Río de la Plata, Governorate of the

Hernando Arias de Saavedra, the first Spanish governor of the Rio de la Plata region, discovers the rich pastures and introduces the first cattle and horses into the region of present Uruguay in 1603.

Early colonizers are disappointed to find no gold or silver, but well-irrigated pastures in the area contribute to the quick reproduction of cattle—a different kind of wealth.

English and Portuguese inhabitants of the region, however, initiate an indiscriminate slaughter of cattle to obtain leather.

During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Charrua learn the art of horsemanship from the Spaniards in adjacent areas, strengthening their ability to resist subjugation.

The natives are eventually subdued by the large influx of Argentines and Brazilians pursuing the herds of cattle and horses.

Never exceeding ten thousand in number in eighteenth-century Uruguay, the natives also lack any economic significance to the Europeans because they usually do not produce for trade.

As a result of genocide, imported disease, and even intermarriage, the number of natives rapidly diminishes, and by 1850 the pureblooded native will have virtually ceased to exist in Uruguay.

The most important Spanish advances are the mission settlements, where the Jesuits Christianize native peoples.

Two areas of particular importance lie adjacent to the river systems that delimit Brazil in the south and in the north: the Parana-Paraguay Basin in the south and the Mamore-Guapore Basin in the north.

The Jesuits found eight missions among the Guaraní peoples between the Parana and Paraguai rivers in what is now southern Paraguay from 1609 to 1628.

They press deep into what is today the state of Parana, between the Ivai and Paranapanema rivers, to establish fifteen more in what is called Guaíra Province.

The Guaíra missions are attacked from 1629 to 1631 by slave hunters, known as bandeirantes, from the Portuguese town of São Paulo.

According to the governor of Buenos Aires, these attacks result in the enslavement of more than seventy-thousand Guaraní.

Consequently, the Jesuits decide to evacuate some ten thousand survivors downriver and overland to sites between the Rio Uruguai and the Atlantic, in what becomes the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The Spanish had established the town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in the north of the territory claimed by Portugal in 1561, and from here plant missions in the Mamore-Guapore Basin in about 1682.

Called the Mojos and Chiquitos, these mission provinces are in what is now low-land Bolivia fronting on the states of Mato Grosso and Rondonia.

By 1746 there are twenty-four mission towns in the Mojos and ten in Chiquitos.

The bandeirantes again carry the flag of Portugal into the region, first attacking the Chiquitos missions for slaves and then discovering gold in Mato Grosso (1718-36).

Unsure where these gold discoveries are in relation to the Spanish territories, the members of the Lisbon-based Overseas Council, which administers the colonies, order a comprehensive reconnaissance and the drawing of accurate maps.

Francisco de Melo Palheta leads an expedition from Belem to the Guapore in 1723, reporting to Lisbon the startling news about the numerous prosperous Jesuit missions.

Other Jesuits fleeing the Guaira missions set up missions among the Itatín people on the eastern bank of the Rio Paraguai in what is now Mato Grosso do Sul, only to be destroyed brutally by bandeirantes in the 1630s and 1640s.

Only twenty-two of forty-eight missions remain in the whole region by 1650.

The Jesuits stop the slave hunters in the south by arming and training the Guaraní, who deal a significant blow to their oppressors in the Battle of Mborore in 1641.

This victory ensure the continued existence of the southern Spanish missions for another century, although they will become a focal point of Portuguese-Spanish conflict in the 1750s.

Broadly speaking, the Battle of Mborore stabilizes the general boundary lines between the Portuguese and the Spanish in the south.

European diseases to which the native populations have no resistance are decimating the American population, as well as cruel systems of forced labor (such as encomiendas and the mining industry's mita) under Spanish control.

The peace that had prevailed under Domingo Martínez de Irala had broken down in 1542 when Charles V appointed Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca—one of the most renowned conquistadors of his age—as governor of the province.

Cabeza de Vaca had arrived in Asunción after having lived for ten years among the natives of Florida.

Almost immediately, however, the Río de la Plata Province—now consisting of eight hundred Europeans—had split into two warring factions.

Cabeza de Vaca's enemies had accused him of cronyism and opposed his efforts to protect the interests of the natives.

Cabeza de Vaca had tried to placate his enemies by launching an expedition into the Chaco in search of a route to Peru.

This move disrupted the Chaco tribes so much that they had unleashed a two-year war against the colony, thus threatening its existence.

In the colony's first of many revolts against the crown, the settlers had seized Cabeza de Vaca, sent him back to Spain in irons, and returned the governorship to Irala.

Irala rules without further interruption until his death in 1556.

In many ways, his governorship is one of the most humane in the Spanish New World at this time, and it marks the transition among the settlers from conquerors to landowners.

Irala keeps up good relations with the Guaraní, pacifies hostile natives, makes further explorations of the Chaco, and begins trade relations with Peru.

