The Survivor

Book Cover to my forthcoming novel, 'The Red Masks Of Montevideo', a story of the history of Uruguay from 1516 to 1970. Meghan Allbright once again did a grand job with the font and intricate graphic design

THE SURVIVOR:

One of the protagonists of my forthcoming novel, The Red Masks of Montevideo, is the Spanish conquistador, Juan Diaz de Solis, who met a violent end against the Charrua Indians in a skirmish in 1516. The events of this are covered in the second chapter of my novel, entitled The Survivor.  Most professional historians on the era don’t know exactly where he was born, or know much about his early life, though some speculate he came into this world somewhere in Portugal. One thing for certain that we do know, however, is that he started his naval career in the service the Portuguese crown, under the name Joao Dias de Solis. He quickly built up a reputation as a pilot in the India Armadas. Eventually, de Solis found himself in the service of the Spanish, where he was employed as a navigator in Pilot-Major Vicente Yanez Pinzon expeditions to the Yucatán peninsula and Brazil in the 1510s.

Some years later, Diaz de Solíis, by orders of the Spanish crown, left Sanlucar de Barrameda, in Spain, and sailed south to explore regions the Spanish had not yet reached on the new continent. His journey took him down the coast of Brazil, until he reached the mouth of the Rio de la Plata in 1516, which he in fact named. From there he sailed upriver towards the confluence of the Uruguay and Parana rivers, respectively. Once in this region, he encountered aggressive savages, the Charrua Indians, who killed many of his men. The final stand came in a pitched battle, which is the main story arc of the chapter, The Survivor. The ‘survivor’ being Francisco del Puerto, a fictional character based on the historical figure Francisco de Torres, Diaz de Solis’ brother-in-law who survived the attack and left with his remaining men back to Spain. In my story, Francisco del Puerto is the lone survivor, and is given clemency by the leader of the Charruas, Paimaca Tacuavue:

“He shall not die today.” He turned to his warriors and faced them. “He shall not die today! He shall not die ever! He shall return from where he came, and there he shall tell his chief that the Charrua people will not be defeated!”

A monument of some Charrua Indians in Uruguay. Photo Source: Wikicommons

Historical facts and data are lacking in Uruguay from pre-colonial times, so the name for the Charrua cacique, or chief, Paimaca Tacuavue, has been totally invented by me. I had many sleepless nights (that’s a lie, I always sleep like a baby) trying to come up with credible names for the indigenous peoples who are described in my book. In later chapters, (which I may hopefully describe in future posts) many of the Charrua from Uruguay or the Guarani from Paraguay and Brazil adopted Spanish Christian and/or surnames, so it wasn’t such a complicated task. However, before these natives’ contact with Europeans in the early 16th century, they had their own names, obviously. One book that helped me in that journey was Charruas, Guenoas y Guaraníes: Interaccion y Destruccion: Indígenas en el Rio de la Plata (The Charruas, Guenoas and  Guaranií: Interaction and Destruction: Indigenous in the De la Plata River), by Diego Bracco,  as well as Los charruas, (The Charruas) by Juan Jose Rossi, both invaluable scholarly resources that were by my side during my extensive research on the topic and era. Although they were both in Spanish as no English translations exist, and my Spanish is only rudimentary – I managed to get the specific information I needed to make the names sound half-authentic. If, while reading my book there are people who disagree with my choices, please feel free to email me with your proposals and solutions. I would be grateful for the constructive feedback.

So, I hope all the headaches and dog days of research all work out in the end, and readers will appreciate the effort I have put into it by enjoying the chapter The Survivor as well as the rest of the book. Remember, plans for releasing The Red Masks of Montevideo are for some time in December 2018 or at the very latest January 2019. As usual, the book will be available as an ebook and paperback at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.