Galvarino and Rani Lakshmibai

Author Ben Thompson and professor of history Dr. Patricia Larash discuss Galvarino, an indigenous Mapuche warrior from the Andes mountains who continued leading a heroic resistance against the Conquistadors even after they severed both of his hands -- according to some versions of the story, he even strapped swords to his forearms and led his men charging into battle. Ben and Pat also discuss the Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, a warrior-queen from 19th century India who led a fierce resistance against the British Empire, fighting with a sword in each hand and her infant son strapped to her back.

My original article on Galvarino can be found here, and Rani Lakshibai is here. They both also have chapters in my book Badass: Ultimate Deathmatch, which is available for purchase over on my store page.

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Episode Transcript:

The sword came down, chopping off Galvarino’s right arm. Blood poured out everywhere.. But Galvarino… he showed no pain, and no emotion. With one arm severed, Galvarino calmly put his left arm on the chopping block as well. Shocked, the Spanish Conquistadors obliged him, taking off his left arm too, leaving Galvarino bloody and literally unarmed. They thought it was the last they'd see of him. But at the next battle, there was Galvarino leading the charge with a sword strapped to each of his bloody stumps.


Ben: Hello and welcome back to Badass of the Week. My name is Ben Thompson and I am here, as always, with my co-host, Dr. Pat LaRoche. Pat, we've got school starting up At the time of this recording. I'm not sure when the episode will be released, but as far as the time of recording it, as school has just started for you. So this is kind of crazy for you.

Pat [00:01:12] Yes, they are. Yeah. Yeah. Let's class prep faculty meetings, get the classroom in order. Yeah.

Ben [00:01:18] And researching stuff for this show.

Speaker 3 [00:01:20] Yes. Yes.

Ben [00:01:23] So what do you what do you teaching this year? Is it always kind of the same stuff or do you do different classes every year?

Pat [00:01:29] There's a little bit of variation, but like pretty much every year it's some version of Latin, Latin and more Latin.

Ben [00:01:34] A little bit off topic here, but you teach spoken Latin because I think that there has for my understanding, there's a little bit of discussion among classicists as to whether the value of teaching spoken Latin versus reading and writing it.

Pat [00:01:46] Yeah, I don't primarily teach spoken Latin. The idea is to get students using the language so they can. I guess the goal is so they can read primary texts in language, but you don't learn a language in isolation. You learn a language through communication. And so my colleagues and I have been really engaging with developments in Latin pedagogy. And so we try to incorporate some spoken Latin and a little bit of conversation in Latin into the classroom and have creative and communicative activities because that's how the human brain actually learns language. So even if you are sitting down to read, say, a letter of Cicero, you're bringing with it the language as a as a living thing, as a a language that people communicate in and say, you know, boring everyday things in as well as profound insights into whatever it is they're having profound insights into mostly.

Ben [00:02:37] Carthage.

Speaker 3 [00:02:38] Yeah, Yeah.

Ben [00:02:40] So I guess like it's an interesting question because you see in movies, everybody, you know, sometimes you'll see movies where they, they try to stay really historically accurate and you see people speaking Latin, you see Roman speaking in Latin. That's always really cool to hear because you never really think of it as the spoken as a spoken language. You you only ever kind of see it. But when you are watching that kind of stuff for when you're researching ancient history stuff, do you do you root for the Romans all the time?

Pat [00:03:08] Oh, definitely not all the time. Definitely not all the time. I mean, okay, if it's a movie, I might depending on how the movie is, I might be rooting for whoever the movie wants the audience to be sympathetic towards, you know? But in general, I'm not necessarily rooting for the Romans. I might be rooting for the people who are fighting against them, like I might be rooting for the goals more than I'm rooting for Julius Caesar, you know? But but I do have I do have some individual Romans that I root for. You know, they make good stories or bad actors in their own right. You know, Horatius Coakley's clearly a mucus guy. WALL Some of these heroes of the early republic who kind of develop they become legends in their own right, and they just make good stories.

Ben [00:03:49] Yeah, we should probably get to most of them at some point as we keep going. Yeah, but I totally get it. The leadership of the Roman Empire has historically not always been infallible, I suppose.

Speaker 3 [00:03:59] Yes. Yeah.

Ben [00:04:02] Well, a strange transition here, but have you seen the trailer for the new Avatar movie?

Pat [00:04:07] No, I haven't. You have?

Ben [00:04:10] I have. Yeah, well, there's a little teaser for it. Yeah, Yeah, we're. We're talking, we're talking Romans, We're talking in this episode, we're going to be talking some native resistance. And, you know, of course, you can't talk native resistance without talking about the Avatar movies.

Pat [00:04:23] Yes.

Ben [00:04:24] Which to me is just mind blowing to me that until Avengers, that was the highest selling, highest grossing movie of all time. Yeah. Weirdly, my dad loves it. My dad loved Avatar and he was just like, Man, I can't wait to see the other five that they have in production, which I think they do for real. Have like four or five plans to come out every couple of years for the rest of our foreseeable lifetimes.

