With the central and northern colonies secure, Valdivia turned his face south again, prepared a strong expedition and set out in January, 1550. He was checked at the Bio-Bio River, fought for a year in that region, attempting a settlement at Talcahuano, and built a constantly attacked fort at Concepción, where the present Penco stands on a beautiful curve of coast. In February, 1551, he went on, leaving fifty men in Penco; founded Imperial, leaving forty men in a fort, and in early 1552 reached the banks of the Callacalla River and founded Valdivia City, 1552. His next step was to create a chain of forts—Arauco, on the sea; Villarica, on the edge of Lake Lauquen; Osorno, opposite Chiloé Island some eighty miles inland; Tucapel, Puren, and Angol, “la Ciudad de los Infantes de Chile,” between Tucapel and the sea.
The fierce Araucanian Indians determined to destroy every settlement of the invader, and, themselves hardy nomads, were well fitted for the work of continual attack. The leaders Caupolican and the young Lautaro—the latter trained in Spanish ways and speech during some years of service as a groom of Valdivia’s—rose up, organised their people, adopting certain Spanish military methods, and began a series of relentless and systematic raids of destruction. Upon both sides, savage cruelties were practised, and from this time began to date the deliberate seizure of white women and children by the Indians. The courage with which many Spanish wives accompanied their husbands did not save them from the huts of the wild natives, and the children borne in course of time of Indian fathers by European mothers were so numerous that certain tribes became noted for their fair skins, pink cheeks and blue eyes.
In 1553, in attempting to stem the tide of Araucanian attacks on the frail forts, of which Tucapel and Arauco had already fallen, Pedro de Valdivia’s forces were overwhelmed by Lautaro and the Governor was made prisoner and barbarously executed. He was then fifty-six years of age. His policy in trying to establish settlements in the heart of Araucanian territory was not justified by the necessities of his colonists, who had more land than they could use in the fine central region. But he was impelled by false stories of gold to be found in the south, by hope of extending the territory under his jurisdiction for the Spanish crown, and no doubt also held the belief, based upon former experiences, that definite submission of the South American natives could be commanded by vigorous action. This idea had been proved correct with regard to all settled districts, but it did not apply to the elusive Mapuches. Nevertheless it was persisted in for a long time, costing a river of Spanish blood and an immense treasure in Spanish gold.
Flushed with success after the death of Valdivia, the Indians attacked all the forts simultaneously; Concepción was twice ruined and restored, in 1554 and 1555, and again smashed when Francisco de Villagra, successor of Valdivia temporarily, was trapped on the seashore after crossing the Bio-Bio and badly defeated. He redeemed his lost prestige when he broke the armies of Lautaro and killed this leader at Santiago soon afterwards, the Araucanians, emboldened, having ranged outside their own territory to attack the invading Europeans.
In 1557 there came to Chile as Governor the young Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, son of the Marquis de Cañete, Viceroy of Peru. He brought from Spain a well-equipped force of 600 Spaniards, and, arriving at Concepción from the sea, rebuilt the stronghold, mounted guns for the first time, restored all the southerly forts, and in the course of fierce battles in 1558 took prisoner and killed Caupolican.
When Garcia Hurtado left Chile in 1560 the Indians took heart and renewed attacks, and the anxious rule of Quiroga, with another interval of Villagra’s control, was concerned almost exclusively with Indian troubles. Quiroga, a determined man, was the first Spaniard to take possession of Chiloé, founding the town of Castro; he carried war into Araucanian territory relentlessly, shipping every able-bodied Indian he could catch to the mines of Peru. But his experience, and that of his successors, was that the natives were never more than momentarily beaten, that they rose behind him when his troops passed from one region to another, and that almost any fort could be overwhelmed by the extraordinary numbers that the savage chiefs brought into the field. The tactics of the Araucanians upon the battlefield, of attacking in great numbers, but keeping back enormous quantities of men who came forward when the first army was rolled back by Spanish guns, were disheartening; every settlement remained in a constant state of siege, perpetually harassed.
In 1567 Philip II of Spain authorized the establishment of a Royal Audience in Concepción; it endured until 1574, but was then suppressed owing to the insecurity of the colony. A year later the struggling settlements were further discouraged by a terrible earthquake and tidal wave that devastated the coast from Santiago to Valdivia, and in 1579 all western Spanish America was thrown into a state of consternation by the amazing news that Drake had rounded the toe of South America and had begun raiding the Pacific coast.
The enforcement of the “New Laws”—signed by Charles V in 1542, but suspended or ignored by the various Audiences as long as was possible—forbidding Spaniards to make the Indians work against their will, infuriated the colonists of Chile, who saw no other way of cultivating land or operating mines but by driving the natives to these tasks; a few Negroes were sent on from Panama or Buenos Aires, but transportation was expensive and farmers could not afford to import many slaves. Chile never yielded a large quantity of gold; it was pre-eminently an agricultural and stock-raising country, and therefore a poor one compared with such regions as Peru with its golden treasure or Charcas (Alto Peru) with its tremendous production of silver from the wonderful mines of Potosí. That in the face of all hardships and difficulties the colonisation of Central Chile steadily extended is a standing tribute to the courage of the settlers, as well as to the attractions of an exhilarating climate.
In 1583 came Alonso de Sotomayor, Marques de Villa Hermosa, setting out with Sarmiento and a splendid Spanish fleet of twenty-three ships; the original intention to pass through the Strait of Magellan was abandoned, and Sotomayor with a strong army marched overland from Buenos Aires. He too wasted lives and treasure in attempting to subdue the south, but inevitably the Indians rose behind his forces, burning forts and destroying the guard ships he placed upon the Bio-Bio River. By the time that Martin Garcia Oñez de Loyola succeeded to the Governorship in 1592 the endless wars with the Araucanians had become bitterly unpopular; the Indians had gathered new audacity under the toqui (leader in war) Paillamacu, and with him Oñez tried to make a treaty. Hope was also placed in the pacifying influence of Jesuits, who entered in 1593, but these first missionaries were killed, and an armed force sent south in 1598 was wiped out, the Governor Oñez being amongst the slain. Paillamacu, jubilant, besieged all the forts at once, and Spanish rule was further threatened by the appearance in the Pacific of Dutch corsairs. The Cordes expedition of 1600 landed on Chiloé, sacked and held Castro. A Spanish force under Ocampo took back the town, but Spanish prestige suffered by the Indians’ realisation of quarrels among white men. Ocampo also raised the siege of Angol and Imperial, but carried away settlers and abandoned these places. Forts upon the sea border, although safer than inland points, were not impregnable, and the Araucanians had grown so bold that more than once when Spanish vessels visiting the seaports ran aground the Indians swam out, killed the crew and looted the ships in plain view of the settlers.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, with Ramon as Governor, it was practically decided to restrict Spanish occupation of the territory south of the Bio-Bio River to seaports, and to maintain a line of forts upon the frontier. For about 100 years 2000 Spanish troops were maintained for defensive purposes, chiefly distributed throughout fourteen frontier strongholds, of which the chief were Arauco, Santa Juana, Puren, Los Angeles, Tucapel and Yumbel, and in Concepción and Valdivia. Chilean revenues were insufficient for these army expenses, and Lima contributed 100,000 pesos, for Valparaiso, Concepción and the frontier, half in specie and half in clothes and stores; about 8000 pesos of this sum was used in repairing forts and in giving presents or paying compensation to the Indians. Valdivia, with Osorno and Chiloé, received an additional 70,000 pesos from the royal treasury of Lima, and these points were governed and supplied direct from the viceregal capital.