Occupation of Araucanía

The Occupation of Araucanía, also called Pacification of Araucanía —an area located between the Biobío rivers to the north and Toltén rivers to the south— was a military occupation, colonization and annexation of the territories of the indigenous Mapuches that Chile began in 1861, during the presidency of José Joaquín Pérez, and which lasted until 1883, under the control of Domingo Santa María.

Background

The lands of Araucanía were inhabited by more than 100,000 Pehuenche and Mapuche indigenous peoples. This territory had remained autonomous since the parliaments reached during the so-called Arauco War against the Hispanic Monarchy.

After the independence of Chile, already in the republican period, a general parliament was held with the Mapuches who lived south of the Biobío river in order to agree on the statute that would regulate relations between the nascent republic and the Mapuche people; Thus, the Tapihue Parliament was held in January 1825, which, because it was not ratified by Congress, as required by the 1823 Constitution, never had legal validity. However, later various events occurred that forced the Chilean state to allocate resources to the border area.

During the Revolution of 1851, General José María de la Cruz, leader of the coup movement, recruited several Mapuche loncos and their clans to take up arms against the government. He was able to do this thanks to the friendship he maintained the general with the caciques, including Maguin. When their insurrection was crushed by General Manuel Bulnes, the caciques, instead of surrendering together with De la Cruz, retreated to the border along with several members of the old army, dedicating themselves to looting. and cattle theft, for the following 4 years. This motivated the government to mobilize the second battalion of the second line, until January 1856. In addition, the indigenous people supported the rebel liberals in the 1859 Revolution, which increased resentment against them on the part of the central government.

Cornelio Saavedra Rodríguez.

Old plan of Negrete, made by the largest artillery José Miguel Fáez and found in the National Archive of Chile Mapoteca: base plane of the reconstruction of Negrete as fortress Chileanin December 1861, part of the plan of Cornelio Saavedra Rodríguez, of Occupation of Araucanía by the Chilean army.

In the middle of the 19th century, the position of the Chilean population, compared to the still independent Mapuches, was not favorable. Opinions such as the following were expressed in the press at the time:

[...] Men were not born to live uselessly and as the wild animals, without the benefit of the human race; and an association of barbarians as barbarians as the pampas or as the Araucanians is only a horde of beasts, which is urgent to chain or destroy in the interest of humanity and in the good of civilization [...].

daily Mercury24 March 1859

However, there were still those who opposed the occupation and subjugation of the natives, considering the idea of forcibly dispossessing them of their lands barbaric:

“The ideas of Mercury can only find favorable reception in souls offended by greed and who have given a sad farewell to the eternal principles of the just, the good, the honest; it can only take refuge in the cold, bloodthirsty, cruel hearts that palpitate with joy when they witness the last convulsions of a victim... The civilized man presents himself to the savage with a sword in hand and says to him: I must make you part of the favors of civilization; I must illustrate your ignorance, and even if you do not understand what the advantages I come to provide you, you understand that one of them is to lose the independence of your homeland; but, however, choose this disjunctive: I civilize you or kill you. Such is in good terms armed civilization."

Response of the Catholic Journal a Mercury, 1859

At the beginning of that century the main indigenous groups were:

• Nagches or Abbeys: They occupied the Intermediate Depression and were governed by Lorenzo Colipí in the north (Purén in Malleco) and Venancio Coñoepán in the south (Repocura in Cholchol), both fought for the patriots in the Chilean Independence War and supported him during most of the Pacificationbut they were rivals with each other for the best deal with the military and the nagches' rule. Only when the army appointed the Coñoepán as their main allies the Colipi rebelled.
• Wenteches or upstairs: They lived in the valleys of the Precordillera and at the beginning of the century were governed by the caciques Francisco Marilúan and Juan Mangin Hueno. They fought for the realistic side and were incarnated rivals of the Abbey (mainly with the Colipi and to a lesser extent with the Coñoepán). To stop the advance of the Chilean army they allied with federal and liberal rebels, pehuenches and pampas.
• Pehuenches: They were Araucanized nomads the previous century that inhabited the skirts of the mountain range between Chillán and Lonquimay. They collaborated with the Pincheira brothers during the War to Death, but after their defeat their participation in the wars was quite secondary.
• The tribes of the Budi Lake Basin, dominated by the construction of the Toltén Fort.
• The Boroanos, allied with the natives of Cholchol and the Abbey, did not participate in the wars against the Chilean army until the great rebellion of 1881.
• The locals of Huillío on the banks of the Toltén river were related to the previous ones (although they did not always live in peace).
• The Pitrufquén Indians dedicated to trade with Valdivia and were related to those of Cholchol.
• The Quepe between the Toltén and Temuco, allied with Coñoepán and participated in the rebellion of 1881.
• The Llaimas occupied the district of Villarrica, were divided into several independent cacicazgos but related to the wenteches.

