This work studies how the so-called “Disaster” of Curalaba and the death of Governor Martín Oñez de Loyola, at the hands of indigenous people, in 1598, were communicated. By using a map dated back to 1610, which sought to represent the disaster and the resulting indigenous uprising, an attempt is made to account for the communication and information problems lived in Chile at the beginning of the xvii century. Through various agents, and information exchanged between Lima, Santiago de Chile and Madrid, we built an image of this misfortunate event as a way of diagnosing the situation and depicting the reversibility of military failure. Thus, both messengers and procurators communicated and represented the disgrace of Chile at court, where the Viceroy of the time had a leading voice.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.