Charrua

The Charrúa were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers of the grasslands around the Río de la Plata, ranging in the sixteenth century between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers and later centred on Uruguay. They summered on the coast fishing, wintered inland hunting deer and rhea with bolas, and once cattle and horses spread across the pampas, livestock raids called malones became central to their life.

Their encounter with Europeans was violent from the start, chroniclers blaming them for the killing of Juan Díaz de Solís in 1515; with the Chaná they long resisted colonial settlement. In the eighteenth century they warred against the Guaraní missions and mingled with the Minuane and others, until writers applied Charrúa to the confederacy.

Their independent life ended in 1831, when Fructuoso Rivera's army carried out the Massacre of Salsipuedes, killing most and selling survivors into service; the remnant dispersed and their language died with them.