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

As for Paraguay being the kingdom of the Jesuits, it is the dream – the stupid fiction of Bernardo Ybañez, a Spaniard, twice expelled from our society. It would be endless to mention all whose vile detractions have calumniated the towns and the missionaries of the Guaranies. To refute them, I oppose the histories of Father Nicolas del Techo; La Conquista Espiritual of Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya; the history of Father Pedro de Lozano; the familiar epistles of Father Antonio Sepp to his brother; the French original of Father Francis Xavier Charlevoix, (for the German translation is wretchedly mutilated and corrupted); the annual accounts of Paraguay, printed at Rome; and the letters of Philip the Fifth – his two epistles to the Jesuit missionaries of Paraguay, dated from the palace of Buen-retiro, the 28th of December, 1743; the letter, printed with them, of the illustrious Joseph de Peralta, bishop of Buenos-Ayres, in which, himself an eye-witness, he acquaints the same Philip with the state of the Guarany colonies. These important documents translated into Latin, and published in 1745, are every where on sale: – from a perusal of them you may learn, that the Guaranies are not only obedient to the Catholic King, but especially prompt in their repulsion of his enemies, exceeding the other American nations in the extent of their services. The sedition of the Guaranies dwelling near the banks of the Uruguay, may perhaps be objected; but what was the cause? Exasperation against the royal decrees, which delivered up seven of the finest towns of Paraguay to the Portugueze, and obliged thirty thousand of their inhabitants to migrate into solitude, or seek a precarious livelihood among the other colonies. Long and vigorously did the Indians oppose the mandate, 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, had all the Guarany towns come to the aid of the Uruguayans. But those who dwelt on the banks of the Parana were happily restrained from leaguing with the insurgents, by the exertions of the Jesuits. Judge from this what opinion must be formed by those who have impudently stigmatized us as the authors of the sedition, and the leaders of the rebels. Their books are as many as they are dangerous: for although they allege nothing but falsehoods, yet, with specious arguments, and pretended testimony, they seek to extort that credit which would be exploded by all Europe, were the characters of their witnesses as well known to others as to ourselves.

And now, gentle reader, a word in your ear! If the Guarany insurgents were indeed encouraged by the Jesuits, could they not have effected more against the royal forces? Destitute of the counsels and presence of the Fathers, they did their business stupidly and unprosperously; a circumstance mightily advantageous, both to the Spaniards and Portugueze, whose victory was owing to the bungling management of their opponents. About the beginning of the disturbances, one Joseph, Corregidor of S. Miguel, was elected general of their forces against the Portugueze. This Joseph, an active and courageous man, behaved like a good soldier but an execrable general, for he was as ignorant of military tactics as I am of the black art. On his falling in a chance skirmish, Nicholas Neengirù, many years Corregidor of the city of Concepçion, succeeded. Under his conduct the war was poorly carried on; and the affairs of the Uruguayans gradually declining, the seven towns were delivered up to the royal forces. But, reader, when you utter the name of Nicholas Neengirù, uncover your head and bend your knee, or rather, if you know all, burst into laughter. This is that celebrated Nicholas Neengirù whom the Europeans called King of Paraguay, whilst Paraguay itself had not an inkling of the matter. At the very time when the feigned majesty of the King of Paraguay employed every mouth and press in Europe, I saw this Nicholas Neengirù, with naked feet, and garments after the Indian fashion, sometimes driving cattle before the shambles, sometimes chopping wood in the market-place; and when I considered him and his occupation, could hardly refrain from laughter.

But mark the progress of King Nicholas's fate. To obtain for the base fiction an appearance of truth, a person in the kingdom of Quito was bribed to get money coined and stamped with the name of King Nicholas. This base money was issued both in Europe and America, and no one could doubt its being coined in Paraguay by the pretended king, where, from the want of bullion, the Catholic kings themselves had no mint. The deceit however at length appeared; on March the 20th, 1760, the artificer of the coin wrote a letter to the King, in which he confessed – "that he was compelled by the secret stings of conscience to divulge his crime," &c. This letter detected the venal wretch who instigated him to coin the money of King Nicholas.

The fame of King Nicholas and the money issued in his name gave reasonable apprehension to the Court of Madrid; but Pedro Zevallos, who was sent with an army to reclaim Paraguay, soon perceived that it was all a false alarm, and declared the same in letters to the king. If any one doubt my veracity, let him examine the Madrid newspapers, published in the October of 1768, where he will find these words: – "Whatever has been rumoured of King Nicholas is certified to be a fabulous invention." If you require yet stronger evidence, attend to what follows. The tumults in the Uruguay being settled, Nicholas went himself to the Spanish camp, and appearing, of his own accord, before the royal governour, Joseph Andonaegui, gave him an account of all his proceedings. He was quietly heard, dismissed unpunished, and continued in his office of Corregidor. Had he been even suspected of affecting the crown of Paraguay, how different would have been his treatment! Loaded with fetters, – locked in a horrible dungeon, – he would have expiated his crime by some fearful punishment, and perhaps been torn limb from limb. But let us trace the story to its source.

