Buenos Ayres

Title

Buenos Ayres

Description

Total view of Buenos Aires in Argentina with a ship offshore and staffage figures in the foreground.

ca. 1845

Artist

Kunstanstalt Hildburghausen (1828-1874)

The German publishing company Bibliographisches Institut was founded 1826 in Gotha by Joseph Meyer, moved 1828 to Hildburghausen and 1874 to Leipzig. Its production over the years includes such well-known titles as Meyers Lexikon.

Historical Description

The Europeans first reached the region with Amerigo Vespucci's trip in 1502. Today's Argentina was colonized by the Spaniards from two directions in the 16th century. From the estuary of the Río Paraná on the Atlantic, Spanish branches were founded on the river system of the Río de la Plata ("Silver River"), including Buenos Aires in 1536. The Spaniards were only able to establish themselves there permanently in 1580, after the first attempt at founding a building had failed due to the resistance of the indigenous pampas inhabitants. After the La Plata colony was initially administered from Asunción, which was founded in 1537, after the rise of the re-founded Buenos Aires to become the most important economic location of the colony in the course of the 17th century, the southern part of the Silver Land was increasingly separated from the northern part, the present-day Paraguay. The north-western parts of what is now Argentina (especially in the Gran Chaco) were taken by the Spaniards from Peru in the 1540s. The areas of present-day Argentina (Patagonia) further south of Buenos Aires in the southern cone remained in fact outside of Spanish rule during the colonial period. They were ruled for about 300 years by Indian horsemen (Puelche), who were in an exciting cultural exchange with the colonists. In several campaigns in the 19th century, the colonists and their descendants conquered the areas with great losses on the part of the indigenous population. At the same time, the Mapuche peoples from western Patagonia were able to maintain a high degree of independence until well into the mid-19th century.