Galvarino - the real story of a warrior with knives instead of hands (12 photos)

He was captured, his hands were cut off and he was released as a living reminder of what happens when you go against the conquistadors. They couldn't even imagine how hard it is to break a Mapuche warrior who was hit over the head with a club and forced to dodge arrows since childhood.





Without his hands, Galvarino began to fight even more madly and furiously, he didn't live long, but he managed to gut quite a few Spaniards. We tell you 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 (aka Araucanians) are the most evil and painful thorn in the side of conquerors and colonizers who came to the Andes. Long before the conquistadors came to their lands, the Mapuche had already become famous for what other local peoples considered impossible. They were so successful in guerrilla warfare that they stopped the advance of the Inca Empire and maintained their independence. When the Spanish poured into the fertile foothills of the Central Andes, having defeated the Incas and Aztecs, they hardly expected to meet serious resistance. But the Mapuche were made of different stuff. They weren't just warlike and trained by hundreds of years of guerrilla warfare, they had something in them that allowed them to wage war for 350 years straight. For three and a half centuries they resisted the Spanish, and then the Chilean administration, capturing forts, stealing cattle and slaughtering entire garrisons.





The Mapuche were typical highlanders and formed a people where everyone had been a guerrilla since childhood, with only a vague idea of ​​what they could do besides that. Unlike the Incas and Aztecs, they quickly realized that it was pointless to beat the 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 also afraid of ambushes, arranged mountain collapses, they also suffered from the loss of convoys and were also afraid to climb high into the mountains, where the Araucanian archers were waiting for them.

In addition, the Mapuche developed something like their own budo in the spirit of the samurai. Every boy from childhood was drawn into 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 familiar to us from school "dodgeball", which the Araucanians spent their entire childhood playing, prepared them for two main things. Firstly, in war, the more coordinated team wins, and secondly, the one who caught the arrow is to blame himself - he should have dodged it better.



In addition, the Mapuche, as natural guerrillas, had little respect for the fierce, blockhead warriors that other cultures valued. Their ideal was a clever trickster and tactician who could outwit the enemy. However, in difficult situations, the Araucanians rushed at the Spaniards fearlessly and even suicidal.



Malon - an organized attack of the Araucanians

The favorite tactic of the Araucanians was the "malon" - an organized cavalry raid that would break in like a Mongol horde, capture the forts that they could, carry off as many cattle and women as possible, kill as many of the soldiers taken by surprise as they were lucky, and flee back to the mountains. At the same time, the "malons" were carefully planned and often served as reconnaissance in force, after which more active military action could begin. The Mapuche very quickly realized the advantage 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, having once again experienced the cavalry malon of the Araucanians, attempted to conquer the lands of the Mapuche and invaded their territories. The operation was so important that it was personally led by the governor of Chile, the Marquis García Hurtado de Mendoza. He himself must have pleased the Araucanians, since he was a warrior of their type - cunning, treacherous and at the same time a perfect adventurer, ready to risk his own noble head for the sake of glory.

On November 8, the Marquis finally 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 Araucanians that the Spaniards were crossing the Biobio River, and doing so extremely ineptly and dangerously for themselves. The Indians fell for the trick and rushed into battle, in which the conquistadors met them with artillery prepared in advance and shots from the Fusiliers sitting in ambush.



Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza

The battle was called the "Battle of Lagunillas", and the Spanish troops utterly defeated the army of the Araucanians. More than three hundred of them were killed, another hundred and fifty were captured. Characteristically, the Spanish lost only two people. More precisely, they put their allies from another tribe at risk, and no one counted their losses.

Among those captured was Galvarino. No one even planned to exchange or take hostage either him or the others who were captured. The operation was initially prepared as a punitive one, and the Marquis ordered to teach the Mapuche a lesson. Each of the 150 prisoners of war had either his right hand and nose cut off, or both hands. Those who survived this punishment were sent home to become an example of what would happen to every guerrilla who did not want to cooperate with the regime.



Mapuche during a raid

Galvarino had his hands cut off, cauterized with gunpowder or iron, and thrown out with the rest of the cripples. He managed to get to the tribe and appear before the chief Caupolican. He, by the way, was himself a cripple, having lost one eye in childhood (no doubt as a result of ordinary Indian games). Galvarino recounted the defeat and showed how vile the Spaniards were to prisoners. Instead of being a terrifying example, he became an inspiration and a true embodiment of revenge.

Before this, the Mapuche tribal council was debating whether to fight the invasion or to agree to a truce. Galvarino convinced the one-eyed chief and the elders that the Spaniards deserved only revenge, negotiations were impossible, and the Marquis of Mendoza should be captured and subjected to the "proculon" - an honorable custom during which a captured noble warrior was killed with a club and his heart was eaten in a ceremonial setting.



Rage and thirst for revenge inspired Caupolican, and Galvarino was immediately appointed commander of a "squadron" of six hundred experienced warriors. It is worth noting a strange coincidence: the Araucanians learned from childhood to control a horse without hands, holding the reins with their teeth. So the armless Galvarino was able to become the commander of a cavalry unit.

But the most amazing thing: wanting to fight and kill the Spaniards on par with his soldiers, Galvarino ordered two iron knives to be attached to his crippled hands, which he wielded so skillfully that he managed to kill many more conquistadors and allied Indians.

It is no surprise that the warrior who lost his arms but continued to fight became a symbol of the Araucan resistance for the remaining three hundred years of guerrilla warfare. And it must be said that the hero was worth his people - the conquistadors were never able to break them.



Galvarino sought a valiant death in every battle and encouraged his troops to do the same. He spurred them on with the words: "Do you really want to be captured and become like me - unable to work or eat?" Just a few weeks after gaining new arms, on November 30, 1557, Galvarino died during a suicide attack carried out by the army he inspired.

The Battle of Millarapuya was a disaster. 20,000 Mapuches attacked a camp of 600 Spaniards and suffered a terrible defeat, losing 3,000 men killed and 800 captured. It should have been a perfect ambush, but the Araucanians' plans were spoiled by an accident. The Spaniards were celebrating St. Andrew's Day and had not slept. In addition, they began to play their war horns, which led the Indians to believe that this was the chief's signal to attack, and they rushed into battle in uneven ranks, depriving the entire army of the element of surprise.



A well-fortified camp with artillery withstood several waves of Araucanian attacks, shooting thousands of Mapuche with grapeshot. Galvarino led the troops into the attack, fighting in the front lines and inspiring them with his example. The battle ended in a massacre and the armless warrior was captured again. But this time, an even more shameful fate was prepared for him. The Spaniards did not bother too much with the ceremonial killing 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 the history of the Araucan rebellion ended on this tragic and inglorious note. In fact, it was only the beginning. The Spanish failed to subjugate the Mapuche for a couple of hundred years. Galvarino's example taught the Indians what a tremendous force lives in every offended warrior. He also made it clear that open battles against the Spanish are only a way to lose, and that it is necessary to completely go into guerrilla warfare with small detachments.



The Mapuche were only broken in the middle of the 19th century, but not by Spain, but by Chile. And even then, it was more of a recognition of autonomy with a very formal subordination to the government. But even now, the Araucanians, who are being driven from their lands, are proving to be extremely dangerous and very vindictive neighbors. Hundreds of years of fighting against occupation have greatly changed the habits and character of the people. If their main character is a guy who doesn't stop when he loses his hands, but ties knives to his stumps and starts fighting three times more fiercely, they are worth taking into account.

By the way, Marquis Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza lived a rather interesting and even full of ups and downs 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.