to work for his master one-sixth of his time, or two months out of the twelve; the rest of the year was his own: and to make even this labour as little onerous to the community as possible, it was to be performed by them in rotation, from which they were called Mitayos, from mittà, an Indian expression for "by turns." The caciques, women, and eldest sons were exempted from all forced labour whatever. This small amount of service was not complained of by the Indians, who were fully compensated by the improvement which resulted in their social condition from the regulations of the superior government.

These Mitayo settlements were constituted into Commanderies more or less extensive, which were granted to the Conquistadores for two lives-their own and that of their immediate heir: they could not sell nor alienate them; and when the two lives lapsed, the Indians were promised their absolute freedom from servitude, by which time it was supposed they might be sufficiently prepared and fit for a participation in all the social rights and privileges of their Spanish masters. Till then, under certain limitations, they were considered as the feudal vassals of their appointed lords.

This system of reducing the Indians to subjection continued to be acted upon throughout the greater part of the first century of the Spanish rule in those parts, when complaints having reached Spain of the cruelties committed by the conquerors of Tucuman and of their ill-treatment of the natives, Don Francisco de Alfaro, then Auditor of the Supreme Court of Peru, was ordered to visit Paraguay, as well as those provinces, with powers, if he deemed it requisite for the good of the Indians, to revise any existing regulations affecting them. The result of his visitation was the promulgation of an entirely new code for the treatment of the Indians in 1612, known as the Ordinances of Alfaro, whereby it was entirely prohibited to the governors of any of those countries to attempt to reduce the Indians, as heretofore, by force to subjection; the right to exact their personal services was abolished, and they were subjected instead to the annual payment of a small capi

tation tax.

CHAP. IV.

CONQUEST OF LA GUAYRÁ.

47

The arrival of the Jesuits about the same time in the Rio de la Plata, and the particular privileges granted them by the Crown with a view to the reduction of the Indians in a very different manner, was of still more importance to them. In 1610 the Fathers commenced their well-known labours in La Guayrá and on the upper parts of the Paraná, reducing vast numbers of the Guarani tribes to Christianity and to a comparatively civilized state in their celebrated Missions. The extreme docility of those tribes made them ready converts to their views, which held out great inducements to them to place themselves under their peaceful rule in preference to any other. But the establishment of such a system was not carried without a strong opposition on the part of the lay governors of the country, who complained of being deprived of the useful, if not necessary labour and service of so large a portion of the community; holding that the regulations of Yrala were much more likely to make useful subjects of the Indians, and give permanent importance to the King's conquests in those parts, than the exclusive communities formed for their own purposes by the Jesuits. The latter, however, had sufficient influence to consolidate their own power to the exclusion of all others, and of any interference whatever with the Indians under their charge.

But, to return to Yrala: after settling the natives of Paraguay in the reductions as above mentioned, he extended the same system to La Guayrá, whither a force was detached to take permanent possession of the country. The site of Ontiveros was removed to a more healthy situation, and the town of Ciudad Real was founded higher up the Paraná. The Indians were subjugated, and 40,000 families were parcelled out amongst the conquerors, in the same manner as had been so successfully effected in Paraguay.

With a like object Nuflo de Chaves was despatched up the river Paraguay, with a force of 200 Spaniards and 1500 Guaranis, to make a settlement in the lands of the Origones, or Xarayes, Indians, which it was hoped might facilitate the means of future communication between the people of the Rio de la Plata and their countrymen in Peru.

L...

After these measures for consolidating and extending the Spanish rule in those parts, Yrala was able to turn his attention to the enlargement and embellishment of the city of Assumption, now the seat of a bishopric as well as the capital of the colony; and these were his last labours. Whilst at Ytá, an Indian village a little distance down the river, whither he had gone to direct the felling of some timber for the completion of the cathedral, in which he had taken great personal interest, he was suddenly attacked by a malignant fever, which after a few days terminated his life, at the age of seventy. He died in 1557, lamented throughout all Paraguay by the Indians as well as his own countrymen. For more than twenty years he had been the leader of a succession of enterprises connected with the discovery and settlement of the countries which he had added to the Spanish dominions, fairly entitling him to be called, before all others, the Hero of the Conquest of the Rio de la Plata.*

He left the government of Paraguay to his son-in-law Mendoza, who did not survive him many months, upon which the colonists proceeded again to fill up the vacancy by vote, and elected as his successor Don Francisco Ortiz de Vergara, who had married another of the daughters of Yrala.

