Araucanía

Araucanía, the country of the Araucos or Araucanian Indians, in the south of Chili. The Chilian province of Arauco, lying between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, and bounded on the north by Concepcion, on the south by Valdivia, was formed in 1875, with an area of 8100 sq. m., and a pop. (1892) of 88,332. A large part of the territory in Arauco and the more southerly province of Valdivia, is occupied by Indians, who have of late mostly submitted to Chilian authority. The Araucanians are interesting as furnishing the only example of Indian self-government in the presence of the European races. They are a fierce and warlike people, and have a kind of military aristocratic constitution. Formerly the government rested in the hands of four chiefs (Toquis), each nominated by one of the four divisions of the people, and one of whom was elected 'great Toqui.' They have no formal laws, but custom and tradition have all the force of these. They do not now number more than 50,000. Their country is divided from north to south into four parallel regions, with varying soil and climate. These are the coast region, the plain region, the region of the Lower Andes, and the region of the Higher Andes. Araucanía has the proud distinction of being the only portion of the New World that has never received the European yoke. From the days of Pizarro and Almagro downwards, it has uniformly vindicated its freedom—its wars of independence having lasted, with intervals of precarious truce, from 1537 to 1773. In 1861 a French adventurer, Tonneins by name, ingratiating himself with the Indians, was elected king of Araucanía as Orlélie Antoine I. He was soon at war with Chili, and was captured and allowed to go to France. Returning to Araucanía, he kept up a struggle with the Chilians in 1869–70, but repaired once more to France in 1871, where he posed for a time as a dispossessed king, and died in 1878. See his L'Araucanie (Bord. 1878); Smith's Araucanians (New York, 1855); and Medina's Los Aborígenes de Chile (Santiago, 1882).