Charrua

The Charrúa and their neighbors the Guenoa and the Chaná lived in present-day Uruguay and the adjoining parts of Argentina and Brazil. They were semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers, moving with the seasons according to rain and drought. Almost all that is known of them before contact comes from the Spaniards.

Spanish chroniclers accused the Charrúa of killing Juan Díaz de Solís on his voyage up the Río de la Plata in 1515. Together with the Chaná, they resisted the Spanish invaders. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries cattle ranching altered their way of life and caused famine, and in 1831 the Uruguayan army massacred many of them at Salsipuedes.