Río de la Plata

The origins of Juan Diaz de Solis are disputed.

One document records him as a Portuguese in the service of Spain (having possibly born in Lisbon or São Pedro de Solis).

Others claim that his birth took place in Lebrija, in what is now the province of Seville, Spain, where documentation testifies that he lived when he was in Castile, as vecino ("neighbor"), meaning living there.

However, he had begun his naval career in Portugal as João Dias de Solis, where he became a pilot in the Portuguese India Armadas.

After leaving his home in Lisbon and the ship that he was going to sail as pilot, in the same day of the departure of the fleet (ship captained by Afonso de Albuquerque, in the 1506 armada of Tristão da Cunha, to India), he is accused of the death of his wife.

Instead, he had served as a privateer in French fleets for a short time, before later serving the Spanish Crown.

He had served as navigator on expeditions to the Yucatán in 1506-1507 and Brazil in 1508 with Vicente Yáñez Pinzón.

He became a Pilot-Major of Spain in 1512 following the death of Amerigo Vespucci, and was thereafter commissioned to update the Padrón Real—the official and secret Spanish master map—with Juan Vespucci.

Two years after appointment to this office, Díaz de Solís had prepared an expedition to explore the southern part of the new American continent, seeking a southwest passage to the Orient.

His three ships and crew of seventy men had sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, in Spain, on October 8, 1515.

Following the eastern coast of South America southward as far as the mouth of the Río de la Plata, he reaches and names the Río de la Plata in 1516, claiming the land on both sides for Spain, and sailing upriver to the confluence of the Uruguay River Paraná River with two officers and seven men.

The little party has not proceeded far when they are attacked by local Charrúa Indians, but the evidence points towards it being the Guarani people who killed him.

It has been suggested that he was eaten by the Charrúa after disembarking.

The Charruas do not practice cannibalism; the Guarani do.

Surviving crew members report Díaz de Solís and most of the other men had been killed, thus putting the expedition to an end.

His brother-in-law, Francisco de Torres, takes charge of the ships and, after conducting a futile search for mineral wealth, returns to Spain.

Magellan’s five ships, sailing south from the Bay of Rio de Janiero, reach Río de la Plata in early February 1520 and probe the estuary for the passage through the continent to the Southern Sea.

Early European colonization of Brazil has been very weak, as Portugal is more interested in Africa and Asia.

The Portuguese crown, threatened by the presence of French and English privateers along the Brazilian coast, in December 1530 sends a fleet under the command of Martim Afonso de Sousa to establish control and explore the region.

Sousa, who was born in Vila Viçosa, is charged with placing Portuguese markers as far south as the Rio de la Plata estuary, but he is shipwrecked here.

Great Britain, which is now officially at war with Spain, does not participate in these battles, but the East India Company has plans to conquer Spanish territory in South America and buys two old warships from the Admiralty.

The biggest ship is HMS Kingston, which is renamed Lord Clive (sixty-gun), the other ship is the Ambuscade (forty-gun).

The small squadron, under the command of Robert MacDouall, had left Lisbon on August 30 and had been joined in Rio de Janeiro by two Portuguese warships (among which is the frigate Glória, thirty-eight-gun) transporting five hundred foot soldiers, and five storeships.

On November 2, the squadron sails from Rio de Janeiro towards the mouth of the Río de la Plata to attack Buenos Aires and Montevideo, but soon abandons the project because Spanish defenders in both cities are alerted and well prepared.