this people, is at the beginning of their wars with the Spaniards, in
1550. Their toqui was named Aillavila, and the Europeans having invaded
the inhabitants of Penco, the Araucanians ordered that officer to march
to their assistance at the head of 4,000 men. He accordingly crossed
the great River Biobio, the northern boundary of Araucania, and boldly
offered battle to the Spaniards. Unlike the other Indians, with whom
the Spaniards had been engaged, the Araucanians were not disconcerted
or terrified by the discharge of fire-arms, but fell at once on
the front and flanks of the enemy who were thrown into confusion.
Valdivia, their general, had his horse killed under him, and was
exposed to great danger, when the toqui received a mortal wound, in
consequence of which the Indians drew off in good order and unpursued
by the Europeans. Valdivia, who had been in many battles both in Europe
and America, declared that his life had never been in such great hazard
in any of them as in this engagement.
The next year, the Araucanians were again led on by their new toqui,
Lincoyan, and the Spaniards, remembering the former engagement,
were inspired with such terror, that after confessing themselves,
and receiving the sacrament, they took shelter under the cannon of
their fortifications. In his first attack on these, Lincoyan was
unsuccessful, and obliged to retreat, which the Spaniards ascribed to
the immediate interposition of St. James, their patron saint, who they
affirmed was seen riding on a white horse, armed with a flaming sword,
and striking terror into their enemies. The governor having received
some reinforcements from Peru, after a year elapsed, resolved to attack
them; and, unopposed by Lincoyan, he penetrated to the Cauten, by which
Araucania is divided into two equal parts. Here he built a city which
he called Imperial, and also despatched one of his officers to found
another, called Villarica, on the Lauquen.
Proceeding on, he traversed the whole of Araucania, from north to
south, with but small loss, and finally arrived at the territory of the
Cunches. Here he found a valiant nation, allies of the Araucanians,
who were prepared to oppose his passage of the Calacalla. The Cunchese
general, however, was induced to permit the invaders to pass
unmolested. Valdivia here founded another city, to which he gave his
own name, and then, satisfied with his conquests, prepared to return,
building fortresses and founding cities in various parts. Ercilla says
that the Spaniards in this expedition had to fight many battles, but
the details are not given.
To Lincoyan, succeeded Caupolican, an account of whose exploits
has been already given in another volume of this Library. He was a
brave warrior, and drove the Spaniards from several of the towns
and fortresses which Valdivia had established. But these successes
were succeeded by a severe reverse, and he was on the point of being
defeated, when Lautaro, incited by patriotism, broke forth from the
Spanish ranks, and led on his countrymen to victory. The whole Spanish
army was destroyed except a few prisoners, and two Promaucians, their
Indian allies.
After the death of Valdivia, who was put to death while pleading for
his life, the Spaniards evacuated all the cities which the Spanish
governor had founded, except two. These were immediately besieged
by Caupolican, while Lautaro, now appointed lieutenant-general, or
vice-toqui, fortified himself for the defence of the frontiers on the
lofty mountains of Mariguena. The mountain being full of precipices and
clefts, and covered on one side by impenetrable thickets, presented
only a single winding by-path, which led to the top of the mountain.
Villagran, the successor of Valdivia, engaged in battle with the young
Lautaro, but, after a desperate fight, he was worsted, and compelled to
retire. Believing it impossible to defend the city of Concepcion, he
embarked a portion of the inhabitants, consisting of old men, women,
and children, on board of two ships, then in the harbour, while he led
the remainder to Santiago.
Lautaro entered the deserted city, where he found a great booty, and
after having plundered it, burned the houses, and razed the citadel to
the ground, and returned in triumph to Arauco. Caupolican, however, was
forced to raise the siege of Imperial and Valdivia, in consequence of
the strong reinforcements which had been thrown into them by Villagran.
While he was engaged in ravaging the country around Imperial,
the small-pox, that destructive scourge of the natives, made its
appearance, probably communicated by some Spanish soldiers, and made
terrible havoc, so that there were some districts almost depopulated.
