Edges of Empire

Los Lagos and La Araucanía Regiones De Chile, and New Mexico, USA

-41.463323, -72.947637

November 2023—February 2024

Savian Czerny, Class of 2025

Over the past year and a half here at Colorado College, I have built my own conception of the Spanish Colonial Period and its impacts on the Southwest United States, as well as the rest of Central and South America. Through this accumulation of knowledge, I discovered Chile, and the history of the Arauca Wars (~1550-1662) (“Arauco War”). Discovering this violent Indigenous-colonial history in Chile, which parallels that of the US Southwest’s, sent me spiraling down a rabbit hole. I discovered a shared power that comes with existing on the periphery—the edges of the historic Spanish Empire.

In discovering the obvious parallels between a place I consider my home, and a place I have always been curious to understand better, I planned a trip to southern Chile to work on a photo project that highlights the shared music, culture, language, trauma, wars, natural landscapes, and many other aspects of these two countries. I hope that by capturing the historic similarities, which includes cultural genocides, boarding schools for Indigenous children, the destruction of Indigenous language, and the forced conversion to catholicism, I can create a stronger sense of solidarity that bridges far beyond our nation's borders. I hope even more so that this comparison can reframe the way the rest of us, the descendants of colonizers, see the history and present day realities of the entire Americas. Those who are not Indigenous to the Americas may not feel the impact of the Spanish Colonial Period directly, but it has shaped the Americas into a place that continually perpetuates colonial thought, western societal supremacy, and a system which disempowers Indigenous peoples. This project has grown to hopefully dispel some of the ignorance surrounding this period and hopefully spur conversation about how the US and Chile can do better—or maybe even learn from each other. 

The trip began by flying to Puerto Montt in the Los Lagos region of Chile, which has been deemed “The Gateway City into Chilean Patagonia” (“Puerto Montt”). Despite being a port town, which has often been synonymous in my brain with being old, Puerto Montt is the creation of a much younger Chilean history known formally (and detrimentally) as “La Pacificación de La Araucanía” (The Pacification Araucanía)(“Ocupación Del Territorio…”). Beginning in the mid 1800s, the Chilean government incentivised the immigration of middle class, liberal Germans who were escaping from political persecution in 1848-1849 Germany, to come to southern Chile to colonize what was previously Mapuche sovereign land (“German Chileans”). Before this late period of German colonization by military force, the Spanish had attempted, and failed, to colonize southern Chile in the 16th and 17th centuries. This period was known as the Arauca Wars, which ended with the Destruction of the Seven Cities—a ten year period stretching from 1590 to 1603, where the Mapuche strategically destroyed all seven of the Spanish cities south of the Bio Bio river (“Destruction of the Seven Cities”). From 1603 onward, this region saw little to no Spanish colonial influence until the mid 1800s when new legal documents gave Chile new power to settle “peacefully” in the territory—legislation that mass waves of german immigrants used to legitimize their new, and invasive settlements. 

In Puerto Montt, I was able to trace the street art, architecture, plazas, and churches, all back to both the German influence and the inevitable struggle the Mapuche people have experienced in this settler colonial space. In this town I captured photos of malls, cruise ships, conquistador statues, military guards, all in stark contrast with the beautiful mountainous and oceanic landscapes surrounding the port. Through the art in public spaces in particular, I could feel the newness of this colonization—it felt like the political conversations of the inhabitants of the American Southwest from one hundred years ago.

After Puerto Montt, I headed south onto the island of Chiloé , which is known for its unique culture and rich history. Chilenos from Santiago are known for overrunning this island in the summer, spending time on the beaches, eating traditional Chilote food like Curanto, and wandering the streets looking for little knick knacks to bring home to the city. 

What originally drew my attention to Chiloé  was its unique history, which in many ways parallels that of northern New Mexico. In the 1500s, just as the Spanish were expanding southward into the Los Lagos region, missionaries reached Chiloé  island by boat with the goal of converting the native population to Catholicism (a similar history exists in the New Mexico region beginning roughly in the 1600s). Their missionary work was relatively peaceful, focusing on converting the Mapuche and Chonos of the island to Catholicism (“Chiloé Archipelago”). The missionaries lacked numbers and military power to control the Chonos (the original inhabitants of Chiloé ) and later Mapuche, which led to compromise—the Indigenous of the island were Catholic in theory, but Chiloé ’s new form of Catholicism would evolve to embrace many native practices, rituals, and songs that predate Spanish contact. In New Mexico, a similar lack of Spanish military contact, paired with an early introduction to Catholicism through missionaries, has fostered unique but parallelling forms of religion.

