Spanish Chileans

Spanish-Chilean
Hispano-chileno

Total population
undefined
Regions with significant populations
All over Chile
Languages
Chilean Spanish
Religion
Roman Catholicism, Evangelical, Protestantism
Related ethnic groups
Chilean people, Spaniards, and other Latin American peoples

Spanish Chileans (in Spanish: Hispanochileno) are Chileans, of Spanish origin. Most Spaniards were Andalusians, Castilians and Basques during the colonial period. The descendents of these Spaniards form the majority of the population. However, the early Spanish settlers mixed mainly with the Amerindians during the early colonial period and with the European immigrants that arrived after independence, who wanted to assimilate into the Chilean middle and upper classes. Thousands of Spanish refugees fleeing Spanish Civil War on 1939 also settled and have many descendants in the country. There are also Catalans and Galicians, most of these two came either through Argentina (which has a large Galician population) or came escaping the Spanish Civil War and Franco's Dictatorship.

Folk Culture

The folk culture of Chile has mostly Spanish origins, especially the huaso culture of the central part of the country, as it arose in the colonial period due to cattle ranching. The Andalusian forms in the huaso dress is apparent to Europeans and the music and dances show Spanish origins, even though both have been adapted and are distinct to dress, music and dance in Spain today.

The ranches called fundos, where the huasos lived and worked show strong similarity with Spanish vernacular architecture, especially in the canal roofs and the interior courtyards. The fundo is now thought of as traditional Chilean architecture and is associated with the huaso.

Identity

Spanish Chileans descended from the early colonial settlers do not think themselves as Spanish as a German Chilean might think himself as German. During the independence period, Chileans, almost exclusively of Spanish descent at the time, born in Chile, i.e. criollos, thought themselves solely as Chilean, not as Spanish, as Spain was an enemy nation. Today, these descendants still think of themselves as solely Chilean along with the surnames and architecture dating from that period, even though the latter may be called 'colonial', they are not usually considered of as being Spanish as most present Chileans are not aware of the origins of traditional Chilean culture.

The only Spanish Chileans who identity their ethnicity as Spanish are the refugees of the Spanish Civil War. Other Chileans, even though they may have Hispanic surnames do not identify with Spanish ethnicity but identify with the European identity of their non-Spanish ancestors or see themselves simply as Chileans with no ethnic affinity. Therefore one can say that Spanish Chileans are a small minority despite the distant ancestry of many other Chileans from the original Spanish colonizers of the Conquest period.