1.
Arauco War
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The Arauco War was a long-running conflict between colonial Spaniards and the Mapuche people, mostly fought in the Araucanía. The Chilean War of Independence brought new hostilities to the frontier, with different factions of Spaniards, Chileans and Mapuches fighting for independence, Mapuche independence finally ended with the Chilean occupation of Araucanía between 1861 and 1883. The modern Mapuche conflict is partially inspired in the Arauco War, Valdivia hoped to enlarge the territory under his jurisdiction and, despite injuries from a fall from his horse, resolved to take personal command of a land expedition into Araucanía. The expedition set sail from Valparaíso, entered the bay of San Pedro, and made landings at what is now known as Concepción and at Valdivia, encountering severe storms further south, he then returned to Valparaiso. Valdivia himself set out in 1546, with sixty horsemen plus guides and porters, in 1550, a new expedition was launched, consisting of a naval force under Pastene, and a land force of two hundred Spaniards mounted and foot and a number of Mapocho auxiliaries under Valdivia. They planned to reunite on the shores of the Bay of Concepción, the expedition advanced beyond the Itata River and Laja River, to the shores of the Bío-Bío River. Along the way they had several battles with groups of Mapuches as they explored the region killing many with little loss to themselves. After spending over a week in the area and encountering increasing opposition, the night attack was defeated in a furious battle, the Spaniards suffered one killed and many wounds to men and especially their mounts. After a day treating their wounds they continued towards their rendezvous at the Bay of Concepción, there Valdivia began building a fort at what is now Penco. On February 23, Pastenes fleet anchored in the bay, brought supplies, reinforcements, on March 1 Valdivia founded here the city of Concepción del Nuevo Extremo. On March 3 of that year, the fort was completed and was attacked nine days later by the largest force of Mapuches yet seen in the Battle of Penco and this force was broken and routed despite the small size of the Spanish forces. After reinforcement at Concepción in 1551, he organized another expedition to establish the fort La Imperial on the banks of the Imperial River and he then returned to Concepción to prepare another expedition and await the reinforcements the Viceroy had promised to send by sea. Leaving orders that the new troops should disembark on the Tierras de Valdivia that Pastene had discovered earlier, once he had passed it on his way south, he ordered Jerónimo de Alderete to drive inland and establish a fort, with the goal of securing his eastern flank. To this end, Alderente reached Lake Villarrica and established a fort there, Meanwhile, Valdivias column advanced southwards and joined the reinforcements sent from Peru, under the command of Francisco de Villagra. There, the city of Santa María la Blanca de Valdivia was established, after garrisoning these new places, Valdivia returned to his base at Concepción in 1552 where rich placer gold mines were found in the Quilacoya River valley. With the goal of securing the lines of communication with the forts, Valdivia launched a third expedition which established forts at Tucapel, Purén, Confines. The Araucanians didnt offer any resistance to the conquistadors in their fort-building, in October 1553, the Quilacoya gold mine was opened and large numbers of Mapuche were forced to work in it. In 1553, the Mapuches held a council at which, because of the growth of Spanish forces in their territory, with six thousand warriors under his command, Lautaro attacked the fort at Tucapel
2.