Both of these unique Catholic-Hispano-Indigenous landscapes are perfectly captured through the churches sprinkled across their isolated landscapes. On the island of Chiloé, which is surrounded by dense temperate rainforest, the churches mimic 16th and 17th century churches of Spain, but are built of wood and without the use of nails (“Churches of Chiloé”). This nailless craftsmanship was borrowed from the boats of the Chonos, who helped build the large arcing ceilings, sealed from the relentless wet weather outside. In northern New Mexico, where desert landscape isolates by the opposite environmental extremes, churches are built not only using the local adobe techniques, which function well in a dry and woodless environment, but were often built upon sites that were historically sacred pre-spanish contact. Both styles of church visually represent the parallel emulsions of Indigenous and catholic ideology that occurred in the fertile grounds of the borderlands of the Spanish empire.

Interestingly, in both New Mexico and Chiloé, the existence of a unique culture and religious history has evolved into a form of cultural tourism. There were many spaces in Chiloé that reminded me of Santa Fe, a place full of art, tours, museums, and churches—all of which were full of wealthy tourists looking to extract a little piece for themselves. In many ways these spaces are designed for the tourist, and are appropriating a culture that has become a commodification, rather than a way of life. It is interesting to see how a shared history between New Mexico and Chile has also led to a similar dependency on the tourism industry. Through wealth, settler colonial society continues to try and control the livelihoods of Indigenous and mestizo peoples.

After a very busy five days in Chiloé, I traveled back north onto the mainland of the Los Lagos region where I stopped in Puerto Varas, a small and wealthy town on the shores of Lake Llanquihue. Here the town is blatant about the colonization of the lake, which still holds an Indigenous name—going as far as celebrating the founding of the town with a central plaza named “La Plaza de la Colonización”. This plaza is adjacent to the tourist visitor center. I wonder what the people of the neighboring town of Alerce (a largely Indigenous town) thinks of Puerto Varas and their history. Where are the stories of the land before the Germans settled there?

After a day of rest and exploration, I left and headed north to Pucón, a town that resembles Puerto Varas in its architecture, location, and demographic. Just as in Puerto Varas, there is an emphasis on the physical beauty of the lake, the volcano, and all the outdoor activities you can enjoy. Both towns attract the wealthy, nature loving people from Santiago, and the rest of the world, focusing on the ideal vacation, and ignoring the violent history they are built upon. Pucón was originally a fort constructed in 1883 on the eastside of Lake Villarrica (“Pucón”). For context, 1883 was the last year of La Pacificación de La Araucanía. This fort was meant to protect Villarica, a German resettlement of a town on the west side of the lake, from Mapuche attacks, largely out of fear of the town's previous destruction in 1603. The original Villarica was burned down by the Mapuche as a part of the “Destruction of the Seven Cities” (“Destruction of the Seven Cities”).

Slowly, this military fort evolved to focus on nature tourism, which created a safe, catered space for the wealthy, European class of Santiago to come south and enjoy the mild summers of southern Chile. Again, the native names of the locales remain, but the violent histories of these places take a back seat—the vacationers care not to know. 

Something similar has occurred across the United States and more blatantly in the West, where the creation of National Parks has been directly tied with the forced removal of Native Americans from these same lands. These stories of perpetuated colonialism are rarely discussed in the Yosemites, Grand Canyons, and Yellowstones of the world, with (ignorant) awe and appreciation continuing to be the focus of these “protected” natural landscapes. These landscapes are not separate from its people, even if the settler colonial world treats it as so.

