Origins
Man didn’t appear extempore in South America. The first ethnies arrived through the Straits of Bering and probably by the South of Pacific Ocean more than 10,000 years ago. Chile was the last area of America in being populated.
The Mapuches (litteraly « people of the Earth ») were the most important civilization of this part of the continent. Around 1450, the Incas invaded the current Chile but could never occupy the Mauches’ territory. The Incas’ presence lasted little time, less than one century, and let few traces in Chile.
The Spanish Conquest
When the Spaniards arrived, Chile was populated by hundreds of thousand Amerindians belonging to different cultures. Amerindians lived mostly thanks to agriculture and hunting.
The first European in discovering the current territory of Chile was Magellan in 1520, important date of the Chilean history.
In 1535, Diego de Almagro, Francisco Pizarro’s first lieutenant, began the conquest of Chile. Once again, the Mapuches Indians, situated in the South of the country, were the only ones in resisting the Spaniards and defeated the Conquistadors.
A new expedition was launched and led by Pedro de Valdivia in 1540 and 1541. He founded the city of Santiago on the 12th of February in 1541 and subjected the region to the Spanish domination. The colonization movement started.
The Spaniards didn’t discover the huge quantities of gold and silver they expected but realized that the region had important assets in terms of agriculture.
In 1683, slavery was abolished and the relations between Colonists and Mapuches became more untroubled. However several confrontations occured until the mid 19th century about the ownership of the most austral lands. For a long time, the Bio Bio river represented the border between the Colonial Government and the Amerindian ethnies.
Later the Chilean Republican troups clashed with the Mapuches’resistance which lasted until the end of the 19th century. In total, Mapuches defended their territory during more than 350 years, which was one of the longuest war of the Humanity history.
Independance of Chile
In 1809, the arrest of Fernando VII, King of Spain, by Napoleon was the point of departure of independance movements in Latin America. On the 18th September 1810, Chile was proclaimed independant but it came into effect only in 1818, when Bernardo O’Higgins and José San Martin liberated the country from the Spanish oppression.
Bernardo O’Higgins then became the first President of Chile, promulgated a Constitution, implemented a Senate and abolished the aristocratic titles.
Unlike the other countries of Latin America, Chile underwent few takeovers and little serious social unrest.
The Pacific war or the saltpeter war
In the mid 19th century, the Atacama Desert, which belonged mostly to Peru and Bolivia, gained an important economic value thanks to the discovery of huge deposits of saltpeter, raw material used as fertilizer and gunpowder.
These deposits inflamed Chile State’s desire and the army occupied Antofagasta in 1879. Two years later, the Chilean troups arrived at the edge of Lima and annexed the Peruvian provincies of Tarapaca, Arica, Tacna and the Bolivian province of Antofagasta, which deprived Bolivia of its access to the sea.
The English took advantage of the Chilean’s victory by buying at low costs the saltpeter deposits. But Chile took over the Bolivian lands where is the current mine of Chuquicamata, the largest copper mine in the world which brings wealth to the Chilean economy nowadays.
Contemporary history of Chile
Salvador Allende
He became the first President elected democratically on a socialist program but he didn’t have the majority at the Parliament. He implemented a great land reform and numerous companies are nationalized or requisitioned (nine banks out of ten and the copper mines which represent the three-quarter of exports.
Supported by the United States, the Conservative Opposition and the Christian Democrats are unable to stop Allende’s reformes despite their commun omination at the Parliament.
The United States are fiercely opposing to Allende’s politics. The Richard Nixon administration exerted economic pressions on Chile and kept on supporting Allende’s opponents at the Chilean Congress.
From 1971, the United States stop their aid to Chile and discourage the international investments. They support the opposition and finance strikes of the Chilean truck drivers to paralyse the intern transportation of the country.
Allende’s reformes were rejected by the Opposition except the nationalization of copper, which was supported by all the political parties of the country. The project was unanimously approuved by both Chambers on the 15th July 1971.
Dictatorship and the Chilean 11th September
The military coup of the 11th September 1973 was led by Augusto Pinochet, appointed General of the Army by Allende himself a few weeks before. He suspended the Constitution, banned the political parties and the opposing trade unions. Therefore the democratic government became a military dictatorship caracterized by repression with more than 3,000 people who dissapeared or were murdered, 35,000 people who were tortured, 300,000 who were detained by Governemental organisms and hundreds of thousand people who were forced into exile.
From 1990 to nowadays
Pinochet organized a referendum in order to remain in power for several years but the NO won and the regime agreed to let the power to Patricio Aylwin who represented the « Concertación » (Cooperation), the coalition of parties opposed to the dictatorship.
The « Concertación » got excellent economic results. During the 1990’s, the GNP increased of a 6% per year, the best rate for a Latin American country and among the best one at a global level.
Going back to democracy also meant the restoration of fundamental freedoms (freedom of the press, of assembly etc.). Progress have been significant but the heritage from the dictatorship could not have been eliminated. In 1991, a report was published and identified the victims of the dictatorship but not their leaders and the 1978 self-amnesty law is still in force. That is notably because the former partisans of the dictatorship still have an important influence on the Congress and prevent a deep reform of the Constitution. Moreover, the « Concertación » little insisted on these reforms, prefers concentrate on the stimulation of the economic growth and the national reconciliation to blot out the heritage of the dictatorship.
One of the major current problems is the inegual redistribution of wealth. All the political parties agree on the low level of the public education, one of the main causes of these inequalities. In 2006, there were great student demonstrations to demand a reform of the education system, which is today under active consideration.