Tucapel
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Tucapel is a town and commune in the Arauco Province, Bío Bío Region, Chile. It was once a region of Araucanía named for the Tucapel River, Tucapel is also the name of a famous leader from that region in the first resistance against the Spanish mentioned in Alonso de Ercillas epic poem La Araucana. Formerly belonging to the Nuble Province, in the Department of Yungay, near the town of Tucapel is the Plaza de San Diego de Tucapel. The capital of the commune is the town of Huépil, moving the municipality from Tucapel in 1967, in mapudungún its name means To seize or to take by force. The main economic activities of the commune are commerce, agriculture, Tucapel is an old foundation in the country, originally part of the Rere Province, in which three La Frontera fortresses existed, Talcamávida, Yumbel and San Diego de Tucapel. The fortress of San Diego de Alcalá de Tucapel was founded by Pedro de Valdivia in 1552 on a hill in the valley of the Tucapel River at the present location of the city of Cañete and it was abandoned again in January 1563 during the second Mapuche uprising. Later it was rebuilt by Rodrigo de Quiroga in 1566 and it was finally abandoned after the Battle of Curalaba in the Mapuche Uprising of 1598. The present city of Cañete was founded on November 12,1868 by colonel Cornelio Saavedra Rodriguez as part of the pacification of Araucanía. In 1603 a new fort Tucapel was established on the site of the Valdivias old fort by Alonso de Ribera as part of his system of frontier forts. It received improvements in 1668 under the governor Diego Dávila Coello and this place was the target of repeated attacks by the Mapuche and was captured by Vilumilla in Mapuche Uprising of 1723. According to the 2002 census of the National Statistics Institute, Tucapel spans an area of 914.9 km2 and has 12,777 inhabitants, of these,8,827 lived in urban areas and 3,950 in rural areas. The population grew by 6. 3% between the 1992 and 2002 censuses, as a commune, Tucapel is a third-level administrative division of Chile administered by a municipal council, headed by an alcalde who is directly elected every four years. The 2008-2012 alcalde is Jaime Sergio Veloso Jara, within the electoral divisions of Chile, Tucapel is represented in the Chamber of Deputies by Juan Lobos and José Pérez as part of the 47th electoral district. The commune is represented in the Senate by Victor Pérez Varela, francisco Solano Asta-Buruaga y Cienfuegos, Diccionario geográfico de la República de Chile, SEGUNDA EDICIÓN CORREGIDA Y AUMENTADA, NUEVA YORK, D. APPLETON Y COMPAÑÍA. Ricardo E. Latcham, La organización social y las creencias religiosas de los araucanos, Santiago de Chile. Francisco Solano Asta-Buruaga y Cienfuegos, Diccionario geográfico de la República de Chile, SEGUNDA EDICIÓN CORREGIDA Y AUMENTADA, NUEVA YORK, D. APPLETON Y COMPAÑÍA
3.
Spanish Empire
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The Spanish Empire was one of the largest empires in history. The Spanish Empire became the foremost global power of its time and was the first to be called the empire on which the sun never sets, the Spanish Empire originated during the Age of Discovery after the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Following the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain ceded its last colonies in the Caribbean and its last African colonies were granted independence or abandoned during Decolonisation of Africa finishing in 1976. The unity did not mean uniformity, nevertheless, some historians assert that Portugal was part of the Spanish monarchy at the time, while others draw a clear distinction between the Portuguese and Spanish empires. During the 15th century, Castile and Portugal became territorial and commercial rivals in the western Atlantic. The conquest was completed with the campaigns of the armies of the Crown of Castile between 1478 and 1496, when the islands of Gran Canaria, La Palma, and Tenerife were subjugated. The Portuguese tried in vain to keep secret their discovery of the Gold Coast in the Gulf of Guinea, chronicler Pulgar wrote that the fame of the treasures of Guinea spread around the ports of Andalusia in such way that everybody tried to go there. Worthless trinkets, Moorish textiles, and above all, shells from the Canary and Cape Verde islands were exchanged for gold, slaves, ivory and Guinea pepper. The Crown officially organized this trade with Guinea, every caravel had to get a government license, the treaty delimited the spheres of influence of the two countries, establishing the principle of the Mare clausum. It was confirmed in 1481 by the Pope Sixtus IV, in the papal bull Æterni regis, thus, the limitations imposed by the Alcáçovas treaty were overcome and a new and more balanced worlds division would be reached at Tordesillas between both emerging maritime powers. Seven months before the treaty of Alcaçovas, King John