“An attempt some time afterward to retake and rebuild Concepcion was prevented by the Araucanians, who met and defeated the Spaniards in open plain and again drove them back to Santiago.... In the next campaign Lautero went against Santiago, while Caupolican attempted the siege of Imperial and Valdivia. Lautero laid waste the country of the Promaucians and fortified himself on the Claro. A Spanish reconnoitering party was surprised and cut to pieces and Santiago was in danger. Villagran, being ill, gave the command to his son Pedro, who was led into an ambuscade by Lautero and his army slaughtered. But this was Lautero’s last victory, for a few days later, standing on his battlements to watch the approach of a Spanish party, he was killed by a chance shot, and though in the battle that followed the Araucanians fought valiantly, they were finally overpowered. The death of Lautero was for three days celebrated by the Spaniards; and indeed his fall meant much to them. He had invariably defeated them in battle and outgeneraled them in maneuvers, and at the age of only nineteen had made a reputation as a warrior such as any veteran might envy.” From then on the war continued with varying success, the Spaniards stubbornly persisting in their efforts to conquer their indomitable opponents, the Araucanians always resisting, and, when beaten for a time, retreating to the mountains, only to recruit and return to the contest with renewed vigor, and this even when their enemies had grown so numerous that they could put thousands of their well armed and trained soldiers into the field instead of hundreds. Gradually, in the course of many years, the Spaniards secured more and more of a foothold, until the great leader Paillamachu took command of the Indians and began an uninterrupted series of victories. He burned Concepcion and Chillan, a hundred miles to the north, ravaged the whole country as far up as the Maule, carried Valdivia by storm and captured, besides the garrison and inhabitants, $2,000,000 of booty and a large store of arms and ammunition, afterward reduced Imperial, Osorno, Villarica, Cañete, Angol, Coya and Arauco, and, by the time of his death in 1603, every one of their cities and forts on the mainland; and, at last, when the Spaniards, after many other attempts, had failed to recover the lost ground they were forced to resort to a treaty. Says Hawthorne: