This novel is set in the sixteenth century Argentina of the earliest Spanish settlements, when Juan de Garay came down the Parana River from Asuncion, Paraguay, to found the of Santa Fe in 1573. After he left Santa Fe in early 1580, to re-establish the port of Buenos Aires, seven of the mestizos who had been among Santa Fe's first settlers rose up in rebellion against the Spanish town authorities. This is the historical setting where this novel begins, as an old soldier who came down the river with Garay remembers the hardships and violent injustices of the town's first years.