WI the colonization of River Plate fails completely?

The Spanish colonized the River Plate during the first half of the XVI century. Based on what I've read, the only reason the Spanish were succesfull was because they could establish a support settlement in what's now Paraguay. Hadn't things go that way, the region might have had to be abandoned entirely, as Buenos Aires was abandoned in 1541 iOTL, but this time it might have never been rebuilt.

Why? Because the Spanish colonizers relied on locals for their food supply. They carried some peasants with them, but most Conquistadors hadn't come to the Indies to be farmers (a task with was despised in the mainland) but to be rich. That's why they didn't carry with them an extra supply of food, and why they were always at the brink of starving.

The problem was that most of the Indians of the River Plate Bassin were hunter-gatherers and fishermen. Only the Guaranni in Martín García Island had agriculture. As hunter-gatherers, the locals simpy couldn't fed 2500 umproductive soles. The conflict with the Spaniards in 1536/7 started around food. The Indians fed the Spanish for 14 days. Then they stopped doing so, as they probably saw they were running out of food. That's when the Spanish attacked them in reprisal, and war broke out (based on Ulrich Schmith's account).

I had always find surprissing that the Spanish were able to defeat the Incas so easily, but had trouble submitting a bunch of hunter-gatherers in Buenos Aires. While it is true their weapons (bows and arrows, and bolas -very usefull against horses) and tactics (using incendiary arrows against the Spanish settlements) were more apt to fighting the Spanish than the Incas, and while it's also true that they could always abandon their homes and retreat inland if things went wrong, this doesn't explain their relative success. I mean, Pizzarro had less than 200 men, Mendoza had 2500; but Pizarro would win, while Mendoza would die, and his city would be abandoned.

Why? I think it was because all the Indians knew that they could fight the Spanish, but that would required sustaining enormous loses. Thousands would have to die. For the Andean societies, it was preferable to sacrifice a part of their enormous food surpluss and accept their rule than sustaining these loses. For theses societies, mantaining the Spaniards wasn't such a heavy load. But hunter-gatherers didn't had such huge food surpluss, so they didn't have but one choice: to fight or to starve (1). That's why they were so resolved to fight, and why they kept fighting in spite of their losses.

The lack of food surpluss was also a problem for their military actions. The Incas could sustain a siege for half a year, as Manco Inca did in Cuzco. But the Querandíes could only mantain it for 14 days. Even so, since the Spanish didn't find big storehouses in their expeditions to the surroundings, and since the Indians would rather burn their reduced supplies than let the Spaniards have them, their sieges were much more effective than that of the Incas.

Hadn't the Spanish established themselves in what's now Asunción, the inhabitants of Buenos Aires wouldn't have had no choice than to abandon the place and return to Europe. IOTL they did abandoned it (well, only those few who survived did) but went to Paraguay instead.

In Paraguay they found a semi-sedentary people who lived in wooden villages and had a rudimentary agriculture which could -if complemented with game, fruits and fish- be enough to sustain the Conquistadors. For them, it was preferable to submitt than to sustain the enormous looses fighting them would require (2) Once they established themselves there, they could always return to the river plate bassin and rebuild Buenos aires, as they did in 1580. Buenos aires could always depend on Paraguay for food and, if necessary, workers. Later, it would import slaves from portugal and wheat from Mendoza, in Western Argentina.

By then, many of the Querandies had died of infectious disseases. Others had retreated inland, and had adopted the horses brought by the Spanish. They would be known as the Pampas.

But what if the Spanish hadn't gone upstream and settled themselves in Paraguay? What if they abandon the place and retreat to Europe? Would the place remain deserted? Would someone else settle? Or would the Spanish comming from Perú and Chile establish an outpost in Buenos Aires, as they did in Santiago del Estero, bringing with them thousands of Quichua, Aymara or other Indian workers? If so, how would Buenos Aires look like in that scenario? Would it be more alike OTL Northern Argentina, which looks more "Hispanic" that present day Buenos aires? Or would it resemble Mendoza?

(1) Actually there was a third: retreating inland. But that involved conflicts with other tribes, and would made them lose the resources they could get on the River.

(2) They did fight them for a while, though they submitted when they realised what was the cost of fighting them. Actually, they were a sort of Spanish allies, although their status was much lower than that of the Spaniards.
 

Larrikin

Banned
Somebody was going to settle at the mouth of the Plate, if not the Spanish then probably the English or the Dutch, as neither of them were bound by the Papal split of the New World.
 

maverick

Banned
Somebody was going to settle at the mouth of the Plate, if not the Spanish then probably the English or the Dutch, as neither of them were bound by the Papal split of the New World.

Neither were the Spanish or the Portuguese.

A Papal decree is less a rule than a guideline for the Iberian monarchs.
 
I kind of like the idea of the Spanish conquistadors retreating to Paraguay and staying there, with no re-settlement of the Rio de Plata's mouth. Thus, there's an isolated, gunpowder-using society which is still for the most-part Indian.
 