Pat [00:04:46] Oh, wow.

Ben [00:04:47] So Avatar's is back. It's coming back. It's going to yeah, it's going to keep going on forever, even though it's just basically Dances With Wolves or Pocahontas or basically any number of The Last Samurai, any number of movies that fall into this range of some hero from an empire is captured by the local tribes people and then learns to befriend them and then leads heroic leadership against the the oncoming on slotting enemy armies in the story we've seen a bunch but this week we're not going to tell that story again. We're going to tell the story of leaders who have come from the local indigenous populations and rose up and fought against very powerful world spanning empires and executed themselves very well and became great heroes of their people and remain so to this day. So, Pat, I think you're going to be talking about somebody who who who took on an empire that was even bigger than the Roman Empire at its height.

Pat [00:05:59] There are many statues of Rani Lakshmi by. Picture this. There's a large statue, one you have to look up to see. You see a woman on a horse rearing up, and she's raising a scimitar looking like a total badass. Now imagine that this woman is doing this while leading an army into battle. Not surprising, given the scimitar and all. But as you walk around the statue you see on her back in a backpack is a young child. So, yeah, this is exciting. We get to talk about Ronnie Lakshmi. Bye. And she is from India, and the. Well, Empire is actually. Well, is it fair to call it an empire? It's the British East India Company, which I guess technically is not an empire, but they were kind of working with Empire and they were a corporation that had their own I mean, they had their own military, you know, And they were I mean, they were world spanning. They had, you know, ships going all over. So this is Rani Lakshmi. Bye. She became a major symbol of Indian resistance in World War Two. Well, after her lifetime, an entire all female fighting division was named after her. And she's not the only one there. There are other female freedom fighters from different times and places who are at least are represented as carrying their kids into battle.

Ben [00:07:23] Well, you can mention that this is a kind of a common theme of Anita Garibaldi. Sacajawea was always shown with her with her baby on her back.

Pat [00:07:30] Yeah. So setting the scene, you're in India and picture yourself up in the north, kind of near the Himalayan mountains. Jhansi is the name of the princely state that were that this is all taking place in. And what's a princely state? Well, it sounds very grand, doesn't it? In name? It was autonomous, but in practice it was actually a subsidiary to the British East India Company. And things were working out okay for a while. The British East India Company was staying off their back kind of because they had things worked out in a way that worked out for them. You know, it's September 1851 and the current ruler of the princely state of Jhansi is the Maharajah Garg under world worker. And he was actually doing a pretty good job of Maharajah eating. He was improving finances of Jhansi. He supported culture and the arts, and he even earned the respect of the British, probably because he didn't overstep the boundaries that the British East India Company thought needed to be respected anyway. So this is young under Arrow. He's the Maharajah, and he's married a young wife, 22 year old Lakshmi. Bye. And she has given birth to a son, which means that hopefully, you know, at some point Gagan Daro moves on from this life and his son will take over and ensures a continuity of the rain and hopefully continuity of copacetic relations with the British. And in fact, the British East India Company had a rule that they would automatically respect a natural born son, inheriting his rule from his father in the case of these princely states. So things are looking good for the princely state of jhansi and things are looking good for Garg and things are looking good for Lakshmi. Bye. But four months later, tragically, the young baby dies and the Maharajah and the Rani Rani Maharaj is title means big. KING Great king Rani is a title that means queen, the King and Queen, the Maharajah and the Rani. Try to have another son, but. Sooner rather than later. It's clear that the Maharajah is at death's door. He's in his forties. You know, he's got stuff going on. And following a long established Hindu tradition, the royal couple adopts a son. This is the son of a cousin of the Maharajah. And in the presence of a British official. So you'd think, you know, they're dotting the I's and crossing their T's and whatever. They confirmed that this adopted child, whom they have named Damodar Rao, is officially Gangadhar son. And everyone recognizes this. And he should be treated with respect by the British and also with this British official. They declare that under his soon to be widow, our friend Lakshmi, Bye will be in charge of the government of Jhansi for her lifetime as Queen Regent or Rani Regent.

Ben [00:10:29] Right. And this isn't that weird. I mean, maybe it doesn't really follow that medieval or even at this point the European succession of kings and queens thing. But this is Roman, right? Oh, I'm about to die. Augustus was adopted, right? You. You adopt an heir and you appoint him year heir. And he was very young at this point. But the idea would be that Lakshmi bye would would regent for him would, would watch over for him until he was old enough to take over, which I think in the cases of European kings was somewhere in the 13 to 16 range. You could like kind of assert yourself, but for that time period, she's kind of the custodian for him. He's still going to be the the Maharajah, but she's keeping an eye out for him. She's going to be the Queen Regent for a little bit.

