The General Captaincy of Chile (Capitanía General de Chile [kapitaˈni.a xeneˈɾal de ˈtʃile]), Governorate of Chile, or Kingdom of Chile, was a territory of the Spanish Empire (Hispanic Monarchy) from 1541 to 1818 that was, initially, part of the Viceroyalty of Peru. It comprised most of modern-day Chile and southern parts of Argentina in the Patagonia region. Its capital was Santiago de Chile. In 1811 it declared itself independent, with the Spanish reconquering the territory in 1814, but in 1818 it gained independence as the Republic of Chile. It had a number of Spanish governors over its long history and several kings.
Contents
Name
The Captaincy General of Chile was incorporated to the Crown of Castile as were all the other Spanish possessions in the New World. The Captaincy General of Chile was first known as New Extremadura (a name subsequently given to a part of Mexico) and then as Indian Flanders.
Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna noted that Chile has always been officially and unofficially the Kingdom of Chile. In the 16th century Pedro Marino de Lobera, “Corregidor de Valdivia”, 1575 wrote the Chronicles of the Kingdom of Chile. Other publications of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries confirm the name and/or status of what is known as the Kingdom. However, although the status of kingdom was officially used and recognised in Court the jurisdiction of the kingdom was still under Spanish control for most of its existence, later it became a republic.
The administrative apparatus of the Captaincy General of Chile was subordinate to the Council of the Indies and the Laws of the Indies, like the other Spanish colonial possessions. The day-to-day work was handled mostly by viceroys and governors, who represented the king in the overseas territories. The areas of the Americas, which had been the site of complex civilizations or became rich societies were usually referred to by the Spanish as "kingdoms".
There's no agreement on the origin of the name Chile. According to Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala the word "Chile" came from the Quechua term "Chili". On the other hand, Alonso González de Najera thought that Chile means "cold", arguing that some Indians told him that. But he never confirm his sources of information, declaring that: "It was given this name because the winds that blow from its snow-capped mountains in winter are extremely cold.". Other theories say that the Inca Empire called it "Chilli", from the Aymara language, meaning "Southernmost land" as well as "the center of the Earth", or the "deepest land".
History
Exploration and conquest
In 1536 Diego de Almagro formed the first expedition to explore the territories to the south of the Inca Empire, which had been granted to him as the Governorship of New Toledo. After Almargo's death, Pedro de Valdivia solicited and was granted in 1539 the right to explore and conquer the area with Francisco Pizarro's approval.
Valdivia founded the city of Santiago del Nuevo Extremo in 1541 in an Inca settlement and a few months later its cabildo (municipal council) appointed him governor and Captain General of New Extremadura on June 11, 1541. Other cities founded during Valdivia's administration were Concepción in 1550, La Imperial in 1551, Santa María Magdalena de Villa Rica and Santa María la Blanca de Valdivia in 1552, and the following year Los Confines and Santiago del Estero on the eastern side of the Andes. In 1553 Valdivia also founded a series of forts for protection of the settled areas: San Felipe de Araucan, San Juan Bautista de Purén and San Diego de Tucapel.
After Valdivia's death that same year, these last forts, Villarica and Concepcion were lost and they were recovered following the war with Lautaro and Caupolicán. Following the defeat of the Mapuche by García Hurtado de Mendoza, settlements continued to grow and more cities were founded: Cañete de la Frontera on the site of the former Fort San Diego de Tucapel and Villa de San Mateo de Osorno in 1558, San Andrés de Angol in 1560, Ciudad de Mendoza del Nuevo Valle de La Rioja in 1561, San Luis de Loyola Nueva Medina de Rioseco and San Juan de la Frontera in 1562, and Santiago de Castro in 1567. Martín García Óñez de Loyola founded a last city south of the Bio Bio River, Santa Cruz de Coya, in 1595.
In 1557 and 1558 Juan Ladrillero explored the Strait of Magellan. At Cape Possession, where he arrived on August 9, 1558, he performed the ceremony of taking possession of it for the King of Spain and Chile.
Collapse of southern Chile
A Mapuche revolt was triggered following the news of the battle of Curalaba on the 23 of December 1598, where the vice toqui Pelantaru and his lieutenants Anganamon and Guaiquimilla with three hundred men ambushed and killed the Spanish governor Martín García Óñez de Loyola and nearly all his companions.
Over the next few years the Mapuche were able to destroy or force the abandonment of seven Spanish cities in Mapuche territory: Santa Cruz de Coya (1599), Santa María la Blanca de Valdivia (1599), San Andrés de Los Infantes (1599), La Imperial (1600), Santa María Magdalena de Villa Rica (1602), San Mateo de Osorno (1602), and San Felipe de Araucan (1604).
After that, the ocean became the way of contact with Chiloé Island and western Patagonia. According to the Chilean historian Isidoro Vázquez de Acuña, the ocean has been seen as a natural barrier and not as a vessel of contact and expansion in Chile's history.