Other European powers would no doubt attempt minor colonization of what would be the Argentine if the Spanish or the Portuguese are unable to do anything about removing the local Indians there or guarding it from intruders. Perhaps a Hong Kong like situation would emerge with the British, French or Dutch ruling a coastal stronghold directly while deep inland, a set of native protectorates would emerge like the Mapuche.
 
But what if the Spanish hadn't gone upstream and settled themselves in Paraguay? What if they abandon the place and retreat to Europe? Would the place remain deserted? Would someone else settle? Or would the Spanish comming from Perú and Chile establish an outpost in Buenos Aires, as they did in Santiago del Estero, bringing with them thousands of Quichua, Aymara or other Indian workers? If so, how would Buenos Aires look like in that scenario? Would it be more alike OTL Northern Argentina, which looks more "Hispanic" that present day Buenos aires? Or would it resemble Mendoza?

Just some thoughts about it:

First, I'm not sure if a failed attempt to settle in Paraguay (maybe if all the Europeans had died during the Querandí attack) would be enough to stop Spanish explorations in the area. They already knew from the expedition of Aleixo Garcia that there was a connection between Peruvian territory and the Plata Basin, and probably would try to occupy it before anyone had tried.

Also, at that time, besides Spain and Portugal, there was no real effort from other powers to invest in colonies in South America. The only other nation that sent ships here was France, but they were more interested in the Brazilian coasts, where they could get "brazil wood" to sell in Europe, and this kind of good wouldn't be found in the Plata. In fact, what would be there to call the attention of the French? Even the Spanish were initially more interested in the land for its strategical value than any other possible good they could find there. So probably the French could eventually send some ships to the area, stablish a temporary presence, but they too would be driven out by the natives or the Spanish.

Other chance would be to have Portugal trying to expand its presence in the region, but despite some naval exploration in the Plata River they never stablished any presence there, probably because they knew that the region wasn't included in their area of the Tordesillas Treaty (a fact they would try to change later, but only in the 17th century) and also due to the fact the Portuguese were already busy enough exploring the lands that they knew belonged to them in Brazil.

So, I think that or the Spanish coming from Peru (and trying to find the connection with the Atlantic that Aleixo Garcia explored) would settle in the area or a later attempt from Europe would do it. In the first case, the idea of them bringing native servants from Inca territory is very possible, although I think that later these Quichua and Aymara would be overwhelmed by local tribes, probably Guarany, when the conversions start to become more numerous (because the Jesuits would probably still come to the area and try to stablish missions)

However, if the new settlement is made by Spanish directly from Europe, and the local natives are still seen as unreliable to produce food, they could try to make what the Portuguese did in Brazil and Spain did in the Caribbean: bring Africans to the area. Maybe this earlier settlement could be surrounded by farms cultivated by black slaves imported to replace the "wild" natives that can't be used as servants. So we would have an Argentina (at least a Buenos Aires region) more similar to Brazil.
 

maverick

Banned
Gonzaga's idea is especially interesting, even moreso if mixed with Admiral Brown's idea of having Spaniards and Indians from Tucuman come too, as it creates a more diverse population in Buenos Aires.

Argentina's African population was limited to a handful of slaves freed in 1813 and the Slaves captured from Brazil in the 1820s, and both groups would die due to plague, cold and the Paraguay war, in which they were used as cannon fodder, along with Gauchos and Federalists.

A bigger native and black population in La Plata, in the vein of Brazil, or Venezuela or Peru, would certainly have important social and political consequences.
 
However, if the new settlement is made by Spanish directly from Europe, and the local natives are still seen as unreliable to produce food, they could try to make what the Portuguese did in Brazil and Spain did in the Caribbean: bring Africans to the area. Maybe this earlier settlement could be surrounded by farms cultivated by black slaves imported to replace the "wild" natives that can't be used as servants. So we would have an Argentina (at least a Buenos Aires region) more similar to Brazil.

The only reason I doubt this is that unlike Brazil, Argentina doesn't produce much in the way of cash crops or materials. Brazil had sugar; Argentina has... cattle hides?
 
The only reason I doubt this is that unlike Brazil, Argentina doesn't produce much in the way of cash crops or materials. Brazil had sugar; Argentina has... cattle hides?

And they needed large amounts of land for that. Land that the Mapuche lived in.
 
The only reason I doubt this is that unlike Brazil, Argentina doesn't produce much in the way of cash crops or materials. Brazil had sugar; Argentina has... cattle hides?

Good point. And Argentina didn't even have cattle at that time, as the animals were brought by the settlers. But, considering that the first settlement is a military expedition (in order to found a fort, or something similar), maybe the own Spanish state could have provided some slaves in order to ensure the troops food (assuming that who planned the settlement has enough political power to do it). Of course, it would only last until the Guarany are converted (and this conversion would become a necessity as the first slaves start to die and they have no money to replace them) but it's a possibility.
 
