Ines Suarez
Inés Suárez, erroneously known as Inés de Suárez (Plasencia, Extremadura, 1507-Santiago, Chile, 1580) was a Spanish conquistador and soldier, known for her notable role in the period of the Conquest of Chile. She was part of Pedro de Valdivia's expedition to Chile, being the first Spaniard to set foot in that territory. She also participated in the founding of the current city of Santiago de Chile (at that time, "Santiago de Nueva Extremadura") and was a key figure in its defense during the Mapuche siege of 1541.
Biography
Childhood and youth
Inés Suárez was born in Plasencia in 1507. Before she was born, a terrible disease related to the stomach, which at that time had no cure, affected her mother, for which she had to rely on her father to be able to raise her children. Agnes. Her grandfather was a cabinetmaker, belonging to the Brotherhood of Vera Cruz. Her mother, who taught her the trade of seamstress, belonged to the common people. She had a sister named Asunción, who was her only friend since Inés was not very sociable and did not get along well with people.
In 1526, at the age of 19, she met her first husband, Juan de Málaga. From this marriage, influenced by her grandfather, no children were born.
Trip to America
Between 1527 and 1528, Juan, her husband, embarked for Panama and Inés remained in Spain waiting for him. Years passed and she only received news from him from Venezuela. In 1537 she obtained the king's license and sailed to the Indies in search of her husband.
In 1537, when she was a little under 30 years old, she arrived in America in search of her husband, about whom she only had information on the occasion of his death in the Battle of Las Salinas. As compensation for being the widow of a Spanish soldier she later received a small plot of land in Cuzco, where she settled, as well as an encomienda of indigenous people.
He joins the campaign of Pedro de Valdivia
In Cuzco he met Pedro de Valdivia, Francisco Pizarro's field teacher and later conqueror of Chile, recently returned after the battle of Las Salinas (1538) and whose charge was adjacent to his. Some speculate that this would have led them to be lovers. No evidence has been found that they met before 1538.
At the end of 1539, he decided to march with Pedro de Valdivia on his expedition to the lands of Chile. For this, Valdivia requested authorization to be accompanied by Inés, which Pizarro granted by letter, accepting that the woman assist him as a domestic servant, since otherwise the Church would have objected to the couple. On the trip, Inés provided various services to the expedition, for which she was considered among her travel companions, according to Tomás Thayer Ojeda, as "a woman of extraordinary courage and loyalty, discreet, sensible and kind, and enjoyed great esteem among the conquerors.
Arrive at the Inca city of Mapocho
After eleven months of travel (December 1540), the expedition reached the valley of the Mapocho River, where they founded the capital of the territory on an Inca citadel; with the name of Santiago de Nueva Extremadura. This valley was extensive, fertile and with abundant drinking water; but before the hostility of the natives, the city was established between two hills (Cerro San Cristóbal and the) that facilitated defensive positions, counting on the Mapocho river as a natural barrier. Above the Cerro Blanco was an Inca Pucará who guarded the guangualí where the Picunche lived. Down on the southeastern slope where La Viñita Valdivia Church is currently located, Inés de Suarez established it to avoid gossip.
The defense of Santiago
On September 9, 1541, Valdivia, forty horsemen and Inca auxiliary troops left the city to quell an Indian rebellion near Cachapoal. As soon as the morning of the following day arrived, a young Yanacona woman returned with the news that the forests surrounding the settlement were full of hostile indigenous people. When asking Inés if she considered that seven Curacas (including the governor of Collasuyo, Quilicanta) who were prisoners should be released as a sign of peace, she considered it a bad idea, since, in the event of an attack, the imprisoned leaders would be their only chance to agree to a truce. Captain Alonso de Monroy, whom Valdivia had left in command of the city, considered Suárez's assumption correct and decided to convene a council of war.
Before dawn on September 11, Spanish horsemen rode out of the city to confront the Indians, initially estimated at 8,000 men, and later 20,000. Despite the Spanish having cavalry and better weapons, the Indians were a superior force, and at nightfall they managed to make the rival army retreat across the river to the east to take refuge again in the plaza. Meanwhile, the natives, shooting incendiary arrows, managed to set fire to a good part of the city, killing four Spaniards and several animals. So desperate did the situation seem that the local priest, Rodrigo González Marmolejo, claimed that the battle was like Judgment Day and that only a miracle could save them.
Death of Quilicanta and hostage caciques
During the attack, Inés's work had consisted of caring for the wounded and fainting, treating their wounds and alleviating their despair with words of encouragement, as well as bringing water and food to the combatants and even helping a horseman to mount a horse. rider whose serious injuries prevented him from doing it alone. But she would still have to play a decisive role in the fight: seeing in the death of the seven curacas the only hope of salvation for the Spaniards, Inés proposed beheading them and throwing their heads among the natives to cause panic among them.
Many men considered defeat inevitable and opposed the plan, arguing that keeping the indigenous leaders alive was their only chance of survival, but Inés insisted on going ahead with the plan; She went to the house where the ringleaders were, and which Francisco Rubio and Hernando de la Torre were protecting, giving them the order to execute them. Witnesses to the event narrate that De la Torre, when asking how the prisoners should be killed, received an answer from Inés, "This way", taking the guard's sword and beheading the first, the Inca governor of the Collasuyo, Quilicanta, and later all the curacas taken hostage, and that he kept in his house, by his own hand, later throwing their heads among the attackers. However, the historian Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna denies that it was Inés Suárez who carried out this bloody action.
