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Violence, Ideology and Counterrevolution: Landowners and Agrarian Reform in Cautín Province, Chile, 1967–73

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2018

Daniel Carter
Daniel Carter*
Affiliation:
Visiting Researcher, Departamento de Ciencias Históricas, Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad de Chile
*
*Corresponding author. Email: dbc28hermes@gmail.com
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Abstract

The article analyses social and political conflict in Chile during the agrarian reform period of the 1960s and 1970s through a case study of the province of Cautín, in the indigenous heartlands of the south. Using a combination of written and oral sources, it analyses the responses and strategies of landowners descended from nineteenth-century settlers to the emancipatory projects carried out during the presidencies of Eduardo Frei and Salvador Allende. In the context of an increasingly radicalised agrarian reform programme and a growing number of territorial conflicts with the Mapuche communities, this little-studied political actor developed a collective identity, an ideological discourse and a readiness to use violence which provides important insights into the causes of the military coup carried out in 1973.

Spanish abstract

El artículo analiza el conflicto social y político en Chile durante el periodo de la reforma agraria de los años 1960 y 1970 a través de un caso de estudio de la provincia de Cautín, en el corazón de los territorios indígenas del sur. Utilizando una combinación de fuentes escritas y orales, analiza las respuestas y estrategias de terratenientes descendientes de colonos del siglo XIX a los proyectos emancipadores llevados a cabo durante las presidencias de Eduardo Frei y Salvador Allende. En el contexto de un programa de reforma agraria crecientemente radicalizado y de un mayor número de conflictos territoriales con las comunidades mapuche, este actor político poco estudiado desarrolló una identidad colectiva, un discurso ideológico y una voluntad para el uso de la violencia que proveen pistas importantes sobre las causas del golpe militar de 1973.

Portuguese abstract

Este artigo analisa o conflito social e político no Chile durante o período de reforma agrária entre os anos 1960 e 1970, através de um estudo de caso da província de Cautín, nas terras indígenas centrais do sul do país. Usando uma combinação de fontes escritas e orais, o artigo analisa as respostas e estratégias de latifundiários descendentes de colonos do século dezenove aos projetos emancipatórios realizados durante os governos dos presidentes Eduardo Frei e Salvador Allende. Dentro de um contexto de um programa de reforma agrária cada vez mais radicalizado e de um crescente número de conflitos territoriais com as comunidades Mapuche, este pouco estudado protagonista político desenvolveu uma identidade coletiva, um discurso ideológico e uma predisposição ao uso de violência que fornece informações importantes sobre as causas do golpe militar ocorrido em 1973.

Keywords

agrarian reformlandownerspeasantsMapuchesPopular UnityMIRreforma agrariaterratenientescampesinosmapuchesUnidad PopularMIRreforma agrárialatifundiárioscamponesesMapuchesUnidade PopularMIR
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 109 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 ‘Fiducia prepara baño de sangre’, Punto Final, no. 19, first fortnight, Jan. 1967.

2 A publication dealing systematically with this topic is Richards, Patricia, Race and the Chilean Miracle. Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Crow, Joanna, The Mapuche in Modern Chile: A Cultural History (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2012)Google Scholar.

3 See for example Tinsman, Heidi, La tierra para él que la trabaja (Santiago: LOM, 2009)Google Scholar; Correa, Martín, Molina, Raúl and Yáñez, Nancy, La reforma agraria y las tierras mapuches, Chile 1962–1975 (Santiago: LOM, 2005)Google Scholar.

4 All interviewees agreed they could be named and quoted on the understanding that their information was to be used strictly for the purposes of academic research.

5 Jorge Pinto Rodríguez, La formación del Estado y la nación, y el pueblo mapuche: De la inclusión a la exclusión (Santiago: Dibam, 2003), pp. 151–2.

6 Several works deal with this event. See for example José Bengoa, Historia del pueblo mapuche (Santiago: Ediciones Sur, 5th edn, 1996).

7 A useful comparative study is Alberto Harambour's work on the colonisation of Patagonia by Chile and Argentina. There were clearly many parallels with the case of Cautín: here, too, a process of nation-building involving the encouragement of ‘desirable races’ to bring productive farming and civilisation to the territory led to a ‘working-class insurgency [which] threatened the local order built jointly by the nation-state and imperial capital’ to which the answer was violence. Alberto Harambour, ‘Borderland Sovereignties. Postcolonial Colonialism and State Making in Patagonia. Argentina and Chile, 1840s–1922’, PhD diss., Stony Brook University, 2012, p. 119.

8 Carl Solberg, Immigration and Nationalism, Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914 (Austin, TX: University of Austin Press, 1970), p. 19.

9 Ibid., p. 59.

10 Carl Solberg, ‘A Discriminatory Frontier Land Policy: Chile, 1870–1914’, The Americas, 26: 2 (July 1969), p. 133.

11 Thomas Miller Klubock, La Frontera. Forests and Ecological Conflict in Chile's Frontier Territory (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014), p. 15.

12 Jesús Ángel Redondo, ‘Las tomas de fundos en la provincial de Cautín (Chile), 1967–1973’, Cuadernos de Historia (Departamento de Ciencias Históricas, Universidad de Chile), 42 (June 2015), p. 161.

