French Argentina

I draw your attention about Barthélemy Massiac
I have translated this text from a spanish web
"This guy was a French military engineer who served Portugal. He came to Latin America, en route to Europe, to sell slaves and goods. It was captured by a privateer and brought to Buenos Aires. This posed as Catalan and drew maps of the city, where he remained for over two years. He was later sent to Spain. They released him, then wrote a memoir of his trip to Rio de la Plata and proposed to the government of Louis XIV to invade the territory described by him. The Colbert paid some attention to the project and sent a detailed questionnaire about Buenos Aires, Massiac said. Finally, the plan was forgotten. But the text drafted by De Massiac became a document of great historical importance. For many, this is one of the most compelling testimonies on the seventeenth-century Buenos Aires. Written between 1660 and 1662, during the sojourn of the engineer in the small town, this report presents, in addition to physical descriptions of the place, an elaborate project to conquer the territories ranging from the Rio de la Plata to the mines of Potosi, which past would then form part of the reign of Louis XIV"
 
At best he would get Buenos Aires+Mesopotamia+Misiones+Paraguay+Uruguay+Cordoba+Santiago del Estero+ San Luis+Mendoza+all to the south.
The mines and most of Cuyo and Northwest are out of reach.

How many inmigrants can we get? The soil fertility is excelent in most places and the climate is for the most part very mediterranean.
 
How many inmigrants can we get? The soil fertility is excelent in most places and the climate is for the most part very mediterranean.

I think the French, having launched the expedition to conquer Potosi, may ignore the agricultural potential of the conquered region for some time. And France was not a country that sent a lot of settlers abroad - just compare Canada and Louisiana with the 13 Colonies.
 
I think the French, having launched the expedition to conquer Potosi, may ignore the agricultural potential of the conquered region for some time. And France was not a country that sent a lot of settlers abroad - just compare Canada and Louisiana with the 13 Colonies.

I think that was partially due to New England and the Middle Colonies having a much better climate for colonisation than frozen Canada and near tropical New Orleans. How many British settlers went to Jamaica?
 
I think that was partially due to New England and the Middle Colonies having a much better climate for colonisation than frozen Canada and near tropical New Orleans. How many British settlers went to Jamaica?

There wasn't much colonization in what would become the Midwest or on the lower Mississippi outside the Delta. France simply wasn't a settler nation.
 
The Rio del Plata are was interesting to the Spanish as a possible alternative route to the silver mines of Potosi, a way to round out their holdings, ward off the Portuguese and convert the easily accessible heathens. It also proved suitable as a place to expand the ranching culture of central and southern Spain to produce exports.

The British were interested in the region due to the limited agricultural productivity of Great Britain and as a place to dump the excess population being produced by the agricultural revolution and conversion to wool production, and only gave it serious thought after North America was pretty much closed off.

No of these factors apply to France at any point, why would they be interested?
 
The Rio del Plata are was interesting to the Spanish as a possible alternative route to the silver mines of Potosi, a way to round out their holdings, ward off the Portuguese and convert the easily accessible heathens. It also proved suitable as a place to expand the ranching culture of central and southern Spain to produce exports.

The British were interested in the region due to the limited agricultural productivity of Great Britain and as a place to dump the excess population being produced by the agricultural revolution and conversion to wool production, and only gave it serious thought after North America was pretty much closed off.

No of these factors apply to France at any point, why would they be interested?

Not at all.

The Spanish founded the city the first time as a garrison. The second time, it was founded by Paraguayans to protect the mouth of the Parana, vital to them, because it could prevent an invasion and protected their only gateway to the world.

The part of warding off the Portuguese is more true in the founding of Montevideo.

The conversion of natives was just an excuse. If so was the case, they would have conquered the Patagonias and Chaco too. No, the Spanish were after the resources or strategic positions. Converting the people was a way to avoid rebellions and problems.

The part of the ranching is perhaps the most incorrect of all. In the first founding of the city, cattle and horses were liberated. It happened that the Pampas are not only good for them, they are excellent. In 50 years, they had astronomically multiplicated.
And after the second founding, Buenos Aires people found that they weren't going to become as a trade center, they didn't have a culture of being farmers(and didn't know or cared the land was so good for farming), so the only thing they could do to earn a living was to smuggler goods into the colony. And then some people realised there was a lot of cattle, but they were cimarrones. So the Gaucho figure appeared and the first estancias appeared in near the city. Then they expanded, and the city started selling the leather. Most of the time the meat was just thrown away. It wasn't until the XIX Century that they started selling the meat too.