Pat [00:11:15] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. This was an established tradition. It was a an option that was available. And, you know, in India, in in the Hindu tradition, people wouldn't even blink an eye. They'd be like, Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. You doing it that way? Cool. So from the point of view of, say, you know, the good people of Jhansi. Sure. Yeah. That's your family. That's how you do it. But even though they had tried to do everything officially from the point of view of the British and they had roped in a British official to give the okay to things, the British East India Company did not actually honor this arrangement in the way that Lakshmi by and her late husband had hoped, because, well, the governor general of the British East India Company. So their guy in charge on the ground, Lord Dalhousie, he does not respect this arrangement. And he and his staff, it's probably his staff dig up some statute somewhere. The doctrine of lapse, which claims that only natural born sons, not adopted ones, could inherit a title. So they refused to recognize Damodar Rao's claim to the throne or even his mother's claim as regent. So Rani Lakshmi, bye is not being recognized by the British and the British East India Company try to annex the territory of John Sea.

Ben [00:12:37] This is also very Roman. This is also very.

Pat [00:12:40] Yes, actually.

Ben [00:12:40] We have a we have a law that said that you are not allowed to do this. So this is kind of ours now and we're just going to come take over now. Sorry, It's just the rules. I don't know what to tell you.

Pat [00:12:48] Okay. Oh, we don't make the rules. You know, we're just following orders or following procedure. But the Rani Lakshmi. Bye is having none of this. She cries famously. I shall not surrender my John Sea. And this is. This could be her motto. This is her in a nutshell. She does not surrender. She is not a surrender. The British try to smooth things over. They offer her a generous pension in exchange for leaving the palace in the fort and kind of, you know, retiring quietly to the countryside and doing whatever it is one does in the countryside, you know, like a beekeeper or something. They offer her ₹60,000 per year, which would get you pretty far in 1854. They try to put their own guy in charge to run things. And Rani Lakshmi. Bye does not leave.

Ben [00:13:41] Okay, so I'm looking at a calculator here of 60,000 Indian rupees, which is today worth about £650. And then when you do the the inflation conversion from 1857 to 2000, 22 £650 is worth about £81,000 of purchasing power today. So it's not not a bad deal, right?

Pat [00:14:05] No, not at all.

Ben [00:14:06] Basically like somewhere in the $100,000 a year pension. Hey, that's not terrible.

Pat [00:14:12] That's not bad at all.

Ben [00:14:13] Yes, I would take that for sure. I would quit everything that I've ever done.

Pat [00:14:18] Okay. So, you know, this pension, you're ₹60,000 per year can get you pretty far. But she turns it down. She does not leave. And in fact, it's not just her as an individual putting her foot down, but she also rallies her people and she leads them in battle and she becomes a powerful symbol of resistance to British domination. And we're in the Indian rebellion of 1857 now. And not just John Sea, but other areas, other regions, other towns, other princely states. Other kingdoms in India are rebelling against the Brits.

Ben [00:14:56] And it's because the British are doing this to all of them. Right. They are consolidating. And you made a great point earlier when you said the British East India Company is doing this, not necessarily the British Empire. The East India Company is is a functionary of of this. But it is a big evil corporation. Right. This is you know, they they they're sort of tangentially attached to the British Empire. But this is a company that is here to exploit the resources of this land and export them. And they are in slaving people. They are working people to death. They are lying and stealing and cheating and doing all of the things that we associate with big evil corporations and they screwing over all of the princely states. And at some point they had enough. And in 1857, most of these princely states start to rebel. And it's not a coordinated thing. For the most part, it is. Different groups start to rebel and it starts to catch fire of like somebody is. Some people are like, we've had enough of this. We're tired of getting screwed over by the Victorian Amazon and now we're going to fight against it. And then everybody else is kind of like, Yeah, actually me too. This sucks. And the Jancee kind of falls into into that.

Pat [00:16:09] Yeah. So you have all of these various princely states and they're communicating with one another. Word gets around and we'll see where this goes. So maybe let's, you know, pause for a moment. You know, she's turned down this, frankly, pretty cushy pension and she's rallying her people, rallying the people of Jhansi. So who is this woman who's in her twenties with a kid who's just a few years old, who is leading her people against big, Scary Corporation? So she was born in the town of our A.C in northern India on the Ganges River. Her mom died when she was four, so her dad raised her with actually not a very demure education. He raised her with a lot of athletics and martial arts training. She learned how to ride a horse. She learned she spent she learned a sport called Mala Kamba, which is a combination. I had to learn about this. It's a combination of gymnastics, yoga poses and wrestling with props. So in some forms you might use a cane, In some forms you might use a rope. In some forms you might use a pole. And maybe the pole is like standing fixed into the ground, or it might be suspended from like a frame or a roof. And it's very artful, but also requires a lot of athletic prowess.

Ben [00:17:30] The stories of her going into battle, she's wearing the baby on her back and she's in some of the cases, she's got a symmetry in each hand and she's steering the horse by putting the reins in her teeth. Right. This is hardcore. You don't just she, you know, just learn how to do that on the fly.