This Basque soldier of fortune sees the beginnings of a textile industry and the introduction of cattle, which flourish in the country's fertile hills and meadows.

The arrival of Father Pedro Fernandez de la Torre on April 2, 1556, as the first bishop of Asunción marks the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church in Paraguay.

Irala presides over the construction of a cathedral, two churches, three convents, and two schools.

Irala eventually antagonizes the natives, however.

In the last years of his life, he yields to pressure from settlers and establishes the encomienda.

Under this system, settlers receive estates of land along with the right to the labor and produce of the natives living on those estates.

Although encomenderos are expected to care for the spiritual and material needs of the natives, the system quickly degenerates into virtual slavery.

In Paraguay twenty thousand natives are divided among three hundred and twenty encomenderos.

This action will help spark a full- scale native revolt in 1560 and 1561.

Political instability begins troubling the colony and revolts become commonplace.

Also, given his limited resources and manpower, Irala can do little to check the raids of Portuguese marauders along his eastern borders.

Still, Irala leaves Paraguay prosperous and relatively at peace.

Although he has found no El Dorado to equal those of Hernán Cortés in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru, he is loved by his people, who lament his passing.

The Audiencia of Charcas (present-day Sucre, Bolivia) will control Paraguay's legal affairs beginning in 1559, but the rule of Domingo Martínez de Irala sets the pattern for the province's internal affairs until independence.

In addition to the Spaniards, Asunción includes people—mostly men—from present-day France, Italy, Germany, England, and Portugal.

This community of about three hundred and fifty chooses wives and concubines from among the Guaraní women.

Irala has several Guarani concubines, and he encourages his men to marry native women and give up thoughts of returning to Spain.

Paraguay soon becomes a colony of mestizos, and the Europeans, prompted by Irala's example, raise their offspring as Spaniards.

Nevertheless, continued arrivals of Europeans allow for the development of a criollo elite.

The Guaraní, the Cario, Tape, Itatine, Guarajo, Tupí, and related subgroups are generous people who inhabit an immense area stretching from the Guyana Highlands in Brazil to the Rio Uruguay.

Because the Guaraní are surrounded by other hostile tribes, however, they are frequently at war.

They believe that permanent wives are inappropriate for warriors, so their marital relations are loose.

Some tribes practice polygamy with the aim of increasing the number of offspring.

Chiefs often have twenty or thirty concubines whom they share freely with visitors, yet they treat their wives well.

They often punish adulterers with death.

Like the area's other tribes, the Guaraní are cannibals, but they usually eat only their most valiant foes captured in battle in the hope that they will gain the bravery and power of their victims.

In contrast with the hospitable Guaraní, the Chaco tribes, such as the Payagua (whence the name Paraguay), Guaycuru, M'baya, Abipon, Mocobí, and Chiri guano, are implacable enemies of the whites.

Travelers in the Chaco report that the natives there are capable of running with incredible bursts of speed, lassoing and mounting wild horses in full gallop, and catching deer bare-handed.

Accordingly, the Guaraní accept the arrival of the Spaniards and look to them for protection against fiercer neighboring tribes.

The Guaraní also hope the Spaniards will lead them once more against the Incas.

Spanish missionaries in Latin America establish elementary schools for natives in the sixteenth century.

A few secondary schools are provided for children of native nobles and for Spaniards.

The New World’s earliest royal and pontifical universities, founded in Mexico and Peru, are founded by the royal government and receive the required papal decrees.

The National University of San Marcos is established in Lima.

The Spanish institutions of higher education in the New World are modeled after that of Salamanca in Spain.

With faculties of theology, law, arts, and medicine, their primary functions are the preparation of clergy to propagate the Catholic faith and the training of civil servants to administer a colonial empire.

The Portuguese establish the cities of Santos, Recife and the colonial capital, Salvador da Bahia, in this era.

The Spanish have begun to establish settlements at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, or River Plate, and beyond in the area that falls on the Spanish side of the boundary between Spanish and Portuguese territories.

The Spaniards in Colombia establish the cities of Buenaventura and Pamplona; in Bolivia, La Paz, the capital, and the silver-fueled Potosí, perhaps the world’s highest city and soon to become one of the largest; and in Lima, capital of the viceroyalty of Peru, the first university in the New World, today one of the world’s oldest.

The conquistadors in Chile meanwhile establish their capital, Santiago.

German colonization of the New World, on the other hand, halts entirely with the withdrawal of the banking houses of Welser and Fugger.

As in New Spain, the conquistadors marry native women, elevating their sons to leadership positions.

In the former Inca empire, the encomienda system continues the Incaic (and even pre-Incaic) traditions of exacting tribute under the form of labor.

Following the abolition of this system by the so-called New Laws of the Indies, enslaved sub-Saharan Africans, who have developed immunity to the Old World diseases, are quickly brought in to replace them.