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j 7 C H A P T E R F O U R Nine Christians Come to the Island The Governor continued with his aid to the Spaniards of the province. During the month of May in the year 1541, he sent a caravel with Felipe de Cáceres, Your Majesty’s auditor, to enter into the river they call La Plata to visit the town founded there by don Pedro de Mendoza. 1 They call the place Buenos Aires. As the season was winter and the weather quite contrary for sailing up this river, he was not able to make any headway, and he returned to the island of Santa Catalina, where the Governor was. Just then, nine Christians fleeing the town of Buenos Aires arrived in a small vessel. They were escaping the mistreatment of the captains presiding in that province, and the Governor found out firsthand from them the sort of life the Spaniards led there. They told the Governor that Buenos Aires was now resettled and provisioned with people and supplies. But they also said that after don Pedro de Mendoza had reestablished himself there, he sent off Juan de Ayolas to explore the land further and get to know the people of that province. 2 Ayolas had returned from his travels to retrievecertainbrigantineshehadleftinaportcalledCandelariaalongthe Río Paraguay, and a tribe of Indians called the Payaguos, who lived along this river, had killed him and all the Christians, as well as a large number of Indians bearing goods who had come out of the interior with Ayolas. 3 These Indians were from a tribe called the Chameses. Of all these unfortunate Indians and Christians, only one young man, a Chames tribesman, had escaped with his life. This all happened because Ayolas had not been able to find the launches he left behind in the port of Candelaria to be guarded, under his clear orders, by one Domingo de Irala. 4 Ayolas had left behind Irala, a Biscayan, as captain. But Irala withdrew before the aforesaid Juan de Ayolas had returned, abandoning the little port of Candelaria. 8 j C H A P T E R F O U R So the unfortunate Juan de Ayolas found no refuge: there was no one there. The Indians simply destroyed Ayolas and his men, and it was entirely the fault of that Biscayan Domingo de Irala, the captain of the brigantines. The nine newly arrived Christians also told the Governor that along the banks of the Río Paraguay, some 120 leagues beyond the port town of Candelaria, there was a town called Asunción. 5 This town lived in friendship and harmony with a tribe called the Carios, and it was here that most of the Spanish people in the province resided. In the town of Buenos Aires, the nine Christians said, which lies on the Rio Paraná, there were perhaps seventy Christians. 6 From that port to Asunción, which is on the Río Paraguay, it was 350 leagues upriver, all of them very hard sailing. The lieutenant governor of the province was Domingo de Irala, the Biscayan, at whose hands came about the deaths and great loss of Juan de Ayolas and all the Christians he had with him. The nine Christians told the Governor that Domingo de Irala had left Asunción to go upriver with certain brigantines and men, saying that he was off looking for Juan de Ayolas and that he intended to help him. Irala had subsequently entered a country of troublesome waters and swamps, because of which he was not able to press onward into the interior. Then he had come back, having taken prisoner some six Indians of the Payaguos tribe—the very men who had killed Ayolas and his party. These prisoners had told Irala of the death of Juan de Ayolas and his Christians, confirming that it had happened. At the same time, there had fallen into Irala’s hands a Chane Indian named Gonzalo, who had escaped when the Payaguas Indians killed Ayolas’s Christians and all the members of his tribe who had been carrying goods for Ayolas. 7 Gonzalo had been held captive by the Payaguas. Domingo de Irala had fallen back from his expedition to the interior, losing sixty men to illness and to his own bad treatment of them. Furthermore , Your Majesty’s officials residing in the province had committed terrible offenses against the Spanish conquistadors and settlers and against the native Indians...

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