author
Ulrich Schmidel
A 16th-century German soldier and traveler, he left one of the earliest firsthand accounts of the Río de la Plata region. His vivid chronicle brings the hardships, ambitions, and violence of early colonial South America uncomfortably close.
2 Audiobooks
The Conquest of the River Plate (1535-1555)
by Ulrich Schmidel, active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Viage al Rio de La Plata y Paraguay
by Ulrich Schmidel
About the author
Born in Straubing in Bavaria around 1510, Ulrich Schmidel served as a landsknecht in the Spanish expeditions to South America. He spent about twenty years in the Río de la Plata region, taking part in campaigns connected with the early colonial ventures around present-day Argentina, Paraguay, and neighboring areas.
He is best remembered for writing a detailed travel chronicle, commonly known in English as The True History of a Remarkable Voyage. Published in the 1560s after his return to Europe, it became an important early account of the foundation of Buenos Aires, the journey inland, and encounters between Europeans and Indigenous peoples. The book is valued both as an adventure narrative and as a revealing record of the colonial world he witnessed.
Schmidel later returned to the German lands and is associated with Regensburg in his final years, where he died around 1580 or 1581. Today, his writing remains a notable source for readers interested in exploration, conquest, and the uneasy beginnings of European settlement in South America.