Intermingling and colonization in Ruy Díaz de Guzmán’s La Argentina

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the idealization of the mestizo as a colonial agent in La Argentina: Historia del descubrimiento y la conquista del Río de la Plata (1612), written by Ruy Díaz de Guzmán, a XVIIth century author born in Asunción considered the first mestizo writer in the Río de la Plata. To begin with, we will take into consideration briefly the connection between the colonising project of the Spanish crown and Ruy Diaz’s intentions to link his linage and himself to the future of the conquerors’ project. Afterwards, we will discuss the importance assigned in the book to the “mancebos de la tierra” in meeting the Spanish goals, and analyse the intermingling as well as the discursive operations that Díaz de Guzmán uses to mention those whose lives’ blood mixes that of the colonizers and the colonized.