Page 59 - Across the Andes: Chile’s Atacama Desert & Argentina’s Northwest

Historical Overview of Chile

Evidence shows that Native Americans moved into Chile’s fertile valleys between the Andes
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climate too harsh. Ferdinand Magellan arrived on southern Chilean shores in 1520 by way of
the strait that was later named for him. In 1535, Spanish conquistadores moved in from Peru
in search of gold, led by Diego de Almagro. But hundreds of thousands of indigenous people
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Chile began. Francisco Pizarro’s lieutenant, Pedro de Valdivia, made his capital at Santiago and
claimed the region under the Viceroyalty of Peru.

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the central valleys resisted the colonial front coming from the north, successfully pushing the
Spanish border back several times. With the Mapuche to the south, the Andes to the east, the
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self-sustaining and homogenized. Soon, the Mapuche were not their only concern; the Dutch
and English moved in from the ocean, including Sir Francis Drake, who raided Valparaiso
in 1578. But the invaders were up against the most militarized Spanish colony on the new
continent.

In 1808, when Napoleon took Spain and placed his brother on the throne, colonists began
talking of independence from Spain. Diplomatic and military struggles followed for the next
ten years until Bernard O’Higgins and Jose de San Martin crossed the Andes with their troops
and defeated the royalists. Chile declared its independence in 1818 under the leadership of
O’Higgins.

Through the rest of the century, Chile launched an aggressive campaign against the Mapuche
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and beyond, stripping Bolivia of its access to the ocean and enriching the economy with
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between industrialists and bankers and Chile’s government evolved into an oligarchy. By
the 1920s, the growing working class was large enough to elect a reformist president, but a
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By 1970, after decades marked by exchanges of power between liberals and conservatives, Chile
was looking at many social and economic reforms. And with the election of Salvador Allende,
a member of Chile’s Socialist Party and uncle to famed Chilean-American novelist Isabel
Allende, many of them began to take shape. But it wasn’t enough to raise the country out of
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since Allende was moving to nationalize all foreign-owned companies that operated in Chile,
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stepped in. Allende took his own life.

So began 17 years of darkness for Chile. Pinochet’s dictatorship was one of the bloodiest of the
20th century, marked by killing, torture, and other human rights violations. More than 3,000
people died or went missing. Chile eventually rid itself of the Pinochet regime by electing a
new president in 1989. In 2006, Michelle Bachelet Jeria was elected President, becoming the

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