II of Aragon died, Ferdinand and Isabella drove the last Moorish king out of Granada in 1492 after a ten-year war. The Catholic Monarchs then negotiated with Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor attempting to reach Cipangu by sailing west, Castile was already engaged in a race of exploration with Portugal to reach the Far East by sea when Columbus made his bold proposal to Isabella. Columbus discoveries inaugurated the Spanish colonization of the Americas and these actions gave Spain exclusive rights to establish colonies in all of the New World from north to south, as well as the easternmost parts of Asia. The treaty of Tordesillas was confirmed by Pope Julius II in the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis on 24 January 1506, Spains expansion and colonization was driven by economic influences, a yearning to improve national prestige, and a desire to spread Catholicism into the New World. The Catholic Monarchs had developed a strategy of marriages for their children in order to isolate their long-time enemy, the Spanish princes married the heirs of Portugal, England and the House of Habsburg. Following the same strategy, the Catholic Monarchs decided to support the Catalan-Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII of France in the Italian Wars beginning in 1494. As King of Aragon, Ferdinand had been involved in the struggle against France and Venice for control of Italy, these conflicts became the center of Ferdinands foreign policy as king. Only a year later, Ferdinand became part of the Holy League against France and this war was less of a success than the war against Venice, and in 1516, France agreed to a truce that left Milan in its control and recognized Spanish control of Upper Navarre
4.
Mapuche
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The Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of present-day Patagonia. Their influence once extended from the Aconcagua River to the Chiloé Archipelago, today the collective group makes up over 80% of the indigenous peoples in Chile, and about 9% of the total Chilean population. They are particularly concentrated in Araucanía, many have migrated to the Santiago area for economic opportunities. The Mapuchen is used both to refer collectively to the Picunche, Huilliche and Moluche or Nguluche from Araucanía, or at other times, the Mapuche traditional economy is based on agriculture, their traditional social organisation consists of extended families, under the direction of a lonko or chief. In times of war, they would unite in larger groupings and they are known for the textiles woven by women, which have been goods for trade for centuries, since before European encounter. The Araucanian Mapuche inhabited at the time of Spanish arrival the valleys between the Itata and Toltén rivers, South of it, the Huilliche and the Cunco lived as far south as the Chiloé Archipelago. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Mapuche groups migrated eastward into the Andes and pampas, fusing and establishing relationships with the Poya and Pehuenche. At about the time, ethnic groups of the pampa regions. The Tehuelche adopted the Mapuche language and some of their culture, historically the Spanish colonizers of South America referred to the Mapuche people as Araucanians. However, this term is now considered pejorative by some people, the name was likely derived from the placename rag ko, meaning clayey water. The Quechua word awqa, meaning rebel, enemy, is not the root of araucano. Some Mapuche mingled with Spanish during colonial times, and their descendants make up the group of mestizos in Chile. But, Mapuche society in Araucanía and Patagonia remained independent until the Chilean Occupation of Araucanía, since then Mapuches have become subjects, and then nationals and citizens of the respective states. Today, many Mapuche and Mapuche communities are engaged in the so-called Mapuche conflict over land, archaeological finds have shown the existence of a Mapuche culture in Chile and Argentina as early as 600 to 500 BC. Genetically Mapuches differ from the adjacent indigenous peoples of Patagonia and this suggests a different origin or long lasting separation of Mapuche and Patagonian populations. Troops of the Inca Empire are reported to have reached the Maule River and had a battle with the Mapuches between the Maule River and the Itata River there. The southern border of the Inca Empire is believed by most modern scholars to have been situated between Santiago and the Maipo River or somewhere between Santiago and the Maule River, thus the bulk of the Mapuche escaped Inca rule. Through their contact with Incan invaders Mapuches would have for the first time met people with state organization and their contact with the Incas gave them a collective awareness distinguishing between them and the invaders and uniting them into loose geo-political units despite their lack of state organization
5.
