Battling The Natives Along The Rio De La Plata
At the River Plate, the Spaniards encountered a group of roughly three thousand natives dispersed throughout the surrounding area known as the Querandíes, who shared with them their food, however scarce. In spite of this, the Spaniards soon took the natives and their generosity for granted and as a result, the Querandíes ended relations with the white men and relocated further away from the Spanish settlement. Angered by the sudden hostility, Mendoza sent his brother to lead a force against the natives.
Even though hundreds of natives were killed, Mendoza's brother was slain as well, along with thirty of his men and several horses at the Battle of the Luján River. The natives were driven off after that bloody battle and their provisions were taken, but the fight was very costly to the Spaniards.
Read more about this topic: Pedro De Mendoza
Famous quotes containing the words natives and/or rio:
“Here was a little of everything in a small compass to satisfy the wants and the ambition of the woods,... but there seemed to me, as usual, a preponderance of children’s toys,—dogs to bark, and cats to mew, and trumpets to blow, where natives there hardly are yet. As if a child born into the Maine woods, among the pine cones and cedar berries, could not do without such a sugar-man or skipping-jack as the young Rothschild has.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I hear ... foreigners, who would boycott an employer if he hired a colored workman, complain of wrong and oppression, of low wages and long hours, clamoring for eight-hour systems ... ah, come with me, I feel like saying, I can show you workingmen’s wrong and workingmen’s toil which, could it speak, would send up a wail that might be heard from the Potomac to the Rio Grande; and should it unite and act, would shake this country from Carolina to California.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)