Nationalists 53
and contemporary reality of America, was original, idiosyncratic, complex,
and quite distinct from any European model.’’
∂
Creole patriotism took firm
root in Chile, a land with small populations of colonists and Indians on the
very edge of Spain’s vast empire.
The Spanish noble Alonso de Ercilla’s epic La Araucana, a sixteenth-
century poem written with classical flare, may be considered one of the first
examples of ‘‘Chilean’’ nativism, which developed into Creole patriotism.
Unlike other narratives of the early colonial era, Ercilla’s writings focused on
the native element of the great encounter and, specifically, the Araucanian
Indians of the southern region who heroically defended their land and life-
ways against the Spaniards. The poem, a result of Ercilla’s personal recol-
lections of events he witnessed in the 1540s, describes the Araucanians as
freedom fighters who thrived on the valiant struggle against the Iberian
invaders (led by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza). It also touches on Governor
Pedro de Valdivia’s inability to curb Spanish oppression of the indigenous
population. The execution of Caupolicán, a leading Araucanian war chief, is
among many examples of Spanish excess decried in the poem. Although it
would be foolish to label Ercilla a Creole patriot (he was certainly Spanish of
peninsular origin and not ‘‘Chilean’’ or Creole), it is certain that sentiments
related to the singularity of the ‘‘Chilean’’ experience expressed in La Ara-
ucana shaped much of what became Creole patriotism. As the independence
revolution approached, Creoles in Santiago and elsewhere were keenly aware
of their status as Americans with an American heritage and, specifically, as
Chileans with a Chilean heritage.
Creole patriotism in Chile evolved during much of the colonial period.
Distanced from the centers of colonial power in the New World, conquerors
and settlers were surrounded by the world’s most arid desert to the north, a
towering mountain range to the east, and Araucanian resistance to the
south. What resulted was a tightly knit colonial society that developed in the
Central Valley region, where Creoles intermarried and a ‘‘Chilean’’ aristoc-
racy coalesced.
∑
In the mid-seventeenth century, Father Alonso de Ovalle
nostalgically reflected on this new, Chilean colonial society in his Histórica
relación del Reyno de Chile (1646), which, as Simon Collier explains, is a seminal
work of a ‘‘local and distinctly Chilean patriotism.’’
∏
By the latter half of the
eighteenth century, Chilean colonists had amassed a substantial collection
of patriotic writings, including those of Juan Ignacio Molina and Felipe
Gómez de Vidaurre, who drew on the spirit of Ercilla’s La Araucana when
they presented Chile’s indigenous population in a positive light. By doing
so, these intellectuals demonstrated the sharp distinction between what was