considered trivial charges brought against him; and finally reaffirmed
its former sentence of banishment. The execution of this sentence
was not then practicable, for Sarmiento was at that time engaged in
a campaign against the Chiriguanos, eastward of the Andes, and after
his return the civil authorities persuaded the inquisitors that the
sentence should be revoked. But two years later they considered other
equally trivial charges, and this time he was found guilty, imprisoned
and sentenced again to be banished. At this time the viceroy, Francisco
de Toledo (1569-1591), interfered, ordered that Sarmiento should be
released, held him in the service of the government, and took him
under his special protection. In 1579, when Drake appeared in Peruvian
waters, Sarmiento led an expedition in pursuit of him, but failed
to overtake him. On his return, he received the viceroy’s orders to
proceed to the Strait of Magellan, in order to intercept Drake there
on his voyage back to England. At the same time he was under orders to
fortify the strait so as to prevent the passage of explorers or pirates
who might undertake to follow Drake. Other navigators had entered the
strait before Sarmiento—Magellan in 1520, Loaysa and Cano in 1526,
Alcazava in 1535, and Drake in 1578; but Sarmiento’s account of his
voyage virtually superseded all reports made by previous explorers. It,
moreover, persuaded the king of Spain to fit out an extensive fleet for
the purpose of transporting a considerable body of colonists, men with
their families, to the inhospitable shores of the strait. Sarmiento
was appointed to be the governor of the colony, but the command of the
fleet was entrusted to the incompetent Diego Flores de Valdés, and his
incompetence rather than the storms encountered caused the ruin of the
enterprise. Sarmiento’s narratives of his voyages, translated into
English by Markham, have been issued as a volume of the Hakluyt Society’s
publications. This collection consists of five documents. The first
is called _Voyage to the Strait of Magellan_, and gives an account of
Sarmiento’s passage through the strait, with such accuracy of detail as
to elicit the commendation of later navigators and surveyors. The second
document was written in Río de Janeiro in 1583. It refers to the passage
through the strait, the voyage to Spain, the preparation of the fleet
under Flores de Valdés, and gives some account of what happened to the
fleet. The third document enumerates the ships and their officers, while
the fourth is a narrative of the equipment of the fleet, the disasters
it encountered, the disgraceful conduct of the officers, the settlements
in the strait, and the captivity of Sarmiento. The last document gives
some account of the tragic fate of the settlers, who waited in vain for
the return of ships with provisions, and who distributed themselves along
the shore, in order to support themselves with shell-fish picked up on
the beach; but the supply was inadequate, and one after another they
died of starvation and exposure. The appearance of the ships of Thomas
Cavendish was the last hope of the survivors, and when these ships sailed
away, taking only one man as a guide the remnant of the colony went
speedily to its tragic end.
[Sidenote: Spaniards reported to Atahualpa]
I quote Sarmiento’s account of the manner in which Atahualpa was informed
of the arrival of the Spaniards:
“Atahualpa was at Huamachuco celebrating great festivals for his
victories, and he wished to proceed to Cuzco and assume the fringe[41] in
the House of the Sun, where all former Incas had received it. When he
was about to set out there came to him two Tallanas Indians, sent by the
Curacas—local governors under the Incas—of Payta and Túmbez, to report to
him that there had arrived by sea, which they call ‘cocha,’ a people with
different clothing and with beards, and that they brought animals like
large sheep. The chief of them was believed to be Viracocha, which means
the god of these people, and he brought with him many Viracochas, which
is as much as to say ‘gods.’ They said this of the Governor Don Francisco
Pizarro, who had arrived with one hundred and eighty men and some horses
which they called sheep.
“When this became known to Atahualpa he rejoiced greatly, believing it to
be the Viracocha coming as he had promised when he departed, and as is
recounted in the beginning of this history. Atahualpa gave thanks that
he should have come in his time, and he sent back the messengers with
thanks to the Curacas for sending the news, and ordering them to keep
him informed of what might happen. He resolved not to go to Cuzco until
he had seen what this arrival was, and what the Viracochas intended to
do.”[42]
[Sidenote: Incas in Conflict]
[Sidenote: Pizarro sends for Huascar]
In a subsequent chapter Sarmiento refers to Pizarro’s project to inquire
into the dispute between Huascar and Atahualpa: “Don Francisco Pizarro
knew of the disputes there had been between Atahualpa and Huascar, and
that Huascar was a prisoner in the hands of the captains of Atahualpa,
and he urged Atahualpa to have his brother brought as quickly as
possible. Huascar was being brought to Caxamarca by Atahualpa’s order,
as has already been said. Chalco Chima, obeying this order, set out with
Huascar and the captains and relations who had escaped the butchery of
Cusi Yupanqui. Atahualpa asked Don Francisco Pizarro why he wanted to see
his brother. Pizarro replied that he had been informed that Huascar was
the elder and principal lord of that land, and for that reason he wished
to see him, and he desired that he should come. Atahualpa feared that if
Huascar came alive, the Governor Don Francisco Pizarro would be informed
of what had taken place, that Huascar would be made lord, and that he
would lose his state. Being sagacious, he agreed to comply with Pizarro’s
demand, but sent off a messenger to the captain who was bringing Huascar
with an order to kill him and all the prisoners. The messenger started
and found Huascar at Atamarca, near Yana-mayu. He gave his message to the
captain of the guard who was bringing Huascar as a prisoner.
[Sidenote: Fate of Huascar]
“Directly the captain heard the order of Atahualpa he complied with it.
He killed Huascar, cut the body up and threw it into the river Yana-mayu.
He also killed the rest of the brothers, relations, and captains who were
with him as prisoners, in the year 1533.”[43]
[Sidenote: Polo de Ondegardo]
A noted contemporary of Sarmiento, the Licenciado Polo de Ondegardo, also
became interested in the history of Peru and the ancient institutions of
the country, and, at the suggestion of the viceroy, wrote two accounts,
or “relaciones,” on the revenues and tributes, or, in general, the
financial administration of the Inca kingdom.
The time and place of Ondegardo’s birth are not known. It has been
ascertained, however, that he was in Peru during the period of the civil
wars. By Gasca he was appointed governor of Charcas, and he held for a
number of years a similar office at Cuzco, to which he was appointed by
the Marqués de Cañete as viceroy. Under Francisco de Toledo, Ondegardo
was a confidential adviser of the viceroy, and assisted him in drawing up
the ordinances for completing the organization of the viceroyalty.
[Sidenote: Prescott on Ondegardo]
Prescott, who had copies of Ondegardo’s narratives, affirms that while
he gives his conclusions with an air of modesty, it is evident that
he feels conscious of having derived his information through the most
authentic channels. He rejects the fabulous with disdain; decides on
the probability of such facts as he relates, and candidly exposes
deficiency of evidence. Far from displaying the simple enthusiasm of the
well-meaning but credulous missionary, he proceeds with the cool and
cautious step of a lawyer, accustomed to the conflict of testimony and
the uncertainty of oral tradition. This circumspect manner of proceeding
and the temperate character of his judgments entitle Ondegardo to much
higher consideration as an authority than most of his countrymen who have
treated of Indian antiquities. But his part in the intellectual life
of Peru was not limited to his inquiries into Indian antiquities; his
considerable contribution to Toledo’s extensive legislation entitles him
to a place among the writers on law and government, although no formal
political treatise by him has appeared in print.
These papers remained long in manuscript, but a translation of one
of them was printed in the Hakluyt Society’s volume of narratives of
the rites and laws of the Incas. The following brief extract is from
Ondegardo’s account of the origin of the Inca kingdom:
[Sidenote: Ondegardo quoted]
“It is enough to understand that these Yncas at first extended their
conquests by violence and war. There was no general opposition to their
advance, for each province merely defended its land without aid from
any other, so that the only difficulty encountered by the Yncas was in
the annexation of the districts forming Cuzco. Afterwards the conquered
people joined them, so that they always had a vastly superior force as
well as more cunning in the art of war.”[44]
A little farther on in his report, Ondegardo describes the organization
of the districts within the limits of the Inca’s jurisdiction:
“As soon as the Yncas had made themselves lords of a province, they
caused the natives, who had previously been widely scattered, to live
in communities, with an officer over ten, another over every hundred,
another over every thousand, another over every ten thousand, and an
Ynca governor over all, who reported upon the administration every
year, recording the births and the deaths that had occurred among men
and flocks, the yield of the crops, and all other details, with great
minuteness. They left Cuzco every year, and returned in February to make
their report, before the festival of Kaymi began, bringing with them the
tribute of the whole empire. This system was advantageous and good, and
it was most important in maintaining the authority of the Yncas. Every
governor, how great lord soever he might be, entered Cuzco with a burden
on his back. This was a ceremony that was never dispensed with, as it
gave great authority to the Yncas.”[45]
IV
[Sidenote: Romero’s _Colección_]
[Sidenote: The Molina muddle]
In the first volume of the _Colección de libros y documentos referentes
a la historia del Perú_, Carlos A. Romero has caused to be published
the _Relación de las fabulas y ritos de los incas_ by Cristóbal de
Molina, one of the two writers of that name who flourished in the
sixteenth century. The author of this _Relación_ is known as Cristóbal
de Molina of Cuzco; the other as Cristóbal de Molina, the almagrist, or
Molina of Santiago. Their similar professions and similar intellectual
interests and the little knowledge of them that had come to light made
discrimination between them difficult, and caused the writings of both to
be thought of as the work of one person. The first suggestion that this
name applied to two persons, contemporaries in the south-western part of
South America, was made by the Chilean bibliographer Tomás Thayer Ojeda
in 1913 in the _Revista chilena de historia y geografía_. The distinct
individuality of the two persons has been clearly set forth by Carlos A.
Romero in an essay prefixed to the _Relación_ already referred to. Little
light has been thrown on the origin of Cristóbal de Molina of Cuzco.
Romero has, however, ventured the opinion that he was a mestizo born in
Cuzco, where he spent the greater part of his life, and that his father
was Francisco de Molina, who, having made extensive journeys about the
country, finally settled in Lima and there took ecclesiastical orders
between 1545 and 1550. His thorough knowledge of the Quichua language is
referred to as supporting the suggestion that this was the language of
his mother. He became a priest of the parish of Nuestra Señora de los
Remedios del Hospital de los Naturales in Cuzco, and for his preaching to
the Indians he received an annual salary of one hundred and fifty pesos,
under a grant by Viceroy Toledo.[46]
[Sidenote: Indian ways]
By a decree issued at Badajoz, September 23, 1580, the king ordered the
viceroy to collect information concerning the usage and customs of the
Indians before the Spanish conquest. Under this order a considerable
body of data was gathered, and on the basis of this Molina wrote his
_Relación_, but the date of the composition cannot be established; it
must, however, have been late in 1572 or subsequent to that year, since
certain events of 1572 are mentioned in the document itself.
[Sidenote: Rites and Laws of the Incas]
It was first published by the Hakluyt Society in 1873, translated from
the manuscript into English by Sir Clements R. Markham, under the title
of _The Fables and Laws of the Yncas_. It was printed for the first
time in Spanish in 1913, in the fifth volume of the _Revista chilena
de historia y geografía_ preceded by a biography, not of the author,
but of Cristóbal de Molina of Santiago. The edition of 1916, by Romero,
was printed from a copy in the National Library at Lima, which was made
from the manuscript in the National Library at Madrid (E. 13, 135). The
other works mentioned as written by Cristóbal de Molina of Cuzco have
disappeared.[47]
[Sidenote: Molina on the flood]
Molina’s rather slight publication presents certain traditions and
customs that prevailed among the Indians of the Inca kingdom. The
following is one of several versions of the tradition of a deluge:
“They say that a month before the flood came their sheep displayed much
sadness, eating no food in the day-time, and watching the stars at night.
At last the shepherd, who had charge of them, asked what troubled them,
and they said that the conjunction of the stars showed that the world
would be destroyed by water. When he heard this, the shepherd consulted
with his six children, and they agreed to collect all the food and sheep
they could, and go to the top of a very high mountain, called Ancasmarca.
They say that as the water rose, the high hill grew higher, so that it
was never covered by the flood, and when the waters subsided, the hill
grew smaller. Thus the six children of that shepherd returned to people
the province.”[48]
A hint of marriage customs is contained in this paragraph from the same
source:
[Sidenote: Molina on marriage]
“When the Ynca gave women as wives, they were received because it was
the command of the Ynca. The man went to the house of the girl’s father
not to say that the Ynca had given her, but that he desired to serve
for her, and so the relations of the girl were assembled, and their
consent was obtained. The youth remained in the house of his father and
mother-in-law for a space of four or five days, and carried the fuel and
straw for them. Thus the agreement was made, and he took the girl for his
wife; and because the Ynca had given her, it was considered that she was
taken until death, and she was received on this understanding, and never
deserted.”
[Sidenote: Cabello de Balboa]
Under the title of _Histoire du Pérou_ M. Ternaux-Compans published at
Paris in 1840 a translation of a part of the writings of Cabello de
Balboa. The author had been a soldier before he became an ecclesiastic.
He went from Spain to America in 1566. For a certain period he lived in
Bogotá, but later went to Quito, where in 1576, under the protection of
Pedro de la Peña, the bishop, he began the composition of his _Miscelánea
austral_, which, according to a statement at the end of the work, he
completed on July the ninth, 1586. Balboa, like many other chroniclers of
his time, thought it desirable to begin his narrative with the creation
of the world, and in the first two of the three parts into which it is
divided he makes no mention of America whatsoever. In the third part
he deals with the history of Peru, but at the same time makes frequent
reference to events that have no relation to the history of America.
[Illustration: Francisco de Toledo, 5th Viceroy of Peru 1569-1581]
V
[Sidenote: Frontier of Chile]
The development in the southern part of the continent was slower than in
Peru. In Chile at the beginning of the half-century in question, a number
of garrisoned posts had been established on the southern frontier, where
the inhabitants lived in the presence of the hostile Araucanians. Some
of these posts grew into towns, but the residents, whether soldiers or
civilians, had always before them the spectre of an Indian War; and it
was this war that furnished the epic theme of their earliest literature.
After the establishment of Valdivia and his colonists in Chile, that
country formed a new province, a new centre of local government, within
the viceroyalty that had Lima as its capital. The European advance
towards the south encountered the stout resistance of the Araucanians,
and the experience gained in this conflict appears to have furnished
a motive for writing, and awakened a desire to transmit to posterity
accounts of the events they had observed and of enterprises in which
they had participated.
