People of Chile

The Chileans are ethnically a mixture of Europeans and Indians. The first miscegenation occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries between the Indigenous tribes, including the Atacameños, Diaguitas, Picunches, Araucanians (Mapuches), Huilliches, Pehuenches, and Cuncos, and the conquistadores from Spain. Basque families who migrated to Chile in the 18th century vitalized the economy and joined the old Castilian aristocracy to become the political elite that still dominates the country. Few Africans were brought to Chile as slaves during colonial times because a tropical plantation economy, common in much of the New World, did not develop.

After independence and during the republican era, English, Italian, and French merchants established themselves in the growing cities of Chile and incidentally joined the political or economic elites of the country. The official encouragement of German and Swiss colonization in the Lake District during the second half of the 19th century was exceptional. The censuses of the late 19th century showed that foreigners—principally Spaniards, Argentines, French, Germans, and Italians—formed scarcely more than 1 percent of the total population. At the turn of the century, small numbers of displaced eastern European Jews and Christian Syrians and Palestinians fleeing the Ottoman Empire arrived in Chile. Today they spearhead financial and small manufacturing operations.

The population displays a strong sense of cultural identity, which can be traced to the predominance of the Spanish language, the Roman Catholic religion, and the comparative isolation of Chile from the rest of South America. The Araucanian Indians form the only significant ethnic minority.

The trend of age-group distribution, with increasingly larger numbers in the older brackets, reflects a progressive maturing of the Chilean population. Life expectancy rose from 57 years in 1960 to about 70 years by the early 1980s; at the beginning of the 21st century, it had reached the late 70s. These demographic changes reflect both improved health care conditions and modernization of the lifestyle by the predominantly urban population. Also ascribed to the same factors is the dramatic decline during the late 20th century in infant mortality and in the fertility rate. Chile’s crude death rate is lower than that of most of its South American neighbours.

The large cities and the industrial centres of central Chile attract a steady flow of internal migrants. Most of them head for the capital city of Santiago, with the rest going primarily to Valparaíso–Viña del Mar and to Concepción–Talcahuano. These migrants emanate mostly out of the rural regions of the Central Valley and north-central Chile. The northern coastal cities receive some migrants from Santiago and Valparaíso and also from the small villages in the far north. Chiloé has been losing its population to Punta Arenas and the agrarian areas of the Lake District, and even to Argentina, where Chilotes work on estancias or in the mines of Patagonia. After 1973, hundreds of thousands of Chileans left the country for political reasons to live in exile. Initially, the military government of strongman Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte prohibited the exiles’ return, but growing protests in the 1980s resulted in a gradual easing of these restrictions: first, lists were published of those who would be permitted to return, and then, lists of those who were prohibited from returning. By the early 1990s, not only were restrictions lifted but the return of exiles was facilitated.

Economy

The Chilean economy is based on the exploitation of agricultural, fishing, forest, and mining resources. Chile developed historically on the basis of a few agricultural and mineral exports, as was common in Latin America. Many manufactured products had to be imported, and land, wealth, and power were concentrated in the hands of a small aristocracy. Although there were land reforms and development of manufacturing, many of Chile’s economic problems in the 20th century were related to the country’s early economic structure.

During the 19th century the Chilean economy grew on the basis of exported agricultural products, copper, and nitrates. After the nitrate market dropped during World War I, Chile’s economy took a sharp downturn, intensifying the effect on the country of the Great Depression. These events turned Chile toward more socialistic programs that featured strong government control of the economy. An attempt was made to develop import substitution industries so as to lessen dependence on imported products. Industrial growth was placed in the hands of the Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (Corfo; the Development Corporation). Agrarian reforms were instituted, and the government assumed greater control of industry, especially during the administrations of Pedro Aguirre Cerda (1938–41) and Salvador Allende Gossens (1970–73), when many banks, copper mines, and business firms were nationalized. The economy at first improved under these policies, inflation going down and the gross domestic product increasing. The government, however, was unable to establish a sound tax base to match the expanding economy; by 1973 conditions were deteriorating rapidly and a military coup overthrew the government. The new regime instituted more conservative, free-market programs and reversed many of the previous governments’ acts. The country faced severe economic problems, reflected in periodic high inflation, fluctuating trade policies, unemployment, and heavy dependence on a single major export, copper, in an unstable market. The development of a broader export economy improved economic growth and reduced inflation in Chile by the 1990s. The country also entered into many bilateral and regional trade agreements, which further increased direct foreign investment in Chilean industry. By the early 21st century, Chile had one of the most successful economies in South America.