The British part is all correct, but i'll add that they also wanted the city as a trade center from where to introduce their goods to the Spanish colonies, and also as a strategic port in the South Atlantic, which they lacked, and was a must if they wanted a global empire.
 
I´ve used the google translator (is too much text) so this is a fragment of Barthelemy´s report:



"I've often wondered why our kings (perhaps considering the wealth of France and its own resources) have neglected navigation, ports and rivers having two seas and subjects that are driven by natural inclination and habit to look for courage in the most distant climates are fortunate that in his country, both because each is in his art and profession countless competitors, such as that due to the extension of the kingdom, although large, is disproportionate to the multitude of peoples, from which they disperse all over the world to the less frequented and livable, where they take their knowledge of the arts and the use of weapons, strengthening States foreign princes with so great advantages and especially between villages and naturalization them, which is detrimental to the military glory of France and manufacture of its artisans.

[...] In the Rio de la Plata there is more than the city of Buenos Aires, located on this beautiful river sixty miles from the sea side of the south pole, where the surroundings are vast fields that stretch for more than two hundred leagues with no room and so flat and together forming a horizon on all sides equal and circular, so you lost your bearings and you have to help with the compass if you exit routes. They are covered with an amazing crowd of horses and bulls, almost all wild, not in Buenos Aires are worth more than a shield piece and trafficking of these beasts is of inestimable importance to all other places in America where comes to seek them, and particularly in Potosí, where the mines throughout Peru, and Chile, which persists to the Indian resistance against the Spanish in a bloody war and balanced. All year round the countryside provides plenty of fodder too. It also gives wheat and wine in his land, the flesh could not miss the largest ever for the world's navies. The water from the river is considered incomparable air of the country is softer, healthier and warmer throughout the habitable land in the opinion of those who have breathed, the first Spanish who made this discovery when witnesses of this truth, they named Buenos Aires to this place.

[...] Buenos Aires is a small village three to four families, which has no defense for more than two hundred soldiers stationed in two companies, one governor, one major and two captains. There may be four people able to make weapons is not protected or defended by any wall, fence or ditch. The river bed is very deep, and a providence, preserved the lands of the flood when it grows or swells the sea winds, which raises the maximum current to the top of your channel without allowing it to overflow never . It has a small fort on the top of the slope of the ravine, with respect to water and moored ships is high, but not with respect to the city and countryside, which are at your same level.

[...]

It is assumed by the traditions that there are rich mines of gold and silver, but at least is certain is that this country next to Paraguay to the southwest side is the same quality and fertility, is bounded on the north side with one of the Portuguese colonies called the captaincy of Sao Paulo, which is the last and most southern Brazil, where there are wheat, wine, sugar, mining of gold and emerald are untapped for lack of men and being away from people the Portuguese, these two have been in Lisbon monstrous riches. This colony is about three or four hundred miles from Buenos Aires, and most of this distance can navigate the Parana River, which is born and then mixing the water with the silver in a town called the seven streams, which is the have only the Spanish on the other coast, about two hundred leagues from Buenos Aires. [...]

I believe that peace is not related to this project and the actual and specific grounds of religion and propagating the faith among these barbarians, is reason enough to authorize the company and bring the rule of our kings. These are vague and unclaimed assets that God has created all nations alike to discover that, when there is no possession to defend the entrance, and the Spanish should not be surprised that Christian people bring the light of the Gospel given to lands whose possession rightful place as his forgetfulness or impotence.

I can not forbear to mention here the great value that take the Jesuits of large contiguous regions of Paraguay, on both shores of the Parana River, which have absolutely no interference or other Spanish secular nation, more than the Indians in the country. Twenty-four missions are many villages or towns with well-organized and justice which have temporal and spiritual government of arms, the King of Spain has agreed to them to defend themselves from invasion of the Portuguese of Sao Paulo, that repeatedly entered their land at gunpoint, and the last time have been sent back by the mission Indians, to whom these parents taught the arts and sciences and the profession of arms. French parents among them, one called the Father Pestot, Lion, knowing that one of my brothers was in Buenos Aires, asked in his letters go to take the habit of the Company and accountable while all what I have to say and many other things concerning the goodness of the country and its way of life. They (the Jesuits) are extremely dear to the Indians within its domain and the King of Spain paid a great tribute to keep the freedom and authority they have over all other missions. Following this second path would be easy in the first war take Buenos Aires whose inhabitants themselves, to enjoy the trade (they have been cut off and without which they are miserable), they would be happy to restore it by joining the French, without waiting for the insults and hostilities of the war, and if the worst were to openly attack the square, and assuming a deliberate defense, it would take more than a thousand men for this action, and if you follow the prescribed instructions we will not miss one. "
 
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