Chile

Overview

Chile narrowly stretches along the southern half of the west coast of South America. The bordering countries are Bolivia, and Peru in the north and over the Andes, to the east, lies Argentina. Chile has over 5.000 km of coast on the South Pacific Ocean. It also has a claim to a portion of Antarctica.

History

It is unclear when humans first habituated the region we now know as Chile as archaeological evidence can be contradictory, but it was at least 14000 years ago. The Inca rule only touched the very north of the modern country with the rest of the region divided between other tribal groups forexample the Atacameño, the Picuncho and the nomadic Mapuche.The Spanish did not arrive in Chile until 1541 when they founded the city of Santiago on 12th February. The Indian populations tried various counter attacks against the colonists but the Spanish strongholds only grew stronger while the new empire expanded and many other successful towns and cities were founded. The Spanish ransacked the indigenous settlements stealing their gold and silver, passing on their foreign diseases and enslaving and abusing the inhabitants. Latifundios, small farming ranches, were set up by wealthy land owners, using the free labour of the indigenous people, and these farms were followed by an increase in mining, using similarly abysmal methods. However, this exploitation was not as widespread as in the other Latin American countries. In Chile, where the tribes were not united by Inca rule, the Spanish found in hard to suppress the individual cultures of the different groups and the south of Chile was not safe for settlers of European origin until well into the 19th century. It was a series of ill-planned Spanish-imposed trading regulations that finally pushed the new residents of Chile into a drive for independence,led by the American-born Europeans several revolutionary...more