Pat [00:17:47] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So she's acquired many skills and she's using apparently all of them as she leads people into battle. So, yeah. So rebellion breaks out. It's called many different names. The Indian Rebellion of 1857, the mutiny of 1857, etc., etc.. Lakshmi Bye is she's the regent. She's acting as the Regent. Who cares what the British call her, But she is the Regent. She is in charge of Jhansi. She gets her troops together. She joins the the rebellion. And as she does this, other groups of rebels head on over to offer their support to Rani Lakshmi. Bye. And in 1858, we've got the siege of Jhansi. In January of 1858, you've got British forces under general robes heading towards Jhansi and they surround the fort. There's a bitter battle. Rani Lakshmi BI has loyal troops. She has some big firearms, not just cemeteries. Yes, firearms too. And they're doing as much as they can. Now, one of the groups that is Lakshmi buys Allies under a guy named Pontotoc. They were coming to offer support, but they were defeated not completely, but they experience a really big setback at the hands of the Brits. And so this support the support or relief that Lakshmi Buy was kind of counting on was not coming in the way that she expected. Sales from the Jhansi troops are overwhelmed. What does Rani Lakshmi bye do? Does she surrender? Is it hopeless? Do you think she surrenders? Ben?

Ben [00:19:28] I shall not surrender my Jancee. I think that's what she says.

Pat [00:19:32] Indeed, she does not surrender her. Jancee And to make matters worse, the sort of Jancee. Was even betrayed by a dirty, rotten scoundrel named for a Jew who had opened up part of the fort to the Brits. And so, Oh, is this the end for the Rani? Is this the end for Jhansi? Well, she gathers a group of palace guards and. Okay, here, here I am encountering a few different stories, so I'm just going to throw it all at you. According to one story, there's one of her beloved horses waiting for her just outside the fort. So she perches on the wall, jumps onto her horse and rides away into action. Safety and also action, because she's an action person. And also she's not doing this by herself. She's also got her kid, Dumbledore Row, who is I'm not sure. I think she might be about five years old at this point. So she's carrying her kid, I'm guessing, jumping onto the horse with her kid, maybe with cemeteries also. And so Lakshmi, by her kid, Dumbledore and her small but fierce band of palace guards escape with her.

Ben [00:20:43] Yeah. This is they don't make baby backpacks for five year olds generally. I think this is a big boy.

Pat [00:20:51] This is a big boy. Yep. And he's in for quite an adventure. Mom, Mom, are we there yet or are we there yet?

Ben [00:20:59] Hang on. Watch. So hang on. I'm shooting somebody. We'll get there when we get there.

Pat [00:21:08] So they do get there. Eventually they make it to the town of Kopi, where they do meet up with Tata Top and his forces. These were the allies that they've been hoping for some support from earlier and some other forces. And the British keep attacking. The Rani is leading her John troops and the allies. They're still being pummeled by the Brits. They keep going. Ronnie Lakshmi Bye. And other leaders of these combined forces take their troops and they flee from copy and they make it to a third place Gwalior fort. Okay. Like, okay, is it truly hopeless at this point? Like, are we like, is this like a sunk cost fallacy? Are we just going to just lose lives in this battle if we keep fighting without anything coming out of it? Rani Lakshmi By convinces them she tries to convince them. She says Nope, nope, nope, nope. We should keep fighting. We should defend Gwalior and the British attack Rani Lakshmi by is dressed as a cavalry officer and she rushes into the fray on a horse and a British soldier raises his pistol. And at this point, not surprisingly, there are different stories. In one version, the British soldier shoots and kills her, and that's how she dies. In another version, she's badly wounded, but she's not dead, and she refuses to let the British have her body because that would add insult to injury. She doesn't want to suffer the indignity of this. She also knows that she's quite a symbol to her people. So what happens to her body afterwards is you might have a lot of symbolic and emotional value. So she asks a hermit who apparently is right there hanging out as hermits do.

Ben [00:22:55] Do?

Pat [00:22:55] Yeah. She somehow manages to ask a hermit to cremate her body. So there actually is a report from a British soldier saying that he had like later after the fact, seen the place where her cremated remains were placed with a little marker. Okay. So maybe maybe the hermit was able to come through and perform that last right for her.

Ben [00:23:22] Right. And trying to like dig through the legend around this right leg. I mean, I love her final charge, right? She's dressed as a cavalry officer in the Maharajas army because that's what she is. Right. She's literally leading cavalry elements into battle against the eighth British hussars, right? Yes. But this is I mean, this is she's commanding a real battle here. She has swords. She has guns. She is charging into combat at the head of her men. She's a target. And she is she is shot and killed or if not killed, immediately dies of wounds later. But the British don't get her body. Yeah. Which is which is big because that is something that, you know, that is a symbol for her people and for the resistance and for all of that. Right. Whether this hermit was just hanging out on the battlefield or whether she was kind of like rode off wounded or was her body was carried off by her, by her friends, is not as big of a deal as the fact that the British never paraded her head around on a pike. Right.