[Illustration: Pedro de Valdivia]
[Sidenote: Portrait of Valdivia]
[Sidenote: Valdivia as a writer]
Pedro de Valdivia is not thought of as a writer, yet his letters deserve
recognition, whether regarded as stories of great adventure or as
sources of the early history of Chile. Warriors are less often given to
writing than priests, but when they undertake the task their productions
sometimes have a quality not attained by the literary efforts of
ecclesiastics. Valdivia wrote as a warrior might be expected to write: he
discussed his tasks of military organization, the extreme want he had to
face in effecting his settlement and domination in Chile, his labours in
the service of the king, and the exasperating conduct of his enemies. His
superior spirit as a man appears in the clearness of his language, in his
lack of pretension, in his energy, and in an unwearying consciousness of
his own high purpose. In writing he evidently set down the word that came
first to his mind, that seemed to him to be the word for the idea, and
made little or no effort to polish his phrases after the manner of the
schools. His _Cartas_, therefore, constitute a work that, of its kind, as
Medina has observed, has not been surpassed in Chile.[49]
VI
Two other writers of this southern province were Marmolejo and Lovera.
They had little literary training, and were apparently not moved by
ambition for literary distinction, but simply by the thought that they
ought to communicate to their countrymen their first-hand knowledge of
strange natural phenomena and unfamiliar social movements, as well as
their experience as soldiers.
[Sidenote: Góngora Marmolejo]
[Sidenote: Marmolejo’s _Historia_]
Alonso de Góngora Marmolejo’s _Historia del reino de Chile_ is an
important early narrative of Chilean warfare and adventure. The author
went from Peru in a body of auxiliaries, taken by Pedro de Valdivia
for service in his campaign for the conquest of Chile, where, for a
period of forty years, after 1547, he accumulated honours, but saw
his wealth gradually decrease. Then, under the affliction of poverty
and disappointment, he undertook to set down and leave to posterity
an account of the events, in which he had had part, and of the actors
who had been his companions. Halted in the performance of this task by
discouragement and the fear of criticism, he nevertheless worked on to
the last sentence, which announced the fact that his work was completed
in the city of Santiago, in the kingdom of Chile, on the 16th of
December, 1575. During the brief period of his life that remained after
this date, little is known of him, except that he was charged by Rodrigo
de Quiroga, noted for his superstition, fanaticism, and intolerance,
to traverse the country occupied by the Indians, and to find out and
punish severely those guilty of the crime of witchcraft. But as Quiroga
appointed Pedro de Lisperguer to the same office on January 23, 1576, it
is inferred that Marmolejo’s incumbency was short.
But Marmolejo’s fears of the critics were not realized. They have found
his narrative animated, without the digressions that appealed to the
taste of his time, free from tiresome repetitions and never departing
from the course of events to picture imaginary customs of the Indians.
In spite of distance and time he makes one turn back and live with a
remote generation, causing one to experience the impressions the scenes
narrated must have made on the eye-witness. His style partakes somewhat
of the rudeness of the primitive conquistadores, but is always fresh and
spontaneous.[50]
Among the motives that induced Marmolejo to write, according to his own
statement, were his sense of the large number of happenings in Chile that
should be recorded and that the only written account of them was found
in Ercilla’s _Araucana_, “not so full as would be necessary in order to
treat properly of all of the affairs of the kingdom.”[51]
[Sidenote: Barros Arana on Marmolejo]
Without denying the directness and vividness of Marmolejo’s narrative
Barros Arana points out the technical defects of the composition, the
absence of literary art in the presentation of facts, and the lack of
due emphasis on the most notable incidents. Marmolejo wrote almost
exclusively of events of which he had personal knowledge, whence his
chronicle is confined almost entirely to military affairs. He gave
little information of any other class of events and left his chronology
defective. Writing a personal narrative, he was not careful to fix
adequately his dates, thus obliging future historians to have recourse to
other sources of knowledge, if they would make a complete history of the
period covered by the author’s experience.[52]
[Illustration: Jerónimo de Alderete]
[Sidenote: _Historiadores de Chile_]
Marmolejo’s narrative, in printed form, occupies two hundred and twelve
pages of the _Colección de historiadores de Chile_, and deals with
the events of Chilean history during the forty years prior to 1575.
No single extract is likely to reveal much of the author’s quality,
particularly when the paragraph quoted is translated into a language as
far removed as English is from the original Spanish; yet some features
of the author’s simple and familiar manner may be discovered even in
a translation. The following paragraph on Alderete’s appointment as
Valdivia’s successor may serve as an illustration:
[Sidenote: Marmolejo on Alderete]
“Jerónimo de Alderete having arrived in Spain to negotiate with his
Majesty in the name of Pedro de Valdivia, it became necessary for him to
go to England, since the emperor, Charles V, had renounced his authority
in all his kingdoms in favour of his Serene Highness, Prince Philip,
his son, and retired into a monastery of monks; he was not concerning
himself with affairs under any circumstances; whence Alderete had to go
to England to see the king, who on account of having married the queen of
England was in that country. Having arrived there, and the king, having
been informed of his coming, after a few days conferred the government of
Chile upon Valdivia for life, and furthermore provided that the person
whom he might nominate should succeed him. With this order Alderete left
England; on entering France he was overtaken by a messenger, sent by
Eraso, secretary to the king, who informed him that by letters the king
had learned that Valdivia was dead, and it appeared to Alderete that he
ought to return and take up his negotiations.... Having received this
news, Alderete returned to London, where the king was; on account of the
good mediators whom he had, and by the good opinion which the king held
of him, the king showed him the favour of giving him the government of
Chile, as Valdivia had had it, and also conferred upon him the order of
Santiago and the title of adelantado. Having received these favours, he
left Spain for Chile. After he reached Panama, which is, and has been,
the cemetery of Christians, he fell very seriously ill with a fever, and
died.”[53]
VII
[Sidenote: Pedro Mariño Lovera]
[Sidenote: Lovera and Escobar]
Another Chilean soldier who turned to literary work after a stormy life
in the army was Pedro Mariño de Lovera. His _Crónica del reino de
Chile_ was the product of his later years. He was born in Pontevedra,
in Galicia, where his father, Herrán Rodríguez de Lovera, was a life
member of the municipal council. Having served for a period in the army,
he yielded to the desire for a voyage to the Indies, which he undertook
in 1545. From Nombre de Dios he determined to return to Spain, but at
Havana he met Pedro de la Gasca, then on his outward voyage to assume
the presidency of Peru. The result of this interview was the sending of
Lovera with an important charge to Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of
Mexico. This service was performed so satisfactorily that when Mendoza
was transferred to the viceroyalty of Peru, in 1551, Lovera accompanied
him to Lima. Here he appears to have intended to establish himself,
but his restless spirit urged him on to Chile, then presenting, in the
Araucanian wars, abundant opportunities for adventure. After his sojourn
in Chile, he returned to Lima. He was in Lima in 1594, and it was in this
later period that he gathered up his notes and wrote his chronicle of
Chile.
[Illustration: Francisco de Villagra]
[Sidenote: Lovera’s credulity]
In the Jesuit Bartolomé de Escobar Lovera found a person who was able to
supplement his work where his literary deficiencies were most evident.
In some places Escobar wrote in his own name, or in the first person.
While smoothing the rough places in the soldier’s composition, he added
as adornments of style references to Biblical history and to the history
of the Greeks and the Romans. The simple credulity of Lovera, moreover,
led him to accept as miracles many events presented in tales by imposters
or by persons of exaggerated faith. Santiago mounted on a white horse and
fighting for the Spaniards on the plains of Chile, as one of the stock
visions, had naturally to be introduced; perhaps also the view of the
Virgin taking up a handful of dust from the ground and throwing it into
the faces of the Indians to blind them during the combat. But there were
certain rare inventions that also found place in Lovera’s pages, as when
to the members of the war council of the Indians there appeared ‘una
gran señora’ placed in mid-air, who reprimanded them for their crimes,
infidelity, and blindness. The view of this figure caused them to hang
their heads in silence for half an hour, and then “to depart each for
his own house.”[54] These and other miraculous episodes of the book are
ascribed in large measure to the influence of the pious Escobar. The
latest personal note in the _Crónica_ relating to Lovera is found in his
vivid account of the earthquake of December 16, 1575, which follows:
[Sidenote: On the earthquake of 1575]
[Sidenote: The tidal wave]
“At the end of the year 1575, while the city of Valdivia was enjoying the
greatest prosperity it had ever known, and the inhabitants were living
in peace and happiness, our Lord did not wish that this state of comfort
should remain to them, adding new misfortunes to those of the past. It
happened then on Friday, the sixteenth of December, at four o’clock in
the afternoon, entirely without warning of such a disaster, that the
earth began to tremble, with a great rumbling noise, the earthquake
continuing and always increasing, without interruption causing great
damage, demolishing roofs and walls, with such fright of the people,
that they were terrified and beside themselves at seeing an event so
extraordinary. It is not possible to paint or describe the manner of the
furious tempest, which seemed to be the end of the world. Its onrush was
such that it gave no opportunity to many persons to leave their houses,
and, therefore, they perished buried alive, the wreckage of the buildings
falling upon them. It was an event to make one’s hair stand on end, and
make men grow pale to see the earth in such convulsions and moving with
such fury that not only edifices fell, but persons also were unable to
stand, and some lay down in order to clutch the ground. After this, while
the earth continued to quake for the space of a quarter of an hour, there
was seen in the great river, where ships were accustomed to ride in
safety, a very remarkable happening, which was that in a certain place in
the river the water was divided, one part of it running towards the sea,
and the other part up the river, revealing the bottom at that place in
such a way that the stones might be seen as Don Pedro de Lovera saw them,
from whom I got this account, and who affirms that he saw it with his
own eyes. After this the sea left its limits and bounds, running with as
great velocity upon the land as the swiftest river in the world. And so
great was the fury and force of the water that it extended three leagues
inland, where it left a great quantity of fishes dead, among which there
were kinds never before seen in this kingdom.”[55]
CHAPTER V
LA ARAUCANA
[Sidenote: Change of scene, Peru to Chile]
[Sidenote: Contest for governor of Chile]
In _La Araucana_ by Ercilla the theme is no longer the ancient Peruvian
state, described by Cieza de León, Garcilaso de la Vega, and Sarmiento,
with its autocratic rulers and submissive subjects, but the plains and
forests of Chile and the Spaniards in conflict with a people who boasted
they had never had a king and had never been subdued, a people sustained
by primitive agriculture and proud of their rigid individualism. The time
represented by the poem is the period following the death of Valdivia,
who had taken possession of that region after the fruitless expedition
of Almagro. Provision had been made that in case of Valdivia’s sudden
death his authority should pass to Jerónimo de Alderete, but if Alderete
had already died, Francisco de Aguirre and Francisco de Villagra in
this order might claim the succession. At the time of Valdivia’s death
Alderete was in Europe, Aguirre in Tucumán, where he had been the
governor of the province for a year and a half, and Villagra was in
Chile. In the absence of Alderete both Aguirre and Villagra were urged
by their respective friends to assume the duties of the vacant office.
The death of Alderete at Panama left Aguirre as the legitimate claimant,
but Villagra’s presence in Chile gave him a practical advantage in the
contest. This dispute and a natural desire to promote the interests of
his family induced Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, the viceroy of Peru, to set
aside the pretensions of both Aguirre and Villagra, and to appoint his
son, García Hurtado de Mendoza, to be the governor of Chile.
[Illustration: Title Page of the First Edition of “La Araucana”]
[Sidenote: Ercilla’s family]
Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga was a member of the expedition sent by the
viceroy to establish García de Mendoza in his office, and to carry on
the war against the Araucanian Indians. He was born in Madrid on August
7, 1533. He was the youngest of the children of Dr. Fortún García
de Ercilla and his wife Leonor de Zúñiga. His father was a famous
jurisconsult, whose writings were read and commented upon in all the
schools of Europe.[56]
[Sidenote: Ercilla’s journeys]
He became regent of Navarre and a member of the Council of Castille, and
tutor of Prince Philip, who was later Philip II. He died at the age of
forty in 1534, the year after the birth of the poet. It was a current
tradition of the sixteenth century that the mother of Alonso de Ercilla
was descended from the kings of Navarre. If this tradition represented a
fact, there might be claimed for Don Alonso an aristocratic as well as an
intellectual heritage. The seigniory of Bobadilla, which had belonged to
his mother, was reunited to the crown, and the seignior became attached
to the court of Charles V, where her young son was educated, subjected,
doubtless, to the same system of instruction as that under which Prince
Philip had grown up. It is probable that Alonso de Ercilla knew the
Latin of Virgil and Lucian, but that his knowledge of Dante, Petrarch,
and Ariosto was derived through translations. He entered the service of
Philip in 1548, and accompanied that prince to Flanders on the occasion
of Philip’s taking possession of the duchy of Brabant. The route of this
journey was through Saragossa, Barcelona, Genoa, and Luxembourg, and the
return was by the same way. A little later he went to Bohemia with his
mother, who was in the suite of the Infanta María and her husband, the
Archduke Maximilian. The young Ercilla undertook a third journey in 1554,
accompanying Philip when that prince went to wed Mary Tudor, the Queen of
England.
[Sidenote: Alderete and Mendoza]
While in England Ercilla learned that the Araucanians were in
revolt, and that Hernández Girón was leading a rebellion against the
legitimate government in Peru. The state into which affairs in Peru had
fallen during the rebellion rendered the post of viceroy especially
unattractive. Two persons to whom the king had offered it declined
the honour. It was, however, accepted by Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza,
Marqués de Cañete. Alderete, who had been in America, was in England
with Philip’s escort. From him Ercilla got information that awakened his
adventurous spirit, and he left Europe for America with the fleet that
carried Alderete and Viceroy Mendoza. He arrived in Peru on July 6, 1556.
Here he joined the expedition sent by the viceroy against the insurgent
Araucanians. This expedition was commanded by the viceroy’s son, García
Hurtado de Mendoza, a youth of twenty-one, who had been appointed
governor of Chile.
On his arrival in Chile García de Mendoza arrested both Aguirre and
Villagra and sent them to Lima. Thus freed from the embarrassing presence
of the two rival claimants, he entered upon his campaign against the
Araucanians, and on this campaign Ercilla acquired his first experience
in warfare with the Indians. To describe the events of the war and his
part in it was the primary purpose in writing _La Araucana_.
