They took him prisoner, cut off his hands and released him as a living reminder of what happens if you go against the conquistadors. They could not even imagine how hard it was to break a Mapuche warrior, who from childhood was hit on the head with a club and forced to dodge arrows. Without hands, Galvarino began to fight even crazier and more violently, did not live long, but managed to gut a lot of Spaniards. Let's talk about how it happened and how strong the spirit of a truly annoyed Indian can be.
Mapuche - the most successful guerrillas in history
The Mapuche Indians (they are also the Araucanians) are the most evil and painful pain in the ass of the conquerors and colonialists who came to the Andes. Long before the conquistadors came to their lands, the Mapuche had already become famous in what other local peoples considered impossible. They were so successful in guerrilla warfare that they stopped the advance of the Inca empire and retained their independence.
When the Spaniards poured into the fertile foothills of the Central Andes, defeating the Incas and Aztecs, they hardly expected to meet serious resistance. But the Mapuche were made from a different dough. They were not only warlike and trained for hundreds of years of guerrilla, they had something in them that allowed them to wage war for 350 years in a row. For three and a half hundred years they resisted the Spaniards, and then the Chilean administration, seizing forts, stealing cattle and massacring entire garrisons.
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The Mapuche were typical highlanders and developed as a people, where each partisan since childhood, vaguely imagining what could be done besides this. Unlike the same Incas and Aztecs, they quickly realized that it was pointless to beat new invaders with banging sticks and centaurs in the field, fighting army against army. No matter how different the Spaniards were from the Incas, they were just as afraid of ambushes, rigged mountain landslides, they also suffered from the loss of carts and were just as afraid to climb high into the mountains, where the Araucanian archers were waiting for them.
In addition, the Mapuche has developed a kind of budo in the spirit of the samurai. Every kid from childhood was involved in the world of war and everyday violence with the help of a rather complex educational system. Competitive and traumatic games, like field hockey or the "bouncers" we know from school, followed by the Araucanians throughout their childhood, prepared them for two main things. Firstly, a more well-coordinated team wins the war, and secondly, the one who caught the arrow is to blame - it was necessary to dodge better.
In addition, the Mapuche, as born guerrillas, had little respect for the fierce blockhead warriors that other cultures prized. Their ideal was a clever sly and tactician who outwitted the enemy. However, in difficult situations, the Araucans rushed at the Spaniards fearlessly and even suicidal.
Malone - organized attack of the Araucans.
The favorite tactic of the Araucanians was the Malon - an organized cavalry raid that rushed in like a Mongol horde, seized whatever forts they could, took as many cattle and women as possible, killed as many unawares soldiers as they were lucky, and fled back into the mountains. At the same time, the "malones" were carefully planned and were often reconnaissance in force, after which more active military operations could begin. The Mapuche very quickly realized the superiority of horses, and by 1535 two-thirds of their warriors were mounted.
Galvarino
Now that you can imagine what the Mapuche warriors were like, it becomes clear who Galvarino was and where he got his strength from.
In the fall of 1557, the Spaniards, once again experiencing the cavalry Malon Araucans, made an attempt to conquer the Mapuche lands and invaded their territories. The operation was so important that the governor of Chile, the Marquis García Hurtado de Mendoza, personally directed it. He himself must have liked the Araucanians, since he was a warrior in their taste - cunning, cunning and at the same time the most perfect adventurer, ready to risk his own noble head for glory.
On November 8, the Marquis managed to do the almost impossible and force the Mapuche army to face him in open battle. He built linden rafts for the crossing, which were supposed to convince the Araucans that the Spaniards were crossing the Biobio River, and they were doing it extremely clumsily and dangerous to themselves. The Indians took the trick and rushed into a fight, in which the conquistadors met them with pre-prepared artillery and shots from the ambush fusiliers.
Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza.
The battle was called "Battle of Lagunillas", and the Spanish troops utterly defeated the Araucanian army. More than three hundred of them were killed, another one and a half hundred were taken prisoner. Tellingly, the Spaniards lost only two people. More precisely, they put their allies from another tribe under attack, and no one counted their losses.
