On the Tucuman trail.

• Author: Gil-Montero, Martha
• Position: The Northwestern provinces of Argentina

FOR MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES, trains of mules loaded with earthware created by the potters of Santiago del Estero, or weavings and metals from Salta and San Salvador de Jujuy, or even more importantly, cotton, rice, wheat and corn from San Miguel de Tucuman, marched up the Tucuman trail each fall to the mining areas of Upper Peru and further on to Pacific ports from which they would be shipped to Spain. Conversely, each spring gold, silver, Spanish products and news from far away places traveled by mule down the same trail. If there is one creature that merits credit for the development of this part of America, it is the patient, sturdy, offspring of the mare and the jackass, making possible the transportation of goods over the rugged mountain passes at very high altitudes.

All the trails that crisscrossed the Puna (plateau), the Humahuaca canyon and nearby vales existed long before the European learned what riches or dangers lay beyond each magnificent mountain or pristine valley, before Quechua names began to be replaced by Spanish words and before borders were drawn. Aborigines first traced them and later fiercely guarded these inroads into their kingdoms. The main trail was forged by Incas who moved south from Peru and established a fortress in the vicinity of Tucuman. The few who remained behind were able, in time, to build camps and hold in check the raids of nomadic warriors. As they subdued or befriended other tribes, the Incas lived from the fertile land and continued to produce their traditional wares. And after the summer rains, when the Tucuman trail became passable again, they went northward to barter their goods.

The Spanish conquistadors arrived late to the region where Bolivia and Argentina now meet because it was far from the sea ports where in the early sixteenth century they had landed, conquered and founded cities. But these bearded adventurers, who would never relent in their aim to add new territories to the Spanish empire, felt intimidated neither by the unknown nor by the difficult terrain of the Altiplano and the Puna. From the 1550s until the 1590s, prompted by greed and the mandates of their faith, small armies of conquistadors left Upper Peru and proceeded along the road the Incas had trod upon ages before with equally imperious intentions, en route to Jujuy, Salta and Tucuman. The uniformity of physical traits in the whole region convinced the Spaniards that their appetite for gold and silver, which the wealth found in Peru and Potosi merely whetted, could be realized further south in Tucuman. It was not to be so. Nonetheless, in their "visits", men like Francisco de Aguirre (who in the 1550s conceived and fostered the notion that Tucuman was Eldorado), Hernando de Lerma (who founded Salta in 1582), and Francisco de Arganaras (founder of San Salvador de Jujuy) transformed the camps where Incas and other Indian tribes had lived and toiled for generations into towns that still endure. Besides the existence of royal decrees that bound this region to Lima, Upper...