he had reached the longitude of eastern Asia, and the noise of his great discovery resounded through Europe and began the transformation of the world. Since the last great century—the thirteenth—Christendom had retrograded. The Tartars dominated Russia and the Turks were pressing hard on Germany. Unless the Christian world could find an outlet—unless it could create other resources for itself and outside of itself; unless feudalism should find an employment for its military energies outside of the vicious circle of fruitless and purposeless dynastic wars, it seemed not improbable that Mahometan aggression would continue until all Europe lay under the deadening influence of the Turk. Only in the Peninsula was apparent that spirit of expansion which is the best indication of internal vitality in a nation. The military nobility, whose determined fanaticism, magnificent courage, and spirit of individual initiative had driven the Moors out of Spain in the thirteenth century, welcomed this fresh opportunity to slay the infidel and carve out new fiefs for themselves.
Conquest of the Andes.—Columbus showed strategic genius of the highest order in choosing Hayti as the site of the first settlement. That island afforded an admirable base for the conquest of the New World. It was large enough to furnish provisions, and was conveniently situated with reference to the coasts and islands of the Caribbean. Gold washings were soon discovered in the interior and the unwarlike inhabitants were at once impressed into slavery to dig in the mines. The news of gold stimulated interest as nothing else could have done. The Castilian government took immediate steps to exclude all other nations. The Pope divided the globe between Spain and Portugal, and a treaty to this effect was negotiated between the two countries. Spaniards swarmed over to Hayti, and thence expeditions were sent out in every direction, headed by private adventurers bearing their sovereign's commission. The other Antilles were soon explored and, by the end of the century, the Spaniards had reached the South American mainland and rapidly explored its coast from the Amazon up to the Isthmus. Gold was picked up in the streams flowing from the Columbian Andes into the Caribbean. A few years later the north-western coast of South America was granted out to noble adventurers who undertook its conquest and exploitation with their own means. The Isthmian region became the new centre of Spanish power and commerce in America. In 1513, Balboa crossed the Isthmus to the Pacific Ocean—an event second in its far-reaching consequences only to Columbus's first voyage. During the following years the Gulf of Mexico was explored, and in 1518 the greatest statesman and general whom Spain ever sent to the new world—Hernando Cortes—began the conquest of the empire of the Aztecs.
The mining done in Hayti and along the Caribbean coast seemed pitiably insignificant compared with the treasures found in Mexico. There followed a new influx of gentleman adventurers who scoured the coast in every direction seeking another defenceless empire and mines as good as those of Mexico. The expeditions down the Pacific coast of South America started from the Isthmus. Peru was soon found, and in 1532, Pizarro and his band of blood-thirsty desperadoes, with inconceivable audacity, struck a vital blow at the heart of the great empire of the Incas by capturing its emperor. Within half a dozen years nearly the whole of the vast region over which the Inca power had extended was overrun and the outlying provinces were ready to submit at demand.
The rapidity with which a little band of Spaniards conquered the vast and warlike empire of the Incas is well-nigh incredible. The terror inspired by horses and firearms did much, but the capture of their emperor demoralised the imperial Inca tribes still more. Once in the possession of the sacred person of the monarch, the Spaniards were regarded by the Indians as his mouthpiece and the successor to his power. From Cuzco, the capital, a splendid system of roads and communications radiated to every part of the empire. The military and political dominance of the imperial tribes had weakened the power of resistance in the provinces. The elaborate structure which had been built up by the Incas rather facilitated than hindered the Spanish conquest, once the decisive blow had been given at the centre. The provinces submitted to the new rulers as fast as the Spanish columns could march over the magnificent mountain roads.
South from Cuzco the Inca empire extended 2000 miles. It covered the whole Andean region as far as the 37th degree of south latitude and extended from the Pacific to the eastern slopes of the Andean foothills. In the present Argentine it included the tribes living in the lesser chains which occupy the north-western part of the republic. Some of these Argentine tribes seem to have been only tributary to the Incas, others were completely dependent, and extensive colonies had been founded in the cotton regions. The general language was Inca, and that admirable system of irrigation and intensive culture which made Peru proper a garden had been introduced on the eastern slopes of the southern Andes.
The southern part of the great Bolivian plateau seems to have submitted quietly to the Spanish conquerors, and the stream of adventurers passed on to the south. In 1542, Diego de Rojas led the first expedition, of which a record has survived, down through the Humahuaca valley into the actual territory of the Argentine. He himself perished in a fight with a wild tribe near the main chain of the Andes, but his followers continued their march. Near Tucuman, they passed out from the mountain defiles unto the pampa, and, leaving the desert to their right penetrated through Santiago and Cordoba, to the Paraná.
No permanent settlement was then made, but the reports of thousands of peaceable and wealthy Indians inhabiting irrigated valleys, and the accounts of the magnificent pastures which stretched away to the east, soon tempted the Spaniards to take permanent possession. Seven years after the first exploration a town was founded in latitude 27°, midway between the Andes and the Paraná. About the same time other adventurers came pouring over the Andes from northern Chile, and this current soon joined that from the north. The Spaniards established themselves as feudal lords, and the unhappy Indians were divided among them. In one district, forty-seven thousand Indians were divided among fifty-six grantees. In 1553, Santiago de Estero, for many years the capital of the province of Tucuman was founded.
In 1561, the governor of Chile sent from Santiago de Chile over the Andes an expedition which founded the city of Mendoza in a most beautiful region, where the vine flourishes in perfection, and where a wonderful system of irrigation, inherited from the Indians, still exists to attest the latters' engineering skill. Next year San Juan was founded, and these two towns were the centres for the settlement of the province of Cuyo, which remained a part of Chile for two hundred years. The immigrants from northern Chile and Bolivia established Tucuman in the tropical garden spot of the republic in 1565. From Santiago del Estero, in 1573, an expedition was sent two hundred and fifty miles to the south to a region of fertile valleys and plains at the foot of a beautiful mountain range. This was Cordoba, which at once became, and has since remained, the most populous of the interior provinces.
By the end of the sixteenth century the Spanish power was firmly established in settlements that have since become the Argentine provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman, Catamarca, Santiago, Rioja, and Cordoba. All these really formed a southern extension of Upper Peru. Their geographical, political, and commercial relations were with Charcas, Potosí, and Lima. The discovery, in 1545, of the great silver mines at Potosí at once made the high Bolivian plateau, then known as the Audiencia of Charcas, the most valuable and important province of all the Spanish monarch's South American empire. In 1571, the discovery of quicksilver mines in Peru vastly increased the output of precious metals; in 1575, the wonderful Oruro mines were opened, and before the end of the century the copper-pan amalgamation process was invented in Bolivia, revolutionising the production of silver.
The resulting prosperity of the mining regions of Bolivia stimulated the settlement of the north-western provinces of the Argentine. The miners needed provisions which could not well be raised in the neighbourhood of Potosí. There was a demand for cattle for beef, and for horses and mules for transportation. A solid economic foundation was thus provided for the plains settlements, and the enslavement of the Indians and the breeding of cattle went on apace. By the end of the sixteenth century north-western Argentine—the province of Tucuman, as it was then called—was the seat of many thriving settlements