Just some thoughts about it:

First, I'm not sure if a failed attempt to settle in Paraguay (maybe if all the Europeans had died during the Querandí attack) would be enough to stop Spanish explorations in the area. They already knew from the expedition of Aleixo Garcia that there was a connection between Peruvian territory and the Plata Basin, and probably would try to occupy it before anyone had tried.

That's the catch. You can easily prevent Aleixo García's expedition by having him die when his ship sank, or having him killed by Indians before (and not after) his expedition to the Tawantisuya. Or you can prevent rumours from his expedition reaching Sebastián Cabot in 1526?/ 1527?. But then you wouldn't have Mendoza's expetion to the River Plate in 1536, since it's whole purpose was to establish a safe road to the areas García explored (not knowing they were already in Spanish hands, as Pizarro had conquered them comming from the East).

So, if you butterfly away Garcia's expedition, you wouldn't have a failed colonization of the River Plate; you might have had no colonization at all, at least comming from the Atlantic. Which, on the other hand, satisfies the intentions of the thread. If only the first sailors who came to the River Plate hadn't saw any silver (which, after all, wasn't much, and was only obtained through extended trade nets that started in Paraguay -where the spoils of the Guaranni raids against Incan territories were concentrated-), they might have had no interesting in settling the area. The place might have been abandoned for quite a while.

In that scenario, there might not be free horses and cows running freely in the pampas, an unexpected result of the brief life of the first city of Buenos aires (1536-1541) ...
 
That's the catch. You can easily prevent Aleixo García's expedition by having him die when his ship sank, or having him killed by Indians before (and not after) his expedition to the Tawantisuya. Or you can prevent rumours from his expedition reaching Sebastián Cabot in 1526?/ 1527?. But then you wouldn't have Mendoza's expetion to the River Plate in 1536, since it's whole purpose was to establish a safe road to the areas García explored (not knowing they were already in Spanish hands, as Pizarro had conquered them comming from the East).

So, if you butterfly away Garcia's expedition, you wouldn't have a failed colonization of the River Plate; you might have had no colonization at all, at least comming from the Atlantic. Which, on the other hand, satisfies the intentions of the thread. If only the first sailors who came to the River Plate hadn't saw any silver (which, after all, wasn't much, and was only obtained through extended trade nets that started in Paraguay -where the spoils of the Guaranni raids against Incan territories were concentrated-), they might have had no interesting in settling the area. The place might have been abandoned for quite a while.

In that scenario, there might not be free horses and cows running freely in the pampas, an unexpected result of the brief life of the first city of Buenos aires (1536-1541) ...

But would this be enough to stop expeditions? After all, the Spanish already knew the River Plate existed (Solis and Magallanes had been there before), and there is the problem that they needed to show to the Portuguese that the territory belonged to Castile (Pero Lopes de Sousa had commanded a fleet in 1531 that explored the River Plate and even installed Portuguese stone pillars at its mouth). Even if Aleixo Garcia never goes to Peru, there was still activity in the area only for the reason of exploration (as Garcia's fleet is an example). Of course, how successful would they be we don't know, but probably some kind of settlement would still be created in the region, and its survival would depend on the relation with the natives.
So, I think that if you want to have a different pattern in the colonization you need to make sure that these initial settlements at the River Plate region are destroyed before they could explore Paraguay, and at the same time make sure that the Spanish in Peru launch expeditions in order to try to find the route to the Atlantic.
 

maverick

Banned
Weren't the Mapuche at the time still in Chile? IIRC they only went to Argentina during a migratory process caused by the Spanish conquest there.

Indeed, stop bringing the Mapuche up, they didn't even live in Argentina until they were driven out of Chile between 1810-1830:rolleyes:
 
Indeed, stop bringing the Mapuche up, they didn't even live in Argentina until they were driven out of Chile between 1810-1830:rolleyes:

If he wants to show off his knowledge of South American history, he should do his homework first.

What about colonization of the River Plate from Peru? It's vaguely possible, as the Guarani and other Paraguayan tribes regularly raided/traded/interacted with the Tawantisuya, and I see no reason for this to not continue with the Spanish in place of the Inca kings. Maybe the Spanish invade Paraguay to put a stop to the raids and capture the silver that the Paraguayan tribe had acquired from the Tawantisuya in the first place. The problem is that the Spanish can't settle Paraguay from the Andes unless they're bringing in Quechua and Aymara Indians... Which is an interesting butterfly effect. So the Spanish build a fort near the mouth of La Plata when they figure out they have a convenient route to the Atlantic, probably bringing a lot of Indian servants/slaves south with them too. So our ATL Buenos Aires will be first be settled by Aymara, Quechua, Guarany or Querendi slaves. If the settlement in the region starts as a slaver's dream in order to feed the troops, odds are it won't magically turn into a settlement colony straight-away. If anything, this means that the next ship to stop at *Buenos Aires will be loaded with more slaves... from Africa.
 
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