Chapter 01 · Pre-1500 - 1536
Indigenous Peoples and the World of Rapa Nui
Long before the Spanish, the land of Chile was home to the Mapuche of the temperate south and the Andean peoples of the desert north, brushed by the expanding Inca, while three thousand kilometres out in the Pacific the Polynesian society of Rapa Nui raised the colossal stone moai of Easter Island.
For thousands of years a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes and the Pacific was peopled by diverse Indigenous societies. In the temperate centre and south lived the Araucanians, of whom the largest group were the Mapuche, semi-settled farming and hunting peoples organised in independent communities. To the north, in the river oases of the great Atacama Desert, Andean peoples cultivated the valleys and traded along the cordillera. These southern lands lay at the very edge of the wider Andean world, and over the fifteenth century the Inca empire, expanding from Cuzco, pushed its influence southward; but it could not subdue the Mapuche, whose resistance halted imperial control near the Maule River.
Far out in the Pacific, some 3,700 kilometres from the continental coast, lay one of the most remarkable of all Indigenous achievements. Easter Island, known to its people as Rapa Nui, was settled by Polynesian voyagers, and from roughly the tenth to the sixteenth century its inhabitants developed a powerful and original tradition of monumental sculpture, raising the enormous stone figures called moai on ceremonial platforms. Carved from volcanic tuff and ranging from two to twenty metres in height, the some 900 statues and more than 300 platforms form a cultural landscape, free of outside influence, that UNESCO inscribed as a World Heritage site.
On the mainland the Mapuche developed a culture defined above all by its independence. Influenced by but never absorbed into the Andean and Inca worlds, they would meet the Spanish, when the Europeans finally arrived, with the same determination they had shown the Inca. The first collision came around 1536, when the expedition of Diego de Almagro, partner and later rival of Francisco Pizarro, pushed south from Peru as far as the Maule River in search of an 'Otro Peru', another Peru. Finding neither high civilisation nor gold, the disappointed Spaniards turned back, leaving the conquest of Chile for another day.
“A society of Polynesian origin raised, free of any external influence, an unrivalled tradition of monumental sculpture in the loneliest inhabited island on earth.”
— On the moai of Rapa Nui
Turning points
- by c. 10,000 BCEPeoples & Migration
Ancient peopling of the land
Hunting and gathering peoples settle the long territory between the Andes and the Pacific over many millennia, the deep ancestors of the Mapuche and the Andean peoples of the north.
See the data - c. 10th-16th centuryCulture & Ideas
The moai of Rapa Nui
On Easter Island, the Polynesian society of Rapa Nui carves and raises some 900 colossal stone moai on hundreds of ceremonial platforms, an unrivalled monumental tradition later recognised by UNESCO.
- late 15th centuryWar & Rupture
Inca expansion reaches the Maule
The Inca empire extends its influence into northern and central Chile but is unable to subdue the Mapuche, whose resistance checks imperial control near the Maule River.
See the data - 1536-1537Colonisation
Almagro's expedition turns back
Diego de Almagro leads the first Spanish entry into Chile as far as the Maule River; finding no gold or empire, the expedition returns to Peru, but the Spanish first clash with the Araucanians.
See the data
Figures of the era
Diego de Almagroc. 1475-1538
Spanish conquistador
Partner and then rival of Francisco Pizarro who led the first Spanish expedition into Chile in 1536-37, reaching the Maule River before turning back, disappointed, to Peru.
Chapter sources: History of Chile, Mapuche, Araucanian wars, Diego de Almagro, Rapa Nui National Park
Chapter 02 · 1540 - 1810
Conquest, Santiago, and the Long Arauco War
Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago in 1541 and carried Spanish rule south to the Biobio, but beyond that river the Mapuche fought the invaders to a standstill in the Arauco War, leaving the Captaincy General of Chile a poor and embattled frontier of empire for two and a half centuries.
In late 1540 Pedro de Valdivia marched south from Peru with about 150 companions and, on 12 February 1541, founded the city of Santiago in the fertile central valley. He extended Spanish control to the Biobio River by 1546 and pressed beyond it, founding Concepcion in 1550 and other towns in the south. There the conquest met its limit. The Mapuche, whom the Spanish called Araucanians, resisted ferociously, formed alliances above the level of the village, and learned to fight on horseback. In 1553 a force led by Lautaro, a young Mapuche who had once served in Valdivia's own stables, destroyed a Spanish column at Tucapel and captured and executed the conqueror himself.
From that disaster grew the Arauco War, a long, intermittent frontier conflict along the Biobio that would last, in one form or another, for nearly three centuries. The Mapuche south of the river preserved their independence to a degree unmatched elsewhere in Spanish America, and the colony to the north remained a remote, militarised and impoverished district. Governed as the Captaincy General of Chile, subordinate to the Viceroyalty of Peru, it had little silver and no great Indigenous empire to exploit, and it depended on subsidies from Lima to maintain its garrisons against the southern frontier.
