Volume 1

The history of Paraguay. Containing ... a full and authentic account of the establishments formed there by the Jesuits, from among the savage natives ... establishments allowed to have realized the sublime ideas of Fenelon, Sir Thomas Moore, and Plato / Written originally in French. By the celebrated Father Charlevoix.

  • Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de, 1682-1761.
Date:
1769
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of Paraguay. Containing ... a full and authentic account of the establishments formed there by the Jesuits, from among the savage natives ... establishments allowed to have realized the sublime ideas of Fenelon, Sir Thomas Moore, and Plato / Written originally in French. By the celebrated Father Charlevoix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mandes were. Let it fuffice, for the p relent, to fay, that they confided of a certain number of In¬ dian illbjefts, who were obliged to ferve thole to whom they were granted. But, there not being, as yet, enough of theie poor creatures to fupply all the Spaniards, who laid claim to their fervices, thegoverncr, by the advice of the biffiop and all thole who 1 a 1 a right of voting in the council, re- folved to form new fettlements of the natives, of whom they thought themfelves intitled to difpofe, ac the fame time that they knew it was impopible to do it, till they fixed them tofome certain fpot. r The year following, the governor fent 1d57* captain Rui Diaz Melgarejo into the pro¬ vince of Guayra, by which was underdood all the country watered by the Parana, above the great fall and the rivers that flow into it. Melgarejo, after furveying a great deal of it, found the fit nation of the city of Guayra but indifferent. He, there¬ fore, took all the inhabitants out of it ^ and, hav¬ ing tranfported them to the other fide of the Pa¬ rana, he there traced out, on the banks of it but three leagues higher, near the place where it receives the little river Piquiri, a new. town, which he called Ciudad Real. The air here is not over wholfome ; but, in other refpe&s, the fituation is very advantageous. Fifh, and land game efi pecially, are found herein the greateft plenty. Forty thoufand Indians were given to the inhabitants of the place, who found no great difficulty in bring¬ ing them to cultivate the earth, which, in a fhort time, rewarded their pains with plentiful crops of grain, pulle, and cotton. Some memoirs fay, that vines and fugar canes were planted here with fomc fuccefs. At the fame time that Irala fent Melgarejo into the province of Guayra, hedifpatched Nuflo de Cha¬ ves, with two hundred and twenty foldiers, and three ; thou-