Ulrich Schmidel

author

Ulrich Schmidel

A German soldier and chronicler of the early Spanish expeditions in South America, he left behind one of the best-known firsthand accounts of the Río de la Plata region in the 1500s. His writing blends adventure, hardship, and close observation of a world being violently reshaped.

2 Audiobooks

The Conquest of the River Plate (1535-1555)

The Conquest of the River Plate (1535-1555)

by active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Ulrich Schmidel

Viage al Rio de La Plata y Paraguay

Viage al Rio de La Plata y Paraguay

by Ulrich Schmidel

About the author

Born in Straubing in Bavaria around 1510, Ulrich Schmidel joined the expedition of Pedro de Mendoza and spent roughly twenty years in South America, from the 1530s to the 1550s. He took part in campaigns and settlements in the Río de la Plata region, including the area around present-day Argentina and Paraguay, before eventually returning to Europe.

He is remembered above all for his chronicle of those years, usually known in English as The Voyage of Ulrich Schmidel to the River Plate. Written from personal experience, it is valued as an early eyewitness account of conquest, survival, conflict, and colonial life in the region.

Schmidel died in 1581. Though he was a soldier rather than a literary stylist in the modern sense, his record has endured because it preserves a vivid, ground-level view of a formative and often brutal period in South American history.