Over the colonial centuries a distinct Chilean society took shape in the central valley around Santiago: a landowning Creole elite presiding over great estates worked by a mixed Spanish and Indigenous, or mestizo, population. The Mapuche frontier endured, marked by warfare but also by trade and the gradual rise of a parlamento system of negotiated truces. By the start of the nineteenth century this small, isolated colony, far from the centres of imperial power, had developed a strong local identity, and its Creole leaders were ready, when the crisis of the Spanish monarchy came, to take government into their own hands.
“Fighting and disease reduced the Araucanians by two-thirds in the first century after the Europeans came; yet south of the Biobio they remained unconquered.”
— On the Arauco War
Turning points
- 12 February 1541Formation
- 1550 CEColonisation
Conquest reaches the Biobio
Valdivia extends Spanish rule south of the Biobio and founds Concepcion, pushing into the Mapuche heartland and igniting lasting resistance.
See the data - December 1553War & Rupture
Mapuche defeat and kill Valdivia
At Tucapel, Mapuche forces led by Lautaro destroy a Spanish column and capture Valdivia, who is executed; the disaster opens the long Arauco War.
See the data - 17th-18th centuryPolitics & Power
Figures of the era
Pedro de Valdiviac. 1500-1553
Conquistador and first governor
Spanish conqueror of Chile who founded Santiago in 1541 and extended Spanish rule to the Biobio before being captured and killed by the Mapuche at Tucapel in 1553.
Lautaroc. 1535-1557
Mapuche war leader
Mapuche commander who, after serving in Valdivia's stables, escaped, unified Araucanian resistance, and defeated and killed the conquistador in 1553; revered as a Chilean national hero.
Chapter sources: History of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia, Santiago, Chile, Lautaro (Mapuche leader), Araucanian wars
Chapter 03 · 1810 - 1879
Independence and the Building of a Republic
The first national junta of 1810 began Chile's road to self-government; after defeat and reconquest, San Martin's army crossed the Andes, O'Higgins led the patriots to the founding victory at Maipu in 1818, and Chile built one of the most stable republics in nineteenth-century Latin America.
When Napoleon's occupation of Spain in 1808 collapsed royal authority across the empire, the Creoles of Santiago seized their chance. On 18 September 1810 a first national junta was formed to govern in the name of the captive king, the beginning of Chilean self-government, a date still kept as the national day. This early autonomy, the Patria Vieja, was crushed by a royalist reconquest from Peru in 1814, and patriot leaders fled across the Andes to Mendoza, where Bernardo O'Higgins joined the Argentine general Jose de San Martin.
San Martin built the Army of the Andes at Mendoza and, in one of the great feats of the age, led it over the high cordillera in early 1817, defeating the royalists at Chacabuco on 12 February and opening the road to Santiago. O'Higgins was proclaimed supreme director, and on 12 February 1818 Chile formally declared its independence. The decisive battle came soon after: on 5 April 1818 the patriot army crushed the Spanish at Maipu, near Santiago, ending royalist power on the Chilean mainland. O'Higgins governed as the republic's first head of state until his abdication in 1823.
After a turbulent decade, Chile achieved a stability rare in the region. The conservative Constitution of 1833, associated with the minister Diego Portales, established a strong centralised presidency that anchored the state through the middle of the century. Chile fought and won wars against a Peru-Bolivia confederation, expanded its commerce and mining, founded the University of Chile, and drew European immigrants to the south, all while still confronting the independent Mapuche on its southern frontier. By the 1870s the orderly Chilean republic was poised to become the dominant power on the Pacific coast of South America.
“The boldness of his plan to cross the Andes to Chile, and the patience with which he executed it, was the decisive factor in the defeat of Spanish power in southern South America.”
— On Jose de San Martin
Turning points
- 18 September 1810Independence
First national junta
Creole leaders in Santiago form a governing junta after the fall of the Spanish king, the founding act of Chilean self-government and the national day.
See the data - 12 February 1817War & Rupture
Crossing the Andes and Chacabuco
San Martin's Army of the Andes crosses the cordillera and defeats the royalists at Chacabuco, opening the road to Santiago and the liberation of Chile.
See the data - 5 April 1818Independence
The Battle of Maipu
Patriot forces under San Martin, with O'Higgins, crush the Spanish royalists near Santiago, sealing Chilean independence on the mainland weeks after its formal declaration.
See the data - 1833 CEPolitics & Power
The Constitution of 1833
A conservative constitution shaped by Diego Portales establishes a strong centralised presidency, anchoring decades of unusual political stability.
Figures of the era
Bernardo O'Higgins1778-1842
Liberator and first head of state
Leader of the Chilean independence movement who returned with San Martin in 1817, helped win Chacabuco and Maipu, and governed as supreme director until 1823, revered as the father of the nation.
