Pilar M. Herr. Contested Nation: The Mapuche, Bandits, and State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Chile. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. 169 pp. $65.00 (e-book), ISBN 978-0-8263-6095-3; $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8263-6094-6.
Reviewed by Amie Campos (UC San Diego)
Published on H-LatAm (January, 2021)
Commissioned by Casey M. Lurtz (Johns Hopkins University)
Pilar M. Herr’s Contested Nation: The Mapuche, Bandits, and State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Chile is a welcome addition to the small but growing number of English-language monographs on the complex and often contentious relationship between the Chilean state and the southern region of the Araucanía. At the center of Herr’s story are Mapuche and Pehuenche indigenous groups as well as bands of local bandits, mainly the pro-Spanish Pincheiras, who formed local alliances with these communities. Herr argues that the Araucanía region and the group of aforementioned historical actors were an integral part of state formation processes in Chile post independence, as territorial expansion into the region became an increasingly important goal of the Chilean government. As Herr demonstrates, creole elites who crafted governing structures and the constitution during the early years of the republic considered incorporating the Araucanía critical to the national imaginary of a single, unified Chile. This is a significant intervention, as she is centering the Araucanía during a period in which the region is mostly treated as an afterthought in the historical literature, especially compared to the economically viable central valley or the regional conflicts between elites in Concepción and Santiago. By doing so, Herr challenges scholars of Chilean history to rethink the Araucanía’s role as peripheral during an early period of political consolidation that resulted in the centralization of government power in Santiago. On the contrary, Herr demonstrates that bandits, Pehuenches, and Mapuches all actively negotiated and at times challenged the authority of government elites and were able to do so through a network of local alliances. Much of the book is spent in the Araucanía itself, and this choice allows the reader to become familiar with the often important but sometimes forgotten local dynamics that played a critical role in the evolution of the Mapuche-state relationship. By doing so, she contributes to our understanding of the complexities of state-formation processes as Chile, like other nations in Latin America at the time, was grappling with questions of identity, frontier expansion, and capitalist encroachment.
The book is divided into seven chapters, each of which explores the complex and evolving relationship between the Pehuenches, the Pincheiras, and early post-independence governments. Herr’s first chapter provides a broad context into the political and social dynamics of the early nineteenth century and where these actors fit into the larger story of nation-building she is telling. Her second chapter, one of the strongest of the book, traces the processes through which regional political groups in Concepción and Santiago contended with the threat of Pinchera bandits. While most books on this period largely ignore the Araucanía to focus on the motives and actions of political elites in Santiago, this book instead contextualizes the creation of political institutions in terms of how these were influenced by events in the region. The third chapter provides important biographical information on the Pincheiras themselves and delves into the elaborate network of collaborators, spies, and allies who solidified their position as a threat to state formation in the region. The fourth chapter on local Mapuche alliances further contextualizes the relationship between local indigenous groups as they navigated interethnic and geographical conflicts, as well as the ways the state sought to take advantage of these fractured relationships for political gain. Chapter 5, “Parlamentos,” further examines the relationship between the Mapuches, the Spanish crown, and later the Chilean state through formal dialogues that extended from the late eighteenth century until 1871. By covering this hundred-year period, during which Chile not only gained its independence but also began making preparations for a military campaign into the Araucanía, Herr demonstrates how the relationship between the Mapuche and the newly formed Chilean state gradually eroded, allowing for interesting points of comparison. While these parlamentos had resulted in a mostly fruitful dialogue between Spanish colonial officials and indigenous groups in the late eighteenth century, there was a notable shift in their use during the early republic. After 1825, parlamentos went from being a space of negotiation between indigenous groups and the state to one that Chilean government officials used to dictate terms of governance to these communities. This important shift reveals how each government, both colonial and national, viewed their relationship to the Mapuche. While Herr is not the first to argue that Mapuche-state relationships worsened after independence, focusing on the parlamentos allows her to trace key moments in the evolution of this relationship. By the mid-nineteenth century, these parlamentos were little more than a cultural tradition that was ultimately unable to de-escalate the growing calls among the military and politicians to occupy the Araucanía. The penultimate chapter, “Notions of Chilean Citizenship,” analyzes the ideological views of Chilean politicians, intellectuals, and travel writers who played an integral role in the debate on whether Mapuche communities could integrate into Chilean society. The final chapter provides concluding thoughts on the tenuous nature of state formation in border regions during the nineteenth century, as well as the enduring legacy of the Pincheiras in Chilean popular memory. She concludes by observing that as a consequence of the transformation of the Araucanía from a border into a territorial boundary, “the Mapuche became disenfranchised second-class citizens,” a process they actively resisted in order to preserve their political, economic, and social autonomy (p. 118). It is unfortunate that over one hundred years later this conflict between the Chilean state and the indigenous communities of the Araucanía has only continued, as Mapuche communities and activists in the Araucanía have, at various historical moments in the twentieth century, been the targets of state violence. The 2012 antiterrorism laws in Chile that are disproportionately used against Mapuche activists and the murder of Camilo Catrillanca at the hands of the national police are only recent examples of the ways human rights abuses have persisted even in periods of democracy.
Despite some minor flaws, Contested Communities is a remarkable study of how frontier communities in Chile advocated for their own interests in the face of growing state encroachment. A discussion of the experiences of Mapuches north of the Bio Bio River, in the region just north of the Araucanía, would have served as an interesting point of comparison, as these communities lost their lands soon after independence. Contested Communities also does not engage or reference other contemporary English-language works on the Araucanía, mainly Florencia Mallon’s important work, Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906–2001 (2005). While the slimness of the book does not allow Herr to elaborate extensively on some of her more important arguments, she covers a significant terrain in 118 pages. Given that much of the literature on the Araucanía, and on Chile during the era of independence, is still in Spanish, this book will be especially useful in the classroom. Its accessibility, as well as its careful detailing of the sometimes complex political dynamics of the 1820s and 1830s, will make it a welcome addition to any undergraduate syllabus on indigenous history, nation-state formation in the nineteenth century, and borderlands studies. Graduate students and other scholars will find many points of comparison that can be made with other Latin American peripheries, as well as exciting avenues for future research.
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Citation:
Amie Campos. Review of Herr, Pilar M., Contested Nation: The Mapuche, Bandits, and State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Chile.
H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews.
January, 2021.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55402
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