A witness states that «she went out into the plaza and stood before the soldiers, inflaming their spirits with words of such exalted praise that they treated her as if she were a brave captain, and not a woman disguised as a soldier in iron mail ». Stoke the courage of the Spaniards, they took advantage of the disorder and confusion caused among the natives by running into the decapitated heads of their caciques, managing to put the attackers to flight. Inés' action in this battle would be recognized three years later (1544) by Valdivia, who rewarded her by granting her a decoration.
Illegitimate union with Valdivia and sentence of La Gasca
In light of subsequent events, the illegitimate union of more than ten years between Pedro de Valdivia and Inés Suárez was not well regarded among some neighbors with marked religious fervor, a fact that added to other criticisms of the governor.
Valdivia left for Peru in 1548 together with Gerónimo de Alderete to seek help and consolidation as governor before the representative of the crown in Peru. He met with Pedro de la Gasca, who after proving his fidelity and thanks to the intervention of Valdivia himself in the battle of Jaquijahuana that defeated Gonzalo Pizarro, earned his esteem and recognized him as Governor of the General Captaincy of Chile, fixing his limits and allowing him to equip himself.
Nevertheless, the arrival of residents from Chile who are at odds with Valdivia provokes a residence trial for Pedro de Valdivia, who had already taken the southern road, and has to return from Arequipa to face the charges against him, including them the illegitimate union with Inés Suárez. Viceroy Pedro de la Gasca, after hearing the allegations, exonerated him of all charges, except for those related to Inés Suárez. La Gasca imperatively orders Pedro de Valdivia to end her relationship with Inés Suárez, ordering him to marry her to a neighbor of her choice, recommending him to follow the church's directives regarding her legitimate marriage to Marina Ortiz de Gaete. The viceroy, as a priest, could not turn a blind eye to a public and notorious extramarital affair.
In view of this, Valdivia promised his word as a gentleman to fully comply with the sentence handed down and to bring his wife to America. After returning from Peru in 1549, he abides by the agreement with the sentence of La Gasca and arranges the marriage of Suárez with one of her best captains, Rodrigo de Quiroga, who was a few years her junior. By then Inés was 42 years old.
Valdivia orders Gerónimo de Alderete, among other things, to return to Spain and bring back Marina Ortiz de Gaete, his lawful wife, whom he would never see, since Valdivia died before Marina Ortiz arrived in Santiago with the entourage of García Hurtado de Mendoza.
Last years
After marrying Quiroga, Suárez led a quiet and religious life. Together with her husband, who was a leading person in Chile, she contributed to the construction of the temple of La Merced and the hermitage of Monserrat, in Santiago. They had no children, although Rodrigo de Quiroga already had a mestizo daughter, born before the marriage to Inés. Suárez died around the year 1580, at the age of 75.
Colonial Nursing Care
The participation of Inés de Suárez in the care of the Spanish soldiers wounded during the conquest, the foundation of the first hospital by Pedro de Valdivia and the arrival of the brothers of the Order of San Juan de Dios in the 17th century in charge of the administration of the incipient Hospitals. She is considered the first Chilean nurse.
Cultural references
Inés Suárez in literature
In August 2006, the Chilean writer Isabel Allende published the novel Inés del alma mía about the figure of Inés Suárez. Another novel about the figure of Inés Suárez is Ay mamá Inés - Crónica Testimonial, 1993, written by Jorge Guzmán. In 1968, Josefina Cruz de Caprile, author of Doña Mencía la Adelantada, published La Condoresa, a little-known biography of Inés Suárez. In 1964, through the Zig-Zag Editorial Company, the historical novel Inés... y las raíces en la tierra, by María Correa M. was published. A book with no recent editions.
Theater
Work "Xuarez" 2015, by Luis Barrales and Manuela Infante. With the performances of Claudia Celedón and Patricia Rivadeneira. See
Cinema
In the film La Araucana (1971), a free adaptation of the homonymous poem by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga, Inés Suárez was played by the Italian actress Elsa Martinelli.
Television
On July 31, 2020, Amazon Prime, in collaboration with RTVE and Globomedia, premieres the series Inés del alma mía, an adaptation of Isabel Allende's novel of the same name.
Operas
The Chilean composer José Guerra premiered his opera Inés Suárez in 1941.
Urbanism
In 1994, a park named after him was inaugurated in the commune of Providencia, Chile. In 2017, the Inés de Suárez station was inaugurated, which is part of Line 6 of the Santiago Metro, named in this way due to its proximity to the aforementioned park.
Global references
In Plasencia, Spain, his hometown, there is a school named after him. In the city of Valdivia there is a town named after him, built in the late fifties of the twentieth century. In it is the Parish of San Pío X.
Culinary
She is considered the creator of the Chilean empanada de pino. After the Picunche assault on Santiago on September 11, 1541, they ran out of food and without clay pots in which they made the Galician empanada. Inés de Suarez readjusted the elements, using instead of the original content a minced meat, onion and egg that the Mapuches used called "pinu" In her novel, Inés del Alma Mía Isabel Allende tells us that the empanadas arrived in Chile with the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia and his companion Inés Suárez, and this may be true. In the 1600s it seems that empanadas were incorporated into Chilean Creole cuisine by both groups, the Spanish and the indigenous Mapuches: Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán (Happy Captivity) said that the Mapuches gave him empanadas during his captivity in the 1620s.
It seems that the classic Chilean empanada, with a pino (“stuffing” from the Mapuche word pinu,) of meat, onion, raisins, hard-boiled eggs and ají (chili) took shape during the colonial period and the final version was developed.