Pedro de Valdivia
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Pedro Gutiérrez de Valdivia or Valdiva was a Spanish conquistador and the first royal governor of Chile. After serving with the Spanish army in Italy and Flanders, he was sent to South America in 1534, in 1540 he led an expedition of 150 Spaniards into Chile, where he defeated a large force of Indians and founded Santiago in 1541. He extended Spanish rule south to the Bío-Bío River in 1546, fought again in Peru and he began to conquer Chile south of the Bío-Bío and founded Concepción in 1550. He was captured and killed in a campaign against the Araucanian Indians, the city of Valdivia in Chile is named after him. Pedro de Valdivia is believed to have born in Villanueva de la Serena in Extremadura. In 1520 he joined the Spanish army of Charles I and fought in Flanders in 1521 and he reached America in 1535, spent an uneventful year in Venezuela, and then moved on to Peru in 1537. There he took part on the side of Hernando Pizarro in his struggle against Diego de Almagro and fought in the battle of Las Salinas in 1538, afterwards he accompanied Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro to conquer both the province of Collao and las Charcas in High Peru. As compensation for his help in conquering these lands, he was awarded a silver mine, Valdivia had married Marina Ortíz de Gaete in Spain, but in Peru he became attached to the widow Inés de Suárez, who was to accompany him to Chile as his mistress. After the failure of the expedition of Diego de Almagro in 1536, Valdivia asked governor Francisco Pizarro for permission to complete the conquest of that territory. He got his permission but was appointed only Lieutenant Governor, the expedition was fraught with problems from the beginning. Valdivia had to sell the lands and the mine that had been assigned to him in order to finance the expedition, a shortage of soldiers and adventurers was also problematic since they were not interested in conquering what they were sure were extremely poor lands. Furthermore, while he was preparing the expedition, Pedro Sancho de Hoz arrived from Spain with a grant for the same country. To avoid difficulties, Pizarro advised the two competitors to join their interests, and on December 28,1539, a contract of partnership was signed, the small expedition finally left Cuzco, Peru in January,1540, with Pizarros permission and Pedro Sancho de Hoz as partner. They carried with them a plethora of seeds for planting, a drove of swine and brood mares, only one woman was among the travelers, Inés de Suárez, Valdivias mistress. En route more Spaniards joined the expedition, attracted by Valdivias fame as a brilliant leader and these conquistadores had formed part of the failed campaigns to the highlands of Bolivia and all in all around 150 Spaniards joined the expedition. Valdivia resolved to avoid the road over the Andes, which had proved fatal to Almagros army, on the way, Pedro Sancho de Hoz, seeking sole leadership, tried to murder Valdivia but failed. He was pardoned but from then on had to subordinate status. The natives of the region were not pleased by the return of the Spaniards due to the maltreatment they had suffered under Almagro, with many promises, Valdivia was able to regain their trust
6.
Prisoner of war
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A prisoner of war is a person, whether combatant or non-combatant, who is held in custody by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the prisoner of war dates to 1660. The first Roman gladiators were prisoners of war and were named according to their ethnic roots such as Samnite, Thracian, typically, little distinction was made between enemy combatants and enemy civilians, although women and children were more likely to be spared. Sometimes, the purpose of a battle, if not a war, was to capture women, a known as raptio. Typically women had no rights, and were legally as chattel. For this he was eventually canonized, during Childerics siege and blockade of Paris in 464, the nun Geneviève pleaded with the Frankish king for the welfare of prisoners of war and met with a favourable response. Later, Clovis I liberated captives after Genevieve urged him to do so, many French prisoners of war were killed during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. In the later Middle Ages, a number of religious wars aimed to not only defeat, in Christian Europe, the extermination of heretics was considered desirable. Examples include the 13th century Albigensian Crusade and the Northern Crusades, likewise, the inhabitants of conquered cities were frequently massacred during the Crusades against the Muslims in the 11th and 12th centuries. Noblemen could hope to be ransomed, their families would have to send to their captors large sums of wealth commensurate with the status of the captive. In feudal Japan there was no custom of ransoming prisoners of war, in Termez, on the Oxus, all the people, both men and women, were driven out onto the plain, and divided in accordance with their usual custom, then they were all slain. The Aztecs were constantly at war with neighbouring tribes and groups, for the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, between 10,000 and 80,400 persons were sacrificed. During the early Muslim conquests, Muslims routinely captured large number of prisoners, aside from those who converted, most were ransomed or enslaved. Christians who were captured during the Crusades, were either killed or sold into slavery if they could not pay a ransom. The freeing of prisoners was highly recommended as a charitable act, there also evolved the right of parole, French for discourse, in which a captured officer surrendered his sword and gave his word as a gentleman in exchange for privileges. If he swore not to escape, he could gain better accommodations, if he swore to cease hostilities against the nation who held him captive, he could be repatriated or exchanged but could not serve against his former captors in a military capacity. Early historical narratives of captured colonial Europeans, including perspectives of literate women captured by the peoples of North America. The writings of Mary Rowlandson, captured in the fighting of King Philips War, are an example
7.
