This Lesson's logo is Pizarro's cavalry

In London, at the age of twenty-one, he volunteered to join the punitive expedition and participated in many of the fierce battles against the Araucanians. He often scribbled his verses immediately after the heat of battle on any available materials (including at times cloth and even the bark of a tree). Ercilla presented a different view of the American Indian as a noble and worthy adversary who deserved respect and all the courtesies of the code of chivalry. At the same time, the horrors and sufferings of the prolonged struggle between the two unyielding adversaries surfaces in all his vividly-described battle scenes.