In addition, there were other minor groups under Chilean sovereignty since independence or a year later: the lafquenches or costinos of the province of Arauco, the huilliches of Valdivia, Llanquihue and San Juan de la Costa (near Osorno) and those of the Big Island of Chiloe. The first participated in the War to the Death and the rebellion of 1881; although in a lesser way. This lower participation in the case of the Huilliches of the continent, was a consequence of the acquisition of part of their ancestral lands in the colonial period prior to the independence of Chile; which was the product of the establishment of haciendal property in the area, which marked the beginning of the difference in the history of property in the Huilliche territory with respect to what happened in the Araucanía area. Therefore, later established the Republic of Chile, would be the colonization of Llanquihue, and the process of growth and expansion of the cities and towns settled in the ancestral Huilliche territory, the events that would lead to the current distribution of the Huilliche communities in the area; and that finally meant the reduction of the territories of the Huilliche communities and the cornering of their population towards the sectors of the coast and the mountains.

Regarding the number of inhabitants of the indigenous population of that time in autonomous territory, the population according to the report published by El Anuario Estadístico de Chile carried out between 1868 and 1869:

Occupation

The Chilean government made the decision to occupy Araucanía after the Frenchman Orélie Antoine de Tounens had appeared in the area in 1861. Tounens created the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia and was elected regent by important loncos of the area, taking the name of Orélie Antoine I.

Cornelio Saavedra Rodríguez negotiating with Mapuche loins in 1869, during the first phases of the Occupation of Araucanía.

In this way, the authorities decided to apply the plan proposed by Army General Cornelio Saavedra Rodríguez. Said plan included not only military actions, but also the penetration of the territories through the transfer of Chilean culture to the other side of the border. They sought to found cities, build public works such as roads, telegraphs and create schools and hospitals. The conquered lands would be transferred to Chilean and European settlers at no cost to encourage demographic change in the area and develop wheat production.

In a short time, Cornelio Saavedra Rodríguez was able to occupy the area up to the Malleco river, where he refounded the city of Angol and the Negrete fort.Mulchén y Lebu, in 1862. Through the coastal territory, he managed to advance to the Tolten river. This first occupation was carried out with relatively little resistance, but then there was an uprising by the Mapuches who lived near the Malleco River, under the command of the lonco Quilapán. In the following year, more than 1,500 soldiers were concentrated in Angol for operations in the Araucanian interior.

Lonco Quilapán, circa 1870.

In December 1867, 4,000 to 5,000 Mapuche warriors had gathered in the mountainous area of Chihuaihue, coming from Moquehua^{[citation required]}, Boroa and La Imperial. The arrivanos of Quilapán managed to coordinate a rebellion with the coastal abajinos under the command of Catrileo, Coñoepan, Marileo and Painemal, with 3000 spears they crossed the Nahuelbuta mountain range to the west of Angol and They went to the north of the Malleco River where they joined forces and achieved victories in Traiguén, Curaco and Perasco thanks to their combination of raids with guerrilla tactics. However, other sources, such as Saavedra, considered that the abajinos and arribanos, even with the contingents that came from the pampas, did not exceed 4,000 spears.

In January 1869, 1,500 Mapuches were defeated in Chihuaihue by General José Manuel Pinto. The Araucanians reorganized and attacked Angol. Given this situation, the Minister of War, Francisco Echaurren, marched with reinforcements to Cautín. On the coast, Colonel Saavedra occupied Cañete and Tucapel, putting down the rebellion of 1,500 warriors in Purén. On September 25, the Mapuches and the army reached an agreement in Angol. The agreement did not last long since Quilapán rebelled again with 3,000 spears, being defeated on January 25, 1871 by an army of 2,500 soldiers in Collipulli. and provisions-had been successful in taking the Araucanians by surprise, by the summer of 1870-1871 it was a fiasco because the Indians adapted and usually opted to withdraw and avoid frontal combat. Criticism of the method used by the military led to the reduction of offensive operations and to opt to consolidate the conquests achieved, a large number of forts and towns were built on the coast of Arauco and in the valley of the Malleco-Traiguén river. This brought a relative calm in the region for the next ten years.

Saavedra also organized several parliaments in order to prevent his main enemy, Quilapán, from joining forces with other ethnic groups. Thus, for example, when the cacique attempted an alliance with the abajinos and the Huilliches from the south of Cautín to be able to gather more than 8,000 spears, Saavedra prevented him from doing so thanks to the parliaments of Toltén (December 24, 1869) with the Huilliches and de Ipinco (January 19, 1870) with the abajinos. In the end, Quilapán was left alone with the 2,500 lances that the arribanos could gather on their own.

Troops of the Chilean Army during the occupation of Araucanía.

The War of the Pacific, which pitted Chile against Peru and Bolivia in the north of the country, meant that the forces of the Chilean army concentrated on this particular conflict, a situation that was taken advantage of by the Mapuches to launch new attacks on posts located in border areas. According to the Chilean historian and anthropologist José Bengoa, this was the first time in its entire history that the highly decentralized Mapuches united in a single insurrection. This new uprising that occurred in 1880 resulted in losses for both sides. But, once the war that pitted Chile against Bolivia and Peru ended, the army instructed by the government of Domingo Santa María vigorously resumed the campaign for the incorporation of Araucanía. Colonel Gregorio Urrutia was in charge of the annexation of the remaining territory.