[Sidenote: Ercilla in Chile]
In Chile Ercilla found himself under conditions sharply in contrast
with those of his life in Spain. A site had been selected for the town
of Santiago, and plots had been assigned to soldier-colonists; but
fourteen years after the arrival of Valdivia the Spanish occupation was
represented only by a number of garrisoned posts confronting a region
in possession of vigorous and hostile Indians. Ercilla had exchanged
the circumstances of the artificial life of the Spanish court for
warfare with a barbarous people in the presence of primitive nature. To
a Spaniard of the sixteenth century an excursion beyond the limits of
civilization, into the realm of savage life, was a stranger event than
a similar experience would appear to a representative of these later
generations. In the unfamiliar presence of primitive man and the primeval
forest Ercilla was moved to set down his impressions of the life in which
he had part, and of the nature that constituted his strange environment.
[Sidenote: Ercilla condemned]
Ercilla’s relation to the commander of the expedition had its unpleasant
episodes. On the occasion of a dispute between him and Juan de Pineda,
the supporters of each of the two parties drew their swords, when García
de Mendoza interpreted the movement as the beginning of a mutiny, and
condemned the two opponents to be beheaded. The activity of their
friends, however, caused these ill-advised sentences to be commuted to
imprisonment.[57] After his liberation from prison Ercilla continued his
exploring expeditions and his participation in campaigns against the
Araucanians, but he finally returned to Spain in 1562. Shortly after
his arrival, having made a report to the king concerning his service in
Chile, he went to Austria, where his mother held the position of a maid
of honour at the imperial court. Returning from this journey in 1564, he
remained a number of years in Madrid and published there the first part
of _La Araucana_ in 1569. The next year he married Doña María de Bazán,
and in 1571 the king bestowed upon him the order of Santiago.
[Illustration: Page from the First Edition of “La Araucana”]
[Sidenote: Ercilla in Italy]
Determined to seek further service, he went to Italy in 1574, to join
the fleet, commanded by Don John of Austria, designed to proceed to
the relief of Tunis, but before he arrived in Naples, Tunis had fallen
into the hands of the Turks. At Rome he met one of his relatives, Juan
de Zúñiga, then Spanish ambassador near the papal court. On a fourth
journey to Austria he was graciously received by Emperor Maximilian and
by the empress, María; also by his godfather, Rudolph, who had become
king of Hungary. Ercilla returned to Spain in 1577. This was the last of
his journeys into foreign countries. In 1578 he published at Madrid the
second part of _La Araucana_.
[Sidenote: The argument]
The argument of the poem is stated in the first two octaves:
No las damas, amor, no gentilezas
De caballeros canto enamorados;
Ni las muestras, regalos, y ternezas
De amorosos afectos y cuidados:
Mas el valor, los hechos, las proezas
De aquellos españoles esforzados,
Que a la cerviz de Arauco, no domada,
Pusieron duro yugo por la espada.
Cosas diré también harto notables
De gente que a ningún rey obedecen,
Temerarias empresas memorables
Que celebrarse con razón merecen;
Raras industrias, términos loables
Que más los españoles engrandecen;
Pues no es el vencedor más estimado
De aquello en que el vencido es reputado.[58]
[Sidenote: Spain against Portugal]
Soon after this publication the king sent Ercilla to Saragossa to confer
there with the Duke of Brunswick and to persuade him to postpone his
visit to Madrid. At the same time the question of the succession to the
Portuguese crown seemed to portend war, and Ercilla looked forward to
playing a conspicuous rôle in the projected campaign, and to celebrating
once more in verse the glory of Spanish arms. But the opposition to
Spain’s pretensions collapsed, and Portugal was annexed to Spain without
exploits worthy of heroic song. The poet turned from literary work
to religious devotion and prayer, and his tendency to melancholy was
intensified in his last years by the loss of his brother, Juan, who was
accompanying Philip II. to Portugal, and by the death of his only son,
Diego. Somewhat of this attitude of mind finds expression in the last
octave of his poem:
Y yo que tan sin rienda al mundo he dado
El tiempo de mi vida más florido,
Y siempre por camino despeñado
Mis vanas esperanzas he seguido;
Visto ya el poco fruto que he sacado,
Y lo mucho que a Dios tengo ofendido,
Conociendo mi error, de aquí adelante
Será razón que llore y que no cante.[59]
[Sidenote: The poet’s mental depression]
This mental depression had also a cause in the withdrawal of the king’s
favour as well as in the loss of relatives and friends and the fact that
the poet faced old age without descendants.
In 1589 Ercilla published the third part of _La Araucana_. Some years
later a new edition was issued, with two additional cantos, making the
whole number thirty-seven.[60] He died in the city of Madrid on the
29th of November, 1594. The statement sometimes made that he died in
extreme poverty does not appear to be supported by the fact that at
the time of his death he had a household establishment consisting of
twelve persons, to whom he bequeathed considerable sums, but with the
statement that these sums were moderate, since all of these persons were
expected to remain in the service of his widow, and derive advantage from
her liberality. Among other bequests were five thousand ducats to his
nieces and nephews, and ten thousand ducats as a contribution for the
construction of a monastery, where his body and that of his widow might
be buried.
[Sidenote: The writing of the poem]
[Sidenote: The early cantos]
Some part of _La Araucana_ was written amid the scenes, and in connexion
with the events, described. In his _Prólogo_ Ercilla has stated that
he wrote at hours stolen from the occupations of war in Chile, and
sometimes on pieces of leather or of hides for want of paper, or on
fragments of letters often only large enough to hold six lines; and it
often required much effort and trouble to arrange these fragments in
their proper order. This method of writing, as the author confesses,
gave to his poem in some respects the quality of a journal in verse.
This was especially true of those parts that were written during the
campaign against the Araucanians, dealing with what he saw or with
the events in which he participated; and these parts may be accepted
as having the historical authority of a contemporary chronicle. This
quality may be more particularly ascribed to the first fifteen cantos,
the first published after the author’s return to Spain. And these cantos,
during the seven years between the author’s arrival in Europe and their
publication, underwent extensive modification and elaboration. It does
not, however, appear probable that much if any of the second part was
written in America, but that the author undertook it, “having promised to
continue this history.” In the preface to the second part he affirms that
he has continued it with no little difficulty and ennui, on account of
the severity and monotony of the material, “since from the beginning to
the end it contains only one and the same subject.”
The composition of _La Araucana_ was interrupted many times by the
author’s journeys and his diplomatic services. After Ercilla’s return
to Spain the events of the Indian wars and the spirit of the contending
parties gradually became indistinct in his mind. He departed from his
original purpose “not to sing of love and the gallantry of enamoured
knights,” and, under the influence of Italian models, introduced
invented tales of romantic adventure, leaving the poem, in some sense, a
mechanical mixture of historical narrative and romantic episodes.
[Sidenote: Ercilla wanted a hero]
The Araucanian war presented no leader on either side whose prominence
entitled him to be treated as the prominent hero of the conflict. For
this reason Ercilla is obliged to allow one figure after another to
occupy the centre of the stage. Although his purpose was to glorify
Spanish arms, the heroes who have appealed most strongly even to the
inhabitants of Chile are the Araucanian chiefs. In the struggle for
emancipation from Spain the Chileans were especially incited to action
by the heroism of Caupolicán, Lautaro, Tucapel, Colocolo, and Galvarino.
Parents named their children after these heroes, and the name of
Lautaro was applied to the patriotic association of the early advocates
of Spanish-American independence. Thus the inspiring figures in the
narrative of the war are not the Spanish but the Indian leaders. It is
quite possible that Ercilla’s resentment at the treatment he received
at the hands of García de Mendoza prevented the commander’s figure from
assuming greater importance in the poem.
[Illustration: Statue of Caupolicán in Santiago de Chile]
[Sidenote: The magnified chiefs]
Lautaro is described as a young man of medium height, solidly formed,
with strong limbs and strong shoulders, and endowed with moral
qualities not less advantageous than his physical qualities; audacious
and unafraid, prompt to act, resourceful and heroic under critical
circumstances; when the circumstances allowed him leisure, he knew how
to prepare slowly and carefully for a difficult enterprise, to take as
his soldiers even the most reckless and villainous of the Araucanians,
to subject them to an iron discipline, and to inspire in them love and
admiration for a chief who punished implacably with death the slightest
infraction of his orders; yet in the story of the love that existed
between him and the beautiful Guacolda the poet has revealed the gentler
traits of his hero’s character.[61]
[Sidenote: Caupolicán]
In the list of Araucanian heroes an especially prominent place is
accorded to Caupolicán, as typifying the strength and pride of his
people, their contempt of pain and even of death. Ercilla gives the
following description of him in the forty-seventh octave of the second
canto:
Era este noble mozo de alto hecho,
Varón de autoridad, grave y severo,
Amigo de guardar todo derecho,
Áspero y riguroso justiciero,
De cuerpo grande y relevado pecho,
Hábil, diestro, fortísimo y ligero,
Sabio, astuto, sagaz, determinado,
Y en casos de repente reportado.[62]
[Sidenote: Tucapel]
Tucapel is presented as a noisy and ferocious savage, always ready for
any adventure, for a fight with the Spaniards or with the chiefs of his
own race, unwilling to recognise any authority from any source, opposed
to all arguments and to the traditions of his people; endowed with
the physical qualities of a Hercules; turbulent, wilful, impious, and
boastful of his ability to conquer the world single-handed. Recalling the
heroic character of Milton’s Satan, the Araucanian heroes are presented
by Ercilla in such a form as to excite admiration, although they appear
as the determined enemies of Europeans and of European civilization.
[Sidenote: Colocolo’s speech]
But these great chiefs have become less widely known than the less
noteworthy Colocolo, whom Voltaire celebrates in his Essay on Epic
Poetry, by quoting the speech to the caciques and by comparing Ercilla’s
Colocolo with Homer’s Nestor. Colocolo addresses the chiefs, or caciques,
who are contending among themselves for pre-eminence and leadership,
and he seeks for a solution of the contest that will preserve the moral
equality of the chiefs:
“Caciques, del estado defensores,
Codicia de mandar no me convida
A pesarme de veros pretensores
De cosa que a mi tanto era debida:
Porque, según mi edad, ya véis, señores,
Que estoy al otro mundo de partida;
Mas el amor que siempre os he mostrado
A bien aconsejaros me ha incitado.
“¿Por qué cargos honrosos pretendemos
Y ser en opinión grande tenidos,
Pues que negar al mundo no podemos
Haber sido sujetos y vencidos?
Y en esto averiguarnos no queremos,
Estando aún de españoles oprimidos:
Mejor fuera esa furia ejecutalla
Contra el fiero enemigo en la batalla.
“¿Qué furor es el vuestro ¡oh Araucanos!
Que a perdición os lleva sin sentillo?
Contra vuestras entrañas tenéis manos,
Y no contra el tirano en resistillo?
¿Teniendo tan a golpe a los cristianos
Volvéis contra vosotros el cuchillo?
Si gana de morir os ha movido,
No sea en tan bajo estado y abatido.
“Volved las armas y ánimo furioso
A los pechos de aquellos que os han puesto
En dura sujeción, con afrentoso
Partido, a todo el mundo manifiesto;
Lanzad de vos el yugo vergonzoso;
Mostrad vuestro valor y fuerza en esto:
No derrameis la sangre del Estado
Que para redimirnos ha quedado.
“No me pesa de ver la lozanía
De vuestro corazón, antes me esfuerza;
Mas temo que esta vuestra valentía
Por mal gobierno el buen camino tuerza:
Que, vuelta entre nosotros la porfía,
Degolláis vuestra patria con su fuerza:
Cortad, pues, si ha de ser desa manera
Esta vieja garganta la primera:
“Que esta flaca persona, atormentada
De golpes de fortuna, no procura
Sino el agudo filo de una espada,
Pues no la acaba tanta desventura.
Aquella vida es bien afortunada
Que la temprana muerte la asegura;
Pero, a nuestro bien público atendiendo,
Quiero decir en esto lo que entiendo.
“Pares sois en valor y fortaleza;
El cielo os igualó en el nacimiento;
De linaje, de estado y de riqueza
Hizo a todos igual repartimiento;
Y en singular por ánimo y grandeza
Podéis tener del mundo el regimiento:
Que este gracioso don, no agradecido,
Nos ha al presente término traído.
“En la virtud de vuestro brazo espero
Que puede en breve tiempo remediarse,
Mas ha de haber un capitán primero
Que todos por él quieran gobernarse:
Este será quien más un gran madero
Sustentare en el hombro sin pararse;
Y pues que sois iguales en la suerte,
Procure cada cual de ser más fuerte.”
Canto II., Oct. 28, et seq.[63]
[Illustration: García Hurtado de Mendoza, 8th Viceroy of Peru 1590-1596]
[Sidenote: García de Mendoza]
[Sidenote: Ercilla on Ercilla]
The prominent Spaniards are sketched less clearly than the Indians,
appealing apparently less powerfully to the poet’s imagination. Yet the
sketch of García de Mendoza, the youthful commander of the expedition,
appears exaggerated when it is remembered that he was a youth of
twenty-one and that some of his actions showed a wisdom not beyond
his years. But among the characters that appear in the poem, not the
least conspicuous is Ercilla himself. The references to his journeys
and explorations throw an important side-light on the early history of
Chile. These references, moreover, show him as a champion of the more
admirable features of civilization. He opposes the useless cruelty of
his compatriots; he is humane towards the vanquished; proud to repel the
indignities offered by the commander; religious but not fanatical; a
knight of the Middle Ages, animated by a certain pride in enduring the
hardships and facing the dangers presented by a barbarous enemy in an
unexplored region; a chivalrous hero, but too sober-minded to be drawn
into quixotic enterprises.[64]
[Sidenote: Ercilla’s limited knowledge of Indians]
[Sidenote: The poet’s philosophy]
Ercilla presents the Araucanian heroes speaking to their countrymen as
Spaniards might have spoken under similar circumstances. Evidently his
knowledge of them was too superficial to enable him to set forth their
psychological peculiarities, but he makes their individuality distinct by
descriptions of their dress. His lack of intimate knowledge of the Indian
mind may be indicated by the fact that apart from geographical terms he
uses few words of a local origin or meaning, or that might not have been
understood in Spain before the discovery of America. It is not merely
descriptions of dress or of persons that certain critics have found
admirable, but descriptions of events, of battles, as well. Considering
this quality, however, there has existed a wide divergence of judgments,
and the extreme unevenness of the poem suggests that some feature of it
may be found to justify each view. The course of the narrative is here
and there interrupted by the introduction of rhetorical speeches, and by
reflections that seem to embody a philosophy or views of life, and these
views indicate an uncheerful, if not a pessimistic, philosophy. In the
fourth octave of the second canto he announces that “the most assured
benefit of fortune is not to have ever had it”; and in the first octave
of the twenty-sixth canto he finds that “the coming of one good after
another is very doubtful, while one evil after another is always certain.
