The catalyst for Chile’s transition to independence was the Napoleonic conquest of Spain and deposition of the Spanish monarchy. In 1810, at a meeting of prominent citizens in Santiago, a junta was elected, with the purpose of maintaining Spanish sovereignty in Chile. Then, in 1811, José Miguel Carrera took power into his own hands, creating a Chilean flag and a provisional constitution; in response, Royalist troops loyal to Spain were dispatched to Chile from Peru. The junta voted to replace the authoritarian Carrera with the brilliant young general Bernardo O’Higgins, but Carrera retook power, and by failing to send reinforcements to O’Higgins ensured his defeat by Royalists at Rancagua. O’Higgins and other ‘Patriots’ were forced to escape to Argentina, while numerous others were exiled to the Juan Fernández archipelago, and in Santiago the Royalists reversed the junta’s reforms.
Across the Andes, O’Higgins joined forces with the Argentine general José San Martín, who was preparing to drive the Royalists out of South America. San Martín’s ‘Army of the Andes’ and O’Higgins’ Patriots launched their offensive in February 1817, crossing the mountains from Mendoza by four different passes and routing the Royalists at the Battle of Chacabuco, and then again at the Battle of Maipú. Chilean independence was declared in April 1818, with the task of leadership passing to O’Higgins (the position was offered to San Martín, but he declined). The Royalists in Peru were soon defeated, although Spain did not recognize Chilean independence until 1840.
The 19th century
O’Higgins ruled until 1823, but the taxes introduced to rebuild the country’s war-ravaged economy, and his anti-clerical reforms, made his position increasingly untenable, and he finally went into exile in Argentina, where he died in 1842. There followed an unsettled period, until stability was restored under the authoritarian rule of Diego Portales in 1829. Portales consolidated his position by issuing a new constitution, giving the head of state increased power, and maintaining the support of landowners and clergy, astutely judging it neccessary to overturn those reforms which threatened Church privileges, but he was assassinated in 1837 following his declaration of war on Peru.
Immigration to Chile from Europe increased from the mid-19th century, both in the capital and further south, with several thousand Germans settling in the Chilean Lake District (the area north of Puerto Montt), and a steady stream of Italian, Croatian, English and other settlers arriving in Patagonia – a process nicely encapsulated in the atmospheric cemetery in Punta Arenas, with its broad, cypress-lined avenues and its gravestones of pioneers and immigrants. Like the earlier process of colonization, this later immigration resulted in the almost complete loss of southern Chile’s indigenous population – the Tehuelche and, further south around the coast, the Kaweshkar – who were, quite simply, subsumed beneath the tide of settlers and missionaries. Meanwhile silver and, in particular, copper mining increased in the north, and wheat exports soared, feeding a growing economy and increased international trade.
A lucrative nitrate industry, centred around Antofagusta – at that time part of Bolivia (but now in the north of Chile) – was the cause of Chile’s involvement in the War of the Pacific in 1879. Following Bolivia’s decision to raise export taxes on nitrate (contrary to an agreement to which an earlier border settlement had been subject), Chile invaded Bolivia, with Peru (which controlled the nitrate-rich area around Iquique and Arica) joining on Bolivia’s side soon after. Chile’s victory over Bolivia in August 1879, and the capitulation of Lima early in 1881, gave the country a vast area of new territory in the north (the border moved some 900km further north, at both Bolivia’s and Peru’s expense) and complete control over the enormous nitrate deposits of the Atacama desert. It also cut off Bolivia’s access to the Pacific.
Territorial disputes between Chile and Argentina, primarily over Patagonia, were mostly resolved when the two countries signed a treaty of 1881 recognizing their mutual border – although one 50km section of this, just north of Torres del Paine, remains unresolved. (Although the two governments agreed on the position of the border in 1991, this was not ratified by the Argentine parliament, and at the time of writing no formal agreement had been concluded.)
In 1890 the authoritarian president José Manuel Balmaceda’s decision to act in direct defiance of Congress led to Civil War, with the army backing Balmaceda and the navy backing Congress. Following his defeat, Balmaceda committed suicide.
The 20th century
Chilean society remained deeply divided, with a vast gap between the disempowered workers and the ruling and landed elite, and strikes became increasingly common, typically resulting in brutal oppression. A number of social reforms were introduced by president Arturo Alessandri in a new constitution in 1925, a theme which was to be taken further by a later president, Eduardo Frei, in the 1960s.
Following his election as Chile’s first socialist president in 1970, Salvador Allende instigated a series of radical social reforms aimed at closing the gulf between rich and poor, nationalizing companies and redistributing land. Despite initial successes, however, rising inflation and a drastic fall in world copper prices, combined with covert operations by the CIA to destabilize Allende’s government, led to a military coup in 1973, in which Allende was killed in the Moneda Palace when it was bombed.
The 1973 coup ushered in 17 years of brutal military dictatorship under Auguste Pinochet, in which thousands were executed or tortured, opposition parties banned, press freedom curtailed and Congress dissolved. Pinochet’s re-privatization of industry and other free-market economic policies eventually led to a reduction in unemployment and inflation, but only at the expense of welfare and education and at massive social cost. Pinochet drafted a new constitution in 1980, which guaranteed him power for a further eight years, following which a referendum would be held.
The referendum of 1988 saw Pinochet voted out of power and a return to democracy under Patricio Aylwin, and both he and his successors Eduardo Frei and Ricardo Lagos attempted to tackle the thorny issue of human rights abuses under Pinochet and to reform the long-neglected health and education sectors.
Chile today
Today Chile has a strong economy – one of the healthiest in South America – although the distribution of wealth remains very uneven, as attested by the shanty towns south of Santiago. In 2006 Michelle Bachelet was elected President – the first woman to hold this position in Chile – and in 2009 Chile became the first South American country to gain full membership of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Bachelet was succeeded by Sebastián Piñera in 2010, but returned to office in 2014.
UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN CHILE
Chiloé churches
Rapa Nui national park (Easter Island)
Valparaíso old city centre
Humberstone and Santa Laura saltpetre works
Sewell mining town
Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System
Torres del Paine national park, despite being submitted to the tentative list in 1994, is yet to be accepted pending a resolution of the Chilean-Argentine border dispute.
Early exploration and mountaineering
The Southern Patagonian Ice Field was first explored in detail by Federico Reichert in 1913–14. Alberto de Agostini followed in 1928 and 1931, and in 1928–29 Gunter Plüschow undertook an aerial exploration, the aircraft later crashing in Lago Argentino. HW Tilman and Jorge Quinteros crossed the Ice Field from east to west in 1955–56, starting from Tilman’s yacht ‘Mischief’, moored in the Chilean fjords, and the two ending up swimming in Lago Argentino before returning.
Eric Shipton visited the area in 1960–61, completing an epic crossing from north to south between the Jorge Montt glacier and Lago Argentino (a distance of over 200km). The first full north–south crossing of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field was completed by Pablo Besser, Mauricio Rojas, José Montt and Rodrigo Fica in 1998. Cerro Lautaro, an active 3380m volcano in Bernardo O’Higgins national park (named after the Mapuche military leader who defeated Valdivia), was first climbed in 1964