Aleixo Garcia

The recorded history of Paraguay begins indirectly in 1516 with the failed expedition of Juan Diaz de Solís to the Rio de la Plata Estuary, which divides Argentina and Uruguay.

After Solís's death at the hands of natives, the expedition renames the estuary Rio de Solís and sails back to Spain.

On the home voyage, one of the vessels is wrecked off Santa Catarina Island near the Brazilian coast.

Among the survivors is Aleixo Garcia, a Portuguese adventurer who has acquired a working knowledge of Guarani.

Garcia is intrigued by reports of "the White King" who, it is said, lives far to the west and governs cities of incomparable wealth and splendor.

For nearly eight years, Garcia patiently musters men and supplies for a trip to the interior and finally leaves Santa Catarina with several European companions to raid the dominions of "El Rey Blanco."

Marching westward, Garcia's group discover Iguazu Falls, crosses the Rio Parana, and arrives at the site of Asunción thirteen years before it is founded.

Here the group gathers a small army of two thousand Guarani warriors to assist the invasion and sets out boldly across the Chaco, a harsh semidesert.

In the Chaco, they face drought, floods, and cannibals.

Garcia becomes the first European to cross the Chaco and penetrates the outer defenses of the Inca Empire to the foothills of the Andes Mountains in present-day Bolivia, eight years in advance of Francisco Pizarro.

The Garcia entourage engages in plundering and amasses a considerable horde of silver.

Only fierce attacks by the reigning Inca, Huayna Capac, convince Garcia to withdraw.

Native allies later murder Garcia and the other Europeans, but news of the raid on the Incas reaches the Spanish explorers on the coast and attract Sebastian Cabot to the Rio Paraguay two years later.

Sebastian Cabot, the son of the Genoese explorer John Cabot (who had led the first European expedition to North America), is sailing to the Orient in 1526 when he hears of Garcia's exploits.

Cabot thinks the Rio de Soils might provide easier passage to the Pacific and the Orient than the stormy Straits of Magellan where he is bound, and, eager to win the riches of Peru, he becomes the first European to explore that estuary.

Leaving a small force on the northern shore of the broad estuary, Cabot proceeds up the Rio Parana uneventfully for about one hundred and sixty kilometers and founds a settlement he names Sancti Spiritu.

He continues upstream for another eight hundred kilometers, past the junction with the Rio Paraguay.

When navigation becomes difficult, Cabot turns back, but only after obtaining some silver objects that the natives say came from a land far to the west.

Cabot retraces his route on the Rio Parana and enters the Rio Paraguay.

Sailing upriver, Cabot and his men trade freely with the Guarani tribes until a strong force of Agaces natives attacks them.

About forty kilometers below the site of Asunción, Cabot encounters a tribe of Guarani in possession of silver objects, perhaps some of the spoils of Garcia's treasure.

Hoping he has found the route to the riches of Peru, Cabot renames the river Rio de la Plata, although today the name applies only to the estuary as far inland as the city of Buenos Aires.

Cabot returns to Spain in 1530 and informs Emperor Charles V (1519-56) about his discoveries.