X

Very different was the experience of Pedro de Valdivia in Chile. Unlike these other adventurers, when he set out it was not in the expectation of finding any great store of gold, since Almagro had reported that the inhabitants were poor, but with the intention of conquering the country and converting it into a province of Peru. In accomplishing only a part of this purpose, he was to have a far more difficult task, had he but known it, and many more Spanish lives were to be sacrificed, than in all the other conquests put together. It had already been discovered by Almagro, however, that as far south as he had gone, the natives were subjects of the Inca and that their civilization and system of irrigation and agriculture had been brought to almost as high a standard. He had advanced down the great central valley as far as the river Maule, finding everywhere a population as dense, probably, as that which exists to-day, and had met with little resistance, probably because of the presence in his party of the brother of the Inca, until he reached the boundary of the empire and encountered the independent tribes beyond, and there met his reverse.

As a consequence, misled by this favorable experience with the northern tribes and his own with the easily conquered natives of Peru, Valdivia took with him, besides his Indian auxiliaries, only about two hundred Spaniards and a number of women belonging to their families. He soon found that, since they had learned of the execution of Huascar and Atahualpa and that the new Inca, Manco Capac, was little more than a mere puppet of Pizarro’s, the disposition even of these northern tribes had changed; that they now regarded themselves as released from their vassalage. He found also that, although they all spoke the same language and appeared to belong to the same race, they still maintained their tribal organizations, each with its own Cacique and entirely distinct from the others; that the Inca socialistic system had not been adopted, and that individually they were democratic, resentful of encroachments on their liberty, and self-reliant. Hardly had he entered their country when his troubles began. To this second invasion, these people, who had only looked askance at Almagro, now promptly showed their hostility. Their lack of efficient military organization and concert of action made it easy, however, to overcome what resistance they could offer on the spur of the moment, and Valdivia succeeded in pushing on for several hundred miles until he came to the section of the valley through which flows the river Mapocho.

There, fascinated doubtless by the gorgeousness of the environment, he selected a site at the river side, at the base of an isolated hill (called Santa Lucia), in the midst of the broad plain that lies between the two great mountain ranges, two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and founded the city of Santiago, which has ever since remained the capital. Following Pizarro’s example, among the first buildings he caused to be erected were the Cathedral and Bishop’s house, and afterward, and only just in time to save the colony from annihilation, he fortified Santa Lucia, for the town itself was soon attacked by an overwhelming force of Indians and half the houses burned to the ground before they could be driven off with the help of an exploring party that opportunely returned. This was only one of many such vicissitudes, in the course of which, so beset were the invaders and so reduced did their number and the health of the survivors become by privations and fighting, that all but Valdivia were for abandoning the conquest and making a dash for Peru.

Mutiny was only prevented by the discovery of gold in the mountains near by and the arrival of reinforcements from Lima. After that he was enabled to found the town of Coquimbo on the coast about two hundred and fifty miles north of the capital, and visit Peru to arrange for the sending of more colonists and supplies. While there he assisted in the suppression of Gonzalo Pizarro’s revolt, and had no difficulty in inducing a large body of adventurers to go back with him, for Lima now was swarmed with men who were eager enough to win lands and slaves or take their chance of making their fortunes in the mines. “With their help,” says Dawson, “the conquest and settlement of all Chile as far south as the Maule was effectually completed. The land was apportioned among the cavaliers, each becoming a sort of feudal baron, and in effect creating a landed aristocracy which has continued to rule the country to the present day.”

In 1544, Valdivia founded Valparaiso, the seaport of the capital, and rebuilt Coquimbo, which had been taken and burned by the neighboring Indians during his absence in Peru. He then devoted several years to making good his conquest and firmly establishing the colony, and in 1550 turned his attention to the country south of the Maule. Between the Maule and the Bio-bio were the Promaucians and their kindred tribes, and south of the Bio-bio was a confederacy composed of tribes, also related by blood and language, which inhabited the forests and mountains and lake region for a stretch of two hundred miles. Chief among these were the Araucanians—the one unconquered aboriginal race in the new world, the one aboriginal race in America, North or South, that never was conquered by Europeans, the one race that checked the victorious march of the Spaniards and compelled them, after more than a hundred years of almost incessant warfare, to acknowledge their independence and accept the Bio-bio as the southern boundary of the Spanish possessions—not warfare of the usual desultory, treacherous Indian sort, but warfare abounding in formal campaigns and sieges and pitched battles, in which large armies were engaged, in numbers often evenly matched.

