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PHOTOS GALLERY
When
the first Spanish arrived, Quechua tribes inhabited the
northern region, and Araucanian tribes inhabited the central
region and the northern part of the sothern region. The
Incas were in control of the northern area and part of
central Chile. Warlike Araucanian tribes, who held the Incas
back, dominated much of the rest of the country . The first
Spanish settlements were established in the mid-sixteenth
century: Santiago in 1541 and Concepcion in 1550. Spanish
settlers, mainly from Andalucia, were attracted to central
Chile because of the pleasant climate and fertile soil. The
settlers had to face repeated assults from the Araucanians.
The on-and-off war with the Indian aborigines continued into
the second half of the nineteenth century.
By the mid-seventeenth
century, the population of the Spanish settlements and their
surroundings numbered approximately 100,000. This population
grew to about 500,000 by mid-eighteenth century and to one
million by 1830. Those with European blood were concentrated
in central Chile, between Santiago and Concepcion; few
settled in the northern and southern regions. This pattern
of dispersion began to change only in the second half of the
nineteenth century, with the rapid growth of mining
activities and the inmigration of non-Iberaian Europeans.
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