Country: Argentina

Group: Mapuche

Date: November 6th, 2020

Team: Rebekah Kamer (Lead), Vianney Mancilla, Zeenat Hammond

Content Warning: forced away, murder, ethnocide, discrimination, forced labor, stolen land

Approximate Time Period: 1536-1853

          The Mapuche are an ethnic minority group in Argentina who have been subjected to forced labor. The Mapuche people entered a 350-year long war known as La Guerra de Arauco with the Spanish when the Spanish invaded Mapuche territory in 1536 (Marhiquewun, n.d.). The colonizers viewed the Mapuche as, “natural slaves,” and, “savages,” who must be converted through military force and church (Dillehay, 2016), leading to the Mapuche’s experience with forced labor (Dillehay, 2016). The Mapuche managed to fight against this but have had to continually fight for their freedom. In 1884, the Argentinian army took away the autonomy of indigenous communities which led to the elimination, deportation, and enslavement of Mapuche people now at the hands of the Argentinian government despite the centuries the Mapuche have fought against this (Delrio et al., 2010). There is no estimation of the population of enslaved Mapuche in the 16th or 19th century which is reflected in the data quality code 2.

Sources

  1. Delrio, W., Lenton, D., Musante, M., Nagy, M., Papazian, A., & Pérez, P. (2010). Discussing Indigenous Genocide in Argentina: Past, Present, and Consequences of Argentinean State Policies toward Native Peoples. Genocide Studies and Prevention, 5(2), 138-159. doi:10.3138/gsp.5.2.138
  2. Dillehay, T. D. (2016). Reflections On Araucanian/Mapuche Resilience, Independence, And Ethnomorphosis In Colonial (And Present-Day) Chile. Chungará (Arica), 48(4), 691-702. doi:10.4067/s0717-73562016000400013
  3. Marhiquewun, R. (n.d.). The Mapuche Nation. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from https://www.mapuche-nation.org/english/html/m_nation/main/m_nation.htm