Matters of boundaries and
frontiers possessed no interest whatever for these Paolistas or
Mamelucos, by which latter name the swashbuckling members of this
community were better known.
[Illustration: FRANCISCO PIZARRO.
The Conqueror of Peru.
_From an engraving after the original portrait in the Palace of the
Viceroys at Lima._
_A. Rischgitz._]
In the first instance, these forays were responsible for comparatively
little friction, since the number of Indians near at hand was as
plentiful as the neighbouring white men were rare. When the nearer land
became depopulated, however, it began to be necessary to extend the
expeditions farther afield from Sao Paolo, and it was then that the
Mamelucos came into contact with the growing numbers of the Spanish
settlers, and with the Indians who now resided beneath the protection of
the Spanish power. When the Jesuit missionaries arrived in Northern
Uruguay and in Southern Paraguay their advent had the effect of
embittering the feud between the frontiersmen; for the Jesuits, forming
the Indians into companies of their own, withdrew them still farther
from the onslaughts of the Paolistas. These latter determined at all
costs to capture and to drive back their gangs of slaves, became more
and more emboldened, and pushed forward to the south and west well into
the Spanish territories, harrying the missionary settlements, and laying
waste the countryside.
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