In 1535, one hundred years after the peaceful conquest of Northern Chile by the Incas, Diego de Almagro, one of the Spanish freebooters and Pacific pirates, started from Peru with five hundred adventurous soldiers on an expedition of conquest of Chile, hoping to repeat there Pizarro’s experience in the spoliation of the Inca Empire. The expedition of Almagro, to whom history generally accords the honor of the discovery of Chile, was attended with many hardships and much suffering. After leaving the road constructed by the Incas across the desert, they had to cross the Cordillera of the Andes, the higher ranges of which were covered with snow and over which there was no road and where the cold was intense. After a voyage lasting six months, in which innumerable difficulties were encountered, Almagro arrived at a point where Copiapo is now situated, with less than one half of his followers, the others having died from cold and starvation in crossing the mountains. It was on this expedition that Almagro manifested characteristics which later gave him the reputation of being one of the most cruel and inhuman of the many adventurers who invaded Chile. When animals used in transporting provisions and equipment for the expedition died, Indians encountered on the way were impressed into service as beasts of burden. They were compelled to live with the pack animals, with which they served in common, and when unable to longer support the burdens under which they struggled across deserts and over mountains, they were brutally murdered, or maimed and left to suffer the tortures of a slow death by the wayside. When Almagro reached the valley of the Aconcagua, where he had been preceded more than a century by the Incas, who established friendly relations with the Araucanians, he was kindly received by the Indians. But the natives who had been enslaved and cruelly treated by the Spaniards enroute, related their experiences to the friendly Indians, who became suspicious and fled into the forests for protection. This angered Almagro who ordered his soldiers to go in search of them and to kill all who refused to return to their places of habitation. The Spaniards who were provided with horses and arms pursued the defenseless natives and slaughtered hundreds of them.