When Orellana arrived at Maranjon, he was amazed by its enormous size. He compared it to the sea. First, the chassis was repaired before continuing the journey. An Indian village was found on the shore, where some food supplies, turtles, chickens and fish were obtained. The residents were friendly there, but the mosquitoes caused a lot of trouble. Lower down, on the other hand, hostile tribes were encountered, who attacked the Spaniards with their canoes. Groceries had to be obtained by fighting. The position was not easy, because the gunpowder had become wet in the constant humidity and the bows of the bows had loosened. Orellana therefore landed in the middle river, where he was less disturbed, although it was more difficult to observe the banks. We then reached the mouth of a river whose water was as black as pitch. This river, which was named Rio Negro. is the largest tributary to the north of the Amazon River, which is connected to the Orinoco through the Casiquiare. From then on, the shores began to have larger and larger settlements; even one village was an inch long along the shores. Both corn and chickens were obtained from the villages. On February 24, 1541, we reached a village where only such women lived, who did not have any kind of association with men. In the opinion of the Spanish, the members of this female society were fairer than the other inhabitants of the region, and also racier. They attacked Orellana's force with bows and arrows, but lost seven or eight combatants. Because of this female nation, the river then got the name of the Amazon River. Although the whole thing was suspected immediately after Orellana's return, recently similar societies have been found in Guyana, and they support Orellana's story: in 1878, the French traveler Crevaux found a village in the highlands of Guiana where naked women who had divorced their husbands lived. Closer to the seashore we came to the inhabited lands of the Caribbean. This disgusting race ate the corpses of the fallen, but was skilled in using and making weapons. Although it was necessary to fight often, Orellana only lost three men through the enemy's weapons, on the other hand, eight died of disease.
Before reaching the sea, a deck was made for the ship and sails were knitted from Peruvian diapers. On the 26th of August, we bravely put to sea without pilots, without even knowing where we were. Everyone considered it a special grace of heaven that during the entire time they were sailing northward along the coast of the land, there was not a single storm, but the weather remained the most wonderful all the time. Otherwise, such a frail ship would hardly have been able to complete the sea voyage. It passed through both the Gulf of Paria and the Dragon's Gap, and arrived at Cubagua, a pearl island called Margarita, where countrymen were met and received a friendly reception.
The largest river in South America had been covered almost from the top to the sea during this trip. Orellana's remarkable journey is very similar to what Stanley did four hundred years later, when he descended the unknown Congo River through the heart of Africa to the Atlantic Ocean.
Orellana's colonial company.
From Cubagua, Orellana sent an account of his journey to the King of Spain; he himself and his companions left for Haiti, arriving there in December.
As all the other discoverers had done, Orellana too immediately took steps to establish a settlement and dominion in the Amazon River valley. He traveled to Spain the following year and made an agreement with the government to conquer the country he found. The colony was named New Andalusia, because just as the "incomparable Guadalquivir" flowed through the Andalusian plain, so the world's largest river flowed through New Andalusia.
Orellana, who seems to have told a lot of sailor stories, got support for her company. On May 11, 1544, he sailed from the port of Seville in four ships, accompanied by 400 men. But this excursion ended miserably. Months of delays already happened in the ocean and two hundred men were lost. However, then all the ships arrived in the Amazon River delta and the colony was established; but the climate was so unhealthy that most of the emigrants succumbed to fevers. When finally Orellana himself died, the whole enterprise was abandoned and the survivors returned to Santo Domingo. Even today, the banks of the Amazon River are somehow sparsely populated, for example nowadays there are much greater possibilities, when ships with engine power can rise far up to the top of the river.
Pedro de Ursua.
Orellana's trip was completed by Pedro de Ursua's trip. This knight set out in 1560, by order of the viceroy of Peru, to penetrate across the Andes to the river Huallaga, with a troop of the worst Spanish adventurers in Peru; the purpose of the excursion was really only to deliver away these restless elements, which were a constant danger to the internal peace of the country. On the way, the adventurers killed Ursua and chose Lope de Aguirre as their leader. After reaching the Amazon River, they did not descend along it to the sea, but traveled completely new roads. With the object of finding the Dorado, they crossed the Rio Negro, and passed, I suppose, along the Casiquiare to the Orinoco, finally arriving at the coast of Venezuela, which was skinned and plundered in monthly quantities, until the government troops at Barquisimeto defeated the party of adventurers, killing much of it. — It was not until the French scholar de la Condamine in 1744 that the Amazon River traveled from the mountain valleys of the Andes to the sea, like Orellana, and it was only he who reliably determined the main position of the giant river.
