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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.
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