A2Z Languages - Santiago, Chile - City Guide

History

Santiago began as a fortified encampment, known by the name Santiago de la Nueva Extremadura, the furthest-flung post of the Spanish empire. It was founded in 1541 by conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. By the late 16th century, Santiago was a settlement of just 200 houses, inhabited by 700 Spaniards, plus their thousands of Indian laborers and servants, and a growing population of mestizos.

For over two centuries, Santiago remained the only city in Central Chile, while great farms known as haciendas formed the basis of rural society. During the late 18th century, European architects began to grace the capital with elegant works such as the Palacio de la Moneda, the largest Neoclassical construction in Colonial Arnedea. Revolutionary ideas were quick to brew in this increasingly libertarian atmosphere, and on Septernber 18, 1810, independence was declared in the Real Audiencia building, adjacent to Santiago's historic Plaza de Armas.

It was not until the late 18th century that Santiago slowly began to acquire some of the trappings of a city. But progress was slow, and when colonial rule ended in the early 19th century Santiago had barely 30,000 residents. City streets remained largely unpaved, and most country roads were still potholed tracks. There were few schools and libraries, and cultural life was bleak.

In just a few decades, however, the capital had more than 100,000 inhabitants. Railway and telegraph lines linked the city to Valparaíso, by that stage a bustling commercial center with a population of 60,000. Independence brought new-found wealth to Chile principally from the nitrate fields of the north. This led to the construction of several monumental works that were to completely transform the capital. The creation of extensive parksand gardens, a fine arts museum, and new bridges over the Mapocho river were among the most important works of this era. In the late twentieth century, unprecedented economic growth has added scores of high rises and spotless residential neighborhoods to Santiago's panorama of historic architecture.

At the height of the economic boom, the regime moved to legitimize and regularize its reforms and its tenure. Its new "constitution of liberty" was approved in a controlled plebiscite in 1980, in which the government claimed to have received 67 percent of the vote. Both leftists and Christian Democrats had called for a no vote. Because there were no safeguards for the opposition or for the balloting, most analysts expressed doubts about the government's percentage and assumed that the constitution may have won by a lesser margin. According to the new constitution, Pinochet would remain president through 1989; a plebiscite in 1988 would determine if he would have an additional eight years in office.

The constitution's approval marked the institutionalization of Pinochet's political system. In the eyes of the military, a dictatorship had now been transformed into an authoritarian regime, rule by exception having been replaced by the rule of law. When the new charter took effect in 1981, the dictatorship was at the peak of its powers, politically untouchable and economically successful. The Pinochet era left its mark on the city, both literally and indirectly. Air attacks and military actions left monuments such as the presidential Palacio de la Moneda unusable for more than a decade, and damage to surrounding buildings is still being repaired today. More enduring than pockmarked walls has been the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship's economic program, which introduced an ethic of corporate consumerism. Santiago's already critical air pollution was made far worse by the regime's promotion of private automobile ownership. The city of 5 million is one of South America's largest, but its congested city streets and unwieldy urban sprawl are permanently characterized by a persistent blanket of smog.