page_title: Valdivia
section_title: First Spanish city (1544–1604)
hierarchical_section_title: Valdivia / History / First Spanish city (1544–1604)
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Pedro de Valdivia. Geschenk der Königin Isabella II. von Spanien an die Stadt Santiago de ChileEspañol: Pedro de Valdivia. Retrato de 1854. Obsequio de la Reina Isabel II de España a la Ilustre Municipalidad de Santiago
context_page_description: Valdivia is a city and commune in southern Chile, administered by the Municipality of Valdivia. The city is named after its founder Pedro de Valdivia and is located at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Valdivia, and Cau-Cau Rivers, approximately 15 km east of the coastal towns of Corral and Niebla. Since October 2007, Valdivia has been the capital of Los Ríos Region and is also the capital of Valdivia Province. The national census of 2002 recorded the commune of Valdivia as having 140,559 inhabitants, of whom 127,750 were living in the city. The main economic activities of Valdivia include tourism, wood pulp manufacturing, forestry, metallurgy, and beer production. The city is also the home of the Austral University of Chile, founded in 1954 and the Centro de Estudios Científicos.
  The city of Valdivia and the Chiloé Archipelago were once the two southernmost outliers of the Spanish Empire. From 1645 to 1740 the city depended directly on the Viceroyalty of Peru, which financed the building of the Valdivian fort system that turned Valdivia into one of the most fortified cities of the New World.
context_section_description: The first European to visit Valdivia River's estuary was the Genoese captain Juan Bautista Pastene, who took possession of it in 1544 in the name of the Spanish king, Charles V. He named the river after the Governor of Chile Pedro de Valdivia.
  Pedro de Valdivia later travelled by land to the river described by Pastene, and founded the city of Valdivia in 1552 as Santa María la Blanca de Valdivia. It was the southernmost Spanish settlement in the Americas at the time of the founding. Following the establishment of the church of Santa María la Blanca in Valdivia, more buildings were constructed. Mariño de Lobera described it as "the second city in the Kingdom of Chile". Many of Chile's most influential conquistadors and future governors were granted land in Valdivia, such as Jerónimo de Alderete, Rodrigo de Quiroga, Francisco and Pedro de Villagra, apart from the proper Pedro de Valdivia.
  Jerónimo de Bibar, a chronicler who witnessed the founding wrote:
  "Having the governor seen such good comarca and site for populate a city and riverside of such good river, and having such good harbour he founded a city and named it ciudad de Valdivia, and he assigned Alcaldes and a town council."
  After Pedro de Valdivia's death, the war with the Mapuches, called the War of Arauco, continued. The Spanish made many attempts to defeat the Mapuche and defend the cities and forts built on their territory. On March 17 of 1575 the city was damaged by a massive earthquake. It has since been likened to the Great Chilean earthquake of 1960 in terms of damage.
  Until 1575 the Huilliche of Valdivia did not organize any notable resistance against the Spanish. They had fought as Indios amigos with the Spanish against the northern Mapuche in the Arauco War.  But that year 4,000 Indians who had been fighting in Martín Ruiz de Gamboa's army rebelled after returning to the area of Valdivia.
  During the 16th century, the economy of Valdivia was sustained by trade in agricultural products from nearby areas and by the coining and export of placer gold from Villarrica, Madre de Dios and Osorno. In Lima and the rest of Chile, people referred to all the gold from these sources as "gold from Valdivia." Many merchants of Lima had envoys in Valdivia, and the city developed a large ship building industry. It produced the largest ships in the Kingdom of Chile.
  After the demoralising Battle of Curalaba in 1598, in which the Mapuche killed governor Óñez de Loyola, the Mapuche and Huilliche made a mass rebellion. The Indians destroyed or forced the abandonment of all the Spanish settlements and forts in their lands, in what came to be known as the Destruction of the Seven Cities. On the morning of 24 November 1599, the Huilliche attacked the city and massacred its inhabitants, some few being rescued by the ships in the harbour. The border of the Spanish Empire shifted north of the Bío-Bío River. Valdivia was re-established but it was a Spanish enclave surrounded by native Huilliche territory. Together with Castro, Chile on the island of Chiloé, it was one of the southernmost colonies of the Empire.
  Eleven days after the first destruction of Valdivia, a group of 270 Spanish soldiers arrived from Perú. The commander of the troops, colonel Francisco del Campo was convinced that the city of Valdivia needed to be repopulated. After Francisco del Campo's expedition left, the Dutch corsair Sebastian de Cordes occupied the site of Valdivia for some months, giving the Dutch government information about this abandoned part of the Spanish Empire. The Spaniards returned on 13 March 1602, when captain Francisco Hernández Ortiz established a fort on the ruins of the city. On September 24 natives attacked the fort unsuccessfully, but laid siege. The Spaniards could not acquire food or supplies, and on 3 February 1604 abandoned the fort, with the last starving survivors rescued by ship.
caption: Picture of Pedro de Valdivia, conquistador of Chile and founder of Valdivia
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