The time of prosperity was never lasting, and the time of misery has
never ceased.” This mournful note recurs frequently throughout the poem
until the final lamentation of the last octave.
[Sidenote: Barbarian innocence]
But in certain passages there are anticipations of the doctrine that
prevailed in France two hundred years later, the doctrine of the
uncorrupted virtue of uncivilized society. This octave, the thirteenth of
the thirty-sixth canto, is an indication:
La sincera bondad y la caricia
De la sencilla gente de estas tierras
Daban bien a entender que la codicia
Aún no había penetrado aquellas sierras;
Ni la maldad, el robo y la injusticia
(Alimento ordinario de las guerras)
Entrada en esta parte habían hallado
Ni la ley natural inficionado.[65]
[Sidenote: _Orlando Furioso_]
The marked attention given to _Orlando Furioso_ in Spain in the sixteenth
century made inevitable its influence on Ercilla. This poem was twice
translated into Spanish verse in the year 1549-1550, by Jerónimo de
Urrea and Hernando de Alcocer, and later a prose translation was made by
Vázquez de Contreras.
Seven editions of Urrea’s translation were issued before 1564, and
Ariosto appears to have been a principal source of Ercilla’s inspiration,
but the vigorous and positive spirit of the Spaniard was not able to
acquire the Italian’s gifts of facility, grace, and fancy.[66]
[Sidenote: Style of _La Araucana_]
[Sidenote: A view of Ercilla]
A criticism of the style of _La Araucana_ is hardly involved in the
purpose of the present writing. Concerning this subject reliance must
be placed on the judgment of Spanish critics, by whom one will find the
excellences and defects of Ercilla’s verses sufficiently emphasized.
There are stretches of dull and loose narration, but here and there
are spirited verses, and octaves as fine as any found elsewhere in the
Spanish language; but in this age of rapid movement, in these days of
social impatience, three hundred and forty years after its publication,
the reading of the poem is likely to be confined to persons who on
account of their nationality or for other reasons have a special interest
in the romantic history of the Spanish conquest in Chile. It is on its
quality as history that stress must be laid. “Ercilla,” to quote a French
critic, “n’était qu’un historien fourvoyé dans la poésie.... Il manquait
surtout de sensibilité, de tendresse, pour mieux dire, et c’est selon
nous, la grande cause de son infériorité. Il ne parait avoir ressenti
vivement que l’ivresse brutale des combats. Il quitte la patrie sans
un soupir, il la retrouve sans un transport. Il n’a fait parler ni
l’amour paternel, ni l’amour filial. Les amants et les époux qu’il met en
scène sont des raisonneurs froids, sententieux et subtils, et s’il leur
échappe par hasard un cri passionné nous y percevons l’écho d’une plainte
antique.”[67]
In his _Retórica poética_, Barros Arana affirms that Ercilla “describes
with ardour” the combats and naturally and correctly the localities,
sketches regularly the characters, and puts beautiful speeches into
the mouth of his heroes, but his work lacks the plan and the necessary
unity of an epic to such a degree that instead of a poem it appears as a
poetical history of the war it celebrates.[68]
[Sidenote: Popularity of the poem]
But in spite of its shortcomings there are few books that have been
oftener printed, and, like the other great modern historical poems, it
has enjoyed a very noteworthy popularity. Even in recent times new and
popular editions have appeared, and in the last half of the nineteenth
century Alexandre Nicolas translated it into French prose, published
at Paris in two volumes in 1869. It had already been translated into
German by C. M. Winterling thirty-eight years earlier. An abridged
translation into French, by Gilibert de Merlhiac, appeared in 1824.
The metrical translation of parts of the poem into English, published
in the translation of Molina’s _Historia de Chile_ (Middletown, Conn.,
1808) hardly merits comment. The most striking success of the poem was
achieved in Chile, where the people, ignorant of all the favourable and
unfavourable contentions of the critics, have regarded it as their Iliad,
celebrating the beginning of their national life.
[Sidenote: _Hechos de Don García_]
[Sidenote: Character of Figueroa’s book]
[Sidenote: Life of Figueroa]
Ercilla’s apparent determination to belittle the achievements of the
Governor of Chile called forth the _Hechos de Don García Hurtado de
Mendoza, el Marqués de Cañete_, by Suárez de Figueroa, who, although
not a Chilean, was induced to write on a Chilean topic. His work was an
attempt to overtake and smother an advanced damaging report. Don García,
when in command of the expedition against the Araucanians, as already
suggested, condemned Ercilla to death, a sentence later modified under
the protests of persons who comprehended its injustice. After this
incident Don García did not find either his leadership or his character
glorified in _La Araucana_. This was a source of regret not only to
himself but also to his family. He died in obscurity, and after this
event his relatives sought to rehabilitate his memory for posterity.
They approached Dr. Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, proposing that he
should undertake the task, should become the eulogist of a person on
whom an unfavourable verdict had already been pronounced. He accepted
the proposal, and of the seven books into which his work was divided
the first three treat of Don García’s campaigns in Chile; the others
deal with his government as viceroy of Peru, Mendaña’s expedition to the
Solomon Islands, and the inglorious years of disgrace. In view of the
judgments of history, Figueroa’s extravagant panegyric appears absurd. It
may be said in favour of the book that it presents papers or documents
given to the author by the Mendoza family, which furnish details of the
viceroy’s life not otherwise known. But, on the other hand, it deals
with a country which Figueroa had not visited, and with conditions of
which he was almost entirely ignorant, thus making inevitable an abnormal
perspective and false emphasis. The book is, however, written in “flowing
and elegant language that is only rarely found in the historians of
America; and in order to add interest to the work the author introduced
rhetorical descriptions of a country he had not seen and of battles that
were scarcely referred to in the documents.”[69]
CHAPTER VI
ERCILLA’S IMITATORS
I. _Pedro de Oña._ II. _Juan de Mendoza Monteagudo._ III.
_Álvarez de Toledo._ IV. _Diego de Santistevan Osorio._
I
[Sidenote: Oña and Ercilla]
[Sidenote: Oña in Chile and in Lima]
[Sidenote: University of San Marcos]
The model set by Ercilla in _La Araucana_ was followed by later writers.
Pedro de Oña acknowledged that he was an imitator of Ercilla, and in
_Arauco domado_ he wrote of essentially the same series of events, events
of the Araucanian war; but the two writers emphasized different phases of
their subject. Ercilla celebrated the heroism of the Indians, and devoted
little attention to the Spanish governor, who was at the same time the
commander of the expedition against the Araucanians; Oña’s hero, on the
other hand, was García Hurtado de Mendoza, the governor of Chile, who
had become viceroy of Peru. García de Mendoza’s administration of Chile
had fallen in the most critical period of the province. In the beginning
of 1560 he was recalled from Chile by Philip II, and returned to Spain,
where he apparently outlived the disfavour of the crown; for in 1590 he
was sent back to America as viceroy of Peru. He was accompanied by his
brilliant wife, Doña Teresa de Castro, who took fifty women with her to
the capital. This year Oña took up his residence at the University of
San Marcos,[70] and his youthful and inexperienced mind was profoundly
impressed by the glories of the viceregal court. He was greatly moved
by the contrast it presented to the circumstances of his boyhood on
the Chilean frontier, where the Indians were not counted as heroes but
as savages against whom one had constantly to be defended. At Lima,
the centre of Spanish life in South America, recalling the unpleasant
circumstances of his early youth, it was natural that the dominant
note of his poem should be a glorification of the Spanish leader, then
occupying the exalted position of viceroy.
[Illustration: PEDRO DE OÑA]
[Sidenote: Oña’s education]
Pedro de Oña was the first native Chilean to achieve distinction in the
literature of his country. He was born in the town of Valdivia, when
it was merely a frontier post, garrisoned by about forty soldiers. He
was the eldest son of Captain Gregorio de Oña, who was a member of the
garrison. The exact date of his birth is not known, but it belongs to
the decade between 1560 and 1570. There appears to be no record stating
the place where his childhood and youth were passed, or what were the
circumstances of his early education. But on August 8, 1590, he was
matriculated in the university of San Marcos in Lima. He must have had
elsewhere preparatory instruction, for the entry in the university books
is that he was matriculated for the “Primer de Artes,” took the oath of
obedience to the rector, and presented certificates of examination. The
next year he matriculated for the second course, and in 1592 for the
third course. In the absence of any later matriculation in the arts it is
presumed that he left the university with the degree of bachelor. He then
appears among the troops sent to put down an insurrection that had broken
out in Quito. After his return from this expedition he was matriculated
in 1593 for the first course in theology, but it is not known how far he
pursued his theological studies. Three years later, in 1596, he published
in Lima the _Primera parte del Arauco domado_, and on the title page he
sets himself down as “Licenciado.” This was two years after Ercilla’s
death.
[Sidenote: _Arauco domado_]
The writer of _Arauco domado_, like Ercilla, not only narrated real
events in the history of the conquest, but also introduced episodes
that were the products of his imagination, and all were presented with
a noteworthy facility of versification. But the real events of which
Oña was able to treat did not in his time justify the term “domado” in
his title. The historian Olivares affirms that Arauco may be said to
be _domado_ only in desire, since neither in Oña’s time, nor for two
hundred years later had all the power of Spain been able to effect the
subjugation.[71] And Oña’s treatment of the events in the process of this
war of subjugation was cut short at the close of the first part of his
poem, for the announced second part never appeared.[72]
[Sidenote: Mental attitude of Oña]
Oña shared the religious views of the bulk of his countrymen; in fact,
the only persons who showed a disposition to break with the Church were
the encomenderos, when they found the priests intervening to modify
their treatment of the Indians. But Oña’s devoutness was only such as
conformed to the current sentiments of the more or less cultivated
colonists. It was a phase of Spanish patriotism and presumed hostility
to the English heretics. It presumed also that those who fell in
conflict with the English, whatever may have been the real origin of the
combat, fell in a holy cause. Another item in the mental furniture of
Oña and those like him was “the dogma of royal majesty,” which involved
attachment and devotion to the king of Spain, and ascribed to him all
the virtues, and especially love for his subjects, in spite of his
mental and moral incapacity and his subjection to corrupt favourites. It
involved devotion, service, and sacrifice to an ideal that became farther
and farther removed from the reality as one Spanish monarch succeeded
another throughout the last half of the sixteenth and the whole of the
seventeenth century. Proceeding from an author in this attitude of mind,
the poem naturally became a very serious production, not defiled by any
breath of humour.
[Sidenote: _Río Lima al río Tibre_]
A later work of Pedro de Oña which has come to light appeared in
connexion with the celebration of the designation of the Blessed
Francisco Solano as patron of the city of Santiago. It is entitled _Río
Lima al río Tibre_. This poem was printed in the beginning of Alonso
Mendieta’s edition of Diego de Córdoba’s _Vida, virtudes y milagros del
Apóstol del Perú, el V. P. Fray Francisco Solano_, which was published
in Madrid in 1643. It is based on the account of Francisco Solano set
forth in Córdoba’s _Vida_, and other material drawn from the early
history of the western coast of South America. Medina indicated his
appreciation of it by printing it in the text of his _Historia de la
literatura colonial de Chile_, and designating it as the most interesting
of the author’s poems. And the poet himself he characterized as “without
doubt the greatest Chilean poet of the colonial period.” At the end of
his elaborate account he pronounces a general judgment of the man and
his work: “As a man, the remembrance of his kindness, his simple and
honourable character, his love of his country and family cannot but
awaken profound sympathy; and as a poet the verses of _Arauco domado_ are
destined to be remembered under their double aspect of history and of
literature.”[73]
[Sidenote: _El Ignacio de Cantabra_]
[Sidenote: Quality of _El Ignacio_]
After a long period, during which the name of Oña had passed from public
notice, there appeared in Seville in 1639 a poem by him entitled _El
Ignacio de Cantabra_, celebrating the founder of the Jesuits, and setting
forth the supernatural events which the poet’s fancy associated with
the spiritual life of his hero. At the same time the author gives some
account of the miracles that justified Ignacio’s designation as a saint,
and presents certain theological dissertations. The action of the poem
is clogged by the numerous descriptions of Ignacio’s spiritual views
and torments, and the poem itself is overloaded with the narration of
events that involve supernatural beings. This later work indicates that
with advancing years religious ideas became gradually the prepossession
of Oña’s mind. It shows, moreover, that he had effected a radical
change in his system of versification. The verses of his first work ran
without difficulty and without apparent effort, but in the last the
writer weighed every phrase, sought for transpositions however violent
they might be, parodied the poetic style, and polished his stanzas for
fifteen years.[74] The poem appears not to have had a second edition, but
it is said to have contributed much to enhance and confirm the poet’s
reputation in Europe.
II
In the course of his investigations in the National Library in Madrid
Barros Arana brought to light a poem in manuscript, belonging to the
class of historical narrative poems already considered. There is in the
manuscript no indication of the name of the writer, but it has been
ascribed to Juan de Mendoza Monteagudo. The poem is divided into eleven
cantos, containing a total of about eight thousand lines. It deals with
the events and the period treated by Ercilla, the wars between the
Spaniards and the Araucanians; it is written in the form of verse used in
_La Araucana_.
[Sidenote: Mendoza’s subject]
Here is the author’s announcement of his subject:
La guerra envejecida y larga canto,
Tan grave, tan prolija y tan pesada
Que a un reino poderoso y rico tanto
Le tiene la cerviz ya quebrantada.
Y en el discurso de ella también cuanto
Han hecho memorable por la espada
Aquellos que a despecho del estado
El gran valor de Arauco han sustentado.