The Spaniards' Dorado voyages continued into the next century as well, but geography did not benefit from them all that much. The search for the same goldfield also made Walter Raleigh go to the Orinoco River to try his luck.
La Plata countries.
Juan Diaz de Solis was the first sailor who arrived in the estuary of the La Plata river, as we have told before; He was killed by the Charrua Indians with his fleet. Magalhães went to the same estuary in 1520 while searching for the strait. The first to attempt to penetrate a great river into the interior of the country was Sebastian, son of John Cabot, the discoverer of North America.
Sebastian Cabot. who had quite a reputation as a sailor, had in 1519 resigned from the service of England and was appointed as the royal pilot of Spain after Juan de Sol. In 1526, he was sent to accurately determine the boundary line of the treaty on Tordesilla through astronomical measurements, and then to take emigrants to the Moluccas. After arriving at the La Plata estuary, he heard rumors of a great civilized kingdom, which was said to be further inland, and decided to leave the measurements there and go in search of it. He first built a small castle on the coast of Uruguay a short distance from the estuary and sent one of his lieutenants with a small expedition into the interior. However, due to the hostility of the inhabitants, the expedition had to return, having lost its leader.
Cabot himself ascended the Paraná River and, after making a friendship with the Timbu Indians, founded a colony in the area of present-day Rosario. He ascended the rapids of the Paranáta Apipé and then deviated to the Paraguay River, which could be ascended even further, all the way to the mouth of the current Bermejo. But the Indians made fierce attacks — the Chaco Indians are still independent today because of their wariness; after losing an entire force, Cabot had to turn back. During the trip, silver necklaces were exchanged from the Indians, and from that the river got the name La Plata (silver) river. After an absence of three years, Cabot returned to Spain and asked Charles V for funds to equip a new expedition, which was to find a new road to Peru by going up the river Bermejo; but the ruler did not have enough men or money at that time, because he was in the middle of a war against France.
When the news of the appeal of Peru and its boundless riches reached Spain, the new colonial enterprises again received an extremely powerful stimulus. In 1535, Buenos Ayres was founded by a Basque nobleman named Mendoza, who had acquired a lot of land; but even this settlement attempt failed miserably. Within a year, the expedition, which initially consisted of 2,500 men, lost a couple of thousand men in the Indian war, due to shortages and diseases, and the survivors had to take refuge in ships and escape. The expedition sent by Mendoza traveled from Paraguay all the way to southeastern Peru, but while returning from there with a large booty, half of the expedition was killed to the last man. The other side had better luck. When nothing was heard from the above, its leader, Domingo Iralá, and his troops decided to go down the stream and thus arrived without accident at the place where the Pilcomayo empties into Paraguay. Iralá liked the place so much that he decided to build a colony there. This settlement prospered, despite being so far inland, and grew into Asuncion, the capital of present-day Paraguay. Emigrants from Buenos Ayres also moved there, for whom it became difficult to hold their own against the warlike Charrua Indians. Iralá gained the trust of his countrymen to such an extent that he was unanimously elected captain-general. the capital of present-day Paraguay. Emigrants from Buenos Ayres also moved there, for whom it became difficult to hold their own against the warlike Charrua Indians. Iralá gained the trust of his countrymen to such an extent that he was unanimously elected captain-general. the capital of present-day Paraguay. Emigrants from Buenos Ayres also moved there, for whom it became difficult to hold their own against the warlike Charrua Indians. Iralá gained the trust of his countrymen to such an extent that he was unanimously elected captain-general.
Forty years passed before the establishment of colonies continued in the lands of La Plata. In 1573 Asuncion Santa Fé was founded and in 1580 for the third time Buenos Ayres. Although the livelihood of the future capital was quite difficult this time as well, it nevertheless survived to some extent and the warlike Indian tribes in the area were finally defeated. Cattle and horses were brought to Buenos Ayres from Europe, and both did very well on the pampas.
The cities of western Argentina, Santiago del Estero, Tucumän and finally Cordoba were founded from Peru in 1573. Mendoza was founded from Chile.