Pat [00:24:22] Exactly.

Ben [00:24:23] They never displayed her from a wall. They never used her as an example of what happens if you betray the British East India Company or or try to resist against us. She leads her people into battle. To the very end. Outnumbered, surrounded. Everybody is coming to get her. There's no relief force coming to save her. And she chooses to attack and charge will not surrender. My fiancee shot and killed, but they don't get the body. I think it's awesome.

Pat [00:24:48] Yeah. Yeah. She does not surrender. So. Yeah. So then what happens? What happens afterwards? You know what? She's successful. Well, okay. In one sense, her son survives Dumbledore. They give him a pension, which he actually accepts. But she does live on as a symbol of General Rose, the guy who had led the original charge. He's actually on record commending her for her bravery, just saying, wow, she was one of the bravest fighters he knew. Yeah.

Ben [00:25:17] And superheroes is is a big deal. This is superheroes. He was a pretty he becomes a very high ranking general. But he had fought in the Crimean War against the Russians. He had been an advisor for the Ottomans when they were in their wars, some of their wars against the Egyptians. He fought French, he'd fought Russians, he'd fought Turks and Ottomans with and against all of these people. And then he fought in India and then afterwards he becomes the commander of British forces in Ireland. You know, even later in his career, he says she was one of the bravest warriors I ever fought against. And so that's that's high praise coming from this guy, because he knows. He knows warriors.

Pat [00:25:54] Yeah, he knows warriors. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I might not necessarily agree with, you know, the political decisions of the side that he was fighting for. But yeah, he knows warriors also.

Ben [00:26:04] I guess it's worth mentioning that the Indian rebellion of 1857, the the mutiny, whatever you want to call it, that ends up as a failure. Right. The the East India Company asserts power and the British Empire kind of has power over India, basically until Gandhi, basically until 1947, when India gets its independence. But even up until that point and even continuing on to today, she is a symbol of resistance. And during World War Two, like you said, there was a movement the British are fighting. The Japanese in India are very close to India. And there is a movement that comes up within India itself of like, hey, this is an opportunity for us to fight and gain our own independence. And among those forces they did raise a unit of of women soldiers that they called the the Rani Lakshmi by division. So she even at that point, 100 years after the mutiny, is still considered a symbol of like heroic resistance against the empire. When I was going through and and looking up some research for for this, for this episode, we we were we were talking, oh, you know they have statues. She's on a the Rainey is on a postage stamp. There's all of these like very heroic equestrian statues on horseback with the sword and the baby and the gun strapped to the horse and stuff like that. There's a Bollywood movie. I know nothing about it except that I saw screenshots and I saw that it's being released.

Pat [00:27:34] Okay.

Ben [00:27:34] I don't know if it's a musical. I'm picturing it as such, and I don't quite know what that would look like, but I guess it's a good example of her continuing popularity in India that there is a there's a Bollywood film based on her life. And I guess from here I kind of want to transition into another long running resistance, right? Because the rain is picking up. The raining of Jhansi is picking up in in 1850. So 1853, 1857. And to this day she's a symbol of resistance. But the legacy was that her people continued to resist the British right up until they gained their independence eventually in 1947. And I'm going to talk about, you know, transition to a different part of the world, but I'm going to talk about another lasting resistance that dealt with another world spanning colonial empire that started even earlier than the the Raney and continues even longer. So we're going to talk about the Mapuche people of Chile, which is probably a story you've never heard of before. There's not very much on it in English, but I was able to to find quite a few sources on it. And actually through the website I was contacted by a few people from southern Chile who who translated several sources for me and sent me the translations. And I was able to to work off those when I when I wrote about these guys in my in my third book. So I'm going to talk about that guy Gal Perino from the from the Open. So let's get into that. Okay, we're back and let's get back to the story.

Pat [00:29:16] Okay. Yes. Tell us about the book and tell us about particular badasses.

Ben [00:29:20] So we're going to start with the Spanish conquistadors. I mean, these guys were pretty tough characters, right? We are going to be in the the earliest 16th century. So Hernan Cortez has come over and conquered the Aztec empire. And Pizarro is just finishing up with the the overtaking the Inca in Peru. And you have these this world spanning colonial empire of the Spanish. And they are going everywhere in the new world. And if there's some gold involved, they will do whatever it takes to get that gold. Presumably that includes like either destroying or colonizing the the indigenous peoples that live there. And around the time that Pizarro was finishing up with the Inca, he starts hearing about this group in basically Chile, southern Chile and in Argentina, like present day Chile and Argentina going into like Patagonia, but they're in the southern Andes Mountains and they have silver and some gold. And Pizarro is very interested in both of those things.

