Pedro Bernardo Spain

The only Native American country, the Mapuche Nation

By its foundation date, it rates fairly late in the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Cities like Bogotá, Quito, Guayaquil, Cartagena and others were founded anywhere from 15 to 30 years before. One of the reasons for this late date was the war that raged for decades (actually a state of semi-war went on and on, to last about 350 years) between the invading Spaniards and the local Mapuche tribes of the area south of the Bio Bio River. For decades after its founding, the Spanish city was taken and destroyed by the Mapuche repeatedly. It has also been the victim of earth quakes and tsunamis over the years. However, each time, the city was rebuilt, and today it is still thriving.

My hotel room had a view of a small plaza with the statue of a person in the middle. I found out during a walk through the center of the city that the statue was of Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga. This man played a key role in the battles between the Spanish and the Mapuche. He also wrote an epic poem, “La Araucana”, chronicling these battles.

The day after discovering this, my work group drove to several paper mills in the area. On the drive, the host official expanded on Ercilla’s role in the war against the Mapuche. He also mentioned that the Mapuche had actually formed an independent sovereign nation in the South of Chile. He stated it was the only such Native American country ever to officially exist as such alongside the European-based ones. In contrast, other pre Columbian Indian nations such as in the US existed later only on reservations, once European-based governments took over.

Alonso was one of the very few noble Spaniards (as opposed to commoners) that came to the new world during the Conquest period. He was the closest thing to a Renaissance man that the conquest produced. He was much esteemed as a warrior, a tactician, and an intellectual. His presence in the New World threatened other highly-placed Spanish conquerors and Alonso was jailed. He came close to being executed, and was finally deported back to Spain.

The Spanish came to the new world with clear goals. They came to possess lands and riches in the name of the king, and to disseminate the Catholic religion among the native tribes.

The lands south of Perú did not offer obvious mineral riches, and the powers-that-be on the Iberian Peninsula soon realized that the only option for these lands would be colonization. This was made difficult by the active opposition of the Mapuche. During colonization, several different Spanish settlements on Mapuche land were overrun by the Mapuche and destroyed. The land that is today northern Chile became mostly a military garrison engaged in constant warfare with the local Native American tribes, especially those south of the Bio Bio River. This was very costly to the Spanish crown without returning any significant monetary rewards in the form or gold or other minerals.

Spain 2011, Pedro Bernardo in the Gredos Mountains « Have Bag ...

We left Talavera de la Reina without too much difficulty except that we emerged from the underground car park onto a one way street and managed to cross the River Tagus twice until we found the road that headed north towards the Gredos Mountains, but once out of the city motoring was straight-forward and the satnav lady seemed to be a lot better than she was a few months ago in Germany so we didn’t have any fall-outs!

As we headed north we began to slowly climb as we entered an area of green scrubland littered with granite boulders where the verges of the road were a riot of red poppies and yellow daisies. Ahead of us we could see the mountains and the tops were covered in a few stubborn streaks of snow in the protection of the shadows where the May sun couldn’t quite reach.  We were still in bright sunshine but ahead of us the sky was a dramatic dark grey, brooding, threatening and angry.

A short way out of Talavera we crossed the site of a famous battle of the Peninsula War where Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) won one of his most successful and famous battles.  On 27 July 1809 the Battle of Talavera took place between the Anglo-Spanish army and the French.  It was a total allied victory and during the fight the city was hardly damaged and Wellesley’s army expelled the French from the city and the surrounding area.  The battle of Talavera is also the setting for the fictional event of ‘Sharpe’s Eagle’ the first book written in Bernard Cornwell’s ‘Sharpe’ series.

The drive north took us into the neighbouring Province of Castilla y Leon and  through the little town of Buenaventura, which was closed, and then the climb became more dramatic as we reached almost one thousand metres when we made the approach to the mountain village of Pedro Bernardo.  We managed to stay just short of the cloud and the sun was still shining as we drove through several hair-pin bends and into the village and easily found the Hostal El Cerro in the middle of the village on a dramatic bend in the road overlooking the valley below.

Although only two star it was an excellent hotel with a great room, a superb view and with excellent weather the ideal place for an hour or so of  sunbathing on the very private terrace.  After a while the grey sky started to muscle in and there was a drop or two of rain but inside there was a Jacuzzi to experiment with and relax in and after a half an hour or so it had blown over and the blue sky reasserted itself and there were good views over the rural hinterland with forests of elms, pines, chestnut and hazelnut trees and waterfalls and rivers making the town a scenic paradise.

Cicerone Cycle Touring in Spain, Eight Detailed Cycle Tours

The Bankers' almanac and year book

Longmans' gazetteer of the world

THE GAZETTEER OF THE WORLD PROMINENCE GIVEN TO GREAT BRITAIN AND COLONIES,INDIAN EMPIRE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Lippincott's gazetteer of the world, A complete pronouncing gazetteer or geographical dictionary of the world ...