Inferiorly armed with clubs, spears, and bows and arrows, their bodies protected only by leather cuirasses, they met the Spaniards and their native auxiliaries in open field and charged and fought them hand to hand, and defeated them too in many a Homeric fray in spite of the steel armor and swords of the Conquistadores and their cavalry, artillery, and firearms. Inspired by admiration, a chivalrous Castilian, the soldier-poet Alonso de Ercilla, who was himself in some of the fights, has told the first part of the story in his historical epic in thirty-seven cantos—the story of how their lion-hearted chief, Caupolican, undismayed by defeat in the first encounter, persisted until he had destroyed an army of the invaders and driven the survivors back to Santiago; how, when wounded and helpless, he was captured at last and underwent torture and death with the stoicism of a Mohawk; how his wife, indignant at his having permitted himself to be taken alive, ran to the scaffold and threw their baby at his feet, crying out that she would no longer be the mother of the child of a coward; how the brilliant young Lautero took three Spanish strongholds, invaded the country north of the Bio-bio, defeated every army that was sent against him, and laid siege to Santiago itself; how the fiery Tucapel, while besieging a Spanish fort, scaled the wall alone, ran the gantlet of the garrison, killed four mail-clad Spaniards in fighting his way through, and escaped by leaping from a cliff; how another of their chiefs, moved to pity by the straits to which he had reduced a town he was besieging, gallantly challenged the Spanish commander to single combat, on condition that if he should defeat him the town must be surrendered, but that if he were himself defeated the siege would be raised, and how, when he was killed, the Indians kept the compact and withdrew—and many other such stories, some of them rivaling those told of the Scottish chiefs.[[1]]

[1]. The story of the Araucanian wars is told in full in Hancock’s “History of Chile.”

These Araucanians “had not felt the influence of Peruvian culture,” says Hawthorne; they were “still in their healthy, primitive condition. In person,” he goes on—

“Most of them were tall, strong, and active, with a complexion of light, reddish brown, sometimes approaching white. They had a copious language, cooked their food, made bread and brewed a dozen kinds of spirituous liquors. Cities, in the Peruvian sense, they had none, but lived in patriarchal hamlets, ruled by ulmens, who were in turn subject to a cacique of the tribe. Each farmer was master of his own field; there was none of that land ownership by the state that obtained in Peru.... They made cloth garments, which their women adorned with embroidery and dyed with vegetable or animal extracts. They manufactured a kind of soap, and their utensils were of well-fashioned pottery, wood and marble.... They went to sea in canoes and fished with fish hooks. They knew something of astronomy and physics and had some rather crude notions of drawing and carving. They called themselves Children of the Sun, and are supposed to have worshiped the sun and moon; they had the red man’s vision of happy hunting grounds after death, and believed that those who died fighting in battle were certain of a happy immortality.... Cleanly they were in the extreme, in this respect offering a sharp contrast to their invaders.... They took particular pains to keep their magnificent teeth white and clean, and were careful to remove all hairs from their faces and bodies. The women were dressed in woolen garments of a green color, with a cloak and girdle; the men wore shirts and breeches, woolen caps and footgear, and over all capacious woolen ponchos (capes). The military system was efficiently organized.”

Having learned that the Araucanians and Promaucians were hereditary enemies, Valdivia’s first step toward the conquest of the former’s country was to form an alliance with the latter and to establish a base of supplies at the mouth of the Bio-bio, where he founded the city of Concepcion, and, during the year 1551, occupied himself in fortifying it and making preparations for the invasion. On the arrival of reinforcements he had sent for, he advanced a hundred and fifty miles south, and, encountering but little opposition, founded the city of Imperial, and from that point pushed on a hundred miles farther and founded the city to which he gave his name. On the way back in 1553 he built several forts and at Santiago found awaiting him a fresh body of troops and horses. Two hundred of the men, with an Indian contingent, he sent across the Andes to begin the conquest of what is now the Province of Mendoza in Argentina; and then, as Hawthorne relates it—

“The Araucanians, uniting with local tribes, made ready to clear the country of Spaniards. An army of four thousand Indians crossed the bloody Bio-bio and gave battle to Valdivia, but that stout warrior succeeded, after a desperate conflict, in driving them back for the time. In the following year he carried the war into the enemy’s country.... There was among them a remarkable old Ulysses named Colocolo, who added to ardent patriotism a wonderful sagacity in both war and intrigue. He traveled over the country preaching a crusade against the invaders. A great conference was held among the various tribes, and a chief named Caupolican was, at Colocolo’s suggestion, chosen commander in chief. This hero was modest and valiant, a giant in stature, and wise in counsel as he was brave. His first exploit was the capture of the fort of Arauco, which he accomplished by an unexpected attack, compelling the garrison, after severe fighting, to evacuate and retire to the fort at Puren. The garrison at Tucapel fort was in like manner driven to Puren, from which place word was sent to Valdivia of their peril.

