Alejo Garcia Killed by Guarani after Invasion of Inca Empire. 1526.

Alejo Garcia, famous for his understanding of the Guarani language, was killed along with most of his crew, by the Guarani inhabitants on his return to the eastern side of the Paraguay River. The same inhabitants who accompanied him and his crew along their voyage to plunder the Inca Empire in the southern mountains of Peru.

Alejo Garcia was sent by Martim Affonso de Souza to the interior of Paraguay along the River Paraguay where he came across several villages of Guarani inhabitants. Him and his crew were well received by the Guarani and he persuaded them to accompany him on a westward voyage across the Paraguay River to the mountains of Southern Peru hoping to bring backs goods to be used for many purposes, including war.

Alejo Garcia and his crew of two thousand Guarani made their way through westward Paraguay, a heavily forested and mountainous land inhabited by several groups of cannibal indigenous natives known as the Chaco. Due to the Chaco's warlike lifestyle Garcia and his Guarani crew were forced to fight their way across the Chaco territory until they reached the southern mountains of Peru, the tip of the Inca Empire. It was there they found villages inhabitated by the Inca whom they plundered and killed until they were met by an overwhelming force and were forced to return to Paraguay and the plains of the Guarani inhabitants.

Upon their return to the plains of eastern Paraguay the Guarani natives killed Garcia and his entire crew minus Garcia's young son. Luckily, Garcia had dispatched two of his crew to Brazil to tell Martim Affonso de Souza of his discoveries. Unfortunate for us, we still know little about these inhabitants of on both sides of the Paraguay river. Luckily I received news of Garcia's exploits of considerable wealth and the untimely death of him and his crew. I plan on making a voyage to learn more as soon as possible.

Sebastian Cabot.


Nordenskiold, B. E. (1917). The Guarani Invasion of the Inca Empire in the Sixteenth Century: An Historical Indian Migration. Geographical Review, 4(2), 103-121.

Paraguay: A Country Study. Hanratty, Dannin M. and Meditz, Sandra W. (Ed.) Washington, D.C.: Washington GPO for the Library of Congress. 1988. http://countrystudies.us/paraguay/.