Page:A history of Chile.djvu/105

THE COLONIAL PERIOD 93 was chosen to conduct the affairs of government until the due appointment of another governor. He re- mained in office six months, during which time he crossed the Biobio with such troops as he could get together and conducted the inhabitants of Angol and Coya .in safety to Concepcion and Chilian, which he sought to repeople. The viceroy of Peru, learning of the critical con- dition of the provinces in Chile, dispatched thither Francisco Quinones as governor, with an army and an abundance of military supplies. Quinones, after several unsuccessful engagements with the Araucanians north of the Biobio where the Indians were ravaging the country, ordered the evacuation of the forts of Arauco and Caiiete and transferred the inhabitants to Concepcion. Quinones, like so many of his predeces- sors, was a soldier of cold blood; having taken several prisoners in an engagement with Paillamachu on the plains of Yumbel, he ordered them to be quartered and hung upon trees. As we have before observed, these measures of extreme cruelty served only to enrage the enemy. The sieges of the fortified places within the Arau- canian territories went on, except that of Valdivia, which had been razed. Paillamachu continued to ravage the Spanish provinces, which, having effect- ually accomplished, he next proceeded against Valdivia with 4,000 troops, crossed the river at night, attacked the city early in the morning, slaughtered the inhabi- tants, burned the houses, and even attacked the ship- ping in the harbor. In this onslaught he obtained two million dollars worth of booty, cannon, arms, and four hundred prisoners. A force of three hundred troops under Campo arrived from Peru after the destruction of Valdivia, and made an unsuccessful attempt to re-