In 1535 the Adelantado, Don Pedro de Mendoza, on his way to Paraguay with one of the most brilliant expeditions ever equipped in Spain for South America, landed to recruit his people near the spot where Buenos Ayres now stands, and caused a fort to be built there for the first time, in which he left what he supposed a sufficient garrison for its defence; but he was mistaken--the warlike natives as soon as he was gone drove out the Spanish soldiers, and remained for nearly another half-century in undisturbed possession of all that part of the country.[12]
It was not till the year 1580 that the famous Don Juan de Garay, then in Paraguay, determined once more to endeavour to form a permanent settlement in the same neighbourhood. In this attempt the Spaniards as before met with a most obstinate resistance on the part of the natives, who attacked them armed with their formidable slings (the bolas now used by the gauchos) and with bows and arrows, to which they tied burning matches, which set fire not only to their tents but to their shipping. De Garay's little band, which only consisted of sixty men-at-arms, was at first well nigh overwhelmed by the number of the savages who poured down upon them bravely fighting for their lands. On both sides prodigies of individual valour are related. The death, however, of the Cacique, who commanded in chief, seems to have decided the battle; the Indians, seeing him fall, fled, followed by the victors till they were weary of killing them: and such was the slaughter that to this day the scene of the engagement is called _La Matanza_, or "the Killing Ground."
After this victory De Garay took formal possession of the country in the King of Spain's name, and founded the present city of Buenos Ayres--A.D. 1580.
For two centuries the settlement thus planted languished in insignificance, abandoned to its own resources, and the mother country, to all appearance, fearing rather than desiring its aggrandizement: nor was this without cause;--Spain, in fact, lost so immensely by the contraband trade carried on from Peru, through the river Plate, that she became accustomed to regard with something more than indifference a possession which in consequence of her own prohibitory and restrictive system, was totally unproductive to her, whilst the facilities it offered for illicit trading made it a fruitful source of grievance and of disputes with other nations.