In one of these containing 12,000 inhabitants, it is asserted that not
more than 100 persons escaped death.
Villagran, availing himself of these circumstances, rebuilt Concepcion,
which however was no sooner done than Lautaro recrossed the Biobio, and
attacking the Spaniards whom he found in the open plain, put them to
flight. He then entered the fort, killed great numbers of the citizens,
and once more plundered and burnt the city. Emboldened by this success,
he resolved to carry the war still farther into the enemy’s country,
and marched the distance of 500 miles, to Santiago, near which he
encamped with his forces. The Spanish general here surprised and fell
upon them, and cut them all to pieces, including the brave Lautaro, who
fell in the outset.
The Araucanians fought with the most determined bravery to the very
last, despising every offer of quarter; thus the victory was dearly
earned, with a great loss both of officers and men. This battle took
place in the year 1556, and Lautaro, at his death, was only nineteen
years of age. Probably, had he lived, the Spaniards might have been
eventually driven, not only from Chili, but a large portion of Peru.
His name is said to be still celebrated in their heroic songs, and
his actions proposed as the most glorious example to their youth. The
result of this disaster was, that Caupolican quitted the siege of
Imperial, and returned to his own country.
A succession of battles followed, in which the Araucanians were
generally defeated, and Caupolican himself, being taken prisoner, was
put to a cruel death by impalement. The Spanish general now advanced
into the country, and reached the place where Valdivia, as related
above, had been defeated and taken prisoner. Here he built a city, in
contempt of the Araucanians, which he called Canete; and, considering
the war now terminated, he gave orders for once more rebuilding
Concepcion.
In the year 1558, he marched against the Cunches. When this people
first heard of the arrival of the strangers, they met to deliberate
as to the best course for them to take in this emergency; whether
to submit or attempt resistance to an enemy flushed with victory.
An Araucanian, present in their council, being invited to give his
opinion, replied in the following language: “Be cautious how you
adopt either of these measures; as vassals, you will be despised and
compelled to labor; as enemies, you will be exterminated. If you wish
to free yourselves from these dangerous visiters, make them believe
you are miserably poor; hide your property, particularly your gold;
they will not remain where they have no expectation of obtaining that
sole object of their wishes; send them such a present as will impress
them with an idea of your poverty; in the mean time, retire to the
woods.”
This advice was approved, and the Araucanian and nine of their
own people were commissioned by the Cunches to carry the present
recommended to the Spanish general. Accordingly, they clothed
themselves in rags, and, counterfeiting fear, appeared before the
Spaniard, and, after a rude address, presented him with a basket
containing some roasted lizards and wild fruits. The Spanish soldiery
could not refrain from laughter at the ridiculous appearance of
these ambassadors, and begged their commander to go no farther; but
he exhorted them to proceed, assuring them that he had heard of a
country beyond, which abounded with metals. The wily Araucanian, being
requested to furnish a guide, gave him one, who, by his direction, led
the invaders by the most rugged and difficult roads of the coast.
The year 1559 was signalized by numerous battles fought between the
two armies. The Araucanians were led by Caupolican the Second, the son
of the former toqui of that name, whom he succeeded. He was, like his
father, a man of distinguished talents, but was not equally prosperous
in his early efforts in defending his country. At the battle of Quipeo,
he lost nearly all his valiant officers, and, being pursued by a
detachment of Spaniards, slew himself, to avoid being taken prisoner,
as his father had been.
The Araucanians were not, however, utterly disheartened; but the
few ulmenes who had escaped the defeat of Quipeo met in a wood, and
elected as toqui an officer of inferior rank, named Antiguenu, who had
distinguished himself in that battle.
He, with a few soldiers, retired to the inaccessible marshes of Lumaco,
where he caused high scaffolds to be erected to secure his men from the
extreme moisture of the gloomy retreat he had chosen. The youth, who
were from time to time enlisted, went there to be instructed, and the
Araucanians still considered themselves free and independent.