Jose de San Martin1778-1850
Liberator and general
Argentine soldier who forged the Army of the Andes, crossed the cordillera in 1817 to free Chile, and commanded the patriot victory at Maipu before carrying the war to Peru.
Chapter sources: History of Chile, Jose de San Martin, Bernardo O'Higgins, Battle of Maipu
Chapter 04 · 1879 - 1970
The Nitrate Age and the Twentieth Century
Victory in the War of the Pacific gave Chile the nitrate-rich deserts of the north and a generation of mineral wealth; the twentieth century brought a militant labour movement, a widening democracy, the poetry of Pablo Neruda, and, in 1970, the election of the socialist Salvador Allende.
In 1879 a dispute over nitrate taxes in the Atacama drew Chile into war with Peru and Bolivia. The War of the Pacific (1879-1883) was decided by Chilean naval victories at Iquique and Angamos and the occupation of Lima in 1881. By its end Chile had annexed the mineral-rich coastal provinces, taking Tarapaca and Antofagasta and leaving Bolivia landlocked. The conquered deserts held the world's great deposits of sodium nitrate, and for a generation taxes on nitrate exports filled the treasury and made Chile, for a time, the dominant economic power of the Pacific coast.
Nitrate wealth transformed Chilean society and politics. The mines and ports of the north bred a militant labour movement, met at times with brutal repression, while in the south the state finally subdued the Mapuche in the 'Pacification of Araucania' and opened their lands to settlement. The discovery of synthetic nitrates during the First World War undercut Chile's monopoly, and copper rose to replace it as the country's economic mainstay. Through the 1920s and after, Chile widened its democracy and built a strong state, even as it weathered the global Depression, which struck its export economy with particular force.
Mid-century Chile was one of Latin America's most vigorous democracies, with strong parties of the right, centre and left and a flourishing cultural life. Its towering literary figure was Pablo Neruda, poet, diplomat and communist senator, whose work won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Pressures for deeper reform mounted: land reform under the Christian Democrats in the 1960s, and rising demands from workers and the poor. In the three-way presidential election of 1970, the Marxist Salvador Allende, candidate of the Popular Unity coalition, won a narrow plurality and was confirmed by Congress, becoming the first freely elected Marxist head of state in the Americas.
“Canto general depicted Latin American history as a grand, continuous struggle against oppression.”
— On Pablo Neruda's epic of the Americas
Turning points
- 1879-1883War & Rupture
The War of the Pacific
A dispute over nitrate taxes leads Chile to war with Peru and Bolivia; Chilean victories win the nitrate-rich Atacama and leave Bolivia landlocked.
See the data - 1880-1883War & Rupture
Pacification of Araucania
After three centuries of independence, the Chilean state subdues the Mapuche south of the Biobio by military campaign and opens their territory to settlement.
See the data - 1970 CEPolitics & Power
- 1971 CECulture & Ideas
Neruda wins the Nobel Prize
Pablo Neruda, poet, diplomat and senator, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, crowning Chile's golden age of letters.
Figures of the era
Pablo Neruda1904-1973
Poet and Nobel laureate
Perhaps the foremost Latin American poet of the twentieth century, author of 'Twenty Love Poems' and 'Canto general', a communist senator and diplomat awarded the Nobel Prize in 1971; he died days after the 1973 coup.
Chapter sources: History of Chile, War of the Pacific, Araucanian wars, Pablo Neruda, Salvador Allende, The Allende Years and the Pinochet Coup, 1969-1973
Chapter 05 · 1970 - 1990
The 1973 Coup and the Pinochet Dictatorship
Salvador Allende's socialist government, beset by polarisation and economic crisis and pressured from abroad, was overthrown in the military coup of 11 September 1973; the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet that followed ruled for seventeen years, its grave human-rights abuses later documented by the Rettig and Valech commissions.
Allende's Popular Unity government nationalised the copper mines and banks and pressed a radical programme of socialist reform, but it governed a deeply divided country amid soaring inflation, shortages and political violence. It also faced sustained hostility from the United States, whose government, as the U.S. Office of the Historian records, ran covert operations to weaken the Allende administration, though it found little evidence directly linking Washington to the coup itself. By 1973 the crisis was acute. On 11 September 1973 the armed forces, led by General Augusto Pinochet, stormed the presidential palace, La Moneda; Allende died that day, a death a 2011 autopsy confirmed as suicide.
A military junta of three generals and an admiral, soon dominated by Pinochet, took power and set out to crush the left and reshape the economy. Behind a promise of order it carried out widespread repression: thousands were detained, tortured, killed or 'disappeared', many in the months immediately after the coup and many at the hands of the secret police, the DINA. A new constitution, drafted under the regime and approved in a controlled 1980 plebiscite, entrenched military power. In economics the junta reversed Allende's policies and, advised by free-market economists, opened and deregulated the economy, producing both crises and, at times, rapid growth.
