Arauco War - Second Great Mapuche Rebellion (1561) - Campaigns of Francisco de Villagra

Campaigns of Francisco De Villagra

Hostilities resumed with the arrival of Francisco de Villagra to replace Mendoza. It began during the brief interim governorship of Rodrigo de Quiroga with the killing of the hated encomendero and corregidor of Cañete Pedro de Avendaño and two other Spaniards in July 1561 in the valley of Puren. Spanish punitive expeditions from Angol and La Imperial drove the insurgents into the refuge of the Lumaco marshes. However, the news of the killing was spread by the Mapuches and it initiated a new general rising greater than the previous ones. With Villagra's arrival also came its first smallpox epidemic that ravaged the native population of Chile.

The toqui of the Arauco region, Millalelmo, with a local army laid siege to Arauco from May 20 to June 30, 1562. At the end of 1562, the Mapuches under a leader named Meuco, had fortified a pucará in the province of Mareguano, three leagues from the city of Los Infantes. Arias Pardo Maldonado destroyed the pucará but he did not gain a complete victory, since most of the Mapuches escaped. Elsewhere the corregidor of Cañete Juan Lazarte was killed at the gates of Cañete trying to recapture mounts stolen by thirty mapuches.

The Mapuches reconstructed the pucará near Los Infantes in January 1563, but Pedro de Villagra was sent again to destroy it. Once again the Mapuche rebuilt it, but this time with sections readily accessible to the cavalry, despite suspicions of veteran Spaniards they attacked the location, and many fell into well-disguised pits. There the governor's son, Pedro de Villagra "el Mozo" and forty two other Spaniards died. This disastrous military defeat forced governor Francisco de Villagra to order the city of Cañete to be abandoned. News of the abandonment of Cañete spread the revolt.

When Francisco de Villagra heard the news of his son's death he became ill and left for Concepcion leaving his cousin, Pedro de Villagra, in charge of the campaign. The Mapuches, now under Colocolo attacked on two fronts against the forts of Los Infantes and Arauco investing them but were unable to take them. Again Petegüelen offered peace to the Spaniards and Villagra accepted, but this peace was deceptive since the Mapuches needed to harvest their fields.

In April 1563, the Mapuche reestablished the siege of Arauco. This lasted 42 days with the Mapuches losing 500 warriors mostly from dysentery contracted from drinking contaminated water. Finally they chose to retire and to raise the siege. Shortly afterward, Francisco de Villagra died in Concepcion on June 22, 1563, leaving his cousin Pedro de Villagra as interim governor.