From Pucón, I traveled further north to a small town named Cunco, where I was picked up by a Mapuche Pehuenche family and brought to their home further up the valley. I had found their countryside home through the Workaway website, which I figured was one of the best ways to learn more about what life is actually like for Mapuche people in a settler colonial state. Because I did not want the experience to be one-sided, benefiting myself with Mapuche stories while giving nothing tangible in return, I decided a work-trade scenario where I could offer my own physical labor in return for the knowledge I was receiving would make the relationship more balanced and reciprocal. Of many things, I learned more of their language, Mapuzugung, which is dying just like the Indigenous languages of the US southwest. This said, the younger generations are fighting more than ever to preserve it through school lessons and communal gatherings. In both Chile and the US, decades of boarding school suppression of native language/culture, violent racism in foreign/urban environments, and outright cultural genocide, has left whole generations with internalized fear of outwardly expressing their Indigenous identities. This manifests through protecting their children. Many children were taught to learn English (or Spanish in Chile) instead of their native tongue in order to help them “fit in.” But now, as I could clearly see with Jessica and Jorge´s children, Aylin, Raygim, and Ilguen, there is a fortified and growing pride for their language and culture. The same can be said for the peoples of the Southwest US.

While living in their home, a home Jorge built himself on land that has been his peoples’ since the beginning, I felt a pang of deep sadness for the many Indigenous peoples living in the Southwest of the United States—particularly those who were once more nomadic such as the Diné and Apache. Although the historic lands of the Mapuche have been depleted to an incredibly small size, almost all of the Mapuche still live in communities on their homelands. There is no Chilean/Mapuche history that parallels moments in US history such as the Trail of Tears (Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Chocktaw), or the Long Walk (Navajo/Diné). In many ways, this uninterrupted relationship with their land can be felt tangibly. In general, the Mapuche are poor, but they are also independent in ways that the reservation system in the US has left the Indigenous dependent on—and restricted by—the settler colonial structures that control them. While at their home, I ate homemade cheese from the grandparents down the road, bread made from wheat purchased from a friend, and honey produced by the nextdoor neighbor. The food deserts found on Native American reservations seemed to be a distant thought, not at all a worry here in their small, poor, but vibrant Mapuche community.

But this is not to take away from the similarities. Extraction of officially recognized native lands through legal fudging impacts all. Clear-cut logging scars the ridgelines of the family´s valley, where every small indentation and hump has its own Indigenous name and story. The squared-off scars are a constant reminder that even on their own land, they do not remain untouched by the ever-unsatisfied greed of free capitalism (yet another parallel between Chile and the US, which is a story unto itself). Although logging is rarely an issue in the Southwest, mining takes on a similar role of unforgiving extraction.

After living with the Pehuenche family for a week, having chopped an endless pile of firewood in preparation for winter, I left to head south once more to visit a small community of Mapuche Huilliche outside of the city Osorno. Through funny whatsapp connections and random tourist info-maps, I was lucky enough to get in touch with Paula Alvarez, who invited me to a communal gathering. Before attending, I was told that it would be a small picnic with as many people from the community that could make it. I had zero expectations, but I was very excited and ready to learn. I would have to be alert and ready to listen with the language barrier making things extra difficult. What I did not expect was to take part in a multi-hour ceremony that was a first of its kind. In the rain we gathered under tents with food ranging from German cakes, to Chileno empanadas, to Mapuche sopaipillas, which were generously shared with an endless supply of Maté. We then shared in a ceremony of gratitude for the river, the land, the people, and the strength in all of them. It was a celebration of their continual survival and cultivation as a people. 

Much of the music and food was hispano at its roots, rather than Mapuche, but this did not take away from the ceremony, but rather added to it. Being a new form of gathering, I could feel so clearly how ceremony and tradition in the Mapuche mindset does not mean stagnation or a set script. Everything evolves including culture, religion, and tradition, and the Mapuche Huilliche were clearly acting on this belief. Here I felt beyond grateful that they trusted me enough, and believed in my project enough, to include me at a very special moment. The entire experience drew my attention back to the reality that there are Indigenous people and cultures across the entirety of the Americas that are alive, growing, evolving, and often quietly thriving. Hopeful moments like these highlight against all odds how both the Mapuche, and the Native Americans of the Southwest are fighters, and are proud of their peoples. On this day, I could feel the hope of better futures to come, but more importantly a gratitude for everything that was in that moment and now. Often, systemic violence against native peoples lives on through generational trauma, but this does not mean there is nothing to celebrate in the present.

