Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The process of integration of Mapuche territories to the administration of the Chilean state was known as the “Pacification of the Araucanía.” It consisted of the effective military and, in many cases, violent occupation of the territories where different indigenous Mapuche groups resided during the colonial period and the beginning of the republic. The Mapuche were either completely erased from the map or deported. The republic sought to abolish the Mapuche people's autonomy, political integrity, territorial lands, and identity. Many were forced to live on reservations.This decline radically transformed the social and territorial organization of the Mapuche and led to a diminished cultural subsistence. They were “integrated” into the Chilean system of jurisprudence and had no political and social autonomy. Between 1884 and 1927, 2,961 “titles of merced” (land grants) were delivered for 526,285 hectares of land (representing only 10 percent of the territories occupied before they were seized), of which approximately 85,000 Mapuche were the beneficiaries. The “titles of merced” provided territorial collective rights for the use of the land to the leaders of huge families (lonko). Nevertheless, the replacement commissions granted the task of calculating the territories did not consider that the extensive Mapuche families were organized along smaller territorial units (lof) that did ... log in or subscribe to read full text