Antiguenu began soon to make incursions into the Spanish territory,
to practise his troops, and feed them at the enemy’s expense. Grown
bolder, he came to an engagement with a son of Villagran, whom he
defeated, and then marched against Canete; but Villagran, feeling that
its defence was impracticable, withdrew the inhabitants to Concepcion
and Imperial. The Araucanians, finding the town deserted, set fire
to it, and utterly consumed it. Villagran, affected by this loss,
and worn down by care and anxiety, soon after died; and Antiguenu,
learning the fact, and having raised 4,000 men, divided them into two
parties; with one of these he directed the vice-toqui to lay siege to
Concepcion, while he marched with the other against Arauco. The siege
was protracted, and the commanders decided upon settling the affair by
single combat. After having fought two hours, they were separated by
their men.
The garrison, however, were at last compelled by famine to abandon the
place, the houses were burned, and the walls demolished. In attempting
the conquest of another place, called Angol, Antiguenu, after the most
brilliant feats of valor and courage, was forced along with a crowd of
retreating soldiers, and falling from a high bank into the river, was
drowned.
His successor was Paillataru, the brother or cousin of Lautaro. In
the year 1665, the fort of Arauco and the city of Canete were rebuilt
by the Spanish commander. The history of this remarkable people
is henceforward a series of battles; and, though they fought with
various success, they never lost their indomitable spirit, or their
determination not to be brought into subjection to the Europeans.
Observing the advantage obtained by cavalry, they early organized a
body of horsemen, and in seventeen years after their first encounters
with the Spaniards, were able to oppose them with cavalry on the field
of battle.
In 1589, while Guanoalca was toqui, the Spanish governor, believing
that it would be impossible for him to defend the forts of Purea,
Trinidad, and Espiritu Santo, which had been established, evacuated
them; and the war is said to have been reduced to the construction and
demolition of fortifications.
During the toquiate of Guanoalca, and his successors, Quintuguenu
and Paillaeco, the Araucanians suffered a number of severe defeats.
After the one last mentioned, the Araucanians, unsubdued in courage,
appointed to the chief command a man named Paillamachu, the hereditary
toqui of the second district; who, though advanced in years, is said to
have been a person of wonderful activity. The tide of fortune seemed
to turn at once in his favor, and his success was so great, that he is
declared to have surpassed all his predecessors in military glory, and
was enabled to restore his country again to her full independence.
In 1598, owing to his victories, not only the Araucanian provinces,
but those of the Cunches and the Huilliches, were in arms, comprising
the whole country to the Archipelago of Chiloe. Every Spaniard found
without the garrisons was put to death, and the cities of Osorno,
Valdivia, Villarica, Imperial, Arauco, Canete, Angol, and Caya, were
all closely besieged at one and the same time. Paillamachu also crossed
the Biobio, burned Concepcion and Chillan, laid waste the provinces
dependent on them, and returned laden with spoils. He also forced the
Spaniards to evacuate the fort and city of Arauco, and obliged the
inhabitants to retire to Concepcion.
In the month of November, 1599, he caused his army to cross the broad
river Valdivia, by swimming, stormed the city, burned the houses, and
killed a great number of inhabitants. He attacked the vessels that lay
at anchor, which only escaped by immediately setting sail, and then
returned in triumph to the guard he had stationed on the Biobio, with
a spoil of 2,000,000 of dollars, all the cannon, and upwards of 400
prisoners.
Villarica also, after a siege of two years and eleven months, fell
into the hands of the Araucanians in the year 1602, and the city of
Imperial shared the same fate. Indeed, all the Spanish settlements
in the country were destroyed, which Valdivia and his successors had
established, and preserved at the expense of so much toil and blood,
and they remained unbuilt, scarcely a vestige of their ruins being
left.
The prisoners were numerous; the unmarried females were taken into the
seraglios of their conquerors, while the unmarried men were allowed to
espouse the women of the country. From these mixed marriages, it is
said, have proceeded the Mestizos, who became, in subsequent wars, the
most terrible enemies of the Spanish name. Some of the prisoners were
ransomed by their friends or exchanged; though many were induced, from
love to their children, to remain with their captors.
