Alonso de Ribera de Pareja

Alonso De Ribera

Alonso de Ribera de Pareja (* around 1560 in Úbeda , Andalusia , Spain ; † March 9, 1617 in Concepción , Chile ) was a Spanish soldier who served as governor of Chile twice (1601 to 1605 and 1612 to 1617) .

Life

Career in Spain

Ribera was the illegitimate child of Hidalgos Jorge de Ribera Zambrana and Ana Gómez Montesinos, the king legitimized him with a decision of December 6, 1600.

Ribera studied mathematics and from 1579 served in the Spanish army on the theater of war in Flanders ; In 1590 he went to France in the army of Alessandro Farnese , Duke of Parma , and supported Henry IV to end the siege of Paris. He undertook the campaign of 1591 in the rank of captain with his own company. In 1594 he was badly wounded in Picardy . He fought on the side of the Catholic League in France against the troops of King Henry IV. In the siege of Amiens in 1597 he defended the fortress. Archduke Alberto appointed him Sargente Mayor , he was subordinate to about a third of the entire Spanish infantry.

Arrival in Chile and start of the first term

1599 appointed King Philip III. the battle-hardened officer to governor of Chile. The resistance of the Mapuche Indians in the Arauco War had brought Spanish colonial rule into distress; Ribera received reinforcements of 300 men to defeat the Indians.

In April 1600, the fleet left Seville for Panama , which they reached on June 3, 1600. Armed with barely fit troops and poor equipment, Ribera reached Lima on October 17th.

The Viceroy of Peru , Luis de Velasco , received Ribera coolly; he would have preferred Alonso García de Ramón , who held the post of governor on an interim basis, with the supreme command in the war with the Mapuche, since he considered him the more capable officer. The permanent outflow of soldiers and material for the war in Chile put a strain on the viceroy, as these forces were urgently needed in the defense of the Peruvian coast against Dutch and English privateers. Ribera insisted on seeing his troops reinforced. The negotiations dragged on, and so Ribera was only able to sail from Callao to Chile on December 24, 1600 .

Rift with García Ramón

In February 1601 he went ashore in Concepción and was received by García Ramón. The dire war situation led García Ramón to propose a strategy to divide the Spanish army into three units, one of which was to be sent along the coast to Arauco to relieve the city from the Indian siege. The second unit was to rush to the aid of the forts of Villarica and Osorno in the Central Valley, while the third was to quickly reoccupy the forts of Angol and Santa Cruz. Ribera hesitated in deciding to further split the sparsely occupied Spanish units; García pressed him with decisive words and presented him with the alternative of accepting the partition plan or firing García Ramón. Ribera responded that same day by dismissing his officer.

Army reform

Ribera was shocked by the state of the Spanish armed forces in Chile. On the whole, the Spaniards had little more than a thousand men, there was as little division into companies as barracking, and tactics and discipline left much to be desired. Ribera set about - against the resistance of the experienced officers on site - to change the organization of the army on the model of the Spanish troops in Flanders and France. In addition, he achieved an increase in forces by almost half, namely 500 men.

Arauco war and deposition

Although Ribera had reformed the army and was able to inflict a few defeats on the Indians, the strength of the Spaniards was by far not sufficient to permanently fortify the long expanse of Chile, especially since the Indians had a strategic advantage with their guerrilla tactics.

Ribera's situation in Chile didn't get any easier. He had married a Creole , Inés de Córdoba, without the prescribed permission of the king , and had also made a number of enemies, on the one hand because of his brusque authoritarian character, but also because he brought the glamorous European lifestyle to Chile. He did not hesitate to get involved in conflicts with influential personalities (such as the Lisperger family or the Bishop of Santiago).

Despite all the reforms, the war against the Mapuche went badly for the Spaniards. They had to give up their settlements Valdivia and Osorno . Ribera saw this as uncritical from a strategic point of view, but he was alone with this opinion. Instead of the previous approach with isolated forts far forward, which were difficult to hold, and daring expeditions to conquer the Indian land, Ribera advocated a gradual conquest of the land, which the conquerors had to keep with settlers and permanent population should.

When the news of the losses in Chile reached the Spanish court at the end of 1603, together with numerous complaints and complaints about the way of life and the character of Ribera, King Philip III decided. in January 1604 to relocate Ribera to Tucumán in what is now Argentina. Alonso Sotomayor was to become governor in his place, but he refused. So in 1605 the office fell to Alonso García Ramón, who should actually only have been Maestre del Campo . In October 1604 the appointments reached Chile, García Ramón reached Concepción in March 1605 and took over the command.

Ribera went to Santiago to his family to cross the Andes to what is now Argentina, as he was ordered. The winter had made the Andean passes impassable, and so Ribera did not travel to Tucumán until the end of October 1605 in the spring. 29 soldiers went with him as an escort. The review of his tenure in the juicio de residencia turned out to be unfavorable for Ribera in view of the number of his enemies, but was later changed by the Council of India in his favor.

Second term

Ribera's successor, García Ramón, died in office in 1610 and was followed by Luis Merlo (1610/1611). The viceroy in Peru named Juan de la Jaraquemada as the new governor. In Madrid, King Philip III changed - also at the instigation of the Jesuit father Luis de Valdivia - the thrust of the war. The Spaniards wanted to try a more defensive warfare, largely based on the concepts of Alonso de Ribera. Ribera was promptly ordered to cross the Andes again to serve as governor of Chile a second time and to make the new tactic a success.

In March 1612 his entourage reached Santiago, and on April 2, 1612 he swore the oath of office before the Real Audiencia of Chile . Padre Valdivia, Ribera's powerful church ally, reached Concepción on May 13th.

While Ribera set about implementing the new military strategy, Valdivia was preparing the first negotiations with representatives of the Mapuche. The killing of three Jesuit fathers by Indians meant a setback for the optimistic plans. In any case, the new strategy met with skepticism and resistance from large parts of the Spanish population, but also from the clergy. In the end, however, the king stuck to his line and confirmed Ribera's approach.

At this time, the Spaniards not only had to fear the rebellious Indians, Chile was also threatened by sea from Dutch corsairs who made the coasts unsafe under Captain van Spilberg.

At the beginning of 1617 Ribera fell seriously ill and named Oidor Fernando Talaverano Gallegos as his successor on his deathbed . Alonso de Ribera de Pareja died on March 9, 1617.

literature

• José Toribio Medina : Diccionario Biográfico Colonial de Chile . Imprenta Elziviriana, Santiago, Chile 1906, p. 741–744 (Spanish, memoriachilena.cl [PDF; accessed June 15, 2010]).
• Diego Barros Arana : Historia General de Chile . tape 4 . Editorial Universitaria, Santiago de Chile 2001, ISBN 956-11-1544-1 , p. 63–95 (Spanish, memoriachilena.cl [accessed June 10, 2010] first edition: 1886).
• Diego Barros Arana: Historia General de Chile . tape 3 . Editorial Universitaria, Santiago de Chile 1999, ISBN 956-11-1535-2 , p. 251–328 (Spanish, memoriachilena.cl [accessed March 7, 2012] first edition: 1886).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Of 291 soldiers, 28 were old, 72 inexperienced recruits, 70 auxiliaries, 72 without swords and 94 were classified as unfit, according to Ribera, according to Barros Arana, vol. 3, p. 259.