Despite its great natural wealth, the La Plata countries had to remain in the background for a long time compared to other Spanish colonies in South America, as there were no precious metals. Gold and silver were primarily sought by the Spanish, and that is why they came from Mexico and Peru in the New World. For their sake, the other colonies had to suffer all kinds of restrictions. La Plata countries, for example, were forbidden to trade directly with the home country, their trade had to go across the country to Peru and only from there to Spain. This unnatural regulation prevented them from developing, and the cattle and horses were allowed to run wild on the same shoreless plains, and multiply into immense herds. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century, when smuggling became overwhelming, that this trade restriction was removed.
The conquest of Brazil.
Although the Portuguese had so much to do in India, they by no means failed to conquer Brazil, whose coast Cabral had found on his way to India and which was supposed to belong to the Portuguese hemisphere. Admittedly, it was not a cultured country that would have directly promised great profits, but its nature was so stunningly beautiful that no other country on the way to India could compete with it. And besides, it was also the policy of Portugal and Spain that they generally usurped all the lands they came to and to which they had the right through the aforementioned Great Partition.
However, for thirty years, Portugal did nothing in Brazil but evict Spanish and French adventurers who came there to trade. Portuguese immigrants arrived very slowly in the beginning; they came mainly to take brasil wood. The government then started sending criminals to the country.
King John III decided to settle the country using the same method that had been used before in both Madeira and the Azores. He divided the coast into hereditary captaincies, giving these territories to such persons as undertook to settle the land. Inland, the territory of the captaincy councils extended no matter how far. The captain in his territory judged and ruled with unlimited power.
The first captaincy, which included 50 leguas off the coast of Sao Paolo, was given to Affonso de Sousa. After acquiring considerable equipment, he explored the coast up to the La Plata river and finally, in 1531, settled on an island a little south of present-day Santo and founded a colony there. Perceiving these intentions, the Indian tribes of the coast proceeded to expel the newcomers; but the otherwise shipwrecked Portuguese, who had lived for years under the protection of a most formidable chief, got peace concluded, and the emigrants could set to work. Sugarcane and cattle were brought from Madeira, and both were then obtained from this captaincy all along the coast of Brazil, as far as colonies were established.
Pero Lopes de Sousa, brother of the previous one, founded a colony on the same coast a little further south. The beach of Espirito Santo was occupied by Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, who had amassed a large fortune in the East Indies. Francisco Pereira Coutinho, on the other hand, got the region between the S. Francisco river and Bahia as his province. He met there among the countrymen in life a shipwrecked Portuguese of noble birth; thanks to his firearm, he had risen to the rank of chief, taken many wives and fathered many children, from whom the most distinguished families of Bahia are still descended today. The Indians respected this man, Karamuru (the fire eater), so highly that at his urging they received the Portuguese colony with favour. However, the peace did not last long, for Coutinho had learned to oppress in India, and the Tupinambas were the proudest and strongest of all the natives. The Portuguese had to abandon their settlement, but some later returned with Karamuru and rebuilt their village.
The rest of the coast was divided in the same way, and captaincies were settled, sometimes with greater or lesser success. The historian João de Barros received the captaincy of Maranhão together with two other superiors. They furnished a great expedition of three men, ten ships, and nine hundred men, of whom 113 were horsemen; but the ships were wrecked south of the Amazon River estuary and nearly all on board were drowned. After endless suffering and stress, those who survived were saved in settlements and the settlement of the banks of the Amazon River remained intact.
The entire coast of Brazil, from the mouth of the Amazon River all the way to La Plata, thus received its Portuguese colonies, and by the middle of the century, Brazil had become a fairly important colony. But they did not penetrate far inland from the coast, because its mineral and metal treasures were still completely unknown. In order to get a more unified administration and administration of justice in the colony, the home government sent a governor general to Brazil, and the Jesuits arrived to take care of the country's spiritual affairs. The old Karamuru was still a great help in persuading the natives to the new central government. In 1552 Brazil got its first bishop. The Jesuits did excellent educational work there, as well as throughout South America. They established a mission in São Paulo, which for a long time was the main center of knowledge and enlightenment in Brazil, from which the colony then got its best and bravest men, the inland its first brave settlers. The French Huguenots founded a colony in the bay of Rio de Janeiro in 1558, but the company, which had the support of Coligny, collapsed due to the weakness of its leader. Most of the emigrants returned to France, and then the Portuguese usurped the region. In 1567, the first Portuguese colony was established in the bay of Rio de Janeiro.
When Portugal fell under Spanish rule at the end of the century, Brazil received even less support from home and its colonies had to do their best to defend themselves against the French, English and Dutch pirates who were always lurking on the coast.
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