Paillamachu died soon after, at the close of the year 1603, and was
succeeded by Hunecura. The disasters experienced by the Spaniards were
severely felt, and the court of Spain gave orders that there should be
constantly maintained a body of 2,000 regular troops on the Araucanian
frontier, for whose support the sum of 292,279 dollars was annually
drawn from the treasury of Peru.
A jesuit, named Luis Valdivia, desirous of preaching to the
Araucanians, and perceiving how utterly impossible any such attempt
would be while war was carried on, went to Spain, and represented to
the then reigning king, Philip the Third, the great injury done to the
cause of religion by these continued wars. The prince listened to his
representations, and directed that the River Biobio should be fixed as
the boundary line between the contending parties. The articles of peace
had been discussed and agreed upon, when the whole was frustrated by
an untoward event. The toqui, whose name was Ancanamon, had espoused a
Spanish woman, who, taking advantage of his absence, fled for refuge to
the governor, accompanied by her children and four other women, whom
she had likewise persuaded to become Christians; two of these were the
wives, and two the daughters of her husband. The toqui, exasperated
to the highest degree, met the missionaries who were sent to the
Araucanians, and put them all to death.
The Spanish provinces were incessantly harassed, and in 1617, the war
is said to have commenced with redoubled fury. During the period which
intervened from this to 1637, the toquis Leintor and Putapichion also
held sway, and engaged in enterprises against the Spaniards. Affairs,
however, were not materially changed; the Araucanians still retaining
their territory and independence. In the year 1638, the Dutch attempted
to form an alliance with the Araucanians, with a view to the conquest
of Chili; but their fleet being dispersed by a storm, only one or two
of their boats were able to make the land. Being well manned and armed,
the Araucanians supposed them to have come with hostile intentions;
they therefore attacked them and destroyed the crews. In 1640, the war
was brought to a close, and in 1641, the articles of peace were agreed
upon, and the day of ratification appointed; the place of meeting was
the village of Quillan, in the province of Purea.
The Spanish governor, the Marquis de Baydes, appeared at the specified
time with a retinue of 10,000 persons from all parts of the kingdom.
Lincopichion, the toqui, at the head of the four hereditary toquis, and
a great number of ulmenes, and other natives, opened the conference
with an eloquent speech. He then, according to the Chilian custom,
killed a llama, and, sprinkling some of the blood on a bunch of
cinnamon, presented it, in token of amity, to the governor. The
articles of peace were then proposed and ratified. The Araucanians,
in one of these, agreed that they would not permit the landing of any
strangers on the coast, or furnish any foreign nation with supplies.
The war of ninety years’ duration was thus brought to a close;
twenty-eight llamas were sacrificed, and the whole was concluded by an
eloquent harangue from Antiguenu, chief of the district, in which he
dwelt on the advantages that both nations would derive from the peace.
In the year 1643, the Dutch made a second attempt on Chili, and had
they been seconded by the Araucanians, whose alliance they sought, they
would undoubtedly have succeeded; but these brave defenders of their
country were faithful to their pledges, and refused the overtures of
the Dutch. They also advised the Cunches to take the same course. The
Dutch, therefore, were forced to retire unsuccessful.
The peace continued for a number of years; a war broke out in 1653,
the cause of which is not assigned. The Araucanians elected as their
commander the toqui Eleutaru, who in his first campaign totally
defeated the Spaniards, and continued for ten years to harass them,
when a peace was again concluded, which proved more lasting than the
former. In 1686, however, a Spanish governor came near breaking it by
removing the inhabitants of the island of Mocha to the northern shore
of the Biobio, in order to cut off all communication with foreign
enemies.
Missionaries in the mean time were introduced among the Araucanians,
accompanied by a species of force called the _Captains of the
friends_, as a pretended guard. These having become insolent, the
Araucanians determined to create a toqui, and resort to arms. War
therefore ensued, but after a succession of little skirmishes, the
peace of Negrete terminated it. In this, the treaty of Quillan was
confirmed, and the odious title of _Captains of the friends_ was
abolished.
