Valdivia
Valdivia names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Valdivia PEDRO DE, a Spanish military officer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
PEDRO DE, a Spanish military officer; born in Estremadura, › Spain, about 1498; was on military service in Flanders; removed to Venezuela in 1534; and two years later joined Pizarro against the Indians in Peru. Under that conqueror he aided in the defeat of Almagro at Las Salinas. Later he led 150 150 Spanish and several thousand Indians in an expedition against Chile, which had been ceded by Charles V. to a large force of Indians he established the Spaniards were many times attacked by the Indians and were cut off from Peru. In December, 1543, re-enforcements arrived and the colony thereafter prospered. In September, 1544, Valparaiso was founded, and in 1546 Valdivia marched into the Araucanian district, and in a great battle conquered the In dians. In 1547-1549 he joined Gasca, the royalist, against Pizarro, whom th they defeated. In 1550-1552 he established Concepcion, Valdivia, and other places. A wi wide uprising of the Indians occurred in D December, 1553, and while Valdivia was endeavoring to put down this revolt he was captured and put to death, it is supposed, on Jan. 1, 1554.
Valdivia a town in the S
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a town in the S. of Chile; capital of a province of the same name; on the Valdivia river, 9 miles from its mouth, with a safe and roomy harbor. The entrance to the river is fortified. The town is built on level ground, and is embosomed in apple orchards, surrounded by the native forest. It has an active coasting trade, chiefly with Valparaiso. Valdivia was founded in 1551 by Pedro de Valdivia, one of Pizarro's lieutenants, who named it after himself, and it was at one time a place of great wealth. The province of Valdivia has an area of 8,647 square miles. Besides splendid forests it has large upland pastures, and deposits of coal are known to exist within it. Pop. (1918) 26,091.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's 1921 sketch of Pedro de Valdivia still reads well; modern historians place his death after the Battle of Tucapel on 25 December 1553 rather than the "supposed" 1 January 1554. The town has fared less quietly. On 22 May 1960 the Valdivia earthquake, at magnitude 9.5 the strongest ever instrumentally recorded, struck offshore: much of the city was wrecked, the ground subsided roughly two metres so that riverside streets flooded permanently, and a tsunami crossed the Pacific to Hawaii and Japan. The "town" of 26,091 people is now a city of about 150,000, home to the Universidad Austral de Chile (founded 1954), and since 2007 the capital of the new Los Rios Region rather than of a province.
Written for this edition, 2026.