Los casos contaré más señalados
En el discurso desto acontecidos
Entre los españoles no cansados
Y los rebeldes indios invencios.[75]
III
[Sidenote: Toledo with Sotomayor’s expedition]
The expedition from Spain to America, commanded by General Diego Flores
de Valdés, left San Lucar on September 25, 1580. It was organized
to conduct Governor Alonso de Sotomayor to Chile. It consisted of
twenty-three vessels, which carried about six hundred soldiers and a
large number of prospective settlers. Among the passengers was Álvarez de
Toledo, who was destined to hold a conspicuous place among the colonists,
and to add _El Purén indómito_ to the literature of the Araucanian wars.
Toledo was born in Andalucía. Before he joined this expedition he had
visited Norway and had been a soldier in Flanders, and his experience had
in a measure hardened him against the barbarities of Indian warfare.
[Sidenote: The voyage]
In spite of a threatening storm the fleet put to sea at the time
announced. When the storm had passed three vessels had disappeared, and
nearly all of their crews and passengers were lost. The damage suffered
by the remaining vessels caused them to return to Cadiz for repairs.
Of these only seventeen were found fit to continue the voyage. These
finally left Cadiz on November 30. By desertion and disease the number
of soldiers was reduced to five hundred and twenty. Among these were
officers who had won distinction in the campaigns in Flanders: Luis
de Sotomayor, brother of the Governor, Francisco del Campo, and Alonso
García Ramón. After they had suffered storms and equally exasperating
calms for many long months, the surviving vessels reached the island
of Santa Catalina where they halted for recuperation. These were only
eleven; six had paid the toll of the ocean. With eight vessels Diego
Flores de Valdés determined to carry out the plan of reaching Chile by
way of the straits. Sotomayor determined, however, with the three other
vessels to take his soldiers to the Río de la Plata, and thence to cross
the plains and go over the Andes to Chile. He lost one of his vessels
in the Río de la Plata, together with a quantity of clothing and other
stores, but all persons on board were saved.
[Sidenote: Buenos Aires in 1583]
[Sidenote: Overland journey to Chile]
Buenos Aires, at the time of Sotomayor’s landing, had the appearance of
a temporary camp. A settlement had been made at that point in 1535, but
lack of food and the hostility of the Indians caused it to be abandoned
in 1538, for the site of the present city of Asunción. Forty-two years
later, in 1580, the abandoned site was reoccupied under the leadership
of Juan de Garay, and this new town had entered upon the third year of
its existence when Sotomayor and his troops arrived. The horses that
had been abandoned there nearly fifty years earlier had multiplied
rapidly, and now furnished the animals needed for the trip across
the continent. Wishing to assume the government of Chile as early as
possible, Sotomayor, accompanied by eight persons, set out in advance
of his troops, who were left to follow under the command of his brother
Luis. He arrived at San Juan, in the province of Cuyo, on April 12, 1583,
and on the 29th of the same month he reached the city of Mendoza. In
this province, then within the jurisdiction of Chile, he was received as
governor. The mountain pass was already closed with snow, and Sotomayor
was obliged to remain in Cuyo until September. In the meantime, the
troops, those who had not been induced to desert, about four hundred,
were en route across the pampas, where they suffered great privation from
lack of food and through ignorance of the way. They arrived in Mendoza
on August 15. “They came without shoes and so nearly naked,” as Sotomayor
wrote to the king, “that it broke my heart to see them.”[76]
From Mendoza Sotomayor sent two messengers over the Andes in July, the
mid-winter of the South, with confidential communications for the cabildo
of Santiago. The mission was designed to set aside the internal confusion
and conflicts that had arisen concerning the encomendero’s right to the
labour of the Indians. It carried to Chile the governor’s appointment of
five persons to take over the government of the province and conduct it
until Sotomayor’s arrival at Santiago. Then, without waiting for the snow
to disappear from the pass, he crossed the mountains in the last days
of September, and immediately on arriving at Santiago he sent Pedro de
Lisperguer to Lima with an order from the king, requiring the audiencia,
in the absence of the viceroy, to send assistance to the impoverished and
distressed colony.
[Sidenote: Toledo in Chile]
After his arrival in Chile Toledo’s time was so distributed that war,
agriculture, and poetry each claimed a share. He became an alcalde of
Chillán, acquired extensive lands stocked with sheep and cattle, and
at least on one occasion he suffered the not uncommon experience of
having his estate plundered, his cattle driven off, and his herdsmen and
shepherds captured. This loss naturally inflamed his desire to see the
campaigns against the Indians carried on with energy, and added zeal to
his own participation. In one attack he was felled by a blow on the head
that caused him to be unconscious for an hour, and to remain for a period
without any recollection of the events of the conflict. Later he was
engaged in the battle of Yumbel, a detailed account of which he has given
in his writings.
[Sidenote: Cavendish rescues Fernando]
[Sidenote: Cavendish’s men betrayed by Fernando]
Holding the rank of captain, Álvarez de Toledo had part in numerous
encounters with the Indians. He appeared also in the conflict between
Cavendish’s men and the Spaniards on the coast of Chile. In passing
through the strait of Magellan Cavendish discovered the moribund remnant
of the colony Sarmiento had left in that inhospitable region, and took on
board one of the colonists named Fernando in order that he might serve
as a guide. Fernando finally betrayed the English, in spite of “all his
deepe and damnable othes which he had made continually to our general and
all his company never to forsake him, to die on his side before he would
be false;”[77] for when Cavendish landed fifty or sixty men on the coast
of Chile, at the bay of Quintero, in search of wood, Fernando led them
into a position where they were surprised and attacked by two hundred
Spaniards. Before Cavendish’s men were able to regain their ships,
twelve of them were killed by the Spaniards. That Fernando was held
as a prisoner by heretics has been advanced as a justification of his
deception, in spite of the fact that his removal from the settlement by
the strait saved his life. Toledo, who was one of the two hundred members
of the attacking party, has celebrated the event in his _Araucana_.[78]
[Sidenote: Toledo and the Indians]
Governor Alonso de Sotomayor appointed Toledo high constable in 1590. In
this period the tranquility of the Spanish settlers was greatly disturbed
by renewed hostilities on the part of the Araucanians, whose raids were
extended into regions that had been occupied by towns and villages of
Europeans. Toledo was alcalde of Chillán when that city was plundered and
destroyed by the cacique Quilacán in 1599. On this occasion Toledo was
absent, and to this fact is probably due the preservation of his life.
After he had recovered from the shock caused by the news of this
disaster, he hastened to Chillán and joined a force that went in pursuit
of the Indians, under the command of Tomás de Olaverría, and was later
engaged in other campaigns. In 1600 Álvarez de Toledo married Jerónima de
Lemos. At that time he was living as an encomendero, or the proprietor,
of an estate in the country near San Juan de la Frontera, where he died
on August 3, 1633, leaving his estancia stocked with goats, sheep, and
cattle. Other items of his property were three slaves and a vineyard
inherited from his ancestors.
[Sidenote: Toledo’s _Araucana_]
[Sidenote: _El Purén indómito_]
Of Toledo’s poem _Araucana_ only small fragments have been preserved, and
the writer’s reputation rests chiefly on the twenty-four cantos of _El
Purén indómito_, written at least in part during the author’s military
service. It lacks most of the essential qualities of a poem but is
important as an historical document.[79]
Medina characterizes Álvarez de Toledo as simply a soldier who wrote
verses with great facility, and who, without any pretension to divine
inspiration, sets forth in an agreeable manner the conflict of arms
in which he himself had figured, or of which he had received minute
information from the accounts of his companions, narrated at night
around camp fires. He did not propose to present poetic inventions,
episodes of the imagination, but to recount only real and accredited
facts.[80] His purpose was to write a chronicle in verse, and the product
of his labour lacks the chief characteristics of an epic. In his fifteen
thousand lines the scene changes from Chile to Peru, from Santiago to
Concepción, from the banks of rivers to the sombre depths of the forests
of Arauco, and from the strand of the open sea to the narrow valleys of
the mountains; and throughout the narrative there is abundant evidence
of the writer’s memory of details, of the names of persons, of the exact
time of events, and even of the colour of horses. Some of his octaves
are composed almost entirely of names, and are therefore, practically
unreadable, particularly when these names are of Araucanian persons or
objects.[81]
The _Araucana_ of Álvarez de Toledo is accepted as a credible historical
narrative, and equal credibility is attributed to its continuation under
the title of _Purén indómito_.
IV
[Sidenote: Ercilla continued by Osorio]
It was Ercilla’s fate to be imitated not only by writers of talent, but
also by a stupid writer who essayed to continue or to complete his epic.
This was Diego de Santistevan Osorio, who undertook a work that was
designed to be written in the style of Ercilla’s poem and to continue
the story of the Indian war and Ercilla’s part in it. It was called the
fourth and fifth parts of _La Araucana_.[82] But in every respect it
falls far below its forerunner. Medina characterizes it as the production
of a juvenile brain rendered enthusiastic by reading a masterpiece
written by one intensely interested in his subject.[83]
Biographical knowledge of Santistevan Osorio is limited to a few facts:
that he was born in León in Spain; that he published his principal work
in 1597; and that he published another work on the wars of the knights
of Malta and the capture of Rhodes.
[Sidenote: Character of Osorio’s work]
The continuation of _La Araucana_ is composed of two parts, the first
part embracing thirteen cantos, and the second part twenty. One of the
noteworthy features of Santistevan’s work is the reckless mingling of
the Virgin Mary and the characters of pagan mythology. Then out of
the depths of his imagination the author calls forth a being whom he
designates Caupolicán the Second; and in the course of the narrative one
encounters Zoroaster, Dido, Semiramis and Zenobia, not to mention less
conspicuous ornaments of ancient history and mythology; and these are all
jumbled together in obscure confusion. The independence, the stoicism
and bravery that Ercilla found in the enemy do not appear in the Indians
as presented by Santistevan Osorio. Here they are timid, shrinking, and
brought into battle only by the employment of various incentives. The
moral reflections with which the author introduces the several cantos
are vapid dissertations on the instability of fortune. The strength and
the passion which move heroes to action seem to appear to our author as
mistakes of creation.
These early “historical poems” continued to impress their style upon
later writers both in Spain and America, and to call American affairs to
the attention of the people of Europe. Gabriel Lasso de la Vega wrote _La
Mexicana_, published first in 1588 under the title of _Cortés valeroso_.
The theme of the poem on Chilean affairs was taken up by the stage in
Spain. _Algunas hazañas de las muchas de Don García Hurtado de Mendoza_
was a mediocre work by a number of authors. _Arauco domado_, by Lope de
Vega, had Ercilla as one of its characters; he appeared on the stage
beating a drum. Other dramas dealing with the same general subject were
_Gobernador Prudente_, by Gaspar de Ávila, and _Españoles en Chile_, by
Francisco González de Bustos. In the drama by Bustos the baptism of a
prominent Indian chief, the empalement of Caupolicán, and the greatness
of the family of Mendoza are presented as three of Spain’s claims to
distinction.
CHAPTER VII
JUAN DE CASTELLANOS
[Sidenote: Castellanos in New Granada]
[Sidenote: Jiménez de Quesada]
[Sidenote: Quesada’s manuscript]
Besides Ercilla and his imitators, already mentioned, a number of other
writers in verse appeared among the early chroniclers of South American
affairs. The most noteworthy of these were Juan de Castellanos, of Tierra
Firme, Martín del Barco Centenera, of Tucumán and Paraguay, and Pedro
Peralta Barnuevo, of Peru. The position of Castellanos in relation to
the literary history of New Granada, or Colombia, may be compared with
that of Ercilla with respect to Chile; but the name of Castellanos in the
New Granadan catalogue is preceded by that of Jiménez de Quesada, the
discoverer of the territory of the Chibchas and the founder of Bogotá.
Quesada was born in Córdoba, but his boyhood was spent in Granada, where
his father, Luis Jiménez de Quesada, was a judge. He studied law, and
was graduated with the title of licenciado. Under Governor Lugo he was
the chief judicial officer of the colony of Santa Marta, and from this
post he was advanced to the leadership of the expedition sent to explore
the interior of the country. Having established a settlement on the
plateau, August 6, 1538, he returned to Europe in 1539. His account of
this expedition was called _Compendio historial_. Lucas Fernández de
Piedrahita (1624-1688) affirms, in the _Prólogo_ of his _Historia general
de las conquistas del nuevo reino de Granada_, that the manuscript of the
_Compendio historial_ was sent to Spain, where he saw it in one of the
libraries of Madrid. It is also reported that for many years it was in
the possession of the national library at Bogotá, and that the historian
Antonio Plaza took it from the library about 1848, and used it in writing
his history of New Granada; moreover, that it was lost among Plaza’s
papers after that writer’s death, which occurred in 1854. Parts of it are
preserved in the quotations made from it by Plaza and Zamora. A few of
these extracts have been reprinted by Vergara y Vergara in his _Historia
de la literatura en Nueva Granada_. The _Epítome de la conquista del
Nuevo Reino_, by Quesada, recently published by M. Jiménez de la Espada,
is found to be different, at least in part, from the original _Compendia
historial_.
[Illustration: Juan de Castellanos]
The events of Quesada’s march from the sea to the table-land, the coming
of Benalcázar from the south, the appearance of Federmann making his
way through the wilderness from Venezuela, the meeting of the three
captains, and the ceremonies attending the announcement and confirmation
of Spain’s claim to the land furnished themes fit for romances framed
after the model of the _Cid_. The most noteworthy writer who made use of
this material and presented it in verse was Juan de Castellanos; but his
work, written in his old age, is rather a history than a romance; it is a
metrical chronicle of the early history of New Granada.[84]
[Sidenote: Juan de Castellanos]
[Sidenote: Parish priest at Tunja]
[Sidenote: Castellano’s _Historia_]
Castellanos was born in the little town of Alanis in the province of
Seville March 9, 1523. His father was Cristóbal Sánchez Castellanos. He
left Spain as a soldier, began his military career in Porto Rico, and
was later at Paria and in the islands of Trinidad and Cubagua. He was
transferred to the island of Margarita after the earthquake which caused
all of the colonists of Cubagua to remove to Margarita. In 1550 he was
living at Cabo de la Vela, and a little later he is known to have been at
Santa Marta, where he remained until 1552. He was at Cartagena when that
town was taken by pirates in 1559. While there, after his long experience
as a soldier, he became a priest, at thirty-nine or forty years of age,
and was appointed to be the treasurer of the cathedral, but he refused
to accept this office, and removed from the diocese. Finally, in 1561,
he was established at Tunja as the parish priest. This position he held
for forty-five years, and during this period at least a part of his means
of support was drawn from well-stocked grazing lands. At Tunja he wrote
his _Elegías de varones ilustres de las Indias_, his swan-song, as he
described it at the beginning of his first canto:
A cantos elegíacos levanto
Con débiles acentos voz anciana,
Bien como blanco cisne que con canto
Su muerte solemniza ya cercana.
