Sancti Spiritu (Argentina)

Sancti Spiritu (also Sancti Spiritus ) was the first Spanish settlement on the territory of modern Argentina. It was founded on February 27, 1527 by Sebastián Gaboto on the Río Paraná about 60 km north of present-day Casper, but had to be abandoned already in 1529. Today is located near the ruins of the settlement of the town of Puerto Gaboto.

History

The expedition of Gaboto originally had the Moluccas as a goal that should be reached through the Strait of Magellan. However, on the island of Santa Catalina, she met survivors of the expedition of Juan Díaz de Solís, the discoverer of the Río de la Plata, who was killed in an Indian attack in 1517 killed. These reported Gaboto of a Sierra de la Plata, a mountain range in which it should be large deposits of silver and with the present-day Peru was meant. Gaboto then decided arbitrarily to cancel the expedition to the Moluccas and instead to conquer this mountain.

Sancti Spiritu was then, together with another fortress in what is now Uruguay, the Gaboto gave the name long used Banda Oriental, founded on the banks of the Paraná River as a base. It consisted of 20 houses, in which about 200 people attended. Relations with the Indians of the region were initially very friendly, so this helped with both the construction of the settlement as well as in agriculture around the place. In the chapel of the site the first weddings between Indians and Spaniards have been made in the region.

Due to a miscalculation of Gaboto who tried to gain for small offenses in this respect by the harsh punishment of the Indians, tipped the ratio between the two groups in the year 1529th In September this raided the settlement, took it, and killed many of the conquistadors. Gaboto itself was in when not in Sancti Spiritu incident. When he found out, he returned to Spain, where he was sentenced to four years in exile because of the disregard of the rules of his superiors to travel to the Moluccas. His short stories over the Sierra del Plata influenced many sailors who, departed in the following decades with the aim to find these to South America.

1573 Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera tried, the place to start new, to get a port for the just created city of Córdoba. However, due to a dispute with Juan de Garay, the founder of Buenos Aires, it did not happen. Not until 1891 that a settlement on the site was built under the name Puerto Gaboto again.

Sancti Spiritu in the literature

One popular legend in Argentina, which was made famous by the Paraguayan writer Ruy Díaz de Guzmán in 1610 in a poem which tells of the Andalusian Lucía Miranda, who lived in Sancti Spiritu with her husband Sebastián Hurtado. The chief of the local Native American group fell in love with her, but because she rejected him, Lucía and her husband were killed. This was according to legend, the true reason for the destruction of Sancti Spiritu. So far it has not been demonstrated, however, that a woman was involved in the expedition, but the existence of Hurtado is occupied.