“He started for the seat of war with two hundred men and five thousand Indians.... The two armies came in sight of each other on the 3d of December, 1553, and maneuvered for position. The right wing of the Araucanians was led by Mariantu, the left by Tucapel, the Murat of the host. At the opening of the battle Mariantu attacked and cut to pieces the Spanish left, and served in the same manner a detachment sent to their support. At the same time Tucapel swept down on the Spanish right. The latter’s artillery wrought terrible havoc among the Indians and they were thrice repulsed, though without being thrown into confusion. At the critical moment of the fight, a young man saved the day for the Araucanians. His name was Lautero. He had been previously captured by Valdivia, baptized and made a page, but he seized this opportunity to escape from the enemies of his country and join his friends. He called on them to follow him in a final charge. They caught the contagion of his valor, and, collecting themselves, swept the Spaniards and their allies from the field with awful carnage.

“Valdivia himself was captured. He begged hard for his life, even promising, if he were spared, to quit Chile with all his followers. Nor did he scruple to entreat Lautero to intercede for him. This the magnanimous former page did, but in vain. The grim old ulmens knew too well the worth of Spanish promises, and, disregarding Valdivia’s screams for mercy, one of them crushed his skull with his war club. And the next day the trees that grew in the great plain again bore Spanish heads as fruit, and Lautero was appointed Caupolican’s second in command. At the council which was forthwith held, it was resolved, in accordance with the advice of old Colocolo, to make a general attack upon all the Spanish strongholds. Angol and Puren were promptly abandoned by the invaders, who congregated in Valdivia and Imperial. Lautero fortified himself on the precipitous mountain of Mariguenu, in order to prevent possible Spanish incursions southward. Of a band of fourteen Spanish cavaliers who were riding from Imperial to Tucapel, seven were slain by the Araucanian Lincoyan.

“The inhabitants of Concepcion were terrified at these catastrophes. Villagran was chosen Valdivia’s successor. He made careful preparations and advanced with a strong army of Spaniards and native allies toward Mariguenu. In a narrow defile Lautero fell upon him. The Spaniards tried to scale the mountain but were checked by slings and arrows, and a body of the Indians, falling furiously upon the Spanish cannoneers, captured the guns. An attack was then delivered upon the Spanish front and it gave way, Villagran flying headlong with the rest and barely making good his escape. The remnant of the Spanish army was pursued by Lautero to the river Bio-bio, where the Araucanians paused, and the fugitives staggered into Concepcion. There Villagran stayed only long enough to gather together what property he could, and then, with all the inhabitants, he fled to Santiago. When Lautero entered Concepcion the next day, he found nothing but empty houses, which he destroyed. The seven cities were having a hard life of it.

“An attempt some time afterward to retake and rebuild Concepcion was prevented by the Araucanians, who met and defeated the Spaniards in open plain and again drove them back to Santiago.... In the next campaign Lautero went against Santiago, while Caupolican attempted the siege of Imperial and Valdivia. Lautero laid waste the country of the Promaucians and fortified himself on the Claro. A Spanish reconnoitering party was surprised and cut to pieces and Santiago was in danger. Villagran, being ill, gave the command to his son Pedro, who was led into an ambuscade by Lautero and his army slaughtered. But this was Lautero’s last victory, for a few days later, standing on his battlements to watch the approach of a Spanish party, he was killed by a chance shot, and though in the battle that followed the Araucanians fought valiantly, they were finally overpowered. The death of Lautero was for three days celebrated by the Spaniards; and indeed his fall meant much to them. He had invariably defeated them in battle and outgeneraled them in maneuvers, and at the age of only nineteen had made a reputation as a warrior such as any veteran might envy.”