The time of his death is not known, but he was living in 1588, since in
his writings he refers to events which occurred in that year, and his
holographic will bears the date of 1606, when the author was eighty-four
years old.[85]
[Sidenote: _Compendio historial de Granada_]
The manuscript of the _Historia del nuevo reino de Granada_ by
Castellanos, published for the first time by Antonio Paz y Melia in
Madrid in 1886, was held by the monastery of Poblet for a considerable
part of the seventeenth century. Piedrahita used it as well as Quesada’s
_Compendio historial de las conquistas del nuevo reino de Granada_;[86]
in fact, some part of Piedrahita’s work appears as the verse of
Castellanos reduced to prose. Castellanos’ effective literary activity
covers the twenty-two years between 1570 and 1592. During this period at
the end of which he was seventy years old, he composed the four parts
of his chronicle, containing more than 150,000 lines, and another poem
on the life, death, and miracles of San Diego de Alcalá now apparently
lost. Although Castellanos announced, in the preface of his _Historia_,
his intention to write a fifth part, this design appears not to have been
carried out.
[Sidenote: _Elegías de varones ilustres de India_]
[Sidenote: On Castellanos’ verses]
The parts in print until recently were three parts of the _Elegías de
varones ilustres de Indias_ and the _Historia_. The first part treats of
the discovery of the New World, together with the conquest of certain
islands and a part of Tierra Firme. The second part has for its subject
events connected with the exploration of Venezuela and the settlement
of Cabo de la Vela and Santa Marta; while the third part narrates the
happenings in the provinces of Popayán and Cartagena from their discovery
to the time of the author’s writing. The fourth part is the history of
New Granada from the time when the Spaniards first set foot on the soil.
In determining the form, in so far as the verses are arranged into rhymed
octaves, there appears to be no doubt that the poem of Ercilla exerted
a powerful influence; for in the preface to the _Historia_ Castellanos
refers to the persons who, “enamoured of the sweetness of the verse with
which Don Alonso de Ercilla celebrated the Chilean wars, wished those of
the north might be sung in the same measure.” Castellanos’ determination
to act in accordance with these wishes was unfortunate. The verses are,
indeed, in some cases felicitous, but the author was clearly competent to
write well in prose, and, if this form of expression had been employed,
he would have given a more satisfactory contribution to historical
knowledge: it is affirmed, in fact, that he first composed his work in
prose, and spent ten years in turning it into verse. If the purpose in
this undertaking was to rival successfully Ercilla’s literary effort,
this also was unfortunate, for neither the excellence nor the fame of the
_Elegías_ ever attained the standard of _La Araucana_.
[Sidenote: Views of critics]
The opinion of the enthusiastic Colombian historian, Vergara y Vergara,
does not coincide with this view; he was disposed to think of Castellanos
as “a great poet,” and to regard him as superior to Ercilla. This is,
however, the view of an indulgent and patriotic critic. Moreover, Acosta,
also a Colombian, found that no other chronicler exceeded him “in
descriptions of the country, or of skirmishes and encounters with the
Indians, and particularly in picturing the impressions which traversing
the land and going among the people they had to subdue made on the hardy
and courageous conquistadores.”[87]
[Sidenote: Acosta and Menéndez y Pelayo]
Menéndez y Pelayo, referring to the plan of Castellanos’ work, affirmed
that “it is not really a poem, not even a chronicle, but a vast
collection of rhymed chronicles, in which one may distinguish as many
poems as there are personages; but whoever has the time and the courage
to enter into this forest, will not count his severe labour a loss when
he comes upon episodes such as the shipwreck of Licenciado Zuazo, or
the dreadful story of Lope de Aguirre (_Elegía xiv_) or the charming
description of the island of Margarita.”[88] The poetic quality of the
several parts of the work differs greatly, the first part being superior
to the rest. The poetic fire of the author burned lower with his
advancing years.
[Sidenote: _Discurso del Capitán Francisco Draque_]
The last part of Castellanos’ writings to appear in print is the
so-called _Discurso del Capitán Francisco Draque_, cut out of the third
part of _Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias_, and now, in 1921,
published at Madrid by the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan. This third
part of the _Elegías_ deals with the history of Cartagena, and the
pages extracted from the original manuscript contain a narrative of the
events associated with Drake’s capture of the city in 1586. They present
as an introduction to the main theme some account of Drake’s earlier
adventures, particularly of his voyage around the world, 1577-1580. The
motive for extracting these pages and making of them a separate document,
and the complete history of its vicissitudes are unknown. Perhaps the
censor was solicitous to keep from the public an attractive account of
an enemy who had wrought such disaster in the Spanish Colonies. But
whatever may have been the cause of its long obscurity, its final public
appearance in two hundred and twenty-seven clean pages is a source of
great satisfaction to persons interested in the early literature of
Spanish America.
CHAPTER VIII
LA ARGENTINA
[Sidenote: Barco Centenera]
[Sidenote: Voyage to America]
Centenera’s “historical poem” called _La Argentina_ deals with the
events relating to Spanish colonization in the south-eastern part of the
continent. The first edition was published in Lisbon in 1602. Martín
del Barco Centenera was born at Logrosán in Estremadura in 1535. It
is reported, or it is a tradition, that he studied at Salamanca, but
no positive record of the fact has been found at the university. When
Juan Ortiz de Zárate was preparing his American venture, Centenera
joined the expedition, and obtained through the Council of the Indies
the title of archdeacon of the Church in Paraguay. The five vessels
of Zárate’s expedition sailed from Spain in October, 1572, and on the
7th of the following January from the Cape Verde Islands. By a storm
one of the vessels was driven into the bay of Río Janeiro, and at a
conference of the captains of the other vessels with some of the leaders
of the expedition it was decided to halt at Santa Catalina. On leaving
Santa Catalina near the end of October 1573 it was discovered that the
expedition had lost one hundred and twenty of its members by desertion
and disease. Having entered the Río de la Plata, the colonists remained
for some months on the island of Martín García and afterwards established
a settlement called Zaratina de San Salvador. From this place Centenera
passed to Asunción, where he arrived on the 8th of February, 1575. He
began his ecclesiastical work at once, hearing confessions and preaching
to the Spaniards; his labour with the Guaranís had to be postponed on
account of his inability to use their language. The language of the
Indians was more generally adopted by the Spaniards in Paraguay than in
other colonies.
[Illustration: Title Page of the First Edition of “La Argentina”]
[Sidenote: Centenera with Garay]
Centenera joined the expedition against the Indians undertaken in 1579
by Juan de Garay, who at this time was exercising the functions of
lieutenant-governor and captain-general, with authority delegated by
Juan Torres de Vera y Aragón, the legitimate successor of Zárate. The
twentieth canto of _La Argentina_ contains an account of this expedition.
Early in 1580 Garay returned to Asunción and prepared for the execution
of his plan to re-establish Buenos Aires, and before his departure from
Asunción he appointed Centenera protector of the Indians. At the same
time he petitioned the king to provide an appropriate salary for the
office. The province of Río de la Plata during these years gave evidence
of the turbulent spirit that characterized it later. Opposition to Garay
appeared both in Asunción and in Santa Fe, based on the fact that the
viceroy of Peru had not recognized Garay’s authority.
[Sidenote: Centenera in Peru]
A little later Centenera obtained permission to go to Peru for two
years. After his arrival at Chuquisaca the audiencia appointed him its
chaplain. He held this post, however, for only a few months, and the
next year he appeared occupying the position of vicar at Porco. In
August, 1581, Archbishop Toribio de Mogrovejo called his suffragan
bishops to a council to be held in Lima, and appointed Centenera one of
the secretaries. The clergy of Cuzco had brought charges against their
bishop, Sebastián de Lartain, who wished to have the case considered by
the council, but the archbishop decided to send it to Rome. Centenera
took the side of Lartain, and by this act incurred the displeasure of
Mogrovejo, with the consequent loss of his means of support. While under
this embarrassment the Bishop of Charcas appointed him his vicar, and the
Inquisition constituted him its commissary for the district of Cochabamba.
[Sidenote: Bishop of Paraguay arrested]
While in possession of this office Juan Ruiz del Prado, the inspector of
the Inquisition, appointed by Philip II, arrived at Lima, and in August,
1590, Centenera, in consequence of Prado’s investigation, was removed
from office and subjected to a fine of two hundred pesos. In this year
Alonso Guerra, who had arrived in Asunción as Bishop of Paraguay in
1585, was arrested and despatched to Buenos Aires as a prisoner. The
bishop’s offence appears to have been a too rigorous pursuit of funds for
the Church and threatening to excommunicate the inhabitants of Asunción
for delay in paying the tithes. From Buenos Aires Bishop Guerra went to
Charcas, where the audiencia rehabilitated him. Later the king appointed
him Bishop of Michoacán, where he died in 1594.
[Sidenote: Centenera governor of bishopric]
The sentence removing Centenera from his position as commissary of the
Inquisition made his further residence in Peru undesirable, and thus,
after an absence of nine years he returned to Asunción, where he arrived
shortly after the popular uprising against Bishop Guerra. As the bishop
had been expelled and the dean was dead, Archdeacon Centenera found
himself the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in the province, and he
became governor of the bishopric, the see being vacant. The date of his
departure from Paraguay has not become known and investigation has as yet
thrown little light on the last years of his life. Ricardo Palma accepts
as a fact that he died in Portugal in 1605, having returned to Europe
after twenty-four years spent in America.
[Illustration: Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, 3rd Viceroy of Peru 1556-1561]
[Sidenote: Attainments of Centenera]
Not much is known concerning the literary attainments of Centenera. As
a priest he must have known the Latin of the Breviary, but there seems
to be no evidence of an extensive knowledge of that language, “since in
all of his poem there is no indication of the least influence of the
classical Latin poets, either in the conception, in the figures, or in
the expressions. Even the locution of the poem, wanting in nobility and
elegance, proves that the author was not familiar either with the good
society or the good poets of his nation, although in one of the passages
of his poem he manifests (Canto XXIV) the highest respect for the author
of _La Araucana_.”[89] He had, however, a certain knowledge of Tasso and
Petrarch.[90]
[Sidenote: The editions of _La Argentina_]
In the archives of the Indies there is a letter, without signature or
date, ascribed by Trelles to Centenera, in which the writer, addressing
the king, says, “I have a complete history which, with the favour of
your Majesty, will be published; in it there is given an account of
Río de la Plata and of Peru.” This reference is set down as the first
mention of _La Argentina_. The writer affirms that this letter was
written fifteen years after he left Spain; if, therefore, Centenera was
the author of the letter it was written in 1587. Fifteen years later the
first edition of _La Argentina_ appeared in Lisbon (1602). The second
edition was published in 1749 by González de Barcia in his _Historiadores
primitivos_, Vol. III; the third is contained in Angelis’ _Colección de
obras y documentos, etc._, Madrid, 1836; a fourth appeared in the third
volume of the reprint of Díaz de Guzmán’s _Historia argentina_, Buenos
Aires, 1854; the fifth is in the reprint of 1900 of Angelis’ _Colección_.
In 1912 two separate facsimile reprints of the Lisbon Edition of 1602
were published in Buenos Aires, one in the _Biblioteca de la Junta de
Historia y Numismática Americana_, the other in the series _Fuentes de la
historia argentina_; the former has bio-bibliographical notes by Enrique
Peña and a critical study of the poem by J. M. Gutiérrez, the latter
notes by Carlos Navarro y Lamarca.
[Sidenote: Centenera’s spirit]
Centenera presented no great characters, like those immortalized by
Ercilla. But Ercilla was not an ecclesiastic. Centenera had entered the
New World to contribute whatever power he possessed to the destruction
of paganism, and any especially strong characters presenting themselves
among the Indians naturally appeared to him as exaggerated manifestations
of the evil he was commissioned to combat. His mission was to transform
pagan heroic qualities into Christian virtues, and not to make them live
in the admiration of later generations. What appealed to Ercilla, the
knight, as noble and worthy of honour, appeared to the archdeacon as
something to be eliminated and forgotten.
[Sidenote: Story of the voyage]
The expedition of Ortiz de Zárate or the voyage from San Lucar to Santa
Catalina is described in the eighth canto. It was carried in two small
and three larger vessels. In receiving his appointment as governor of
Paraguay Zárate had agreed to introduce into the colony a number of
labourers as colonists, a quantity of arms, and also a large number of
horses, cows, sheep and goats within a period of three years. The greater
part of the animals were to be brought from the ranges near Charcas and
Tarija. The little fleet halted at Gomera, the Cape Verde Islands, and
Santa Catalina; and on this passage from Santa Lucar and during the
stay at Santa Catalina the expedition lost three hundred persons. Among
the survivors was the Franciscan missionary, Luis Bolanos, who was the
first to apply grammatical rules to the Guaraní language, and the first
dictionary of the language is attributed to him.
[Sidenote: Famine at Santa Catalina]
In spite of storms, the voyage was fortunate until the vessels passed
into the calm and heat of the tropics, where all suffered to such
a degree that they would gladly have returned to Spain. But their
sufferings were greatly intensified after they reached the island of
Santa Catalina, where scores of Spaniards died of starvation. The ninth
canto sets forth the horrors of this episode, and it is dedicated to “las
damas.”
El canto vuestro es, pues que contiene
De damas y galanes la caída:
Centenera exposes the details of the famine, pointing out that every
animal and reptile, however repugnant at first, was at last found to be
as savoury as the flesh of a kid, for
La gran hambre prestaba salmorejo.
The extremes to which men were driven by hunger are narrated at length,
the crimes committed to obtain food, and the unusual punishments meted
out to the criminals who were detected. But many escaped detection. Some
persons encountered a dog alone. They killed him immediately, and without
waiting to have him well cooked or roasted, devoured him, in order to
avoid being recognized as the offenders by the arrival of the owner.
