An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, (1 of 3). Dobrizhoffer Martin

not through hatred of the king, but love of their country. What! do we think the Spaniards, French, or Germans would act otherwise, if compelled by the command of their sovereigns to relinquish their native land to enemies? For dear to every one is his country; particularly so to the Americans. Hence, though no one can approve the repugnance of the Indians of the Uruguay, who does not think it, in some measure, worthy of excuse and pardon? They erred in understanding, rather than in will; for their loyalty to the Catholic King was sound and lively. No eloquence of the missionaries could induce them to believe themselves condemned by their good king, to a perpetual and miserable exile from their native soil, in favour of the Portugueze, their enemies. "In nothing," (said they in their letters to Joseph Andonaegui, the royal governour,) "in nothing have we or our ancestors sinned against our monarch – never have we injured the Spanish colonies: how then shall we, unoffending subjects, believe ourselves sentenced to exile by the will of our gracious sovereign? Our grandfathers, great grandfathers, and in like manner all our brothers have frequently fought under the royal banners against the Portugueze – frequently against the armies of the savages. Who shall count the number of those our countrymen who have fallen in battle, or in the repeated sieges of Colonia? We, the survivors, still bear about us scars, monuments of our loyalty and courage. To extend the limits of the Spanish domains, to defend them against invaders, has ever been our first desire; nor have we spared our lives in its accomplishment. Would the Catholic King have these our deserts repaid with the most grievous punishments – with the loss of our country, our handsome churches, our houses, fields, and spacious farms? It exceeds belief. But if this be really true, what can we ever deem incredible? In the letters of Philip the Fifth, (which were read to us at his command, from the pulpits of our churches,) we were instructed never to allow the Portugueze to approach our territories – that they and theirs were our bitterest enemies. Now they cry out to us, day and night, that the monarch wills our ceding to the Portugueze those noble, those spacious tracts of land, which nature, which God, which the Spanish sovereign himself had yielded us; and which we have cultivated for upwards of a century with the sweat of our brows. Who shall persuade us that Ferdinand, so dutiful a son, will command what Philip, his excellent father, had so often forbidden? But if, indeed, these enmities be changed into friendship, (for both times and disposition do often change,) and the Spaniards be desirous of gratifying the Portugueze, let them grant them the spacious plains void of inhabitants and of colonies, with our free leave. What! shall we give up our towns to the Portugueze, by whose ancestors so many thousands of our countrymen have been either slain, or forced into cruel slavery in Brazil? – We can neither suffer nor believe it. When, embracing Christianity, we swore allegiance to God and the Catholic King, the priests and royal governours with one voice promised us the friendship and protection of the king: now, though guilty of no crime, and deserving every good return for our services, we are constrained to expatriate, a punishment most grievous, and almost intolerable. What man in his senses will believe the faith of the Spaniards, so versatile in the performance of promises – their friendship so slippery and unsound?" To this effect wrote the Indian chiefs to the royal governour, who, being a well-wisher both to the king and the Indians, when he saw their letter, could hardly refrain from tears; but suppressing pity through military obedience, he never ceased urging the execution of the royal decree to the utmost of his power, and threatening those who refused to obey it with all extremities.

