Alonso González de Nájera facts for kids

Alonso González de Nájera was a Spanish soldier who lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s. He is known for suggesting new ways to fight a war in Chile called the War of Arauco. This war was against the Mapuche people. After a big battle called the Disaster of Curalaba, many Spanish towns in southern Chile were destroyed. Alonso González de Nájera was sent to Spain to tell the king that the war needed to change. He wrote a book about his ideas called Desengaño y reparo de la Guerra del Reino de Chile.

Biography

We don't know much about Alonso González de Nájera's early life before the year 1600. We only know that he served as a soldier in the Spanish army in places like Flanders and France.

On November 13, 1600, he left Lisbon, Portugal, to go to Chile. He was a captain under the command of Francisco Martinez de Leiva. He arrived in Mendoza in May 1601. After that, he moved to southern Chile, where he stayed until 1607.

Alonso de Ribera, who was the Governor of Captaincy General of Chile, built a fort called Nacimiento. This fort was on the banks of the Bio Bio River, near where it met the Vergara River. This happened on December 24, 1603. Alonso González de Nájera was in charge of building this fort. He was also its first commander.

After serving in the war zone for four years, he was promoted. The new Governor, Alonso García Ramón, made him a sargento mayor in 1605. Later, he returned to Santiago because he was sick and had a leg injury from the war.

The military situation in Chile was very difficult. So, Governor Ramon Garcia decided to send González de Nájera to Spain. His job was to report to King Philip III about the real situation in Chile. González was chosen because he had many years of experience. He had also served the king well in many important army jobs.

In May 1607, he left for Spain and arrived there at the end of the next year. To explain how serious the situation was in Chile, he wrote down some ideas. He wanted to convince the King and his advisors to send help to Chile. These ideas later became part of his book, Desengaño y reparo de la Guerra del Reino de Chile.

While at the King's court, González de Nájera gave many suggestions on how to continue the war. He pointed out the problems with the current methods. For example, he criticized the "campeadas" system. This was when the Spanish army would go into Mapuche territory to burn their fields and capture people to make them slaves.

He didn't just criticize; he also suggested a new system. He wanted to complete the conquest of the Mapuche territory and end the war. His plan included building a line of forts to separate the two territories. He also wanted a professional army to fight from these forts. He suggested removing the native people from the land and replacing them with enslaved people from Africa. He thought enslaved people from Africa would be less likely to rebel than the Mapuche.

However, his ideas were not accepted. The King decided to use a different system proposed by Luis de Valdivia, called the defensive war. This was the opposite of what González de Nájera suggested. Even though his war ideas were not used, his hard work was recognized. He was made Governor of Puerto Hércules in Tuscany, Italy. He died there sometime in 1614, but the exact date is not known.

González de Nájera's book, Desengaño y reparo de la Guerra del Reino de Chile, was not published during his lifetime. He finished writing it in 1614, but it was printed more than 200 years later in Madrid, Spain, in 1866. It was later published in Chile in 1889, with a special introduction by Jose Toribio Medina.

Sources

• Alonso González de Nájera, Desengaño y reparo de la guerra del Reino de Chile, Imprenta de la Viuda de Calero, Madrid, 1866
• Desengaño y reparo de la guerra del reino de Chile Alonso González de Nájera, Desengaño y reparo de la guerra del Reino de Chile, Reproducción digital de la edición de Santiago de Chile, Imprenta de Ercilla, 1889.

See also

In Spanish: Alonso González de Nájera para niños