park such as Río Pingo offer a good chance of seeing wildlife and birdlife, including some of the less common species – if you’re really lucky, you may spot a Huemúl. The best place to see Magellanic Penguins is on Isla Magdalena, about 2hrs by boat from Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan.
History and culture
Early settlers
By around 12,000BC the great migration of peoples over the land bridge that once existed between what is now Siberia and Alaska, and down through North and South America, had reached what is now Chile – including its far south. Initially nomadic hunter-gatherers, these peoples nevertheless left a legacy of handicrafts and pottery (see exhibits in the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago), and the tribes in northern Chile are thought to have had cultural links with local Pre-Incan cultures. The tribes of central Chile appear to have become increasingly settled, with the development of agriculture and irrigation, while those further south in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, conditioned by the harsher lanscape and climate, maintained a more nomadic existence.
Excavations in Chile’s Cueva del Milodón and surrounding caves, just south of Torres del Paine national park, have unearthed arrowheads indicating human settlement in the area from around 10,000BC. Over the border in Argentina, Cueva de las Manos, near Los Glaciares national park, contains paintings dating back some 9500–13,000 years, including hunting scenes with humans and animals and, later, numerous hands, both imprinted directly onto the cave wall and ‘sprayed’ in negative, probably from a blow pipe.
House near Lago Toro, Torres del Paine national park (Walks 1 and 4)
Inca Empire and Spanish conquest
During the 15th century the Inca Empire expanded its territory dramatically from Peru, exacting tribute from the tribes of northern Chile, but met with fierce resistance from the Mapuche, one the most powerful tribes in central Chile, and the border between Inca and Mapuche lands was fixed on the Río Maule, approximately 250km south of Santiago.
Christopher Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of the Americas in 1492 and Ferdinand Magellan’s successful navigation of the Straits of Magellan in 1520 were followed by the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca civilizations in Mexico and Peru (in 1521 and 1532 respectively), the latter under the command of Francisco Pizzaro and Diego de Almagro. Almargo continued south in search of further gold and riches, but finding none turned back at the Aconcagua valley.
In 1538 Pedro de Valdivia, one of Pizzaro’s generals, with only a handful of men (Chile’s apparent lack of gold or other riches made it a far less attractive proposition to most than Peru), set off southwards from Cuzco in Peru, founding the city of Santiago in 1541. The development of the Chilean capital, at that time still subject to the Viceroyalty of Peru, is well illustrated in a series of plaques on the pavement in Santiago’s Plaza de Armas.
Estancia Cerro Paine, on the road to Refugio Las Torres (Walk 2)
Over the following years Valdivia attempted to increase Spanish lands further south, where it was once again the Mapuche who put up fierce resistance, and Valdivia himself was killed by the great Mapuche chief Lautano – it is said, by having molten gold poured down his throat. Nevertheless, further subjugation of the local Chilean population continued after Valdivia’s death, and the foundations of colonial society were steadily laid. This resulted in the emergence of powerful landowners and estates worked by a disempowered native workforce, the decimation of the indigenous population by diseases from Europe, and the conquered people’s gradual conversion to Christianity by the Catholic Church.
Fight for independence
Over time Chilean demographics changed, with an increasing number of mestizos (those born of Spanish fathers and indigenous mothers) and criollos (Spaniards born in Chile) in the population, and with these changes came the fledgling desire for increased autonomy from Spain.
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
