Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 528

"Honorable Attorney General: I report to you with a very complicated and heavy heart." In Buenos Aires, General Garcia, who has been in office for more than a year, is writing at his desk Quick book.His brows were slightly wrinkled, and he seemed to be troubled by something, and the manuscript was revised again and again, which showed his hesitation and irritability when he wrote.

"As you know, East Coasters set up a Reclamation Bureau in the area west of the Gran Cuchilla Mountains in early August to coordinate illegal settlement activities west of the entire range, which dwarfed us. Last Christmas Eve , I once inspected the production and management of the Kingdom's new settlements in the area east of the Uruguay River, but I have to admit that our management is very bad. There is a lack of suitable roads, and the roads will be washed away by floods during the rainy season, and officials who collect taxes even have to roll in muddy water."

"As of Christmas last year, we only had 1149 settlers there—mostly from Spain, and more than two-thirds of them were newcomers who had settled for less than three years. You know, colonizing the area east of the Uruguay River is The long-term plan formulated by the West India Institute of the Kingdom, but the two domestic companies in charge of colonizing this place are not full of enthusiasm for it. They have doubts about the huge amount of initial investment, and they have asked farmers who are willing to settle on the east bank. High, untimely fees, it's not normal for them to have their headquarters in Seville but not even have a branch management in the east coast."

"Despite the bravery and pioneering spirit of our Spaniards, and despite the administration of our General de la Plata district to the east coast, our colonization of the area has always been very slow. There are few people, no communication (whether it is lack of roads or ports), lack of funds (farmers even had to borrow to buy grain, livestock and farm implements), and insufficient defenses (to cope with harassment by barbarians and gauchos), these made people's interest in this land It was full of disappointment. Colonial corporations were disappointed that they didn't make enough money economically, and pioneer farmers were disappointed that they were heavily indebted to begin with, and that brought us serious criticism."

"We ask the pioneering farmers to move as far as possible inland and towards the Gran Cuccilla Mountains, but they always like to stay along the Uruguay River or the Rio de la Plata. Even if we drive them and force them to move, they will Always stop and go, and finally settled down halfway with his wife, children and family. Due to the poor traffic conditions between the various settlements, and the current situation of our lack of boats, many settlements - especially inland settlements ——Manual transmission of information is often required. In order to ensure the timely and smooth transmission of information, many people are forced to take on the role of postmen, which greatly reduces their labor time in the farmland. In addition to other For some reason, our intrepid settlers have only just become self-sufficient in food after several years of colonizing the East Coast. It is clear that they have no surplus food for our armies to fight there for long, and the failure of agriculture has greatly affected Our national strategy has been broken. For this reason, we have been forced to abandon the plan to establish military posts in the interior area, which will obviously delay the speed at which we get any news of the east coast area."

"Some of the military outposts we were forced to abandon have not caused too much bad impact in the south, but in the north, which is called the 'Lake West Hills' by the people on the east coast, they have caused irreparable damage. Many positions there tend to As our tribe was uprooted by the East Coast army, some vacillating intermediate tribes also accepted the control of the East Coast people. Here is an extreme example, there are three settled tribes in the Yakui River Valley, with a total population of more than 400 People. Ever since we gave up our attempt to establish a military outpost there because of supply problems, the East Coasters sent only five administrators and succeeded in convincing the collective hundreds of people in those three tribes that it was completely under East Coast rule. Should it alarm us?"

"Since the defeat of the last war (1633), we have carried out colonization activities against the East Coast people in La Plata and the East Coast area for No. 13 years, but there are very few results. The main reason for all this is our own lack of attention. The environment of the New World and Spain is completely different. Although there is a warm climate and fertile land here, our pioneers are still very unfamiliar with it. Moreover, they Many of them are not experienced farmers. Under the premise of lacking the necessary economic assistance and security, it is not difficult to understand their failure in colonization and psychological disappointment with the Kingdom government. Here I suggest that the colonization The company, the Kingdom of the West Indies, and the Governor-General of Peru allocate a special fund of 500 million pesos each year to support the settlers who went to the east of the Uruguay River for settlement, and to improve roads, ports and other transportation facilities; and the Governor-General of Peru must agree Exempt the new settlements for 20 years to encourage more people to come here to pioneer. Only in this way can we hope to take root in the east coast and compete with those heretics."

