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The Mapuche is a group of native indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who share a common social, religious, and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage as Mapudungun speakers. Their homelands once extended from Aconcagua Valley to the Chiloé Archipelago and later spread eastward to Puelmapu, a land comprising part of the Argentine pampa and Patagonia. Today the collective group makes up over 80% of the indigenous peoples in Chile and about 9% of the total Chilean population. The Mapuche are concentrated in the Araucanía region. Many have migrated from rural areas to the cities of Santiago and Buenos Aires for economic opportunities.
The Araucanía, La Araucanía Region is one of Chile's 16 first-order administrative divisions, and comprises two provinces: Malleco in the north and Cautín in the south. Its capital and largest city is Temuco; other important cities include Angol and Villarrica.
Araucanía or Araucana was the Spanish name given to the region of Chile inhabited by the Mapuche peoples known as the Moluche in the 18th century. Prior to the Spanish conquest of Chile, the lands of the Moluche lay between the Itata River and Toltén River.
The Picunche, also referred to as picones by the Spanish, were a Mapudungun-speaking people living to the north of the Mapuches or Araucanians and south of the Choapa River and the Diaguitas. Until the Conquest of Chile the Itata was the natural limit between the Mapuche, located to the south, and Picunche, to the north. During the Inca attempt to conquer Chile the southern Picunche peoples that successfully resisted them were later known as the Promaucaes.
The Occupation of Araucanía or Pacification of Araucanía (1861–1883) was a series of military campaigns, agreements and penetrations by the Chilean army and settlers into Mapuche territory which led to the incorporation of Araucanía into Chilean national territory. Pacification of Araucanía was the expression used by the Chilean authorities for this process. The conflict was concurrent with Argentine campaigns against the Mapuche (1878–1885) and Chile's wars with Spain (1865–1866) and with Peru and Bolivia (1879–1883).
La Frontera is a name used in Chile to refer to the region around the Bío Bío River, or to the whole area between there and the Toltén River. The use of this latter definition is largely coterminous with the historical usage of Araucanía. The term was coined during the period when the region was the frontier of the Captaincy General of Chile, then a part of the Spanish Empire and later the Republic of Chile, with the Mapuche people inhabiting the Araucanía following their revolt in 1598. Subsequently, the Spanish Empire established a system of forts between the Bío Bío River and the Itata River, as well as some within the Araucanía. This system continued through the 18th century and into the 19th century.
Tucapel is a town and commune in the Bío Bío Province, Bío Bío Region, Chile. It was once a region of Araucanía named for the Tucapel River. The name of the region derived from the rehue and aillarehue of the Moluche people of the area between the Lebu and the Lleulleu Rivers, who were famed for their long resistance to the Spanish in the Arauco War. Tucapel is also the name of a famous leader from that region in the first resistance against the Spanish mentioned in Alonso de Ercilla's epic poem La Araucana. Formerly belonging to the Ñuble Province, in the Yungay Department. Near the town of Tucapel is the Plaza de San Diego de Tucapel. The capital of the commune is the town of Huépil, moving the municipality from Tucapel in 1967. In Mapudungun the name Huépil means "To seize or to take by force".
Promaucae, also spelled as Promaucas or Purumaucas, were an indigenous pre-Columbian Mapuche tribal group that lived in the present territory of Chile, south of the Maipo River basin of Santiago, Chile and the Itata River. Those to the north were called Quillotanes and Mapochoes by the Spanish colonists). They spoke Mapudungun, like the Moluche to the south, and were part of the Picunche tribe that lived north of the Itata River.
Arauco is a city and commune in Chile, located in Arauco Province in the Bío Bío Region. The meaning of Arauco means Chalky Water in Mapudungun. The region was a Moluche aillarehue. The Spanish settlements founded here during the Conquest of Chile were destroyed on numerous occasions by the Mapuche during the Arauco War.
Boroa, is a town in Araucanía, Chile on the shores of Cautín River. The region near the town south of the Cautin River between the Boroa and Quepe Rivers was the Moluche aillarehue of Boroa. The site of the town was founded as a Spanish fort San Ignacio de la Redención in 1606 by maestre de campo Rodulfo Lisperger during the Arauco War but it did not remain long after he and his garrison were ambushed. Later in 1649 as a result of the Parliament of Quillín (1647), Martín de Mujica y Buitrón was able to reestablish the fort at Boroa but it was abandoned in 1656 after a long siege during the Mapuche uprising of 1655. One could still find vestiges of the old Spanish fort near the mission at its location at the end of the 19th century.
