Description

Acarete du Biscay was a Frenchman, possibly of Basque origin, about whom very little is known. In December 1657 he embarked from Cádiz, Spain for the Plate River region of South America, posing as the nephew of a Spanish gentleman to circumvent a ban by Spain on visits by foreigners to its New World possessions. In 1658 he traveled overland across the Argentine pampas to the silver mines of Potosí, located in present-day Bolivia. In 1672, Acarete published an account of this trip in his native French. A later version ...