Pat [00:30:23] Because they're shiny.

Ben [00:30:24] Because they're shiny, and that's the only value that they have.

Pat [00:30:29] Well, they're shiny, and you can get a good price for them on the open market.

Ben [00:30:32] Yes. The only value they have is that they're pretty, but they're worth money. And people have been killing each other for it for as long as we've existed as a species.

Speaker 3 [00:30:41] Yes. Yes.

Ben [00:30:43] Yes. So the Argentineans, they are they're a loose confederation in southern Chile and in Patagonia of Argentina. Present day. Think like the Celts of South America. It's a bunch of tribes that are all different and individual and autonomous, but they share a generally common culture and language. And the biggest and the most prominent of these tribes are the Mapuche. They're primarily in Chile. So in 1541, Pizarro dispatches one of his good one of his top lieutenants, a guy named Pedro de Valdivia. He goes down to Chile to investigate. The Senores were very effective at what they did. They had several things that the the native populations of Central and South America couldn't really cope with. They had guns. They had steel armor. They had horses which didn't exist in South America. And they had all kinds of crazy messed up diseases that were killing everybody. And the Mapuche, at this point, they don't even have walls on their villages, Right. Like they are. They're not really equipped to deal with crossbows and plate armor.

Pat [00:31:47] Yeah. So they didn't have walls in their villages, but what did they have? You know, the Mapuche. They'd been bopping along, living their lives. We have archeological evidence that shows that they had been living in the region since the six hundreds or 500 BCE, And around the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, they had by that time they developed sophisticated textile production, gold smithing, and the textiles had great importance as trade goods and status symbols. So they were integrated into a larger trade network, and they were very sophisticated in many ways, just maybe not in ways that would defend them against this particular threat. Right.

Ben [00:32:27] And that's the thing that I don't think really gets talked about enough when you are talking about colonization and, you know, imperial empires moving into to less developed areas, which is okay. Yeah. These people didn't have firearms and they didn't put walls on their cities, but they did have like a very thriving culture. Right? If you go right now, you can go to a Mapuche village. It's a tourism thing. You can go there and walk through it and see what's going on there. And and what they had created is very impressive and was very useful to what they were doing for their day to day lives. Right. They have homes that are built there high up in the mountains. Right. So you're in you're in the Andes, in the foothills of the Andes. You know, they're building homes out of bamboo and grass. They build the fires inside of these homes.

Pat [00:33:16] What that sounds like it's that would violate fire code.

Ben [00:33:19] Yeah, exactly. So if you think of like a Viking longhouse, they would do that as well. But there's a kind of wood that is in the area, and I can't pronounce the name of it, but it doesn't spark up or create a ton of smoke.

Pat [00:33:31] Really?

Ben [00:33:32] Oh, yeah. So they would have these fires inside these these larger homes. The fire brings warmth and food, and then they can cook up. They have a bunch of various different types of flowers and grains that they produce in the region. And then after the fire is out, they can make a mixture with the ash to create a soap that would clean their clothes. Right. You kind of live off the land. You live here. You take care of it. If you're going to cut down a tree to build your house you're supposed to plant for, That's kind of the rule.

Pat [00:33:59] Yeah. And it sounds like they understand how to use resources and also how to sustain their resources.

Ben [00:34:04] Exactly. And and they're not they're not a warlike people when certainly there was tribe. All warfare as there is anywhere in the world, of course. Yeah, but it's not a culture of like, we're going to build a wall around our fort. It was a culture of more like, Hey, you know, we'll make some we can pull some silver out of the ground. We can make some really pretty things with it. They work on that. They work on some very decorative textiles. They build their homes and they make the fires and they cook their dinners. And I love that you brought that up, because that is the thing that tends to get overlooked sometimes when you're talking about colonial empires and wars of this nature. There's an incredible Mapuche warrior by the name of Lao Taro, who I'm sure we'll talk about in another episode. But he manages to kill one of Spain's governors and defeat a second in battle due to the taro success and turning his people into an organized army to be reckoned with. Spain became overly worried about losing power in Chile and control over the Mapuche. They rush a third governor to Chile to take control and stomp down on native opposition. This guy is Don Garcia. HURTADO De Mendoza is 22 years old, and he arrives to finish the job. Right? We've lost two guys to the future. We need to crush them. We need to crush this resistance. He's young and and ready for action and ready to make a name for himself. And so Don Garcia HURTADO de Mendoza raises his army and he's going to he's going to strike while Lautaro is dead and defeat them are pushing once and for all. And he starts attacking the towns. He's more aggressive and more violence and more brutal than some of the Spaniards had been before him In one of the early attacks. He attacks this town and he defeats the warriors there. And he gathers all of the men and fighting age and he orders their right hand cut off at the wrist.

Pat [00:35:50] Oh, that's awful.

Ben [00:35:51] It's awful. Yes. It's a it's a thing we've seen in the past. Yeah, various other time periods. But yeah, he cuts everybody's hands off at the risks and the right arm so they can't the right hand so they can't carry a weapon.