Cuncos, Juncos or Cunches is a poorly known subgroup of Huilliche people native to coastal areas of southern Chile and the nearby inland. Mostly a historic term, Cuncos are chiefly known for their long-running conflict with the Spanish during the colonial era of Chilean history.
Loble, also known as Lig-lemu or Lillemu,(d. ca. 1565) was the Mapuche vice-toqui of the Moluche north of the Bio-Bio River who led the second Mapuche revolt during the Arauco War.
Pilmaiquén or Pilmayquen is a riachuelo in the commune of Cañete in Arauco Province in the Bío Bío Region of Chile that flows southwest towards the coast of the Pacific Ocean, to the northwest of the city of Cañete. Its course is short but of great volume and traverses a small valley between wooded mountainous areas where it joins the Licauquén River. This valley was a Moluche rehue of the Tucapel aillarehue and the homeland of the Toqui Caupolicán who commanded the Mapuche in the first revolt against domination by the Spanish Empire.
Rere is a town located in the commune of Yumbel, Province of Biobío, in the Bío Bío Region of Chile. It takes its name from the Moluche language of the indigenous confederation, or aillarehue, that occupied both sides of the Claro River and made up the greater confederation, or Butalmapu, between the Itata and Bio Bio Rivers. In 1603, then Royal Governor of Chile under Spanish rule Alonso de Ribera was to declare the erection of the areas first fort naming it Nuestra Señora de la Buena Esperanza. Later, in 1765, the town of Villa de San Luis Gonzaga de Rere was founded on that site by governor Antonio de Guill y Gonzaga. Today Rere sits 21 km west of the town of Yumbel.
Butalmapu or Fütalmapu is the name in Mapudungun for "great land", which were one of the great confederations wherein the Mapuche people organized themselves in case of war. These confederations corresponded to the great geographic areas inhabited by the Mapuches in Chile.
Quilacahuín was a Huilliche aillarehue, that is a confederation of familial clans, of the Chawra kawin Butalmapu located south of the Bueno River, between the Rahue River and the sea, in southern Chile.
The last major rebellion of the indigenous Mapuches of Araucanía took place in 1881, during the last phase of the Occupation of Araucanía (1861–1883) by the Chilean state. It was planned by Mapuche chiefs in March 1881 to be launched in November the same year. Mapuche support for the uprising was not unanimous: Some Mapuche factions sided with the Chileans and others declared themselves neutral. The organizers of the uprising did however succeed in involving Mapuche factions that had not previously been at war with Chile. With most of the attacks repelled within a matters of days Chile went on the next years to consolidate its conquests.
As an archaeological culture, the Mapuche people of southern Chile and Argentina have a long history which dates back to 600–500 BC. The Mapuche society underwent great transformations after Spanish contact in the mid–16th century. These changes included the adoption of Old World crops and animals and the onset of a rich Spanish–Mapuche trade in La Frontera and Valdivia. Despite these contacts Mapuche were never completely subjugated by the Spanish Empire. Between the 18th and 19th century Mapuche culture and people spread eastwards into the Pampas and the Patagonian plains. This vast new territory allowed Mapuche groups to control a substantial part of the salt and cattle trade in the Southern Cone.
Inca rule in Chile lasted from the 1470s to the 1530s when the Inca Empire was absorbed by Spain. The main settlements of the Inca Empire in Chile lay along the Aconcagua, Mapocho and Maipo rivers. Quillota in Aconcagua Valley was likely the Incas' foremost settlement. The bulk of the people conquered by the Incas in Central Chile were Diaguitas and part of the Promaucae. Incas appear to have distinguished between a "province of Chile" and a "province of Copayapo" neighboring it to the north. In Aconcagua Valley the Incas settled people from the areas of Arequipa and possibly also the Lake Titicaca.
The Mapuche uprising of 1655 was a series of coordinated Mapuche attacks against Spanish settlements and forts in colonial Chile. It was the worst military crisis in Chile in decades, and contemporaries even considered the possibility of a civil war among the Spanish. The uprising marks the beginning of a ten-year period of warfare between the Spanish and the Mapuche.
References
- ↑ Ricardo E. Latcham, La organización social y las creencias religiosas de los antiguos araucanos, pg. 597-604.]
- ↑ Their allies south of the Maule were the Cauqui(Cauquenes), Antalli (Andalién?), and Pincu(Peguco?). From the Comentarios reales of de Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Segunda Parte : Libro VII Cap. 19