After writing these paragraphs, Supervisor Garcia breathed a sigh of relief.Then I saw him standing up, walking around the room for a few times, then returning to his desk, picking up a pen, as if he had made up his mind, and continued to write:

"In addition to our agricultural failures, our commercial failures are evident. The Colonia Market, as everyone knows, exists only for the purpose of providing shelter for flagrant smuggling. East Coasters, Dutchmen, Englishmen People, Portuguese, Hanseatic Germans, and even the damn French, all of them come to this port with ships full of goods to trade, even if they don't have any trading permits. Needless to say, the existence of this port It has made La Plata, Charcas and even Chile a lot more commodities on the market, but for some long-term Lima-Santiago, Lima-Potosi, Santiago-Asuncion, Asuncion-Bra The existence of this market was devastating to the gentlemen who traded between Enos Aires. The Kingdom of Spain benefited little from it, but the merchants of other countries made a fortune. It was like a The cut veins, where a group of vampires are wantonly sucking the blood of the Kingdom of Spain. I have no intention of repeating how many loyal officials of the Kingdom have been involved in the money trap, but the situation is really serious, so I decided to Close this trade market and cut off all black hands reaching out to us."

"As for what I said that the kingdom has not obtained reasonable benefits in this market, there is sufficient evidence. The merchants in our country do not have enough handmade products (in fact, industrial products produced by machines from the East Coast) to sell to foreign merchants. What they have The only things that can be exported are cheap wool, grain, fruit, livestock, furs, tallow, hard wood, etc. - the biggest buyers of these goods are East Coasters. And what are we importing? Hardware, metal Agricultural and kitchen implements, building materials, tanned or finished leather, dyes, textiles of all kinds, iron and steel, finished ship planks, embalming tar, soda ash, etc. Our position in this transaction is undoubtedly Unfairly, foreign goods flooded the markets of the New World, weakening us and strengthening our enemies."

"In the whole of last year, according to the statistics of my loyal subordinate, Mr. Jimenez from the newly built Montevideo outpost on the north bank of the Rio de la Plata, the people on the east bank sold more than 80 All kinds of goods in 40 pesos, which can be found everywhere in Buenos Aires, Asunción, Potosí, Santiago, Compceción, Valparaíso and even Lima, Guayaquil, etc. , it has occupied almost all the markets of our Viceroyalty of Peru. At the same time, we only exported various materials to them of less than [-] pesos, and the gap between them is extremely wide. Undoubtedly, our Interests have been seriously damaged."

"Mr. Jimenez also told us through his painstaking investigation that last year (1645) there were very many merchants from various countries active in the Colonia market, among which there were 78 merchants from the east bank (including the managerial employees of their state stores), There were 36 Portuguese merchants, 29 Dutch merchants, 18 English merchants, 14 French merchants, and only a poor 11 Spanish merchants—they were all representatives of major chambers of commerce. What did we see? We saw a carnival The smuggling feast! The dirty and shameless smugglers are wantonly plundering the interests that originally belonged to the Spanish merchants, and they are plundering the king’s income! The gentlemen of the West Indian Academy have been complaining to me that the business they share in is shrinking and their income is decreasing. Understand why the business in the Peruvian market has suddenly become so difficult. Maybe now we are fully aware of who took their interests away?"

"Finally, I have to report an unexpected incident to you. It is hard to say whether this is good news or bad news, because if this matter is handled well, it will bring an unimaginable new source of income to the kingdom. If it is handled If it is not good, then a large-scale war is imminent. The cause of the incident is very simple. When the soldiers we sent were exploring the terrain..."

Superintendent Garcia spent half an hour writing out the process of discovering the gold mine. After writing this, he put a few pages of letter paper into an envelope, sealed it, and called his confidant servant, telling him to send the letter to the envelope immediately. The letter was sent to Santiago as soon as possible, and handed over to His Excellency the Inspector General.

(End of this chapter)