History of Mendoza

The first inhabitants of the Province of Mendoza seem to have been nomadic groups who hunted animals and collected wild products. Some stone tools and utensils made by these earliest inhabitants can be found in the borders of the Atuel and Diamante Rivers.

Later, these first inhabitants would become skillful hunters. Guanacos and ñandúes (American ostriches) would be part of their hunting pieces after they extinguished animals such as the milodón, rests of which could be found in the “Cueva del Indio” (Indian’s Cave). From the end of this period, we can find remains of funeral rituals, basketwork and the beginning of an agricultural culture which would indicate the introduction of more consolidated civilizations.

At the beginning of the Christian Age, there appeared the first sedentary agro-pottery cultures: Agrelo and Viluco. These people would have adopted plant cultivation, ceramics or pottery, spinning and loom weaving.

By the year 700 A.D., the first contacts with other cultures had already started. Tiahuanaco would influence with its politically and socially organized civilization.Later, between 1450 and 1550, the Inca Empire, due to its expansive militarist period, entered the Uspallata valley transferring their culture to the Vilucos and thus generating the Huarpe culture.

When the Spaniards arrived, Mendoza was dominated by the Huarpes, pacific and sedentary people who, by means of irrigation channels, fecundated the lands of the Huentala valley for the cultivation of corn and potato. Since then, Mendoza has used the same irrigation system to make agriculture possible, transforming the desert into an oasis.

The Puelches, carob tree collectors and also hunters, were found between the Diamante and the Barrancas Rivers. They were related to the Pehuenches, who extended further to the south but who kept tight relationships through the mountain paths with the trans-Andean Araucanos, whose language they adopted. The Uspallata valley sheltered the Incas, and the extensive and fishing-rich lakes of Guanacache, in Lavalle, were the settlement of the “Laguneros” (inhabitants of the lagoons), skillful builders of cattail boats.

The first Spaniards to arrive to Mendoza came under the command of Francisco Villagra, who, as the mountain paths were blocked by the snow, decided to settle a camping site, started relationships with the Huarpes, and recognized the province until the Diamante River. Pedro de Valdivia, immediately after getting to know about the good relationships with the original inhabitants, started to give territorial entrustments. The Spanish population settlement would not happen until 10 years later, in the year 1561, when Captain Pedro del Castillo founded the city in the place which is now known as Foundational Area.

The city was baptized with name “Mendoza Nuevo Valle de Rioja” (Mendoza New Rioja Valley) and it was included in the jurisdiction of the General Captaincy of Chile. Later, in the year 1776, it would become part of the Rio de la Plata Viceroyalty, and the Andean Mountain Range would thus acquire its present condition of political frontier.

In the year 1861, the old city was destroyed by an earthquake, so it was re-founded in what today is “Independencia” (Independence) Square, which became the new neuralgic center of the city.

LThe newly built houses started being l“Independencia” (Independence) Square, which became the new neuralgic ower and the streets wider so as to allow an easy evacuation to parks and squares. The city then began to have the physiognomy we can currently observe.

As witnesses of the past, the Ruins of San Francisco have remained standing. Near here, we can now visit the Museum of the Foundational Area, which was built over the old Cabildo and where an important part of the history of our province can be observed.