South America

by W. H. Koebel

From time to time a certain number of these fierce tribesmen were captured, but their fiery spirits could brook no domestic tasks, and when, at a very much later date, some of them were shipped upon a Spanish man-of-war with the purpose of testing their value as sailors, they rose in mutiny and slew many officers and men, and, indeed, obtained temporary control of the ship, until, seeing the uselessness of further efforts, they flung themselves overboard in a body.

It was the ancestors of such men as these who had in the first instance disputed the soil with the Spaniards. There is no doubt that, while the metal-bearing lands fell into the opened mouths of the Spaniards as easily as over-ripe plums, the maintaining of a foothold in the southern plains was a precarious and desperate matter. As has been said, the natural topographical advantages of Southern Chile made the wars here the grimmest and fiercest of all those waged throughout the Continent. The mere names of Caupolicán and Lautaro suffice to recall a galaxy of Homeric feats. The deeds of the two deserve a passing word of explanation.

It was the Chief Caupolicán who organized the first resistance to the invaders on a large scale, and who led his armies with a marvellous intrepidity against the Spaniards. He initiated a new species of attack, which proved very trying to the white troops. He would divide his men into a number of companies, and send one after another to engage the Spanish forces. Thus the first company would charge, and would engage for awhile, fighting desperately. Then they would retire at their leisure, to be succeeded without pause by the second, and so on. According to some of the older historians, it was by this method that Valdivia's forces were overcome on the occasion when the entire Spanish army, including its brave leader, was massacred.

The other famous chief, Lautaro, received his baptism of spears and of fire under the leadership of Caupolicán. Lautaro was probably the greatest scourge from which the Spaniards in Chile ever suffered. Twice he demolished the town of Concepcion, and once he pursued their retreating forces as far as Santiago itself. In an engagement on the outskirts of this city the victorious chief was killed, and after his death a certain amount of the triumphant spirit of the Indians deserted them. But only for a while. The indomitable spirit of the race awoke afresh, and asserted itself with renewed ardour in the course of the next series of the interminable struggles.

Compared with all this, the sun-bathed peaks of the centre and of the north breathed dreams and soft romance. Naturally the temperament of the inhabitants had tuned themselves to fit in with this. The few savage customs which had intruded themselves among the quaint rites and mysticism of these peoples had failed to inculcate a genuine warlike ardour or lust for blood. Their dreamily brooding natures revolted against the strain of prolonged strife. What measure of violent resistance was to be expected from the dwellers on the shores of Lake Guatavita?

The Lake of Guatavita had been a sacred water of the Indians of Colombia before the advent of the Spaniards. It was on this peaceful sheet that the cacique and his chiefs were rowed out in canoes while the people clustered in their thousands about the mountainous sides of the lake.

When the canoes had arrived at the centre of the lake the chiefs were accustomed to anoint the cacique, and to powder him with a great profusion of gold-dust. Then came the moment for the supreme ceremony. The multitude turned their backs on the lake, and the cacique dived from the canoe and plunged into its waters; at the same time the people threw over their shoulders their offerings of gold and precious stones, which fell with a splash into the waters.

The lake was further enriched after the arrival of the conquistadores, when the natives, tortured and ill-treated in order that gold should be wrung from them, conceived such a hatred of the metal that they threw all they had wholesale into the sacred waters. It is said that some Indians, goaded beyond endurance, taunted their conquerors and told them to search at the bottom of the lake, where they would find gold. They had no idea that the Spaniards would actually attempt this, but this the conquistadores did, and were digging in order, apparently, to drain the water off when the sides fell in and put an end to the attempt. It is said that even then they procured a large amount of gold and some magnificent emeralds.

As may well be imagined, it was people such as these who suffered most of all from the violence of the strange, pale beings who had descended into their midst to subdue them, first of all by means of the sword, and then by the ceaseless wielding of the more intimate and degrading thong. Since, notwithstanding all that has been urged to the contrary, the average Spaniard of those days—even those of his number who had to do with the Americas—was provided with the ordinary sentiments and passions of humanity, it was inevitable that in the course of the oppression and warfare waged against the natives some devoted being should sooner or later rise up to espouse the cause of the Indians.