It is a trite proverb in Spain —La mentira es hija de algo, falsehood is the daughter of something. Those pernicious rumours which spread far and wide, like a pestilence, generally originate in some trifle of no consequence. Such was the fable of King Nicholas, which sprang from an ignorance of the Guarany language, was perpetuated by malice, and spread over all the world. Tubicha signifies great among the Guaranies; and Mburubicha, King or Cacique. Among the companies of Indians sent to plough the land, to cut and carry wood, or to ferry on the river, there is always a chief, who directs their motions, and whom they address by the title of Ñanderubicha, our chief or captain. In this manner the Uruguayan Indians called their leader, Nicholas Neengirù, Ñanderubicha, our captain; which, being heard by the Spaniards of Asumpcion, who speak a confused jargon of Spanish and Guarany, they ignorantly and wickedly asserted that the Indians called Nicholas their king. I must not here omit to mention, that, from the ignorance of the Spanish and Portugueze interpreters, the most unfavourable opinions of our affairs and the most execrable calumnies have often arisen. These men, from their ignorance of Latin and Guarany, have frequently misinterpreted our letters to governors, acquainted with Spanish only; so that deeds and expressions, entirely innocent, have been construed into crimes.

Let us now return to Nicholas, whom error and malice have gifted with an imaginary sceptre. He was born in the city of Concepçion; his ancestors were Guarany Indians, and he had married, many years before, a Guarany woman in the city of Concepçion, where also he had held many and various offices. Father Ignatius Zierhaim boasts that this celebrated Nicholas, monarch of Paraguay, was publicly whipped, when a young man, by his orders, himself being vicar of the place. Nicholas was a tall man, with a good countenance, but grave and taciturn; his face was good-looking, though marked with a large scar. Think then how ridiculously fable must have been added to fable, when this Nicholas was made out a lay-brother of our order. Only five of this description were with us at that time, whereof two were physicians, the third had the charge of providing apparel, the fourth was employed in painting churches, and the fifth was a feeble old man, whose maladies exercised our patience and his own. None of them bore the christian or sur-name of Nicholas, and they were all Europeans. Persons of Indian extraction were never adopted into the number of priests or brothers. The Indians are none of the wisest, I own, but they are not such idiots as to crown a layman in preference to the priests, whose dignity and wisdom they rank so high, if the madness of choosing their own king had possessed them. Allowing the Jesuits, in a fit of insanity, to have aimed at the sovereign power, they would not have elected an uneducated layman, but some priest of distinguished virtue and prudence. An anonymous Frenchman, in a book intitled, Nouvelles Pièces intéressantes et nécessaires, says, page 18, "I will now show you the origin of Nicholas, King of Paraguay, being supposed a lay-brother. Some Spanish countrymen happened, in the course of conversation, to mention the late insurrection on the banks of the Uruguay." "Verily," says one, "if the Jesuits be wise, they will put the government of the Indians into the hands of Joseph Fernandez, a lay-brother of theirs." This Joseph was a native of Spain, formerly lieutenant of some light-armed cavalry of the king's, and a man of great military science. We never find a story lose by carrying. The vain supposition of putting the Indians under the conduct of this lay-brother was reported in such a manner that what one said should be done, another said was done, and the rest giving implicit credit to their asseverations, a prodigious tale grew out of nothing. This Joseph Fernandez, during the disturbances of the Uruguay, was master of the public school at Tucuman, and necessarily remarked by the whole of this populous town, if he intermitted his attendance for a single day. Having held the office of school-master many years, he managed an estate in the neighbourhood of the city, and so diligent was he in the exercise of his calling, that I could swear to his never having seen the land of the Guaranies of which he was reported King.