After the battle of Curalaba in 1598 Spanish city's at south from Biobío River were destroyed and Spanish conquerors were forced to retrieve to the north, establishing the frontiers of the kingdom of Chile. This meant that Spanish possessions in Chiloé were issolated from the rest of the continent. The only way of communication was the ocean.
The sovereignty of the Kingdom of Chile was extended to Magellan's strait, so it was its responsibility to recognize the region, alongside Patagonia, in a context of possible English threat. This task fell to Chiloe's governor as Walter Hanisch a Chilean historian stated. Several expedition departed from the -island in the colonial period.
The main concern of Spanish expedition was to ensure Spanish control of the strait. Francis Drake's expedition of 1578–1580 proved that the Pacific Ocean was no longer a "Spanish lake". The crown gave the task to Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who founded two cities in the strait: Nombre de Jesús and Rey Don Felipe (also known as Phillipopolis in some charts) in 1584.
On the other hand, the missionary expedition was in the hands of the Jesuit order in the 17th century. Their objective was to convert the Chono people, without success. The chono chief Pedro Delco converted to catolicism, becoming a key to the Jesuit evangelization's attempts. After jesuit´s expulsion in 1767, this task fell on the franciscan order.
17th century: Consolidation of the kingdom
In the 17th century, the Spanish overseas territory of Chile saw a rearrangement of its population center. While in the 16th century, most of the cities founded by the Spanish were located from Bio-Bio southward, with only Santiago, La Serena and some transandine cities located north of it, in the 17th century, Spanish authority and settlements were abandoned down south of Bío-Bío Region. The kingdom went from being a gold exporter with potential for expanding to the Strait of Magellan to being one of the Spanish Empire's most problematic and poor in natural resources.
The Spanish Empire had to divert silver from Potosí to finance a standing army in Chile to fight in the Arauco War. Since the raids of Francis Drake in Chilean waters more seaborne assaults followed in the 17th century, mostly from Dutch corsairs. The Spanish Empire's attempts to block the entrance to the Pacific Ocean by fortifying the Straits of Magellan were abandoned after the discovery of Hoces Sea, focusing then on fortifying the coastal cities of Chile, a tactic that later was proven to be more affordable and effective in combating piracy while keeping the area under Spanish rule.
In 1641 the Parliament of Quillín happened in which Mapuche (known as Araucanians or Reche) obtained a peace treaty and a recognition of authonomy on behalf of the crown in exchange for loyalty against foreign powers.
18th century: Reforms and development
Following the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish territories in 1767, most of the 181 Chilean Jesuits forced into exile settled in Italy. There, they continued their cultural and religious activities, which increasingly became connected to their sense of attachment to the distant homeland from which they had been expelled.
Political history
As noted, the area had been designated a governorship (gobernación) during the initial exploration and settlement of the area, but because the local Amerindian peoples demonstrated fierce resistance, a more autonomous, military-based governmental authority was needed. Thus, the governor was given command of the local military and the title of captain general. This arrangement was seen in many places of the Spanish Empire.
The greatest setback the Spanish settlements suffered was the Disaster of Curalaba in 1598, which nearly wiped them out. All cities south of the Biobío River with the exception of Castro were destroyed. The river became La Frontera the de facto border between Spanish and Native areas for the next century. (See Arauco War.)
In 1609 the Royal Audiency of Santiago de Chile was founded after the failure of the Concepción Royal Audiency. Its territory was equivalent to the Governorate one.
Chile started being a Captaincy General in 1778 with the Bourbon Reforms. Before it was a Governorate, and also it always was considered a Kingdom, since it was an Indies Kingdom.
Chile gained two intendancies, Santiago and Concepción in 1786 and became a Bourbon-style Captaincy General in 1789.
In 1798 Chile obtained more autonomy from the Peruvian Viceroyalty.
Society
Societal groups
The Chilean colonial society was based on a caste system. The Criollos (American born Spaniards) enjoyed privileges like the ownership of encomiendas (Indian labor jurisdictions) and were allowed limited access to government and administrative positions such as corregidor or alférez. Mestizos made up initially a small group, but with time grew to become a majority in Chilean society becoming more numerous than native indigenous peoples.
Mestizos were not a homogeneous group and were judged more by appearance and education than by actual ancestry. Native peoples experienced the most discrimination among societal groups in colonial Chile; many of them were used as cheap labor in encomienda, causing their numbers to decrease over time due to disease. Pehuenches, Huilliches and Mapuches living south of La Frontera were not part of the colonial society since they were outside the de facto borders of Chile. Black slaves made up a minority of the population in colonial Chile and had a special status due to their high cost of import and maintenance.