Another person, having stealthily entered an inn kept by two women, was
apprehended by them; then without pity they cut off his ears, and nailed
them up on the house, either for decoration or as a warning to other
thieves. Recognizing that they had acted without justice, and that they
ran a risk of being punished, they returned the ears to their owner
accompanied by a quantity of food sent “to shut up his mouth.”
[Sidenote: Last stage of the voyage]
Zárate, having determined to proceed to Río de la Plata, sought from
every source food to serve for the voyage, and in this search the Indians
were deprived of whatever they possessed. By this their good-will was
completely alienated. The incidents of the voyage and the landing
constitute the theme of the tenth canto. The company had apparently not
learned by their experience to view with calmness the varying phases of
the sea, and when the sparkling waves rose to the stars, the women wept
and the men uttered great cries, all assured that they were to be buried
in the ocean. And after the storm had subsided, and they had approached
the port of San Gabriel, a furious south wind arose, wrought havoc in the
rigging of the vessels, and drove one of them upon the shore. Thus after
a day of joy the passengers were overwhelmed in grief and agony (Canto X,
Oct. 14):
Pilotos y maestres, marineros,
Grumetes, pajes, frailes y soldados,
Mujeres y muchachos, pasajeros,
Andaban dando voces muy turbados.
[Sidenote: Among the Charrúas]
Having landed, after the storm, they found themselves among the Charrúas,
who seemed to Centenera to possess qualities that entitled them to be
ranked with the Araucanians (Canto X, Oct. 27).
La gente que aquí habita en esta parte
Charruahas se dicen, de gran brío,
A quien ha repartido el fiero Marte
Su fuerza, su valor y poderío....
Es gente muy crecida y animosa,
Empero sin labranza y sementera:
En guerras y batallas, belicosa,
Osada y atrevida en gran manera.
[Sidenote: Fight with the Indians]
The Charrúas occupied the region between Maldonado and the Uruguay. They
had met with hostility the earlier explorers of the Río de la Plata, and
they continued in hostile relations with the Europeans until they were
finally exterminated in 1831. In an encounter between the forces of
the chief Zapicán and Zárate’s soldiers, all but a few of the Spaniards
were either killed or captured by the Indians. Centenera presents an
abundance of details concerning this encounter, and refers to the action
of Zapicán’s forces in the following spirited lines (Canto XI, Oct. 18):
El zapicano ejército venía
Con trompas y bocinas resonando;
Al sol la polvareda obscurecía,
La tierra del tropel está temblando:
De sangre el suelo todo se cubría,
Y el zapicano ejército gritando,
Cantaba la victoria lastimosa
Contra la gente triste y dolorosa.[91]
[Sidenote: Character of _La Argentina_]
_La Argentina_ must be viewed in its two aspects, as poetry and history,
and the passages illustrating these two phases are widely different
in spirit, even when the unlike passages are both founded on a basis
of facts. But in the poetic figures there are fewer references to the
fancies of pagan literature and mythology than may be found in the other
poems with which Centenera’s work may be compared. Now and then the
writer’s lamentations, raised to heaven because of the want and misery of
the company, reveal the ecclesiastic and suggest passages of the Psalms.
Volved con piedad, Señor, la mano,
Doleos de los tristes afligidos,
Doleos de los niños inocentes,
Que gritan con sus ojos hechos fuentes,
Doleos de las tristes afligidas
Que quedan sin abrigo y compañía:
También de las doncellas doloridas
Que pierden a sus padres y alegría.[92]
[Sidenote: Topics of later cantos]
[Sidenote: Spaniards’ views of their calamities]
From battles with the Indians in the region of Río de la Plata, the
founding of Buenos Aires by Juan de Garay, and the insurrection of
the mestizos at Santa Fe, Centenera, in his later cantos, turned to
happenings of his time on the western coast, to the exploits of Francis
Drake, the earthquake of Arequipa, and the council at Lima called by
Archbishop Mogrovejo. This change of subject appears to have been due to
the writer’s removal from the south-eastern province to Peru. Drake had
appeared about five years before this event, whence it may be presumed
the very favourable opinion of him expressed in _La Argentina_ was
that entertained by at least a part of contemporary Peruvian society.
Centenera found “this English and noble cavalier, given to the art of
the sea, a skilful pilot and sailor, a good soldier, astute, sagacious,
discrete, courteous, well-bred, brave, magnanimous, and a good friend,
but wanting in the greater and more necessary quality, _que es el amor a
Jesucristo_.” Centenera, as an ecclesiastic, was obliged by the spirit
of the Spanish Church in the sixteenth century to make this limitation
on the character of a Protestant. It is noteworthy, however, that he was
able to discover so much excellence in a subject of the “Babylonian
woman”; still this is partially accounted for when it is recalled that
the Spaniards in America regarded their calamities, whether brought about
by an English corsair or an earthquake, as a divinely directed punishment
for their shortcomings, and in this view the piratical agent of God might
appear to stand nearer the throne of heaven than those who suffered
the infliction. But they feared the invader not merely for his direct
influence, but as well for the influence he might have in awakening the
spirit of revolt among the Indians.
In the beginning of the twenty-third canto Centenera expresses his wish
to write of what he saw in Peru during the meetings of the council
called by Archbishop Mogrovejo. This was the council that met on August
13, 1582, and held its last session on October 18, 1583. Its purpose
was to reform the discipline of the Church and to correct the manners
and customs of this part of the continent, but it was brought near to
disruption through the introduction of a question in dispute between the
Bishop and Canons of Cuzco.
[Illustration: El Marqués de Guadalcázar, 13th Viceroy of Peru 1622-1629]
[Sidenote: Dress reform in Lima]
[Sidenote: Decree of church council]
But the council acquired a difficult task when it undertook to reform the
dress of the women of Lima. It was the fashion for the women to appear in
the streets, in the churches, and in other public places with their faces
completely concealed by the rebozo. While protected by this veil it was
impossible for their identity to be observed or detected, whence arose
numerous abuses and scandals. Centenera refers to their conduct: “In
the streets and the square, they place themselves at the windows, where
it is a pleasure to see them, with their rich and very gay dresses, and
whoever wishes may speak with them; they do not appear shy or severe, and
listen to whomsoever wishes to flirt with them, and under their rebozos
they utter their little nothings, with which they sometimes fool little
boobies.” A proposition in relation to the conduct of the women and their
manner of dressing was brought before the council, which threatened with
excommunication those who persisted in wearing the rebozo to conceal
the face. Women should remain in their houses, or, if they appeared in
public places, it should be with their faces uncovered. For the time
being the majority of the women preferred to remain in their houses, but
a few of the rich, not objecting to the regulation, appeared in public
unveiled, for it gave them an opportunity to display their jewels. The
resolution of the council was, however, ineffective; the use of the
rebozo as a veil was continued. But about forty years later the Marqués
de Guadalcázar as viceroy (1622-1629) issued a royal ordinance, providing
that “no woman of whatever state, quality, or condition she may be, may
be veiled with a manto or in any other manner while going on the streets
of this city, or the alameda or other public places, whether on foot or
in a carriage or a sedan chair, or in balconies or windows, but that all
shall be obliged to go with their faces uncovered, to the end that they
may be seen and known, and the identity of each be recognized.”[93]
[Sidenote: Centenera’s motive in writing in verse]
The real character of _La Argentina_ is that of a contemporary chronicle,
and considering the breadth of his experience, the writer’s serious
mistake was that he adopted the form of verse instead of prose for
communicating his experience and his observations. But in his dedication
to the governor of Portugal, then united with Spain, Centenera affirms
that he has written in verse, although “poco polido y menos limado,” in
order that the Marqués de Castel Rodrigo, burdened with the grave affairs
of the government, might read it with greater facility than the long
and prolix histories he was accustomed to receive. The fact that it is
written in verse is perhaps the principal reason for including it in a
list with _La Araucana_; moreover, like _La Araucana_, it deals with a
colonial undertaking, the privations incident to a voyage from Spain, and
conflicts with the Indians. Juan María Gutiérrez finds its indisputable
merit in the frank sincerity with which the author communicates what he
saw and what he felt, and in this manner presented important data for the
early history of Río de la Plata.
[Sidenote: Nature of poetry]
[Sidenote: Poetry and music]
If one conceives of poetry not as the written metrical lines merely, but
as these lines uttered orally, he will have no difficulty in answering
the question critics have raised regarding the nature of the foregoing
metrical compositions. In this view, the words written in measured lines
may be compared with printed musical notes. These notes are not music,
but only directions for the production of vocal or instrumental sounds,
or combinations of sounds, which constitute music. In like manner, the
verses that stand on the printed page are indications of tone, accent,
and rhythm, and poetry is the utterance of these verses in accordance
with their proper indications. Endowed with a certain form and degree of
cultivation, one may derive sensations akin to those enjoyed in listening
to music, by reading the printed musical notes; and in the same way by
passing the eye silently over the printed verses one may experience some
of the emotions poetry is designed to awaken; but in neither case are
the emotions experienced more than a faint shadow of those aroused by
the voice of the skilful reader or by the violinist or the orchestra.
Poetry thus conceived is not the utterance of any distinct and exclusive
body of ideas, or of ideas that cannot be expressed except in metrical
language. There are no ideas set forth in the _Iliad_ or in _Childe
Harold_ that cannot be expressed in prose, and the same may be said of
_La Araucana_ or _Arauco domado_, treating not of the Trojan war, but of
the war against the Araucanians.
[Sidenote: What of _La Araucana_?]
Exalted ideas, or striking images, or mere commonplace thoughts may be
presented in prose, and verse possesses the same capacity; the main
difference between them would, therefore, seem to be that in verse
alone the words are selected so as to conform in their utterance to a
prescribed measure. Inevitably in different verses there is a more or a
less complete compliance with this rule; and this is characteristic of
the verses in question, as well as of many other verses; but when the
perfect verses of _La Araucana_ or _Arauco domado_ are pronounced in
their sonorous Spanish tones there is no doubt that we have before us
examples of poetry.
CHAPTER IX
WRITERS ON CHILEAN HISTORY 1600-1650.
I. _Alonso González de Nájera._ II. _Francisco Núñez de
Pineda Bascuñán._ III. _Caro de Torres._ IV. _Melchor Xufré
del Águila._ V. _Alonso de Ovalle._ VI. _Miguel de Aguirre._
VII. _Francisco Ponce de León._ VIII. _Diego de Rosales._ IX.
_Santiago de Tesillo._
I
[Sidenote: Spanish South America organised]
[Sidenote: Heads of the governments]
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, sixty or seventy years
after the occupation of Peru, New Granada and the region of the Río de
la Plata and its tributaries, the Spanish colonies of South America
had acquired their early form of organization. Peru was under the
government of a viceroy, whose jurisdiction was nominally coextensive
with Spain’s possessions in South America; but in New Granada, Chile
and the south-eastern provinces other centralized governments had been
established, subordinated to the viceroy in certain particulars and
directly dependent on the king in other respects. The head of each of
these subordinate governments was known as governor, captain-general, or
president as one or another of his principal functions was considered.
[Sidenote: Common ideas of the colonies]
As governor he was head of the civil administration, as captain-general
he was chief of the army or the militia, and his title of president
indicated his relation to the audiencia, a body that performed both
administrative and judicial functions and in case of a vacancy in the
governor’s office exercised the chief executive power in the dependency.
At that time, moreover, a number of towns had acquired sufficient
importance to have local governments consisting of a cabildo, or council,
composed of regidores and two alcaldes, the alcaldes serving as justices
of the peace and local executives. The occupation of the several
districts by the Spaniards was at first a military occupation, a large
number of the settlers were primarily soldiers, and their settlements
were largely garrisoned posts. In this respect the beginning of the
Spanish colonies in America presents a strong contrast with the British
colonies, in which the colonists were almost all civilians.
The political relations that existed among the Spanish colonies and the
common dependence of the colonies on Spain presumed their possession of
common ideas and purposes; and the writers who appeared in the different
provinces generally observed affairs from a common point of view. The
question of the time of their appearance deserves rather to be considered
than the place of their residence. This is, of course, pre-eminently true
of writers who were ecclesiastics. The Jesuits of Peru, New Granada, or
Chile, for instance, wrote rather as Jesuits than as citizens of one
province or another. The case of the soldier in this respect was not
greatly different from that of the ecclesiastic, and in the first and
middle period of the colonial history the larger part of the writers who
were not ecclesiastics were soldiers.
[Sidenote: Isolation of the colonies]
[Sidenote: Missions to Spain]
The long intervals between the sailings of vessels from Spain to America,
or from America to Spain, made it extremely difficult for the king and
the Council of the Indies to have correct information concerning the
affairs of the Spanish dependencies. If the colonists wished an unworthy
official removed or legislation reformed, it was necessary to send an
agent to Madrid to enlighten the king and to persuade him to order the
desired change. The difficulties of securing reforms by this method were
very great; the long waiting for the departure of a ship, the weary weeks
of the voyage from Chile around Cape Horn or over the Andes, across
the Argentine plains, and by ship from Buenos Aires, or by way of Peru
and the Isthmus, the interminable delays in obtaining an audience with
the king or the Council of the Indies, the years sometimes spent by
the authorities in reaching a decision regarding the proposition, and
then the similar waiting and delays in securing the transmission of the
decrees to America, in case the question was found to be of sufficient
importance to warrant action by the supreme government. Priests were
often found available for missions of this kind, for various reasons:
they were presumed to be educated persons competent to present a case
before the high authorities; they were supposed to have the confidence
of the king; and it was assumed, in keeping with the rules of their
profession, that they were not encumbered with families, and thus freer
from bonds holding them to any given place than most secular persons. In
the early part of the seventeenth century the Chileans departed from this
practice, and selected a soldier, Alonso González de Nájera, to represent
them before the king.