To corroborate my account I shall subjoin a few circumstances relative to this affair. From the seven towns which were garrisoned on their surrender by the Spaniards, upwards of thirty thousand Indians departed. Among all who witnessed these innocent exiles, their tender infants, and their feeble old men, not one but shed a tear of compassion. Fifteen thousand of the emigrants were received by the towns of the Parana, and lodged in hovels of straw, – they whose former homes had been of stone, well-built, and commodious. Nearly the same number were dispersed over the plains of the Uruguay, where numerous herds of cattle supplied the means of subsistence. The towns at length evacuated, were offered by the Spanish Governour to the Portugueze, but not accepted. Amongst other ways of accounting for this refusal on the part of the Portugueze, it was reported, that, after exploring the lands of the Uruguay, they found them destitute of the gold and silver they expected to find there. At this crisis of affairs died Barbara, Queen of Spain, a Portugueze by birth, and through an overweening attachment to her own country, a strenuous advocate for the exchange of lands in Paraguay. Not long after, Ferdinand the Sixth followed his consort to the tomb. Charles the Third succeeded his brother in right of inheritance. Whilst King of the Two Sicilies he had disapproved these treaties which settled the exchange of lands in America with Portugal; and on his succeeding to the throne, he utterly abrogated them, as fraught with danger to the monarchy. He restored the Guarany exiles to their towns, which now, alas! resembled Jerusalem after the return of the Jews from Babylon. They found their farms drained of cattle, their fields over-run with brambles and insects, their houses either burnt or miserably dilapidated; nay, they were sometimes terror-struck by the dens of tigers and the holes of serpents! Charles confirmed the Jesuits in their old administration of the Guarany colonies, of which the Portugueze party itself did not wish their utter deprivation. Had the King believed us the fomenters of the late war he would not have committed the Guaranies to our care and fidelity. About the same time, Zeno, Marquis de la Ensenada, was recalled from banishment to Madrid by the royal letters. This principal court minister had never admitted the exchange of lands agreed upon with the Portugueze, but had transmitted notices of it to Charles then King of Sicily. For this, if we may credit a report prevalent in Spain, the Marquis de la Ensenada was banished. That was not the happy time when you might think as you chose, and speak what you thought.

King Charles not only refused to acquiesce in the treaties ratified with the Portugueze, but immediately declared war upon that people; to the carrying on of which six thousand Guaranies strenuously applied themselves in the royal camp, under the conduct of Pedro Zevallos, who having occupied Colonia, carried his victorious arms into Brazil; but being stopped by the news of peace having been restored in Europe, testified in his letters to the King, that the success of his expeditions was greatly owing to the Guaranies. Suffer me, by way of episode, to draw a rude sketch of the immortal hero Zevallos. His father, the descendant of a noble family in Spain, was royal governour in the Canaries, and died in an insurrection, bravely fighting for the crown. The son, Pedro Zevallos, was handsome, tall, and well made, and the comeliness of his person was set off by the elegance and suavity of his manners. Courteous among his friends, and authoritative with his soldiers, he was neither ruffled with anger, nor soured with harshness. At every place and time he maintained the character of the pious Christian, the consummate general, the equitable judge, and, if need required, the dauntless soldier. During his leisure hours you might see him praying on his knees in the church for two hours together. Such was the innocence and integrity of his life, that envy, argus-eyed as she is, could never detect a stain to reprobate. So exemplary was his conduct, that the soldier and the christian never jarred, but harmonized together in one beautiful concord. The victories which have gained the Spanish hero the plaudits of his country, are rather to be attributed to his piety, than to his military skill; – to that heaven by which his undertakings were constantly favoured, and his slender resources rendered sufficient. In the keenness of his wit, the sagacity of his judgment, the courage and alertness of his mind, and the soundness of his loyalty, if one man ever excelled another, he excelled. His steadfast aim was to benefit rather than please his sovereign, and both he effected, though more than once disgraced from the royal favour by the artifices of calumny. He did nothing without much previous consideration. To crown his purposes with success, he was master of the most admirable devices; was never at a loss to remove obstacles, – to anticipate dangers, – and either elude them by artifice, or overcome them by force. He never charged the future with the present business – never let slip a good opportunity: did nothing from impulse, every thing from reason; yet though never headstrong in attempting any thing, or hasty in attacking an enemy, in battles and sieges he was fierce and determined. Neither dejected by adverse nor inflated by prosperous circumstances, he always preserved an equal mind. By kindness and good example, he bound his soldiers to a prompt obedience; and this I conclude was the cause of his doing so much with such scanty resources. He was not content to have given his orders, he would himself overlook their execution. On the eve of an expedition, he used to inspect the waggons, carefully enquiring whether they were stored with the requisite arms and provisions, and if they were properly guarded. Rarely trusting to vague reports and uncertain answers, he examined every thing, as far as he was able, in his own person. Early in the night he inspected the different stations of horse-guards, regardless of sleep, as indeed he was of every other indulgence. He used to say, that vigilance in the general and obedience in the men, were the safeguards of the army, and the parent of victory, a maxim most happily demonstrated in his own person.