In the meantime the two soldiers who escaped from the battle, fled to the Spanish cities established in the Promancian territory, and roused them to attempt another expedition. Francis Villegran was appointed commander, to succeed Valdivia, and an army of Spaniards and their Indian allies soon began their march for Arauco.
Villegran crossed the Biobio without opposition, but immediately on entering the passes of the mountains he was attacked by the Indian army under Santaro. Villegran had six pieces of cannon, and a strong body of horse, and he thought, by the aid of them, he could force the passage. He directed an incessant fire of cannon and musketry to be kept up; the mountain was covered with smoke, and resounded with the thunder of the artillery and the whistling of bullets. Santaro, in the midst of this confusion, firmly maintained his post; but finding that the cannon was sweeping down his ranks, he directed one of his bravest captains to go with his company, and seize the guns. “Execute my order,” said, the young Santaro, “or never again come into my presence!”
The brave Indian and his followers rushed with such violence upon the corps of artillery, that the Spanish soldiers were all either killed or captured, and the cannon brought off in triumph to Santaro. In fine, the Araucanians gained a complete victory. Of the Europeans and their Indian allies, three thousand were left dead upon the field, and Villegran himself narrowly escaped being taken prisoner. The city of Conception fell into the hands of Santaro, who, after securing all the booty, burned the houses and razed the citadel to its foundation.
These successes stimulated the young chief, Santaro, to carry the war into the enemy’s country. Collecting an army of six hundred men, he marched to the attack of Santiago, a city which the Spaniards had founded in the Promancian territory, more than three hundred miles from the Araucanians. Santaro reached Santiago, and in several battles against the Spaniards was victorious; but, at length, betrayed by a spy, he was slain in a skirmish with the troops of Villegran; and his men, refusing to surrender to those who had slain their beloved general, fought, like the Spartans, till every Araucanian perished! The Spaniards were so elated with their victory, that they held public rejoicings for three days at Santiago.
But the memory of Santaro did not perish with his life. He was long deeply lamented by his countrymen, and his name is still celebrated in the heroic songs of his country, and his actions proposed as the most glorious model for the imitation of their youth. Nor did the Spaniards withhold their tribute of praise to the brave young patriot. They called him the Chilian Hannibal.
“It is not just,” said a celebrated Spanish writer, “to depreciate the merit of the American Santaro, that wonderful young warrior, whom, had he been ours, we should have elevated to the rank of a hero.”
But the history of battles and sieges, all having the same object,—on the part of the Spaniards that of conquest, on the part of the Araucanians the preservation of their liberties and independence,—will not be profitable to detail. Suffice it to say, that from the fall of Santaro in 1556, till peace was finally established between the Spaniards and Araucanians in 1773, a series of battles, stratagems, and sieges, are recorded, which, on the part of the Araucanians, were sustained with a perseverance and power, such as no other of the Indian nations in America have ever displayed. Nor were their victories stained with cruelty or revenge.
The Spaniards obtained many triumphs over the haughty freemen; and I regret to say that they did not use their advantages in the merciful spirit of Christianity. Probably, if they had done so, they might have maintained their authority. But the Spaniards went to America to gain riches; they indulged their avaricious propensities till every kind and generous feeling of humanity seems to have been extinguished in their hearts. An excessive desire to be rich, if cherished and acted upon as the chief purpose of life, is the most degrading passion indulged by civilized man; it hardens the heart, and deadens or destroys every generous emotion, till the cold, cruel, selfish individual would hardly regret to see his species annihilated, if by that means he might be profited. The cannibal, who feeds on human flesh, is hardly more to be abhorred, than the civilized man who, on human woes, feeds his appetite for riches!
But the Spaniards gained nothing from the Araucanians. After a contest of nearly one hundred and fifty years, and at the cost of more blood and treasure than all their other possessions in South America had demanded, the Spaniards were glad to relinquish all claim to the territory of these freemen, only stipulating that the Indians should not make incursions into that part of Chili which lies between the southern confines of Peru and the river Biobio. The Spanish government was even obliged to allow the Araucanians to keep a minister, or public representative, in the city of St. Jago.
The spirit and character of this brave Indian people made a deep impression upon their invaders. Don Ercilla, a young Spaniard of illustrious family, who accompanied Don Garcia in his Chilian expedition, wrote an epic poem on the events of the war,—the “Araucana,”—which is esteemed one of the best poems in the Spanish language. Ercilla was an eye-witness of many of the scenes he describes, and the following lines show his abhorrence of the mercenary spirit which governed his own countrymen.