The scale of the abuses was established only after the dictatorship fell. The National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, the Rettig Commission, reported in 1991 and documented thousands of cases of killing, disappearance and abuse, and the later National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, the Valech Commission, recognised tens of thousands of survivors of political imprisonment and torture between 1973 and 1990. These figures are official estimates drawn from the testimony the commissions were able to gather. The regime's end came through its own rules: in the plebiscite of 5 October 1988, asked to extend Pinochet's rule, Chileans voted No by 55 to 43 percent, forcing the open elections that would restore democracy.
“Asked to extend his rule, Chileans answered No, and the dictator's own rules carried the country back toward democracy.”
— On the plebiscite of 5 October 1988
Turning points
- 11 September 1973Politics & Power
- 1974-1990Politics & Power
- 1980 CEPolitics & Power
- 5 October 1988Politics & Power
Figures of the era
Salvador Allende1908-1973
President of Chile
Physician and socialist who became the first freely elected Marxist head of state in the Americas in 1970; his government was overthrown in the 1973 coup, and he died in La Moneda that day.
Augusto Pinochet1915-2006
General and dictator
Army commander who led the 1973 coup and ruled Chile until 1990. His dictatorship combined free-market reform with severe repression; after his fall he faced charges over human-rights abuses.
Chapter sources: History of Chile, Salvador Allende, Augusto Pinochet, 1973 Chilean coup d'etat, The Allende Years and the Pinochet Coup, 1969-1973, Truth Commission: Chile (National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, Rettig report), Commission of Inquiry: Chile (National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, Valech report)
Chapter 06 · 1990 - present
Return to Democracy and Modern Chile
Democracy returned in 1990 with the inauguration of Patricio Aylwin, who opened the long reckoning with the dictatorship's crimes; since then Chile has grown prosperous and stable while wrestling, through the protests of 2019 and a contested constitutional process, with deep inequality and the legacy of the Pinochet era.
On 11 March 1990 the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin was inaugurated president, restoring civilian rule after seventeen years of dictatorship. His government and its successors, governing under a coalition of centre and left, combined steady economic growth with a careful effort to confront the past. Aylwin created the Rettig Commission, whose 1991 report laid bare the killings and disappearances, and over the following years Chilean courts gradually stripped away the immunity that had shielded the regime. Pinochet himself, arrested in London in 1998 on a foreign warrant and later prosecuted at home, became a symbol of the slow advance of accountability before his death in 2006.
Across the next three decades Chile became one of Latin America's most prosperous and institutionally stable countries, its economy anchored by copper and open trade and its politics alternating peacefully between centre-left and centre-right governments, including the two terms of Michelle Bachelet, the country's first woman president. Yet prosperity masked some of the region's sharpest inequalities and a widespread sense that the gains were not shared, grievances that the Pinochet-era constitution, for all its amendments, came to symbolise.
That discontent erupted in October 2019, when a rise in Santiago metro fares set off the largest protests since the return of democracy, the 'estallido social', with demands for reform of pensions, health, education and the constitution itself. In response, an overwhelming majority voted in a 2020 plebiscite to draft a new constitution, and a convention produced a sweeping progressive text; but voters rejected that draft decisively in September 2022, a major setback for the young president Gabriel Boric, who took office that year. A second, more conservative attempt also failed to win approval, leaving the much-amended 1980 constitution in force. Into 2026 Chile remains a stable democracy still negotiating, through its institutions, the unfinished arguments over inequality and memory that the dictatorship bequeathed.
“A nominal rise in the Santiago metro fare lit the largest protests since the return of democracy, and a demand to remake the nation's founding charter.”
— On the estallido social of 2019
Turning points
- 11 March 1990Politics & Power
- 1998 CEPolitics & Power
Pinochet arrested in London
Augusto Pinochet is detained in London on a foreign warrant for human-rights crimes, a landmark in the pursuit of accountability before his death in 2006.
- October 2019Politics & Power
The 'estallido social' protests
A metro fare rise in Santiago ignites the largest protests since the dictatorship, broadening into demands for reform of pensions, health, education and the constitution.
- September 2022Politics & Power
Figures of the era
Patricio Aylwin1918-2016
President, restorer of democracy
Christian Democrat inaugurated in March 1990 as the first president after the dictatorship; he established the Rettig truth commission and anchored Chile's democratic transition.
Gabriel Boricborn 1986
President of Chile
Former student leader who in 2021 became the youngest president in Chilean history; he championed a new constitution to replace the Pinochet-era charter, though successive drafts were rejected.
Chapter sources: History of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, Gabriel Boric, Truth Commission: Chile (National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, Rettig report)