As part of reflection, and as a way of capturing more of the natural landscape of Chile, I then traveled into the remote Valle Cochamó to explore the rainforest, the international outdoor recreational tourist phenomenon, and a historic trading valley rich with Gaucho (Chilean Cowboy) history. Here, I rock climbed and befriended fellow international climbers who were often surprised to hear that I was in Chile for something more than just the rocks. Although I met many incredible people over the course of my time in Valle Cochamó, few to no-one knew anything about the valley’s Indigenous history, which I was hoping to learn more about, and few seemed interested to learn more. This type of ignorance can become dangerous when people do not understand why they may not be allowed to climb certain cliffs or specific mountains—often outdoor recreationists and Indigenous peoples both fight for the protection of natural landscapes but for very different nd conflicting reasons. 

Atop my ongoing internal reflections, I became enchanted by Cochamó, with its crystal water, stoic condors, and old growth rainforest. It was beautiful to feel the strong presence of the valley in the absence of human extraction—clearcutting, roads, cars, and cell service were nothing but distant memories. To know that old growth forest still exists and is protected in a country whose entire economy is based upon resource extraction leaves me hopeful for both the land, and its original inhabitants. 

After capturing more than enough photos of the valley, I began my travels home, first by leaving Valle Cochamó, then returning to Puerto Varas, then to Puerto Montt to catch my flight home. Since returning, I have begun the process of developing my photography film into negatives, and then into prints in the darkroom. I am now in the midst of photographing the second half of my project through smaller trips down into New Mexico. There, I have captured parallelling photos in order to visually communicate the strong ties that connect the Southwest and Chile through history and contemporary issues. Although I am still in the process of completing my photo project, by beginning the curation and creative process, I have already synthesized the main connections, which I have discussed above. 

In the end, this project has been about shedding light on Spanish Colonialism, and how its history has impacted the edges of its empire. The parallels between the treatment of Chile’s Indigenous/Mestizo peoples and those of the Southwest United States communicate shared experiences of generational trauma, land lost to colonial powers, systematic cultural genocide, outright genocide, massacres, forced conversion to catholic practices, and contemporary manifestations of all of these issues. But there is comradery in having experienced this together. Although rarely discussed, the inter tribal community building that has taken place in response to colonialism, which has occurred both in the US and Chile, is beautiful and does not stop at borders. The strength in being connected to one another is what has given Indigenous voices power, and I believe this project helps highlight this power and its potential.

And if you are reading this now as a non-Indigenous American, hopefully it is forcing you to rethink history and see more of the common threads we hold with Central and South America. Often Americans bring up these issues as a United States problem, but the same issues, or worse, are occurring throughout South America.

After completing the photographing stint of my project, I am uncovering more questions than I had to begin, and there is much to learn in the coming years. Future research can be done comparing more of contemporary Chile and the United States, specifically focusing on the creation of the reservation system in the US, and how this impacts Native Americans compared to the non-reservation system in Chile. More specifically, comparing the Mapuche with the Pueblo peoples in particular, who continue to live on their homelands (although smaller than originally), could be particularly fascinating, and a more specific comparison. Additionally, focusing an entire project specifically on music could be incredibly rich. An ethnomusicological study that tracked the Indigenous musical influences, and how they have migrated across the Americas, and then the hispanic and moorish influence on these simultaneously developing musical styles would be fascinating. In the little I heard, I was surprised to hear how similar both the hispano and Indigenous music was to what I have experienced in New Mexico. Most importantly, more real-world action is alway needed. More connections can be formed that help strengthen the voices of Indigenous Americans in the ongoing fight for reparations, which in many ways will continue to help communities thrive into the future.

“Arauco War.” Wikipedia, 21 Oct. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arauco_War.

“Chiloé Archipelago.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Dec. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilo%C3%A9_Archipelago. Accessed 6 Mar. 2024.

“Churches of Chiloé.” UNESCO World Heritage Centre, whc.unesco.org/en/list/971.

“Destruction of the Seven Cities.” Wikipedia, 1 Feb. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Seven_Cities. Accessed 6 Mar. 2024.

“German Chileans.” Wikipedia, 19 Jan. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Chileans. Accessed 6 Mar. 2024.

“Ocupación Del Territorio Indígena Por Parte de Chile Y Argentina.” Wikipedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 30 July 2004, es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocupaci%C3%B3n_de_la_Araucan%C3%ADa. Accessed 6 Mar. 2024.

“Pucón.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 June 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puc%C3%B3n.

“Puerto Montt.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Montt. Accessed 12 Feb. 2019.