The territory of Chile has been populated since at least 3000 BC. By the 16th century, Spanish invaders began to raid the region of present-day Chile, and the territory was a colony between 1540 and 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. The country's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. Chile was governed during most of its first 150 years of independence by different forms of restricted government, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite.
The Huilliche, Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group in Chile and Argentina. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu and, as the Cunco or Veliche subgroup, the northern half of Chiloé Island. The Huilliche are the principal indigenous people of those regions. According to Ricardo E. Latcham the term Huilliche started to be used in Spanish after the second founding of Valdivia in 1645, adopting the usage of the Mapuches of Araucanía for the southern Mapuche tribes. Huilliche means 'southerners' A genetic study showed significant affinities between Huilliches and indigenous peoples east of the Andes, which suggests but does not prove a partial origin in present-day Argentina.
The Parliamentary Era in Chile began in 1891, at the end of the Civil War, and spanned until 1925 and the establishment of the 1925 Constitution. Also called "pseudo-parliamentary" period or "Parliamentary Republic", this period was thus named because it established a quasi-parliamentary system based on the interpretation of the 1833 Constitution following the defeat of President José Manuel Balmaceda during the Civil War. As opposed to a "true parliamentary" system, the executive was not subject to the legislative power but checks and balances of executive over the legislature were weakened. The President remained the head of state but its powers and control of the government were reduced. The Parliamentary Republic lasted until the 1925 Constitution drafted by President Arturo Alessandri and his minister José Maza. The new Constitution created a presidential system, which lasted, with several modifications, until the 1973 coup d'état.
The United Conservative Party was a right-wing Chilean political party founded in December 1953 after the merger of the Traditionalist Conservative Party and a faction of the Social Christian Conservative Party, issued from the Conservative Party. It supported for the 1958 presidential election the candidacy of Jorge Alessandri and participated, along with the Liberal Party and supporters of former president Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, in its government. In 1962, it participated in the Democratic Front of Chile center-right coalition which opposed the left-wings FRAP coalition and supported for the 1964 presidential election Eduardo Frei Montalva.
The Destruction of the Seven Cities is a term used in Chilean historiography to refer to the destruction or abandonment of seven major Spanish outposts in southern Chile around 1600, caused by the Mapuche and Huilliche uprising of 1598. The Destruction of the Seven Cities, in traditional historiography, marks the end of the Conquest period and the beginning of the proper colonial period.
The history of Pichilemu began around the 16th century, when Promaucaes inhabited the modern Pichilemu region. According to Chilean historiographer José Toribio Medina on his book Los Restos Indígenas de Pichilemu (1908), Spanish conqueror Pedro de Valdivia gave Topocalma encomienda, in which Pichilemu was supposed to be, to Juan Gómez de Almagro, on January 24, 1544.
The Revolution of 1851 was an attempt by Chilean liberals to overthrow the conservative government of president Manuel Montt and repeal the Chilean Constitution of 1833. After various battles and sieges, by late December 1851 government forces had subdued the revolutionaries.
Julio Valdeón Baruque was a historian of Spain.
Between 1830 and 1850, Chilean silver mining grew at an unprecedented pace which transformed mining into one of the country's principal sources of wealth. The rush caused rapid demographic, infrastructural, and economic expansion in the semi-arid Norte Chico mountains where the silver deposits lay. A number of Chileans made large fortunes in the rush and made investments in other areas of the economy of Chile. By the 1850s, the rush was in decline and lucrative silver mining definitively ended in the 1870s. At the same time, mining activity in Chile reoriented to saltpetre operations.
Mañil or Magnil was a Mapuche lonko who fought in the 1851 Chilean Revolution and led an uprising in 1859. He was the main chief of the Arribanos and the father of Quilapán who led Mapuche forces in the Occupation of Araucanía.
The Chilean Revolution of 1859 was the second attempt by the Chilean Liberals to overthrow their country's Conservative government. Like the first attempt in 1851, it ended in failure. 5,000 people were killed during the fighting.
María Teresa de las Mercedes Wilms Montt, also known as Thérèse Wilms Montt, was a Chilean writer, poet, and anarcha-feminist. Described as "embodying sexual aberrance and social prophesy", she was a friend of the writers Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Joaquín Edwards Bello, Víctor Domingo Silva, and Ramón Valle-Inclán.
Delia Ducoing de Arrate, better known as Isabel Morel, was a Chilean writer, journalist, editor and feminist activist. She was best known for her work on behalf of women's rights in the political, social and civil sphere in Chile since 1914. On October 26, 1927, she founded the Women's Union of Chile in the city of Valparaíso with Gabriela Mandujano and Aurora Argomedo, assuming its presidency on May 6, 1928. As a writer, one of her best known works is the book Charlas femeninas (1930), one of the first publications which systematized feminist thought in Chile. She also wrote and edited the magazine Nosotras in the early 1930s.
María Luisa Fernández Bascuñán (1870–1938), also known as María Luisa Fernández de García Huidobro and by the literary pseudonym Monna Lissa, was a Chilean feminist writer, editor, and poet. She was the mother of poet Vicente Huidobro (1893–1948).
Luisa Lynch del Solar (1864–1937), also known as Luisa Lynch de Morla from her first marriage and Luisa Lynch de Gormaz from her second, was a Chilean feminist writer, journalist, and socialite. She was the mother of diplomat Carlos Morla Lynch, and the writers Ximena and Carmen Morla Lynch. In addition, she is the subject of the 1888 sculpture Madame Morla Vicuña by Auguste Rodin, which can now be found at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Ximena Morla Lynch (1891–1987), also known as Ximena Morla de Subercaseaux, was a Chilean feminist writer and painter. The daughter of writer Luisa Lynch and conservative politician Carlos Morla Vicuña, she had five siblings, including Carlos, a diplomat, and Carmen, a writer. Her granddaughter is the novelist Elizabeth Subercaseaux.
Carmen Morla Lynch (1887–1983), also known as Carmen Morla de Maira, was a Chilean feminist writer. The daughter of Luisa Lynch and Carlos Morla Vicuña, she wrote journals illustrated by her sister Ximena, with whom she also practiced spiritism, both as mediums. Her brother Carlos was a diplomat, writer, and journalist. She was the great-aunt of writer Elizabeth Subercaseaux.
Sofía Eastman Cox, also known as Sofía Eastman de Huneeus, was a Chilean feminist writer and socialite. In 1915, she was a founder and president of the Ladies' Reading Circle, one of the first women's groups in Chile, dedicated "to promote and cultivate letters and the arts from the point of view of reception and production, and to improve the quality of education received by women." She also held the presidency of the Chilean Women's Red Cross from 1918 to 1921, an institution of which she was also one of the main benefactors and managers.
Humberto Giannini Íñiguez was a Chilean philosopher of Italian descent. A disciple and continuator of Enrico Castelli, he was a member of the Academia Chilena de la Lengua and winner of the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences in 1999.
Nicolasa Montt was a Chilean poet who published in regional newspapers and books. She also translated from French works by well-known French writers. Along with the Atacama writer Mercedes Marín del Solar and the Copapina Rosario Orrego, Montt is considered one of the pioneers in the field of women's poetry and writing in Chile.