13 Fernando Pairicán Padilla, La rebelión del movimiento mapuche, 1990–2013 (Santiago: Pehuén, 2014), p. 43.

14 Tinsman, La tierra para él que la trabaja, pp. 37–8.

15 Jorge Pinto Rodríguez, El bandolerismo de la frontera (1880–1920) (Temuco: Ediciones Universidad de la Frontera, 1985).

16 The crucial benchmark for the definition of ‘large’, and hence for expropriation, was ‘80 basic irrigated hectares’.

17 ‘La derecha conspira para detener la reforma agraria’, Punto Final, no. 122, 19 Jan. 1971.

18 Ibid.

19 El Diario Austral, 6 July 1967.

20 Ibid., 10 Aug. 1967.

21 Oficios recibidos, Archivo de la Intendencia de Cautín (AIC), folder 221, 1966 (exact date unknown).

22 El Diario Austral, 18 Aug. 1967.

23 Ibid., 18 Nov. 1968.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., 19 Jan. 1969.

26 Ibid., 27 March 1970.

27 El Diario Austral, 26 March 1970 (emphasis in original). The letter is signed by Omar Cancino, Presidente del Sindicato de Pequeños Propietarios Agrícolas de Lautaro, and others.

28 See Florencia E. Mallon, Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906–2001 (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2005).

29 David Lehmann, ‘Land Reform in Chile 1965–1972’, unpubl. D.Phil thesis, University of Oxford, 1974, p. 185 cites the figure of 70 farm seizures in Cautín.

30 El Diario Austral, 24 March 1971.

31 Norman Gall, ‘The Agrarian Revolt in Cautín. Part 2: Land Reform and the MIR’, Fieldstaff Reports. West Coast South America Series, no. 19, Washington, DC, 1972.

32 ‘La derecha conspira para detener la reforma agraria’.

33 Archivo Servicio Agrícola Ganadero, expedientes CORA. No. 290-5, Provincia de Lautaro, Fundo ‘Tres Hijuelas’.

34 Interview with Jaime Baier, Temuco, 17 Nov. 2009.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 El Diario Austral, 2 July 1971.

38 Ibid., 3 July 1971.

39 Ibid.

40 Punto Final, no. 124, 16 Feb. 1971. Quoted in Alistair Horne, Small Earthquake in Chile (London: Papermac, 1990), p. 174.

41 Ibid., p. 182.

42 Interview with Víctor Carmine, Temuco, 19 Dec. 2009.

43 Ibid.

44 A detailed account of this event, from a variety of perspectives, can be found in Mallon, Courage Tastes of Blood, pp. 1–8.

45 Interview with Víctor Carmine, Temuco, 19 Dec. 2009.

46 Oficios despachados, AIC, folder 336, ‘Caso Carmine’, 1971 (exact date unknown).

47 La Nación, 17 Feb. 1971.

48 Oficios despachados, AIC, folder 336, ‘Caso Carmine’.

49 ‘La derecha conspira para detener la reforma agraria’.

50 El Diario Austral, 4 Dec. 1971.

51 Oficios despachados, AIC, folder 288, 1971.

52 El Diario Austral, 10 Jan. 1972; 25 Oct. 1971.

53 Interview with Víctor Maturana, Temuco, 21 Oct. 2009.

54 El Diario Austral, 2 Dec. 1971.

55 Horne, Small Earthquake in Chile, pp. 189–90.

56 Interview with Eduardo Díaz, Temuco, 27 May 2010.

57 Oficios despachados, AIC, folder 485, mid-Aug. 1973 (exact date unknown).

58 Harmer, Tanya, Allende's Chile and the Inter-American Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), p. 236Google Scholar.

59 Figures from the Asociación de Empleadores Agrícolas (Association of Agricultural Employers) cited in Gall, ‘The Agrarian Revolt in Cautín’.

60 Interview with Irma Felber, Temuco, 13 May 2010.

61 Ibid.

62 El Diario Austral, 14 Feb. 1971.

63 Ibid., 19 April 1971.

64 Ibid., 25 Oct. 1972.

65 Comment on http://gastonlobos.blogspot.cl/2005/09/fundacin-gastn-lobos.html. Posted 12 Sept. 2005; last access 31 May 2018.

66 See for example ‘Ejército intervino en “tomas”’, El Diario Austral, 8 Aug. 1973.

67 El Diario Austral, 2 Sept. 1973.

68 Ibid., 5 Sept. 1973.

69 Interview with Mario Rivas, Temuco, 2 Nov. 2009.

70 Oficios recibidos, AIC, folder 485, 10 Sept. 1973 (written 31 Aug. 1973), signed by ‘Comando Comunal de Trabajadores de Puerto Saavedra’ (Communal Workers’ Brigade of Puerto Saavedra) and others.

71 El Diario Austral, 7 Sept. 1973.

72 Interview with Víctor Carmine, Temuco, 19 Dec. 2009.

73 According to the Church Report (United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1976)), covert US involvement in Chile in the decade between 1963 and 1973 was extensive and continuous, including generous financial backing for centre and rightist political groups. The CIA was estimated to have spent $8 million in support of the opposition in the three years between 1970 and the military coup in September 1973, in combination with provision of a wide range of logistical and intellectual support. See Karalekas, Anne, History of the Central Intelligence Agency (Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1977), p. 117Google Scholar.

74 Crow, The Mapuche in Modern Chile, p. 179.