      There were, (who could believe it?) among the herd of Spaniards, men of so hardened a conscience as to whisper in the ears of the Indians, that the king had never enjoined the delivery of their towns, but that the Jesuits had sold them to the Portugueze. Such convincing proofs, however, had the fathers given of their good-will towards the Guaranies, that the pestilent falsehood never gained credit; some suspicions, however, were engrafted in the minds of the least wise. Many of the missionaries, who urged the migration with more fervour than prudence, had nearly been slain by the Indians in the phrenzy of their patriotism. Father Bernardo Nusdorfer, superior, as it is called, of the Guarany towns, and conspicuous for the magistracies he had held, for his venerable age, his thorough knowledge of the Indian tongue, and lastly, for his authority and favour with the people, visited the seven cities, exhorted them again and again, with every kind of argument, to respect the injunction of the Catholic King, and thought he had prevailed; but as the Indians are of a versatile and unsteady disposition, when the time for executing the decree arrived, unmindful alike of their promises and intentions they would not endure even the mention of the migration. When the Jesuit, Father Ludovico Altamirano, was sent in the king's name from Spain to Portugal, to hasten the delivery of the towns, the Indians would not acknowledge him as a Jesuit or a Spaniard, because they saw him differ in dress and diet. They even dared to pronounce him a Portugueze disguised in the habit of our order. Terrified at a report that the Indians were approaching him in the city of St. Thomas, he consulted his safety by flying in the night, and soon after I found him, to my great amusement, in the city of Santa Fé, out of danger, and hastening to the Abiponian colonies. Had the Indians shown as much alacrity in yielding to our admonitions, as the Jesuits evinced in endeavouring to inculcate obedience into their wavering minds, the business would have been happily effected without disturbance or delay; but we seldom gained attention, much less compliance. The public supplications in the market-place, undertaken for the purpose of persuading their minds, in which a priest of our order, crowned with thorns, in a mournful voice exhorted the by-standers, with threats and groans, to proceed with the emigration; these supplications had so good an effect, that the major part promised conformity: nor did the matter end in words. A journey was undertaken by the missionaries the next day, to mark out the limits of the new towns; but the remembrance of their birth-place soon after recurring, it was broken off.

      Meantime, it being reported that Gomez Freyre de Andrade, governour of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, and the author of all these calamities, had entered their territories with his forces, to arms was the immediate cry, and each being forced along by the common impulse, the united body rolled onwards like a mighty river; you would have thought there was a second Hannibal at the gates. Thus, while the Guaranies repelled force by force, in defence of their churches and fire-sides, they are proclaimed rebels – worthier, in fact, of pity than of punishment; for maddened by their rooted hatred of the Portugueze and the love of their country, they were hurried blindly on wherever their passions impelled them. To shake off the Spanish yoke – to injure the neighbouring colonies of the Spaniards, never so much as entered their thoughts: their ancient love towards their monarch still burnt in their breasts, but it was not powerful enough to extinguish the innate love of their country.

      Who, then, can wonder that the weak-minded Indian left no stone unturned, to avoid his expulsion from a land he could not fail to love, – a land pleasant in its situation, salubrious in its climate, wide in extent, the envy of the Spanish cities for its churches and other edifices, adorned with woods, with rivers, and with plains of the greatest fertility, and lastly, well stored with all the necessaries of subsistence? Joachim de la Viana, governor of Monte-Video, sent forward with a detachment of cavalry to explore the country, having leaped from his horse on the summit of an eminence, and examined through a telescope the city of S. Miguel, (a place inhabited by seven thousand Indians, and famous for its magnificent churches and famous row of buildings,) in his astonishment at the size of the place, exclaimed to the horsemen about him, – "Surely our people at Madrid are out of their senses, to deliver up to Portugal this town, which is second to none in Paraguay." This he said, though a strenuous favourer of the Portugueze, whose party he embraced to ingratiate himself with Barbara, Queen of Spain. The six other towns – those of S. Juan, S. Lewis, S. Nicholas, S. Borgia, and S. Lawrence, were also eminent for the number of their inhabitants and the beauty of their churches, though neither of them was fortified with wall, ditch, palisadoes, or even a gate.

      To defend these, the inhabitants of the Uruguay assembled on all sides. Rude and undisciplined, and without a general even tolerably versed in military knowledge, they entered the unequal lists, the ridicule rather than the terror of an European army. No time, no place was left them undisturbed by fear and anxiety, as often as they were assailed by the equestrian spearmen. This was repeatedly mentioned in Gomez Freyre's journals, addressed to the Portugueze commissioners of the demarcation. On both sides the war consisted of long marches and skirmishes, attended with various success; and thus it ended, more noise having been made by both parties than blood spilt. This, however, is agreed on all hands – that the Europeans could never have penetrated to these seven towns,