American Demons

Iberian Mandarins

Domingo Martínez de Irala did not tolerate anyone above him. Rarely openly, often secretly, he defied the imperial divine grace. He had nothing to do with the Iberian mandarins. Irala founded his own empire in the New World. Nineteenth-century historiography ignores the phenomenon by saying: after Mendoza's inglorious departure, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca emerged as governor of Paraguay. Irala worked with him. Although the subordinate was a capable human abuser, he was not even fit for the cabinet.

That's true for once. Irala lacked the suppleness of the hanger-on of royalty. He had never kept the sun out of any king's body with a parasol, nor had he allowed any queen to pull him behind the paravent. He didn't ask. He ordered. Joseph Conrad claimed that he had Irala in mind when he made his hero Marlow see the horror in the form of Kurtz.

Yes, Kurtz is Irala. He is beyond civilization. It stinks to him. Irala founded Asunción, he made the settlement the capital, but he himself lived in a jungle fortress on the Río Paraguay. He empowers himself. He runs the new colony without a mandate, sometimes with sometimes without a superior. He appoints himself captain general and starts "a wild soldier rule". 

Irala is the prototype of the "violent adventurer". He follows the Río Paraguay and founds Asunción. He begins to target the locals. The original population impoverishes and dies.

"Irala's harsh arbitrary rule and suck-out system do not allow for prosperous conditions to arise."

All quotes are from Pero Vaz de Caminha. The marine writer accompanied Mendoza to the New World and stayed there as a chronicler of the colonial mischief. His notes are also interesting because he made no secret of his dislikes. He detested the usurpers. This is how he stated: "With Pedro de Mendoza, the last pillar of legal order disappeared from the heavily afflicted colony of Paraguay."

Charles V had appointed his cupbearer Mendoza as governor of the Río de la Plata region, but it took far greater meanness than a simple brutalist like Mendoza could muster to turn Paraguay into a penal colony for the original population. Above all, however, it needed a more powerful one - a megalomaniacal ambition. 

Mendoza wanted a lot, but not everything. Domingo Martínez de Irala wants nothing less than anything else. Irala de facto inherits Mendoza. He rules Paraguay sometimes with and sometimes without the consent of the Spanish crown.