Country: Chile

Group: Mapuche

Date Finalized: 11/6/20

Team: Abi Pentecost (lead), Rayna Castillo, Nusrat Nijum, Alicia Hernandez

The Mapuche represent 84% of Chile’s indigenous population (about 1.3 million people), making them the largest indigenous group in the nation (Minority Rights, 2017). This group has a long history of forced labor. An abundance of evidence shows that Spanish colonial forces were integral in developing a system that exploited and forced the Mapuche into labor.

          Technically, slavery was banned in Spain and Spanish colonies in 1542, under the “New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians” (Wise and David, n.d.). This was due to concerns of rapidly decreasing indigenous populations due to war and disease. However, in the 16th century, Jesuit missionaries sought to evangelize the Mapuche in Chile but were met with resistance and eventually an uprising in 1598 (Foerster, 1993). As a result, the Jesuits labeled those involved as apostates to justify the war and enslavement of the Mapuche, which had been previously outlawed (Foerster, 1993; Wikipedia, 2020). Additionally, other historical forms of forced labor and “tribute” systems were used to force Mapuche people into labor. One such example is the encomienda system which allowed colonial officers to “teach Indian population to assimilate to European culture” (Britannica, 2019). Additionally, this system allowed for the labor of Mapuche people to be exploited and forced to work in mines and other undesirable fields (Rector, 2019).

          Data quality for this ethnic group as a 2. There are a fair amount of peer-reviewed and scholarly sources, as well as primary documents. However, due to the location, a large number of these sources are in Spanish and thus there is trouble accessing them and finding correct translations.

References

  1. Foerster, R. (1993). Introducción a la religiosidad mapuche (in Spanish) (pp. 21-22). Editorial universitaria.
  2. Minority Rights Group International. (2017, September 21). Mapuche. Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/mapuche-2/
  3. Rector, J. L. (2019). Origins of Chilean People, 500-1750. In 1012571440 779249743 J. L. Rector (Author), The History of Chile, 2nd Edition (pp. 37-41). Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group.
  4. Wikipedia. (2020). Slavery of Mapuches. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slavery_of_Mapuches&oldid=947213780
  5. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, August 14). Encomienda. Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/encomienda
  6. Wise, C., & Wheat, D. (n.d.). The Spanish and New World Slavery · African Laborers for a New Empire: Iberia, Slavery, and the Atlantic World · Lowcountry Digital History Initiative. Retrieved October 27, 2020, from http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/