The first Europeans who visited the river Plate were a party of Spanish
explorers in search of a south-west passage to the East Indies. Their
leader, Juan Diaz de Solis, landing incautiously in 1516 on the north
coast with a few attendants to parley with a body of Charrua Indians,
was suddenly attacked by them and was killed, together with a number of
his followers. This untoward disaster led to the abandonment of the
expedition, which forthwith returned to Spain, bringing with them the
news of the discovery of a fresh-water sea. Four years later (1520) the
Portuguese seaman, Ferdinand Magellan, entered the estuary in his
celebrated voyage round the world, undertaken in the service of the king
of Spain (Charles I., better known as the emperor Charles V.). Magellan,
as soon as he had satisfied himself that there was no passage to the
west, left the river without landing.
Cabot.
The first attempt to penetrate by way of the river Plate and its
affluents inland, with a view to effecting settlements in the interior,
was made in 1526 by Sebastian Cabot. This great navigator had already
won renown in the service of Henry VII. of England by his voyage to the
coast of North America in company with his father, Giovanni Caboto or
Cabot (see CABOT, JOHN). Sebastian Cabot had in 1519 deserted England
for Spain, and had received from King Charles the post of pilot-major
formerly held by Juan de Solis. In 1526 he was sent out in command of an
expedition fitted out for the purpose of determining by astronomical
observations the exact line of demarcation, under the treaty of
Tordesillas, between, the colonizing spheres of Spain and Portugal, and
of conveying settlers to the Moluccas. Arrived in the river Plate in
1527, rumours reached Cabot of mineral wealth and a rich and civilized
empire in the far interior, and he resolved to abandon surveying for
exploration. He built a fort a short distance up the river Uruguay, and
despatched one of his lieutenants, Juan Alvarez Ramon, with a separate
party upon an expedition up stream. This expedition was assailed by the
Charruas and forced to return on foot, their leader himself being
killed. Cabot, with a large following, entered the Parana and
established a settlement just above the mouth of the river Carcaranal,
to which he gave the name of San Espiritu, among the Timbu Indians, with
whom he formed friendly relations. He continued the ascent of the Parana
as far as the rapids of Apipe, and finding his course barred in this
direction, he afterwards explored the river Paraguay, which he mounted
as far as the mouth of the affluent called by the Indians Lepeti, now
the river Bermejo. His party was here fiercely attacked by the Agaces or
Payagua Indians, and suffered severely. Cabot in his voyage had seen
many silver ornaments in the possession of the Timbu and Guarani
Indians. Some specimens of these trinkets he sent back to Spain with a
report of his discoveries. The arrival of these first-fruits of the
mineral wealth of the southern continent gained for the estuary of the
Parana the name which it has since borne, that of Rio de la Plata, the
silver river. As Cabot was descending the stream to his settlement of
San Espiritu, he encountered an expedition which had been despatched
from Spain for the express purpose of exploring the river discovered by
Solis, under the command of Diego Garcia. Finding that he had been
forestalled, Garcia resolved to return home. Cabot himself, after an
absence of more than three years, came back in 1530, and applied to
Charles V. for means to open up communications with Peru by way of the
river Bermejo. The emperor's resources were, however, absorbed by his
struggle for European supremacy with Francis I. of France, and he was
obliged to leave the enterprise of South American discoveries to his
wealthy nobles. Cabot's colony at San Espiritu did not long survive his
departure; an attempt of the chief of the Timbus to gain possession of
one of the Spanish ladies of the settlement led to a treacherous
massacre of the garrison.
Mendoza.
Buenos Aires.
Two years after the return of Cabot, the news of Francisco Pizarro's
marvellous conquest of Peru reached Europe (1532), and stirred many an
adventurous spirit to strive to emulate his good fortune. Among these
was Pedro de Mendoza, a Basque nobleman. He obtained from Charles V. a
grant (_asiento_) of two hundred leagues of the coast from the boundary
of the Portuguese possessions southward towards the Straits of Magellan,
and the inland country which lay behind it. Mendoza undertook to conquer
and settle the territory at his own charges, certain profits being
reserved to the crown. In August 1534 the _adelantado_, or governor,
sailed from San Lucar, at the head of the largest and wealthiest
expedition that had ever left Europe for the New World. In January 1535
he entered the river Plate, where he followed the northern shore to the
island of San Gabriel, and then crossing over he landed by a little
stream, still called Riachuelo. The name of Buenos Aires was given to
the country by Sancho del Campo, brother-in-law of the _adelantado_, who
first stepped ashore. Here, on the 2nd of February, Mendoza laid the
foundations of a settlement which in honour of the day he named Santa
Maria de Buenos Aires. Mendoza, after some fierce encounters with the
Indians, now proceeded up the Parana, and built a fort, which he called
Corpus Christi, near the site of Cabot's former settlement of San
Espiritu. The expedition, which originally numbered 2500 men, was
reduced by deaths at the hands of the Indians, by disease and privation,
within a year to less than 500 men. From Corpus Christi, Mendoza sent
out various bodies to explore the interior in the direction of Peru, but
without much success, and at length, thoroughly discouraged and broken
in health, he abandoned his enterprise, and returned to Spain in 1537.