The next occasion of war was caused by the endeavour of the Spanish
governor, Gonzaga, to compel the Araucanians to live in cities. At
this time also, the Pehuenches, who at the commencement of the war
were allies of the Spaniards, having been defeated by the Araucanians,
resolved to change sides, and have ever since been firmly allied with
this brave people. Various battles were fought, and among others, a
bloody one in the beginning of the year 1773. The same year, however,
peace was agreed upon, and the Araucanians were allowed to have a
minister resident in the city of St. Jago. The treaties of Quillan and
Negrete were revived, and, under the wise administration of the Spanish
viceroys, Jauqui and Benavides, the country for a long time enjoyed the
blessings of unbroken tranquillity.
The Araucanians have thus by their courage and perseverance been
enabled to maintain their liberties against some of the best
disciplined troops of Spain, even those who had served in the Low
Countries during the reigns of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second,
and who were armed with weapons before unknown and calculated to strike
terror into all the native tribes. They remain still secure in their
mountain fastnesses, enjoying the blessings of liberty, and determined
as ever never to be subjugated by any foreign foe.
SOUTHERN INDIANS OF SOUTH AMERICA.
The whole interior of the southern portion of South America, from Terra
del Fuego up to Paraguay, was long occupied by numerous savage tribes
of Indians. Of these little was known till long after the occupation of
portions of the country by the Spaniards. They soon obtained horses,
and were divided by the Europeans into equestrian and pedestrian
tribes. They were generally ferocious in their character, and engaged
in almost perpetual wars with each other. The equestrian tribes,
especially, were accustomed to make long excursions for the purpose of
plunder or revenge. Many of these nations have since been swept off by
that dreadful scourge of the Indian race, the small-pox, and many have
been driven still farther back by the Europeans.
Our knowledge of their history, which is, indeed, but scanty, is
derived from the accounts furnished by the Catholic missionaries, who
labored long and with some degree of success among them.[3] The views
they give of their manners and customs is often most interesting, and
will be treated of in our sketch of the manners and customs of the
American Indians. The vast plains, or _pampas_, as they are called,
which lie southwest of Buenos Ayres, were inhabited by the equestrian
savages, who, with the Araucanians, and other tribes which dwelt in the
mountains, were termed by the Peruvians, AUCAS, or rebels, probably
from some event in their former history. It would seem, indeed, that
several of the tribes originally came from the Northwest, and perhaps
there gained the knowledge of horsemanship, in which they are so
expert, from the earlier European invaders.
Similar groups of Indians were found through all that vast tract of
land east of the Andes, and reaching up from Buenos Ayres to Brazil. Of
these, perhaps, the most distinguished were the Abipones and Guaranies,
who inhabited what formerly bore the name of Paraguay,--now Paraguay
and Uruguay. Dobrizhoffer, a German Catholic priest, who resided many
years among them, has given a full description of the most remarkable
events of their history which occurred while he was with them, from
which we extract a few scattered notices, adding some facts gathered
from other sources.
Formerly these tribes seem to have been numerous, but now they are
dwindled away to a small remnant. Some idea may be formed of their
decrease, when it is stated that the Guaranies, who in 1752 numbered
141,252, lost 30,000 soon after by the small-pox, and afterwards,
11,000 more. In 1767, there were only about 100,000 left. They suffered
great oppression from the Spaniards, and, though they fought bravely
to avoid expulsion from their native land, they were finally driven
out. Thirty thousand, it is said, were expelled by the Spaniards from
seven towns.
The zealous missionaries penetrated the forests, and visited the most
barbarous tribes. They were often unexpectedly received with kindness
and hospitality, where they least had reason to hope for it. In one
of these visits, when one of the missionaries, or fathers, went among
them, and had gained their favor, the old cacique said that he had a
daughter, the prettiest girl in the world, and was resolved to marry
her to the father, that he might always stay in the family. On being
informed that the fathers never married, the old man was thunderstruck,
and, with his tobacco reed suspended in the air, he exclaimed, “What
strange thing is this you tell me?”