In Chile, on January 27, 1881, 3,000 indigenous people attacked Traiguén, destroying the farms and cattle. After their incursions into Traiguén and the Lebuelmán fort were repulsed, the Mapuches set out, adding more and more spears to attack the fort of Los Sauces, then had about 1,500. Their assault failed and when they attacked the Malleco line, which they believed unguarded, they were massacred. With this, the Chilean troops were able to continue their advance, crossed the Cautín, and on February 24 founded the Temuco fort. The aborigines responded by attacking two caravans, killing 100 people, in the hills of Ñielol, that same month.

Chilean troops in the final stage of the campaign during the occupation and reconstruction of Villarrica in 1883.

During the beginning of November, the last indigenous uprising took place: some 6,000 to 7,000 Conas participated in the combats, resulting in the deaths or injuries of more than a thousand. According to Horacio Lara, the Araucanian tribes at that time, already dwindling in their Numbers due to constant warfare, they could mobilize only 8,000 lances: 2,000 from the Arribanos, 2,000 from the Abajinos, 1,000 from the Costinos and the rest Huilliches. However, thanks to skillful Chilean diplomacy, the tribes never acted as a single group.

In the case of Lumaco, the attacks began on the 5th under the command of Luis Marileo Colipí with 300 to 1,000 spears. The fort was defended by 45 national guards and 20 soldiers led by Captain Juan Barra. By the 15th the battle was over. The Budi and Toltén forts were besieged while Nueva Imperial was destroyed on the 7th and the surviving inhabitants they had to flee to the hills. At the same time Tirúa was unsuccessfully attacked and several punitive expeditions were launched from there. The Ñielol fort was assaulted on November 9, the Mapuches were close to taking it but had to withdraw after suffering hundreds of casualties.

However, the biggest confrontation occurred in the Battle of Temuco, between November 3 and 10. The fort, led by Major Bonifacio Burgos, resisted the onslaught of 4,000 warriors (some double that number) under the command of chief Esteban Romero. The Mapuches withdrew after suffering more than 400 casualties.

By the middle of the month the fighting ceased and Chilean troops carried out several punitive operations to secure the region. In the summer of the following year, the Pehuenches were definitively subdued.

In his campaign, Urrutia erected various forts, reaching the area where Lake Villarrica is located and refounding the city of the same name on January 1, 1883. With this action the Arauco War as such was really concluded, after of more than three hundred years of conflicts.

Consequences

Mapuche family (1908).

The end of the Arauco War implied the total occupation of Araucanía to the effective sovereignty of the territory of Chile. In this way, the Chilean government finally carried out one of its main state projects, longed for even since the time of the Spaniards, who in the colonial period were unable to settle in Araucanía due to the resistance carried out by the indomitable Mapuches.. With this, the Chilean government managed to conquer the Mapuche territory and thus unite the territory to the north of Biobío with the territories to the south of Valdivia that it had managed to conquer or colonize after the independence process.

After their defeat, the Mapuche were concentrated in "reductions," small reserves generally separated from each other by areas occupied by Chilean and European settlers. In 1929, there were 3,078 reserves comprised of 525,000 hectares that were considered a concession by the Chilean state and communal property for the indigenous peoples and were called "merced titles". Usually, the assigned land, which represented 6.18% of the Mapuche ancestral territory, had a severe and infertile climate, which, together with the old semi-nomadic lifestyle of the Mapuches and their social organization of clans and families, generated internal conflicts between them.. However, the Mapuches demonstrated a great capacity to adapt to this new situation.

Subsequently, in the occupied territories, similar to what was done in the Llanquihue area, a colonization was also carried out in which land was given to Chilean and European settlers, mainly Spanish, German, French, English, Italians and Swiss. In total, up to 1901, 36,000 Europeans had arrived, 24,000 hired by the colonization agency and 12,000 arrived by their own means.

Later, only minor rebellions would occur, such as the one that occurred in 1934, in which 477 peasants and Mapuches (who had rebelled against what they considered abuses by the administrators of the sawmills installed in the recently opened region of the Biobío) were killed by the Chilean police in the so-called Ránquil massacre. Another 500 were taken prisoner and, as denounced by Temuco senator Juan Pradenas Muñoz, only 23 were taken to the capital to be put on trial, the rest being presumably disappeared.

However, despite the "pacification" carried out in the region, the events that occurred in this process would later lead to the current Mapuche conflict present in the area between the Chilean government and some Mapuche communities.

The different waves of Chilean colonization in the Araucanía Region are shown from the dates on which the cities and towns were founded. As well as the integration of border and interior spaces as communes already in the second half of the centuryXIX.