In the mean time Chaves, who had been sent up the river Paraguay upon the expedition already mentioned, and had reached the mouth of the river Jaurú, in lat. 16° 25', receiving intelligence of the death of Yrala, determined to push forward into the interior of the country in quest of fresh discoveries on his own account; and although the greater number of his people refused to follow him, and returned to Assumption, he managed, with about sixty men, who volunteered to share his fortunes, to fight his way as far as the confines of Las Charcas, where falling in with one

* "El que serenó estas provincias, aquietó los turbados animos con las pasadas desgracias del tiempo, las conquistó, redujo á policia, estableció por capital y republica de todas ellas la ciudad del Paraguay con titulo de la Asumpcion de N. S., é hizo todo, porque ninguno hizo tanto, es y fué Don Domingo Martinez de Yrala."-- Vide Serie de

los SS. Gobernadores del Paraguay segun consta de los libros capitulares que se conservan en el archivo de la Asumpcion, por el P. Bautista. (De Angelis, Collec.)

"El sentimiento universal que dexó su muerte en todas las clases del estado, es el mejor elogio fúnebre, que pudo dedicarle la Patria."-Funes, Hist.

7

CHAP. IV.

CHAVES FOUNDS SANTA CRUZ.

49

Manso, a Spaniard from Peru, in quest like himself of new conquests, a dispute arose between them as to their respective rights, which Chaves went on to Lima to lay before the Viceroy, the Marquis of Cañete, to whom he was distantly related, and with whom he managed so to ingratiate himself as to obtain not only a confirmation of his own pretensions, but the command of a force with which he was ordered back to take permanent possession of the territories in question in the Viceroy's name as part of Peru.

There shortly after (in 1560) Chaves founded the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the farthest settlement made by the Conquistadores of the Rio de la Plata. It connected their discoveries with the possessions of the Crown in Peru, and thus established the Spanish dominions in South America from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to Panamá, on the Pacific Ocean.

Chaves having secured the protection of the Viceroy, after a time obtained leave to return to Assumption for his wife and children, and to remove to Peru 2000 Guaranis, who had been allotted to him in the repartimiento, or division, of the Indians made by Yrala amongst the Conquistadores of Paraguay; and although he little deserved it, he met with a kind reception from the Governor, as did a party of Spaniards from Peru who were in his

company.

In return he endeavoured to persuade Vergara to follow his example, and undertake a journey to Lima, in order to obtain from the Viceroy the confirmation in due form of his election as Governor of Paraguay. It may easily be supposed that the stories which Chaves and his companions had to tell of the riches and luxury in which their countrymen were living in Peru, were not slow to rekindle in the breasts of the Spaniards of Paraguay all their original feelings and desire to open by any means a communication with that land of promise, to which they had always looked as the ultimate reward of their labours.

Vergara himself was, perhaps, as anxious as any of them to find a plausible pretext for visiting a country, the accounts of which had excited the whole world's wonder. The Bishop, too, who in all matters was his principal adviser,

E

seems to have been infected with the same feelings, and so were many others, especially those holding offices under the Crown, foremost of whom was one Caceres, the Royal Contador, who begged permission to avail themselves of the opportunity to pay their respects and duty to the Viceroy.

In an evil hour the Governor suffered himself to be persuaded to set out upon this ill-advised expedition, taking with him the Bishop and Caceres, and, according to Guzman, no less than 300 Spaniards in his suite, with a retinue of more than 2000 Indians, besides as many more who were carried off from Paraguay by Chaves at the same time.

Whether or not the whole was a preconcerted plot between Chaves and Caceres to get rid of Vergara, or whether it was concocted after they left Paraguay, admits of some uncertainty; but there is no doubt that, long before his journey's end, the Governor found to his dismay that he was surrounded by traitors, who had inveigled him from Paraguay solely for their own purposes.

Once within the jurisdiction of Chaves, his guards were disarmed, and the greater part of his people withdrew from his command to settle in the country, whilst he was himself detained by Chaves, under various pretexts, and prevented from proceeding further on his journey.

In the mean time Caceres and those in league with him repaired to Chuquisaca, where the Audiencia was sitting, and laid before that tribunal, the Supreme Court in South America, a list of charges which they had trumped up against him, and which Vergara, to his astonishment, was required to answer.

In vain he protested against the competency of any court in Peru to entertain such proceedings against him; he was held virtually to have admitted it when he placed himself within the limits of their jurisdiction, and was adjudged to have forfeited his government by quitting Paraguay, as he had done, without leave from the Crown, and with so large a number of followers as, according to his accusers, had left the security of the colony in peril.

The Viceroy, prejudiced against him, ratified the pro