[Sidenote: Nájera’s _El desengaño y reparo de la guerra del reino de
Chile_]
González de Nájera arrived in Chile in 1601, and passed almost
immediately into service on the frontier, to a fort constructed on the
Bio-Bio. He remained five years in this service, and during this period
acquired extensive information concerning the most vital affairs of the
province. In Madrid he rendered to the authorities an account of his
observations and experience, and in this manner set forth the conditions
of society and the government in Chile. From Spain he was sent to Italy
where he completed his work called _El desengaño y reparo de la guerra
del reino de Chile_. Regarding this work he affirms that he has not
written a history as a consecutive narrative, but reasoned opinions and
discourses on the points most essential for the support of the conquest
in the kingdom of Chile.[94]
The title given by Nájera to his writing indicates his opinion that
the directors of Chilean affairs had been deceived, and that he would
undertake to show them their error. He presents a review of the state
of the war, and proposes the means that appear to him most suitable for
terminating it. In inquiring into these means he finds it especially
important that the decree providing for the enslavement of the
Araucanians should be maintained in force. Nájera’s work was finally
published in Madrid, in 1866, in the Volume XLVIII of the _Colección de
documentos inéditos para la historia de España_.[95]
II
[Sidenote: Pineda y Bascuñán]
Among the soldiers of the early part of the seventeenth century who
became writers, Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán, a native of Chile,
acquired a position of distinction. He was born in 1607. His father was a
soldier, who for more than forty years was engaged in military campaigns
on the frontier. Francisco’s school years prior to the age of sixteen
were passed in the house of the Jesuits at Arauco. During these years he
received instruction in Latin and such elements of philosophy as were
then given in the schools. At the age of sixteen he left the school and
was given a place in a company of Spanish infantry. In a battle with the
Indians he was severely wounded and captured. During the seven months
of his captivity his amiability and his friendly intercourse with the
Indians immediately in charge of him saved him from the machinations of
those who wished to take his life. He returned to the troops and was
later promoted to the rank of maestre de campo. After his long military
service he found himself in extreme poverty in the last years of his
life. Finally he received from the viceroy an appointment as corregidor
in Peru, where he died in 1682, before he had derived any advantage from
the office that had been conferred upon him.
[Sidenote: _Cautiverio feliz_]
[Sidenote: Quality of Bascuñán’s book]
The anxieties of his old age in poverty appear to have been relieved by
his recollection of the kindness he had received at the hands of his
captors, and in this period he wrote of the adventures of his youth,
and of his reflexions on the Spanish military system as applied in
Chile. These were the general topics of his book called _Cautiverio
feliz y razón de las guerras dilatadas de Chile_. This book was “one of
the works most extensively read in Chile and even in Peru during the
colonial period.”[96] It contains a record of the honourable service of
a valiant and faithful soldier, and was rendered especially attractive by
the story of the author’s captivity. But, in keeping with the spirit of
his time, he departed from the plan of a simple narrative and undertook
to impart moral and religious instruction and to make a display of
erudition. This defect is recognized by Medina, who affirms that if the
author had limited himself simply to relating in his admirably simple
and true style the story of his adventures among the Indians of Arauco,
his work would have merited a place in the literature of any of the most
cultivated nations of any time.[97] Still he has been able to give a
dramatic interest to his narrative by keeping alive in the reader’s mind
the inquiry whether Maulicán who promised to secure his escape, or the
caciques who proposed to kill him, will be successful. One of the objects
of the author in writing this book was to set forth the manner in which
the war was conducted in Chile and the fate of those who became victims
of the injustice committed in this war, and at the same time to show
the causes that made the Araucanian war interminable. In this part of
the work he made use of his own experience, revealing by his narrative
the repeated abuses and instances of neglect that contributed to keep
the Indians on a war footing. This feature of the narrative throws an
especially important side light on the Spanish administration of Chilean
affairs.
[Sidenote: The verse in _Cautiverio feliz_]
Throughout the _Cautiverio feliz_ there are various passages in verse,
some of which are translations from the poetical books of the Bible,
or from Virgil, Horace, Ovid, or other poets, or are original verses
written by Bascuñán. Eyzaguirre calls attention to the fact that while
in some of these original verses there are “elevated ideas and a sublime
conception,” in “almost none of them does the author sustain the
elevation of thought to the end,” and cites as an instance the sonnet
to the Virgin on his release from captivity. “At the first glance,” he
writes, “one recognizes the notable difference between the last part,
ordinary and commonplace in its conceptions as well as disagreeable in
its rhythm and the rest of the composition which is certainly beautiful
and majestic.”[98] The following is the sonnet in question (Discurso V,
cap. xiv):
[Sidenote: Illustrative sonnet]
¿Quien hay, Señora, que valerse quiera
De vuestro santo nombre, que no alcance
Con lágrimas orando al primer lance
Lo que imposible al tiempo pareciera?
¿Quién hay que en vuestras manos se pusiera,
Virgen sagrada, en peligroso trance,
Que en el mayor trabajo no descanse,
Y su esperanza fin dichoso adquiera?
Bien manifiesto está en mi larga suerte,
Pues que entre tantos bárbaros contrastes
Quisistéis libertarme de la muerte.
Gracias os doy ya fuera de debates,
Estimando el favor, y si se advierte,
Jamás imaginado entre rescates.
LAUS DEO.
III
[Sidenote: Torres on Sotomayor]
[Sidenote: Torres’ career]
[Sidenote: Soldiers from Lima to Chile]
When Caro de Torres undertook to write his _Relación de los servicios de
Don Alonso de Sotomayor_, he had the advantage of a full knowledge of
his subject. He had long stood in intimate friendly relations with the
governor, and their similarity of inclinations and tastes had established
between them bonds of respect and sympathy. Torres was born in Seville
about the middle of the sixteenth century. His early studies were made
in his native city, whence he passed to the University of Salamanca.
From the university, which he left prematurely owing to a quarrel with
other students, he entered the army, served in Italy under the Marqués
de Santa Cruz, and in 1583 under the same leader played a gallant part
in the campaign of the Azores. Two years later he was in Seville,
where Viceroy Torres was preparing to depart to assume the duties of
his office in Peru. Caro de Torres’ adventurous spirit induced him to
join the expedition. He arrived at Lima on the 30th of November, 1586.
During the period of his military service he found time to acquire
knowledge of Spain’s colonial enterprise in the Indies. The next year
Thomas Cavendish appeared in the Pacific, and Caro de Torres was a
member of the expedition that was sent against him. A few months later
commissioners from Alonso de Sotomayor, the governor of Chile, arrived
in Lima, requesting reinforcements for the defence of the Chilean coast
and for proposed campaigns against the Araucanians. Responding to this
request, the viceroy sent two companies of five hundred soldiers each,
under Luis de Carvajal and Fernando de Córdova. Caro de Torres, with the
rank of captain, was the second in command of one of these companies,
and during this campaign began the long continued friendship between him
and the governor Sotomayor. But shortly after this the soldier of many
adventures entered the order of St. Augustine. The success of Sotomayor’s
military enterprises secured his appointment to the post of governor,
captain-general, and president of the royal audiencia of Panama,
where he was associated with Caro de Torres, and this association was
maintained after Sotomayor returned to Spain. When Sotomayor was about to
die he charged his friend with the duty of watching over the interests
of his family. Holding in memory this long and faithful friendship, and
in possession of the documents relating to Sotomayor’s political career,
Caro de Torres wrote his _Relación de los servicios de Don Alonso de
Sotomayor_.[99]
[Sidenote: Torres’ _Relación_]
[Sidenote: Torres on military orders]
The significance of this work is solely in the importance of the subject,
in the fact that it involves in its narrative a large number of events
relating to one of Chile’s more distinguished governors. It deals with
three phases of Sotomayor’s life: his career before he became governor,
his administration in Chile, and his activity as governor-general of
Panama, together with his retirement in Spain, but all with a minimum
of literary skill and method. About half of the bulk of the book
consists of documents introduced into the text. These documents, while
they interrupt the narrative, give a certain importance to the work. In
1629, nine years after the appearance of the _Relación_, Caro de Torres
published in Madrid an imposing folio on the _Historia de las órdenes
militares de Santiago, Calatrava y Alcántara, desde su fundación hasta
el rey don Felipe segundo, administrador perpétuo de ellas_. In spite
of the fact that this book would not seem to appeal to many persons, it
met a noteworthy approval in its day, and added to the reputation of its
author.[100]
IV
[Sidenote: Águila’s _Compendio historial_]
[Sidenote: Águila joins the troops for Chile]
In Chile the Araucanian Indians continued yet many decades to menace the
security of Spanish settlers, and the campaigns against them continued
to furnish a theme for writers. A product of this state of affairs was
Melchor Xufré del Águila’s _Compendio historial del descubrimiento,
conquista y guerra del reino de Chile_. Águila accompanied at his own
expense the expedition to Peru led by García Hurtado de Mendoza, after
that officer had been appointed to the post of viceroy. On their arrival
in America the members of the expedition were discouraged by the bad news
received concerning the attitude assumed by the Indians. Águila joined
the troops that were sent to Chile. He entered upon the campaign under
an agreement with the viceroy that he would pay his own expenses, and
that he might withdraw and return to Peru whenever he desired. Later,
however, he sought from the king a certain remuneration for his services,
preferably in the shape of a governmental office or the position of a
corregidor. He had not only rendered military services but, at his own
expense, had caused supplies to be introduced into Concepción to avert
impending famine.
At the time of his withdrawal from the campaign against the rebellious
Indians he had been wounded several times, and had had one of his legs
broken. In his retirement he began to write of the events in which he had
had part and those that had happened under his observation.
[Sidenote: Chilean defensive policy]
In 1612 he was elected an alcalde in the municipal council of Santiago,
and later, enjoying the confidence of Governor Ribera, he was entrusted
with various public commissions. In March of the same year, 1612, a
new policy respecting the Indians was proclaimed. It provided that
the government should adopt a plan of defence, instead of continuing
campaigns for invading Araucanian territory, and the river Biobio should
be the boundary line between the territory of the Spaniards and that
of the Indians. The Spaniards were to maintain their forces armed and
equipped, but they were to be used only for defensive operations. Águila,
now an encomendero at Santiago, was the most vigorous opponent of this
policy; and the Jesuit Valdivia, the most prominent advocate of it,
complained of Águila’s opposition in his memorial to the king.
In the years subsequent to his military activity there is little known
of the events of Águila’s life, but, after forty years in Chile, he
published in 1630 at Lima his _Compendio historial del descubrimiento,
conquista y guerra del reino de Chile_.
V
[Sidenote: Alonso de Ovalle]
[Sidenote: Ovalle becomes a Jesuit]
Alonso de Ovalle became more widely known than most of the early colonial
historians, partly from the fact that his _Histórica relación del reino
de Chile_ was one of the first Chilean books of which translations
were published in Europe. The author was a son of Francisco Rodríguez
del Manzano de Ovalle, who was the holder of an entailed estate in
Salamanca, and who went to Chile in command of certain troops that
had been equipped at Lisbon. On this expedition he was accompanied by
his cousin, Diego Valdez de la Vanda, who had been appointed governor
of Buenos Aires. In Santiago Rodríguez del Manzano de Ovalle married
María Pastene, a daughter of Juan Bautista Pastene, recognized for his
services under Valdivia. Two sons of this marriage, Alonso and Jerónimo,
born in the beginning of the seventeenth century, received instruction
in the Jesuits’ school. By reason of their wealth as compared with the
majority of Santiago’s primitive society they were conspicuous figures
in the town. They were noteworthy for their fine horses with rich
trappings, their ostentatious dress and the richness of their jewelry.
The gentleness and docility of Alonso, his inclination to religious
reflection and his wealth naturally suggested to his Jesuit instructors
the desirability of attracting him to enter the order. Their zeal in this
matter was stimulated by the knowledge that Alonso’s father was making
arrangements to send him to Spain to take possession of the estate in
Salamanca. The necessary steps for his initiation were hastily taken, and
without the knowledge of his parents he took the vows and assumed the
obligations of the Jesuits.
[Sidenote: Ovalle as missionary and professor]
When the father learned of the son’s act, he used every means to induce
Alonso to withdraw from the order, and to persuade the provincial,
Pedro de Oñate, to surrender him, but all without any result that was
satisfactory to the family. The Jesuit authorities, moreover, in order
to avoid any attempt that might be made to rescue the novice, determined
to send him to Córdoba, in the province of Tucumán. This project came
to the knowledge of Alonso’s relatives, who proposed to kidnap him on
the journey over the Andes. But the Jesuits and their charges completely
eluded the armed men sent to the mountain pass to intercept them. At
Córdoba Alonso continued his studies, and at the end of his novitiate he
was ordered to return to Santiago. Soon after his arrival in Chile he was
ordained priest, and entered with zeal upon the work of his ministry.
He undertook the moral and religious instruction of the negroes, and on
Sundays preached in the public square of the town. He also went as a
missionary to the Indians in various parts of Chile, and had unrealized
projects of more extensive work, when the authorities of his order
directed him to take up the duties of a professor of philosophy. A little
later he was appointed rector of the Seminario at Santiago.
[Sidenote: Ovalle in Rome]
[Sidenote: _Relación de las paces_]
[Sidenote: _Histórica relación_]
His reputation for learning and religious devotion increased, and when
a few years later it became necessary to treat with the general of the
Society concerning questions relating to the vice-province of Chile,
the members of the order in Chile resolved unanimously to send Alonso
de Ovalle to Rome. He undertook the journey by way of Lima and Panama.
At Lima he found that his reputation as a preacher and an orator had
preceded him, and the people pressed with gratification to hear him. His
presence later in Rome awakened a desire, even in the higher classes,
to see him and to listen to his preaching. Towards the propositions
of the Chilean Jesuits the general assumed a favourable attitude, and
the business of the mission was accomplished without opposition. From
Italy Ovalle went to Madrid, where he was received by the monarch. While
in Spain he published two minor productions. One of these was called
_Relación de las paces_, which was later embodied in his history of
Chile. Another was _Memorial y carta_, designed to attract priests to
the missionary field of Chile. A serious difficulty encountered in this
enterprise was the profound ignorance that prevailed in all classes
in Spain concerning Chile. At this time, eighty or ninety years after
the settlement of the colony, Chile occupied an insignificant place in
Spanish affairs; there were great patches of the population where even
the name of Chile was unknown. It may, perhaps, be assumed that the
_Histórica relación_ was written to abate this ignorance. The manuscript
was submitted for publication on the occasion of Ovalle’s second visit to
Rome.
The author writes as if addressing readers who were entirely ignorant
of his subject. He treats extensively of the natural features of the
country, the soil, the rivers, the lakes, and the mountains. He presents
statistics of agricultural products, of the output of the mines, of the
plants, fishes, and birds.
[Sidenote: Ovalle’s credulity]