Pat [00:36:02] Unless they're lefties. Okay, so this Mendoza guy is chopping off people's right hands. And this means that, you know, whether you're a rowdy or a lefty, this is not convenient, you know?

Ben [00:36:13] And so, you know, you could still, I guess, in theory, use your left hand. But one of the chiefs of this tribe, this town that was this village that was that is being sacked and tormented here. He's one of the chiefs. His name is Galvano. The way they had it worked was they would cut down a big tree. So there was this huge tree stump. All of the men of the tribe would line up in front of this stump and they would kneel down in front of it. Mendoza would order some guy with an ax or sword or whatever to cut off your hand. They're going through this line and they're cutting off all of his hands, but they're putting all their hands in a pile. It's very gruesome. It's very bloody Calvary and O'Neil's and he's surrounded by his people and all the eyes of his tribe are on him. All the Spanish soldiers are standing in formation at attention, watching over, seeing this. He's got to kneel in front of this Mendoza guy. He puts his hand on the stump. Mendoza gets the word, the chop, his hand off, and Galvano. Is that the kind of guy who's going to, like, be quieted by this? He is pissed and he is super pissed.

Pat [00:37:22] I would be too.

Ben [00:37:23] He's very unhappy with the things that are happening, and he channels his rage. He doesn't flinch, he doesn't cry, he doesn't plead for anything. They cut it off. He just looks at Mendoza with rage and he takes the arm off with the stomach and he puts his left hand on the tree trunk. Do this. What next? And Mendoza? Mendoza is one of these, like, sick assholes who was just like, Okay, fine, whatever. If you want to just do it. He obliges. Gael Marino and cuts off the left hand as well. And Galvano doesn't flinch then either. He gets up and he walks off and he makes eye contact with Mendoza. And he remembers this. He's only thinking about vengeance.

Pat [00:38:03] That's badass. I mean, okay, that's badass or foolish or something. I mean, it kind of reminds me of the Roman story of Lucas Scola. He's this Roman guy who was captured by the enemy, Etruscans. And he said, Hey, I'm a Roman, you know? Yeah, you can kill me because I tried to assassinate your king. But you know what I have? There's a whole bunch of Roman guys lined up right behind me, waiting to take my place and keep on trying to assassinate you. And he says, We are brave, we are not afraid. And he shoves his right hand into the fire that was just burning there and allows his right hand to be burned off to show that, yes, we're brave. And, you know, the Etruscans are so impressed by this that they let him go. But it sounds like with Galvano and Mendoza, it sounds like sounds like things escalate.

Ben [00:38:53] They escalate and we're not even at the good part yet.

Pat [00:38:56] Wait, what?

Ben [00:38:57] Well, go. Marino is. I'm going to say he's like Wolverine. Like Logan, because Mendoza moves on, right? He's burned a couple of these villages. He's ready to show these huge who's boss. He moves on to the. The next town and the next town. The future waiting for him. They know he's come and they know what he's going to do. They're at a renewed strength of like their their redetermination to defend their town against this guy. Because what's he going to do if he takes over? It's even worse than like than just what the Spanish had already been doing. This guy is a problem, right? We got to deal with this guy.

Pat [00:39:28] So the Mapuche are waiting for him. They have raised arms against him. Pun totally intended, right?

Ben [00:39:33] Yes, they they have raised arms against him and they are ready to fight him. Anybody that can has come to this battle to face Mendoza and he goes to lead his guys into battle. And the first dude that he sees is Galvano at the front of his men, leading his tribe, leading his people, and he has used rope to tie sawed blades to the stumps of his arms. And he is going to run into battle with stumps for arms, but big long sword blades coming out like Baraka from Mortal Kombat or like Wolverine, just amazing.

Pat [00:40:11] So he's just like, slash, slash, slash, slash and.

Ben [00:40:14] Right. Yeah. It's just running out there with with giant, like, double sided meat cleavers. Yeah. Strapped on to his have tied probably with some very good knots I'd imagine tied on to his stumps and he leads his men into battle and attacks from the front lines and just to show like I don't know how effective this was, we don't have a great details of like blow for blow like accounting of his battle. But if nothing else, this is inspirational. Right? You can imagine the pump up pre battle speech that Galvano gave. His people are like, you know, here's here's what I'm willing to do. What are you guys going to bring to the table?

Pat [00:40:50] Yeah, the psychological effect must be astounding. Yeah.

