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Afro-Chileans

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African Chileans
AfroChilenos
Total population
8,415 (2013)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Arica y Parinacota Region, Tarapacá Region, Santiago Metropolitan Region
Languages
Spanish (Chilean dialects, Caribbean dialects)
Haitian Creole
Religion
Roman Catholicism
Related ethnic groups
Africans · Afro-Latin Americans · Afro-Caribbeans · Afro-Hispanics

Afro-Chileans are people of Chile, descended from Africans. Many are descendants of slaves who were brought to the Americas via the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Afro-Chileans continue to face erasure & discrimination within modern Chilean society.[2]

History

The slave trade

African slaves were first brought to the Spanish colony that is now Chile in 1536. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Africa, two overland routes trafficked many enslaved Africans to the colony: one crossing west from the northern coast of South America, and another traveling north from Buenos Aires over the Pampas and the Andes. Many slaves did not survive the difficult journey in captivity.[3] The port of Valparaíso was also utilized in the slave trade for maritime transport of captives.[4]

Afro-Peruvian soldier-settlers in Valdivia

Once Spanish presence in Valdivia was reestablished in 1645, authorities had convicts from all-over the Viceroyalty of Peru construct the Valdivian Fort System.[5] The convicts, many of whom were Afro-Peruvians, became soldier-settlers once they had served their term.[5] Close contacts with indigenous Mapuche meant many soldiers were bilingual in Spanish and Mapudungun.[6] A 1749 census in Valdivia shows that Afro-descendants had a strong presence in the area.[5]

War of Independence

Member of the 8th Regiment of the Army of the Andes.

A specific group of blacks in Chilean history are the members of the 8th Regiment of the Army of the Andes that fought the Spaniards in Chacabuco. That was the army organized by the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and led by José de San Martín to liberate Chile and later allow the liberation of Peru. San Martín demanded black slaves as contribution to the Army of the Andes by the Mendoza landowners, because in his opinion blacks were the only people capable of participating in the infantry component of the army, and included them in the forces commanded later by Bernardo O'Higgins. They were included in the Army of the Andes and received their freedom after the crossing of the Andes and the fight against the Spaniards. As members of the infantry they were exposed to higher risks during battle. This episode of the history of Chile is very seldom mentioned and the group of blacks has never received any recognition for their contribution to the liberation of Chile.[7][page needed]

The African minority that lived mainly in Santiago, Quillota and Valparaíso began to mix with gypsies, and Europeans, shaping a whole new ethnic and cultural identity for Chile.[8]

Ban of slavery

Chile banned slavery in 1811 through the Freedom of Wombs law made by Manuel de Salas, seven years after he had read the following announcement in a newspaper: "For sale: 22 to 24-year-old mulatto, nice condition, good price". The law freed the children of slaves born in Chilean territory, regardless of their parents' condition. The slave trade was banned and the slaves who stayed for more than six months in Chilean territory were automatically declared freedmen. Thanks to this ban, dictated in 1823,[9] Chile became the second country in the Americas to prohibit slavery, after Haiti. The abolition freed close to five thousand slaves that lived in the country.[10]

Despite the gradual emancipation of most black slaves in Chile, slavery continued along the Pacific coast of South America throughout the 19th century, as Peruvian slave traders kidnapped Polynesians, primarily from the Marquesas Islands and Easter Island, and forced them to perform physical labour in mines and in the guano industry of Peru and Chile.

Annexation of Arica

Finally, there was one more event that added the African inheritance to the Chilean blood. When the city of Arica was finally integrated to Chile, in 1929, a lot of Afro-descendants began living under the Chilean law. They are part of the "Black Arica", and they work daily to promote their traditions and culture, proving that their influence goes beyond the "cueca" or "zamacueca".[11]

Notable Afro-Chileans

Afro-Chileans in fiction

The short story, "Benito Cereno" in The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville features a Chilean sea captain and his slave ship.

See also

References

  1. ^ https://www.ine.cl/docs/default-source/etnias/publicaciones-y-anuarios/encuesta-de-caracterizacion-de-la-poblacion-afrodescendiente-2013/presentaci%C3%B3n-primera-encuesta-de-caracterizaci%C3%B3n-de-la-poblaci%C3%B3n-afrodescendiente.pdf?sfvrsn=d5ad69f4_4
  2. ^ Mesones Rojo, Gabriela; Lima, Camila; Amaral, Ana Carolina (21 August 2020). "Interview: How Black Feminists in Chile are Challenging The Country's Whitewashed Identity". OkayAfrica. Retrieved 4 October 2020. Black people have always been present in the territory, but Chile has a deeply whitewashed identity, which denies the presence of Indigenous and Black people. It's a common statement that doesn't reflect the reality of the Chilean and [neighbouring] Argentine colonial process.
  3. ^ Barbosa, Rosana; Barbosa Nune, Rosa (2008). "Chile". Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History : a Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-446-2. Slaves were brought to Chile by two routes, the Pacific and the Atlantic. The Pacific route began in the Atlantic on the coast of Africa, continued to the northern coast of South America (especially Cartagena and Panama), and proceeded overland to the Pacific and then to Chile. The Atlantic route also began on the coast of Africa but took slave ships to Argentina, more particularly to the port of Buenos Aires. From there, slaves were taken on foot across the Pampa region and the Andes to Chile. Both routes were extremely difficult, and the mortality rate could reach as much as 50 percent or even more.
  4. ^ O’Malley, Gregory E; Borucki, Alex (2017). "Patterns in the intercolonial slave trade across the Americas before the nineteenth century". Tempo. 23 (2): 314–338. doi:10.1590/TEM-1980-542X2017v230207. Retrieved 4 October 2020. Less frequently, Africans continued their coerced odyssey from the Río de la Plata to Valparaíso by sail, via the Magellan Straits. These inland and maritime slave routes met in Valparaíso
  5. ^ a b c "Historia". Museo de Sitio Castillo de Niebla (in Spanish). Servicio Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  6. ^ Urbina C., María Ximena (2017). "La expedición de John Narborough a Chile, 1670: Defensa de Valdivia, rumeros de indios, informaciones de los prisioneros y la creencia en la Ciudad de los Césares" [John Narborough expedition to Chile, 1670: Defense of Valdivia, indian rumours, information on prisoners, and the belief in the City of the Césares]. Magallania. 45 (2). doi:10.4067/S0718-22442017000200011. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  7. ^ Barros Arana, Diego (1999). Historia General de Chile: La Colonia, de 1610 a 1700 [General History of Chile: The Colony from 1610 to 1700] (PDF) (in Spanish). Vol. 5. University of Santiago de Chile Research Centre. ISBN 956-11-1550-6. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
  8. ^ "El folclor musical de Chile y sus tres grandes raíces - Africana". www.memoriachilena.gob.cl. 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  9. ^ "The Antislavery Movement". The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (6th ed.). Columbia University Press. 2012. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
  10. ^ "La abolición de la esclavitud negra en Chile". www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/. 2020. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  11. ^ Rioseco, Virginia. "Oro Negro Foundation:Afro descendants organize themselves". nuestro.cl. Archived from the original on 1 February 2015.
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