Mapuche forces kill Royal Governor of Colonial Chile and win Battle of Curalaba

A battle and an ambush occurred on this day in 1598 when Mapuche people led by Pelantaru defeated Spanish conquerors led by Martín García Óñez de Loyola at Curalaba, southern Chile. Pelantaru and his lieutenants Anganamón and Guaiquimilla, leading three hundred men on horseback, mounted a surprise night raid. Taken by surprise, the governor and almost all of his party were killed. While an impressive raid on its own, it led to a more generalized Indigenous revolt across southern Chile against the Spanish colonial settlements. Known as the 'Destruction of the Seven Cities' the revolt destroyed all Spanish settlements south of the Bío-Bío River. An estimated 3000 Spanish were killed in the revolts. The Destruction of the Seven Cities, marks the end of the Conquest period and the beginning of the colonial period.