Lautaro
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Lautaro was a young Mapuche toqui who achieved notoriety for leading the indigenous resistance against Spanish conquest in Chile. Lautaro begun his career as a captive of Pedro de Valdivia, the outbreak of a typhus plague, a drought and a famine prevented the Mapuches from taking further actions to expel the Spanish in 1554 and 1555. Between 1556 and 1557 a small group of Mapuches commanded by Lautaro attempted to reach Santiago to liberate the whole of Central Chile from Spanish rule, Lautaros attempts ended in 1557 when he was killed in an ambush by the Spanish. Today Lautaro is revered among Mapuches and non-Mapuche Chileans for his resistance against foreign conquest, servitude, Lautaro was the son of a Mapuche lonko called, Curiñancu and was born in 1533. He lived a life until in 1550, when he was about 17 years old, he was captured by the Spanish and forced into servitude by Don Pedro de Valdivia. Since it was difficult for the Spaniards to pronounce Lautaro’s original name, Leftraru, Don Pedro de Valdivia was a Spanish conqueror of Chile and then became the captain general of Chile. Lautaro learned the ways and skills of the Spaniards army by observation. He was witness to atrocities committed by the Spanish on captive Mapuche warriors and it is said that because of Valdivia’s command to cut off the toes of the Mapuche warriors, the Spanish soldiers named the place “El Valle de La Mocha”, whose name has been maintained over time. A great hatred of the Spanish and particularly of Pedro de Valdivia was born in the young Lautaro because of this incident, after his capture they made him a Yanakuna, meaning a “black slave” in Quechua. He remained a prisoner of the Spanish for three years, because he kept his personal hatred of Valdivia hidden, Lautaro soon became his personal page. Among his daily tasks as a page, he was in charge of taking care of Valdivia’s horses and always accompanying them into battle and this is how he learned not to fear horses and even become a good rider himself. This was a typical practice because as a yanakuna Lautaro was responsible to serve as an assistant during battles. In any case, he fled twice, first in 1550, in 1553, the Mapuches convened to decide how to respond to the Spanish invasion. The toqui Caupolicán chose Lautaro as vice toqui because he had served as a page in the Spanish cavalry, Lautaro introduced use of horses to the Mapuche and designed better combat tactics. He organized a large, cohesive army—a military formation unfamiliar to the Mapuche, with 6,000 warriors under his command, Lautaro attacked Fort Tucapel. The Spanish garrison couldnt withstand the assault and retreated to Purén, Lautaro seized the fort, sure that the Spaniards would attempt to retake it. That is exactly what Governor Valdivia tried to do with a reduced force, the Battle of Tucapel would be Pedro de Valdivias last, as he was captured and then killed. However, Mapuche tradition dictated a lengthy victory celebration, which kept Lautaro from realizing his desire to pursue the military advantage he had just gained
