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38 j C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N The Governor Concludes a Peace with the Agaces Tribe On the banks of this Río Paraguay, there is a nation of Indians called the Agaces. 1 This is a tribe much feared by all the nations of that country. Above and beyond their being very brave men, much used to war, they are quite treacherous, dishing out havoc and death to the other tribes even as they give their word to keep the peace. They do this even to their own kinfolk, just to make themselves the lords of the earth. So we might say that you cannot trust them. These are well filled out people, with huge bodies and the limbs of giants. They travel the river in canoes formed up as pirate corsairs, and they leap out onto the banks to steal from the Guaranis and take prisoners from among them. They consider these people to be their primary enemies. The Agaces sustain themselves by hunting on the land and fishing in the water. They do not plant, and it is their longtime custom to take Guarani captives, whose hands they tie as they whisk them off in their canoes, heading for their own lands. The relatives of the captured Guaranis will come along to rescue them, and in front of these parents and children, wives and other kinfolk, they lash their captives cruelly and tell the relatives to bring along something for the Agaces to eat or the men will die. So the Guaranis bring in a lot of food for them—enough to fill their canoes. And the Agaces then return to their houses, carrying off the prisoners anyway. They do this frequently, as very few of their captives are actually ransomed. When they get tired of carrying around and whipping the Guarani unfortunates in their canoes, they just cut off their heads and leave them along the riverbank impaled atop tall poles. The Spaniards of the province had waged war on these Indians before the arrival of the Governor, killing large numbers, but they subsequently made peace with them. This peace, however, was broken by the Agaces, The Governor Concludes a Peace with the Agaces Tribe j 39 as was their habit, by all the damage they continued to inflict on the Guaranis , whose stores of provisions they looted. It was only a few days after the Governor came to the city of Asunción that the Agaces again broke their peace treaties, taking by surprise and plundering certain towns of the Guaranis. And every day they came to Asunción, too, spreading unrest and causing alarm. The Agaces knew about the Governor’s arrival, and the greatest chiefs among them—Abacoten and Tabor and Alabos—accompanied by many others of their tribe, came in their canoes and disembarked at the city’s port. Once onshore, they made their way to the Governor’s presence. “We have come to declare our obedience to His Majesty and make friends with the Spaniards,” they said. “If we have not kept the peace till now, it is because of the rashness of a few crazy youngsters who have raised a ruckus without our permission. That’s what has given rise to this idea that we have purposely broken the peace. These same young men have now been punished.” They asked the Governor to receive them favorably and assist in striking up a peace between themselves and the Spaniards. And in the presence of our clerics and Your Majesty’s officials, they pledged to observe and preserve a new compact. The Governor heard their plea and lovingly welcomed them. In answering the Indians, he said, “I am happy to receive you as vassals of His Majesty and friends of the Christians on condition that you keep the terms of our peace and not break them as you’ve done at other times in the past. I warn you that if you do violate them I’ll hold you to be my capital enemies, and I will make war on you.” Well, that was how the peace was concluded. The Agaces became friends of the Spaniards and the Guaranis, and the Governor ordered his people to treat the Agaces favorably from that time forward and give them provisions. Among the ongoing conditions and agreements that formed the peace were the following: neither the aforesaid chiefs of the Agaces, nor any others...

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