for_ Guaragos, _read_ Guarayos. " 80, line 4, _for_ Schmiedel, _read_ Schmidt. " 83, note, _for_ Uruguai, _read_ Uruguay. " 106, line 18, _for_ Estropiñan, _read_ Estopiñan. " 107, line 4, _for_ Estropiñan, _read_ Estopiñan.
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.
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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.
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