Ben [00:40:54] So the war continues, right? The battle continues. Galvano and Mendoza, they fight very, very bloody battle. Galvano was eventually captured and executed. Capucon is eventually captured and executed. Mendoza Well, as much as I'm painting him as the bad guy, he lives. I mean, this is just way history sometimes is more depressing than than fiction. Mendoza lives. The city of Mendoza in Argentina is named after him. He lived to be 73 days like a rich man in a sleep. But the spirit of Galvano has kind of inspired these Mapuche people and Lautaro and Capucon and all of these people who come after him. So this battle's taking place in the mid 1550s, and the Mapuche will continue to fight the Spanish off and on any time the Spanish try to impede upon Mapuche territory or build a fort on the border. The Mapuche attack. And again, Kelts is a great example of kind of the relationship here is like the Celts versus the Romans, right? We're here, we're doing our thing. Don't feel any forts here. Don't try to come after us. We'll all come after you all fight. And we're all do crazy things to prevent you from overrunning us. And it continues on for decades and then centuries. And the Spanish would fortify a border, they'd build some fortresses, and then they'd get attacked and the fortress would be set on fire. The Spaniards would come into Mapuche lands and they wouldn't be able to make any progress. And so it wasn't until 1724, which is 183 years after Pizarro ordered the invasion of Chile.

Pat [00:42:30] Wait, hang on. So you said I just want to be clear that I heard this 183 years.

Ben [00:42:37] Yes.

Pat [00:42:37] So this is like almost two centuries.

Ben [00:42:40] Yes. For 183 years. Okay. Yeah. The Spanish border with Oracle, our canyons was in contention and they were technically, I guess, at war. And it was only in 1724 that the Spanish government eventually signed a permanent peace treaty with the Mapuche people. They say that it's hard to gauge this sort of thing, but they say the Spanish crown spent more money on the Korean War than they spent in the entire conquest of Mizo and South America combined.

Pat [00:43:09] Okay, that's incredible.

Ben [00:43:10] So they were pushing to remain independent throughout Spanish colonial era in South America, even in the 1720s, even when we're talking like later time period, even after they've signed this peace treaty, they still remain independent. They're one of the only tribes in the new world to successfully resist European occupation. They actually stay completely autonomous until Chile becomes a country. Until Chile gains its independence from Spain. The first president of Chile, whose name was Ambrosio O'Higgins, which is not a name you would expect to you the first president of Chile, to have his.

Pat [00:43:42] Like a combination Spanish and Irish.

Ben [00:43:45] Yeah, he was he was Irish descent, but from Chile he was able to peacefully integrate the oral cal region into Chile at the end of the 1800s. So from the first expedition into Mapuche lands until the Mapuche became part of a free Chile, it was 350 years, 350 years.

Pat [00:44:08] So that's. Like a century longer than America's even better country.

Ben [00:44:12] Yeah, and it's because they had guys like Albarino would rather strap swords to their bloody stumps and fight Spaniards then than submit to the will of a of a mendoza or a, you know, or a conquistador.

Pat [00:44:25] Yeah. Well, and, and also Lautaro who, you know, he didn't last too long, but he kicked things off.

Ben [00:44:31] He got it going. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was a he put in place the system that the Mapuche would use to defend their homelands for the 183 years. Yeah. And yeah, I love that they were never part of Spain. Yeah, that's an awesome thing for South America. Like there were a South American tribe that was never part of the Spanish Empire, ever.

Pat [00:44:50] Yeah. And the move away today. Okay, so they have, you know, they achieved some sort of peace with Chile. And as you might suspect, it's not 100% smooth. There is conflict to this day. Ah, a lot of it having to do with self-determination and autonomy over rights, over ancestral lands. And some of the conflict is with big forestry companies. So that's, you know, it's something people are involved in today that you might hear about.

Ben [00:45:24] And something they share with the the rainy of Lakshmi. By who. Yeah, it's something they share with their any of Jancee who was also trying to deal with a big evil corporation trying to exploit her natural resources.

Pat [00:45:35] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben [00:45:38] But anyway, that's, that's, that's it. Yeah, that's our show. That is too. We wanted to cover a couple of populations who who battled big colonial empires and had some success and, and who also are people that maybe aren't household names in the English language, even though they even though they're they're these two people are national heroes in in their own countries today. There's not much about them in outside of those outside of those cultures. And I think there should be definitely.

Pat [00:46:09] Yeah.

Ben [00:46:10] Uh, thank you guys so much for listening. And we will we will see you next year. Next week? Yeah. Bye.

Pat [00:46:15] Do that. Ask my peeps.

Badass of the Week is an iHeart radio podcast produced by High Five Content. Executive producers are Andrew Jacobs, Pat Larash, and Ben Thompson. Writing is by Pat and Ben. Story editing is by Ian Jacobs, Brandon Fibbs and Ali Lemer. Mixing and music and Sound Design is by Jude Brewer. Consulting by Michael May. Special thanks to Noel Brown at iHeart. Badass of the Week is based on the website BadassoftheWeek.com, where you can read all sorts of stories about other badasses. If you want to reach out with questions or ideas, you can email us at badasspodcast@badassoftheweek.com. If you like the podcast, subscribe, follow, listen and tell your friends and your enemies if you want, as we'll be back next week with another one. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.