Martín García Óñez de Loyola

Óñez de Loyola (center) next to Quiñones (left) and Viscarra (right)
(representation from 1616)

Martín García Óñez de Loyola
(19th century history painting )

Oñez de Loyola with his wife, the Inca princess Beatriz Clara Coya

Martín García Óñez de Loyola (* around 1549 in Azpeitia , Basque Country , Spain ; † December 23, 1598 in Curalaba , Chile ) was a Spanish nobleman who served as governor of the Spanish colony in Chile.

Life

origin

García Óñez de Loyola came from a distinguished Basque family. His great-uncle was the later canonized Ignatius of Loyola , he himself was a knight of the Calatrava order . At the age of about twenty he went to South America as captain of the guard of his uncle Francisco de Toledo , when he was appointed viceroy of Peru .

In Peru

In Peru he led a commando in 1572 that captured the Inca Túpac Amaru , the last nominal Inca ruler, and brought him to Cuzco, where he was executed. This act brought him fame and recognition, and he was married to the indigenous Beatriz Clara Coya, daughter of the Inca ruler Sayri Túpac .

After working as a colonial administrator ( corregidor ) in Peru for a few years , his uncle appointed him governor of Paraguay in 1592 . Shortly before his departure, he received the royal deed of appointment as governor of Chile, signed by King Philip II, in Lima .

Term of office as Governor of Chile

His work in Chile coincides with the Arauco War between the Spaniards and the Mapuche . The Spaniards tried for many years, with superior weapons and horses, but a very small number of soldiers, in the mountainous country in the small south of Chile, to subdue the native Indians. Óñez de Loyola brought 110 reinforcements with him when he arrived in Chile. These scarce troops were ordered back to Peru in the following years when the privateer Richard Hawkins made the South American Pacific coast unsafe. It was not until 1597 that the Spanish received military support again in Chile.

During a campaign on December 23, 1598, Óñez and a small troop of soldiers on the banks of the Lumaco River near Angol were surprised by the attacking Indians. The governor was killed, the Mapuche leader Pelantaro carried the severed head of Óñez de Loyola's corpse with him as a trophy until 1608.

literature

• José Toribio Medina (1852–1930): Diccionario biográfico colonial de Chile . Imprenta Elziviriana, Santiago de Chile 1906, p. 610 f . ( Memoria Chilena documents [accessed June 17, 2010]).
• Diego Barros Arana (1830–1907): Historia General de Chile . tape 3 . Editorial Universitaria, Santiago de Chile 1999, ISBN 956-11-1535-2 , p. 143-180 ( Memoria Chilena documents [accessed October 9, 2013]).

Individual evidence

1. ^ John Hemming: The conquest of the Incas. Macmillan, 1993, ISBN 0-333-10683-0 .