Black slaves were often used as housekeepers and other posts of confidence. Peninsulares, Spaniards born in Spain, were a rather small group in late colonial times, some of them came as government officials and some other as merchants. Their role in high government positions in Chile led to resentment among local criollos. Mixing of different groups was not uncommon although marriage between members of the different groups was rare.
During late colonial times new migration pulses took off leading to large numbers of Basque people settling in Chile mingling with landowning criollos, forming a new upper class. Scholar Louis Thayer Ojeda estimates that during the 17th and 18th centuries fully 45% of all immigrants in Chile were Basques.
Sex and marriage
Native indigenous peoples in colonial society appeared, to the average Catholic Spaniard, to be somewhat liberal in their approach to sexual relationships.
16th century Spaniards are known to have been pessimistic about marriage. Many of the initial conquistadores left their own families behind in Spain and started new relationships in Chile. Examples of this is Pedro de Valdivia who held Inés de Suárez as a common law wife while in Chile. Adultery was explicitly forbidden for Catholics and the Council of Trent (1545–1563) made the climate prone for accusations of adultery. Over the course of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries marital fidelity increased in Chile.
The main indigenous group in the Aconcagua Valley was the Picunche people, which was the main ethnicity to be mixed with the Spaniards, as the territory controlled by the Monarchy was mainly concentrated those lands.
Borders
In 1548 the theoretical territory granted to the Governorate of Chile by Pedro de la Gasca, President of the Lima's Royal Audience, extended between parallel 27° to 41° South (nearby Copiapó and Osorno) with 100 leagues to the east counted from the Pacific coast. This was confirmed by King Charles I in 1542, who in 1554 extended the southern border of Chile to the Strait of Magellan by petition of Jerónimo de Alderete, who also was named Governor of the Governorate of Terra Australis alongside Chile since 1555. In 1557 the eastern coast of Patagonia to the Magellan Strait was given to Jaime Rasquín, generating overlaping claims with the 100 leagues of Chile, in 1563 Tucumán was segregated from Chile. In 1570 the Rasquín territories were given to Juan Ortiz de Zárate, Governor of Río de la Plata and Paraguay, continuing the overlap.
The authonomous region of Araucanía, recognized as so in 1641 in the Quilín Parliament, was considered part of the Governorate's territory in paper.
In 1680 the Compilation of Indies Laws were published, and in 1681 a Royal Decree specified that all laws that contradicted the Compilation were invalid. In the Book 2, Title 15 the Compilation details the Royal Audiences territories, only in the Chilean one the Strait of Magellan is mentioned. The law says: "which has as its district all the said Kingdom of Chile, with the cities, towns, villages, places and lands included in the government of those provinces, as well as what is now pacified and populated, as well as what will be reduced, populated and pacified within and outside the Strait of Magellan and the land inside up to and including the province of Cuyo". This is interpreted by Manuel Ravest Mora as the reversion of the Eastern Patagonia Coast possession by the Governorate of La Plata, reverting to the 100 leagues of Chile only.
In 1768 Chiloé started being administered directly from Peru temporally, it was returned to full control to Chile in 1788 but only on paper, something that was never put into effect by the Viceroy. Chiloé's theoretical territory reached Cape Horn to the South.
In 1770, the Viceroy of Peru Manuel de Amat y Junyent organized an expedition in search of the so-called "Davis Land", entrusting Felipe González Ahedo with two vessels, the ship of the line San Lorenzo and the frigate Santa Rosalía, with 546 sailors. He reached the island on November 15 of the same year, taking possession of it in the name of the Spanish Crown and naming it Isla San Carlos, in honor of King Charles III.
Economy
The Spanish conquest of Chile was carried out by private enterprises rather than directly by the Spanish Crown. The settlers established cities, granting land and indigenous labor to Spaniards for economic activities.
Gold extraction and agriculture were key economic activities, though the exploitation of indigenous labor led to conflicts with Jesuits, Spanish officials, and Mapuche resistance. The Spanish city network collapsed after the battle of Curalaba (1598), leading to an economic shift towards hacienda-based agriculture and livestock farming.
In the 17th century, Chilean exports to Viceroyalty of Peru included suet, charqui, and leather, making the period known as the "century of suet." Additionally, wood from Chiloé Archipelago and Valdivia supplied Peruvian markets.
By the 18th century, Chile had become a key wheat supplier to Peru, especially after the 1687 earthquake and stem rust epidemic in Peru devastated local production. Chilean latifundia focused on international exports rather than local markets. The century also saw a mining revival, with gold and silver production increasing significantly.
Shipbuilding peaked in Valdivia, Concepción, and Chiloé, constructing vessels including frigates for Spanish trade. Meanwhile, smuggling became widespread, weakening Spain's trade monopoly.
The Chilean Independence War (1810–1818) disrupted trade and devastated the countryside. The post-war economy struggled with heavy debt, and an 1822 loan from London burdened the new Chilean state for decades. Despite these challenges, new trade relations with the United States, France, and the United Kingdom emerged.