s formerly
mentioned, Don Alonzo Sotomayor Marquis of Villa-hermoso was sent out
as governor with six hundred regular troops. He landed at Buenos Ayres
in 1583, from whence he proceeded to St Jago. On taking possession of
his government, he appointed his brother Don Luis to the new office of
Colonel of the Kingdom, and sent him with a military force to relieve
the cities of Villarica and Valdivia, which were both besieged by the
Araucanians. After twice defeating the toqui, Paynenancu, who opposed
his march, he raised the sieges and supplied both places with
reinforcements. The indefatigable but unfortunate toqui, after two
defeats from Don Luis, turned his arms against Tiburcio Heredia and
Antonio Galleguilios, who were ravaging the country with separate strong
detachments of cavalry, and was successively defeated by both of these
officers, yet the victors paid dear for their successes.

While these events were going on in the south, the governor had to
oppose the Pehuenches who had invaded the new settlement of Chilian, and
whom he defeated and constrained to retire into their mountains. He then
marched into Araucania at the head of seven hundred Spaniards and a
great number of auxiliaries, resolved to pursue the cruel and rigorous
system of warfare which had formerly been adopted by Don Garcia, in
preference to the humane procedure of his immediate predecessors. The
province of Encol was the first to experience the effects of this
severity, as he laid it entirely waste with fire and sword, and either
hanged his prisoners, or sent them away with their hands cut off to
intimidate their countrymen. The adjoining provinces of Puren, Ilicura,
and Tucapel would have experienced a similar fate, if the inhabitants
had not ensured their personal safety by flight, after setting their
houses and crops on fire, and destroying every thing they could not
carry off. Only three prisoners were taken in these provinces, who were
impaled. Notwithstanding these severities, many mestees and mulatoes
joined the Araucanians, and even some Spaniards, among who was Juan
Sanchez, who acquired great reputation among them.

Impelled either by his natural rash valour, or by despair on finding
that he had fallen in the estimation of the Araucanians by his want of
success, Paynenancu gave battle to the whole Spanish army on the
confines of the province of Arauco with only eight hundred men; yet such
was the resolute valour with which they fought