American Demons

Without the Consent of the Spanish Crown

Pedro de Mendozas was Lord Chamberlain of the Spanish crown. He was able to send his own fleet to the bottom of the sea without going bankrupt. On August 24, 1534, Mendoza spit into the harbour basin of Seville for the last time. He set sail with fourteen "proud Gauls" (Pero Vaz de Caminha) and one hundred and fifty Germans (and Dutch) on board. In total, Mendoza brought seventy-two horses and the blossom of his country to the New World, and one already around the corner on the voyage. Thirty-two mayorazgos were traveling with him - sheer aristocracy. New fortunes put pressure on the super-aristocrats. Some would have preferred to stay at home and refrain from too much formality in the secret bar Al loro rojo.

Mendoza's soft flesh rotted in fever. The fleet commander beat a boy to death with a legged shoehorn. A critical remark cost a boatswain the pain and humiliation of fifty lashes. Mendoza had delinquents pilloried as a deterrent and left to rot in the fixtures on deck. He interpreted an insufficient degree of submissiveness as insubordination. He prevented mutinies with well thought-out humiliations of the crew, and the fleet found itself in the sweet sea, as some called the Río de la Plata, after a stormy dispersal. Beach Indians were frightened by the "proud and violent appearance of the foreigner". That is why there were no approaches. No Pocahontas in sight.

The quotes are from Pero Vaz de Caminha. As a writer, he took part in Mendoza's nautical campaign (terminus technicus). Mendoza's arrogant regime of terror incited his people. It incited them to acts of violence against the weakest among them. They also committed acts of violence against those who accidentally came too close to them. In return, "hordes of warlike Guaranì" surrounded the "explorers" to a greater or lesser extent. Mendoza knew only one recipe:

"A military campaign should break the resistance."

Mendoza had carte blanche. He had been promised lands by Charles V. He lived with the prospect of rewards "for every cacique slain or captured".

The conquistador sent "a bunch of foot soldiers and the best of the knighthood", four hundred men in total. He placed the expedition under the command of his brother Diego. Three days later twelve miserable ones returned, the others lay in the pampas to the delight of the vultures. The Guaranì had used a swamp for their purposes, a narrow place that offered the "discoverers" little scope. This is where the disadvantages of complicated weapons and the advantages of less complex solutions emerged.

"The powder pans had gotten wet and the muskets were failing. The horses, weaned from the reins on the crossing, bucked. In vain Diego and his cavaliers threw themselves at the enemy. More than one old family died out in the male line on this day."

The Guaranì fought with their bodies more than with other means of combat. They were finally crushed by the monotony of a man who considered it his job to set up a post in their territory - Nuestra Senora Santa Maria del Buen Aire. It was people starving who founded Buenos Aires. It is said that Mendoza did not disdain meat from his brother's corpse, so degraded was this colonist "born to rule".

The First Nation warriors first smelled the morning air. The situation in the swamp gave them confidence. They were still on the beat. Shamans predicted victory outright. The Guaranì ran into a fence that the new residents had planted in the landscape. They reduced Buenos Aires to rubble. The colonists retreated and founded the Corpus Christi fortress on the spot where Sebastian Cabot had assumed his El Dorado was right in front of the palisade and therefore renamed the Solís River "Rio de la Plata" (Silver River). That was a propaganda coup. By rushing to raise expectations in Spain, Cabot "added a deception to the world".

All that remained of Cabot's station was a crumbling tower. The refugees stood him up again. Today a procession still commemorates the escape into the forest. They were cut offs and scattered people who called the tower Buenas Esperanza in anticipation of cheerful hours and immediately sent out a raiding party to explore the area.

I'm jumping ahead to shorten the point. Every child knows that the Guaranì didn't stay in the race. Sixty years after they had all but wiped out the Spanish and turned the rained-in remnants into cannibals, they became wards of their enemies. Jesuits had to protect them. Caminha calls this "a sad ending to history".

Without the Consent of the Spanish Crown

Don Juan d'Oyola leads an expedition ordered by Mendoza. D'Oyola is another one of those youngest sons with a big name, fortunately for him at least a legitimate one. You can't take a job with a name like that. So where to get it and not steal it? Almost nothing works for a poor nobleman. Apart from war, everything is beneath him, and an illegitimate half-brother serves on the train. Alano has his brother's back. It's more dangerous than shining boots, but it's also more fun. In the skirmishes, you hardly ever know who you're up against, because you can't see the enemy for the trees. There is only forest. The enemy could jump out of the ground next to you or fall to the ground like an apple. A snake could get involved. Under such conditions, every d'Oyola keeps a cool head. That's the only thing a d'Oyola can do. He can't get a boot off his leg without a servant. He's not well-read. He also picks his nose when someone looks. He speaks Spanish to everyone, whether you understand him or not. He stands in the forest and waits for things to come - with a cool head. Everyone else has hot heads.

Juan d'Oyola and his Alano were under the command of Domingo Martínez de Irala, who caught up the train with the news that the first governor of Paraguay, our Pedro de Mendoza y Luján, had gone overboard in a state of mental derangement on a voyage to Spain. He cursed his overseas venture until his last breath. He was found "sick, broken, gloomy" and finally dead.

De Irala is a man who can help himself to authority. He leads the new colony without a mandate, sometimes with and sometimes without a superior. This only becomes apparent when he (he himself) is appointed captain-general and thus "begins a wild reign of soldiers".Irala is the prototype of the "violent adventurer". He follows the Río Paraguay and founds Asunción. He begins to concentrate the First Nation people inside. He knows the people can't work, but they can die of a cold. They die like flies. "The harsh arbitrary rule and the leaching system of Irala do not allow prosperous conditions to arise."

The naval writer Caminha concludes: "With Pedro de Mendoza, the last pillar of legal order disappeared from the heavily afflicted colony of Paraguay."Charles V had appointed his boss Mendoza as governor of the area along the Río de la Plata, but it took far greater meanness than a simple brutalist like Mendoza could muster to turn Paraguay into a penal colony for the original population. Above all, however, it needed a more powerful one - a megalomaniacal ambition.Mendoza wanted a lot, but not everything. Domingo Martínez de Irala wants nothing less than anything. Irala de facto inherits Mendoza. He rules Paraguay sometimes with and sometimes without the consent of the Spanish crown.