The Conquest of the River Plate (1535-1555). active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
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