Country: Chile

Group: Afro-Chileans

Date Finalized: 03/16/2021

Team: Vianney Mancilla (lead), Abigail Pentecost, Rayna Castillo, Nusrat Nijum, Alicia Hernandez

Content Warning: slavery, death, racism

Approximate Time Period: 1536-1823

The Afro-Chileans very likely experienced forced labor in Chile. We rated the evidence as 3 due to the reputable sources and details.

The Spanish brought the first African slaves to Chile in 1536. The descendants of these early slaves constitute the Afro-Chilean population. The Chileans brought the slaves as a new source of labor due to the decreasing number of indigenous slaves. The journey to Chile constituted sailing to Chile on a ship and walking through the Andes Mountains, which was very dangerous and resulted in a mortality rate of 50% (Kaufman, Juang, & Morrissette, 2008). Kaufman et al. estimate that by the end of the eighteenth century, the slave population was approximately 12,000 (2008). The slaves worked in mines and agricultural settings. They later worked in cities as shoemakers, carpenters, tailors, and other occupations (Kaufman, Juang, & Morrissette, 2008). Despite the abolition of slavery in 1823, many Afro-Chileans still experience racism, discrimination, marginalization and inequality (Lazcano, 2018). An example of this is the government’s failure to recognize Afro-Chilean as an ethnicity in the official census, despite making up approximately 4.7 percent of the regional population (Lazcano, 2018; Minority Rights, 2017).

References

  1. Kaufman, W., Juang, R., & Morrissette, N. (2008). Chile. In Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History (Vol. 1, pp. 261-262). Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=wFrAOqfhuGYC&lpg=PP1&vq=Afro-Chilean&pg=PA261#v=onepage&q=Chile&f=false on March 16, 2021
  2. Lazcano, C. A. B. (2018). Reflections on the Afro-Chilean Social Movement. ReVista (Cambridge), 17(2), 34-37. Retrieved from https://archive.revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/reflections-afro-chilean-social-movement-we-entered-blacks-and-we-left on March 16, 2021
  3. Minority Rights Group International. (2017). Afro-Chileans. Retrieved from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/afro-chileans/ on March 16, 2021