From then on the war continued with varying success, the Spaniards stubbornly persisting in their efforts to conquer their indomitable opponents, the Araucanians always resisting, and, when beaten for a time, retreating to the mountains, only to recruit and return to the contest with renewed vigor, and this even when their enemies had grown so numerous that they could put thousands of their well armed and trained soldiers into the field instead of hundreds. Gradually, in the course of many years, the Spaniards secured more and more of a foothold, until the great leader Paillamachu took command of the Indians and began an uninterrupted series of victories. He burned Concepcion and Chillan, a hundred miles to the north, ravaged the whole country as far up as the Maule, carried Valdivia by storm and captured, besides the garrison and inhabitants, $2,000,000 of booty and a large store of arms and ammunition, afterward reduced Imperial, Osorno, Villarica, Cañete, Angol, Coya and Arauco, and, by the time of his death in 1603, every one of their cities and forts on the mainland; and, at last, when the Spaniards, after many other attempts, had failed to recover the lost ground they were forced to resort to a treaty. Says Hawthorne:

“Another term of raids and reprisals ensued, with no conclusive results to either party. Spanish governors and Araucanian chiefs succeeded one another year after year; the operations now favored one side, now another, but the Spaniards on the whole lost more than did the Indians. It was not until 1640, about a hundred years since the outbreak of the war, that anything approaching a settlement was made, and the initiative came from the Spaniards. At the village of Quillin the Spanish Governor, the Marquis of Baides, met the Araucanian chief Lincopichion, both being attended by a great retinue. The treaty was ratified by speeches and the sacrifice of a llama. The Spaniards and Araucanians were mutually to refrain from incursions and the Araucanians were not to permit the troops of foreign powers to land on their coasts or to furnish supplies to the enemies of Spain. This clause was inserted in view of recent attempts of the Dutch to effect a lodgment in Chile. This compact was kept by the Indians, in spite of temptations to break it, for ten or a dozen years, when hostilities broke out afresh owing to bad faith on the part of Spain. The Spanish were overwhelmingly defeated in 1655 and during ten years the power of Spain in lower Chile was broken. In 1665 the Spaniards were glad to make another treaty with the Indians, which was kept for half a century. The invaders from the first had gained much more by their treaties than by their arms.”

“Thenceforward,” says Dawson—

“The Bio-bio remained the southern boundary of the Spanish possessions. An army of two thousand men and a line of forts guarded the frontier; and, though hostilities were frequent, for centuries no real progress was made toward depriving the Araucanians of their independence. In the progress of time the slow infiltration of Spanish blood and Spanish customs modified their characteristics, but it was not until 1882 that they became real subjects of the Chilean government.”

It may be that the Spaniards ought not to be blamed for these efforts to complete their conquest of Chile and the appalling amount of bloodshed and distress they caused. After all, they only did what the Aztecs, Caras, and Incas had already done to the peoples of their neighboring countries, what the European peoples were constantly doing to each other, what England soon afterward did in India, and what, within the last century, our own people did in Mexico, the French in Algiers, and the English in South Africa. It may be true, as is asserted by their apologists, that the motive that actuated the Spanish in their conquests was not alone greed of land and gold, but in large part to Christianize a pagan people and bring them into the true fold; but for the long, brave fight these Araucanians made, for their high standard of patriotism, for their adherence to their convictions, both religious and political, we can feel only admiration and sympathy. For these things, as Hawthorne puts it, “they merit the thanks of all friends of manhood and liberty.”

The northern areas of Argentina submitted more quietly to the conquerors. In 1542, Diego de Rojas led the first expedition from Peru down through the Humahuaca Valley. Though he was killed in a fight with a wild tribe near the main Cordillera, his followers continued their march. Near the site of the present city of Tucumán they passed out from the mountain defiles, and, leaving the desert to their right, penetrated through Córdoba to the Paraná River country beyond. Lured by the reports of peaceful and wealthy native communities in the irrigated valleys and the magnificent pasture lands in the pampas stretching away to the east—now the scene of Argentina’s enormous stock-raising and wheat industries—other adventurers soon followed from Peru and Chile and were met by expeditions from the Atlantic coast, marching west in quest of another Peru. No permanent settlement was made on the site of the present city of Buenos Aires until 1580. The two parties that had attempted it, the first commanded by Juan Diaz de Solis, the other by Pedro de Mendoza, had been defeated by the Indians and driven off, but Mendoza had penetrated into the interior, and his lieutenant, Domingo Irala, who remained and founded a colony, became the dominant figure of the new agricultural empire.