r/SpanishEmpire

It tells the story of four cultural artifacts looted by Chile from a Lima museum in 1881. Each one bears a name engraved on the barrel and breech band: El Trepidoso (The Trembling One), El Triunfante (The Triumphant One), El Colérico (The Angry One), and El Destruidor (The Destroyer). These cannons were made in Peru at the end of the colonial period, between 1772 and 1780, and their names allow them to be identified and distinguished.

Each one reflects the artistic sensibility of its time. And because they are cultural artifacts from a national cultural institution, such as the books from the National Library of Lima returned in 2007 and 2017, they also deserve to be returned, at this significant moment for building new relationships, as we approach the 150th anniversary of the tragic war.

Source(s):

.- Chipana Rivas, Johnny. (2026). Stolen heritage: The case of the colonial cannons from the Lima Artillery Museum looted by Chile in the War of the Pacific. Published in the ISHRA journal, UNMSM, No. 16.

The daughter of the slave Isabel de los Ríos, Ursula was raised in the home of Luisa Melgarejo, a well-known "alumbrada" (a member of the Convent's spiritual movement) connected to the inner circle of the future Saint Rose of Lima. This environment fostered her early religious inclination and led her to enter the Poor Clare monastery in 1617 as a servant. Years later, the community itself purchased her freedom so that she could take the habit of a lay sister.

A turning point in her life occurred around 1642, when she miraculously survived a fall into a deep well in the convent; an event considered miraculous and attributed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. Following this event, Ursula intensified her penances and focused her devotional practice on interceding for the souls in Purgatory.

At the behest of her confessor, between 1650 and 1661 she wrote her Spiritual Diary, a mystical corpus of exceptional value that remained unpublished in the monastery archives for more than four centuries. In its pages, Ursula records visions and direct dialogues with Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the souls in Purgatory, whom she aided through prayers and mortifications. Her mystical work is also notable for its unprecedented social scope: in her visions, Purgatory and Heaven were not spaces exclusive to the Spanish elite, but places where priests, nuns, Black people, and Indians shared the same divine destiny.

Throughout her life, she was credited with various extraordinary gifts, such as prophetic visions, discernment of spirits, and the ability to confirm the liberation and ascension to heaven of the souls for whom she prayed. By her death in 1666, her fame for holiness and as an exemplary nun had spread throughout the city.

Her likeness was captured in a posthumous, full-length portrait by José de la Cruz, a little-known painter and likely of African descent like herself. Commissioned by the monastery in recognition of her merits, the canvas follows the conventions of Lima portraiture by depicting her at a desk with a book. This iconography explicitly highlights her dual status as a literate woman and mystical writer, a truly unique case in the context of viceregal Peru.

Image: Portrait of Sister Ursula de Jesús by José de la Cruz, 18th century. Oil on canvas.

He was the war mastiff of Don Luis de Rojas, governor of Santa Marta in 1570. Amadís specialized in counter-ambush and nighttime security, for which he is remembered by historians and chroniclers. Along with Bruto (Hernando de Soto's greyhound), Amadís became one of the most frequently cited examples of guard dogs that ensured the physical survival of entire expeditions in hostile territory.