Among those taken prisoner was Galvarino. Nobody even planned to exchange or take hostage either him or the others. The operation was originally prepared as a punitive one, and the Marquis ordered the Mapuche to be taught a lesson. Each of the 150 prisoners of war either had their right hand and nose cut off, or both hands. The survivors of such punishment were sent home - to become an example of what will happen to every partisan who does not want to cooperate with the regime.
Mapuche during a raid.
Galvarino's hands were cut off, they were cauterized with gunpowder or iron and thrown out along with the rest of the crippled. He managed to get to the tribe and appear before the leader Kaupolikan. He, by the way, was himself a cripple who lost one eye in childhood (not otherwise than as a result of ordinary Indian games). Galvarino spoke about the defeat and showed how the vile Spaniards treated the prisoners. Instead of being a terrifying example, he became an inspiration and a true embodiment of revenge.
Prior to this, the Mapuche tribal council was considering whether to fight the invasion, or whether it would be better to go for a truce. Galvarino convinced the one-eyed leader and the elders that the Spaniards deserve only revenge, negotiations are impossible, and the Marquis of Mendoza should be captured and subjected to "proculon" - an honorable custom, during which a captured noble warrior was killed with a club and his heart was eaten in a solemn atmosphere.
Fury and thirst for revenge inspired Kaupolikan, and Galvarino was immediately appointed commander of a "squadron" of six hundred experienced warriors. It is worth noting a strange coincidence: from childhood, the Araucanians learned to control a horse without hands, holding the reins with their teeth. So the armless Galvarino was able to become the commander of the equestrian detachment.
But the most striking thing: wanting to fight and kill the Spaniards on a par with his soldiers, Galvarino ordered two iron knives to be attached to his crippled hands, with which he wielded so skillfully that he managed to kill many more conquistadors and Indians allied to them.
It is not surprising that a warrior who lost his arms but continued to fight became a symbol of the Araucanian resistance for the remaining three hundred years of guerrilla warfare. And, I must say, the hero was worth his people - the conquistadors never managed to break them.
Galvarino sought a valiant death in every battle and called on his squad to do so. He urged them on with the words: "Do you really want to be taken prisoner and become like me - unable to work or eat?" Just weeks after regaining new hands, on November 30, 1557, Galvarino died in a suicide attack by an army he inspired.
The Battle of Millarapuya was a real disaster. 20 thousand Mapuche attacked the camp of 600 Spaniards and suffered a terrible defeat, losing 3,000 killed and 800 prisoners. This should have been the perfect ambush, but the Araucanian plans were confused by chance. The Spaniards were just celebrating St. Andrew's Day and did not sleep. In addition, they began to play the battle forges, because of which the Indians decided that this was the signal of the leader to attack, rushed into the battle in uneven rows, depriving the entire army of the element of surprise.
The well-fortified camp with artillery withstood several waves of attack by the Araucans, shooting thousands of Mapuche with buckshot. Galvarino led the troops in the attack, fighting in the forefront and inspiring by his example. The battle ended in carnage and the armless warrior was again captured. But this time an even more shameful fate was prepared for him. The Spaniards did not bother too much with the solemn murder of noble opponents and simply threw the annoying Indian into a pit with hungry dogs.
Galvarino died stupidly, but not in vain
One might think that on this tragic and inglorious note, the history of the Araucanian uprising ended. In fact, this was just the beginning. The Spaniards did not manage to subdue the Mapuche for a couple of hundred years. Galvarino's example taught the Indians how tremendous power lives in every offended warrior. He also made it clear that open battles against the Spaniards are just a way to lose, and you need to completely go into guerrilla warfare in small detachments.
Mapuche managed to break only in the middle of the 19th century, but not Spain, but Chile. And even then, it was rather a recognition of autonomy with a very formal subordination to the government. But even now the Araucans, who are being squeezed from their lands, show themselves to be extremely dangerous and very vindictive neighbors. Hundreds of years of struggle against the occupation have greatly changed the habits and character of the people. If their main character is a guy who does not stop, having lost his arms, but ties knives to his stumps and starts fighting three times as fiercely, then they should be reckoned with.
By the way, the Marquis García Hurtado de Mendoza lived a rather interesting and even full of takeoffs life. He was appointed Viceroy of Peru, was in good standing with the King of Spain and returned to Europe, where he was known as a hero and a rich man. The Marquesas Islands in Polynesia were even named in his honor.
Vladimir Brovin