Diego de Almagro discovers Chile in 1536; Pedro de Valdivia directs the difficult conquest in 1541 and founds from there the towns of Santiago and Concepción. But the country is not pacified, and it will take three centuries for the Spanishs to overcome definitively the Indians (war of Arauco).

The Chilean territory, isolated and furthest away from the Spanish colonies, fact part of the viceroyalty of Lima until 1778. The lack of outlets slows down the development of the breeding. If the Creoles dominate the rural life, the subways control the trade with Spain. The Creoles cross with the Indian population - so much so that their cultural differences grow blurred -, whereas the peninsular Spanishs, their rivals, are hardly integrated into the company.

Independence

At the end of the XVIII E century, Chile lives poorly; out of economic material, the colonial pact deprived its inhabitants of any commercial freedom. Spain allots to its nationals the positions raised in the administration, the army and the Church, intensifying frustrations of the Creoles.

The independence of the United States and the French revolution make matured the will of emancipation. The defeat of Trafalgar deprives Spain of its fleet; consequently, it is unable to maintain its supremacy in Latin America. The installation of a junta of government (September 18th, 1810), which precedes independence, is followed by a war against Spain. Bernardo O'Higgins, helped by San Martín, overcomes the royalist army with Chacabuco (1817). O' Higgins, named “directing supreme” of Chile, makes it possible the country to perfect its independence one year later. Until 1830, the country knows one disturbed period, punctuated of military risings. Diego Portales restores the order, and a Constitution is promulgated in 1833, which will remain in force until 1925.

The annexation of the desert of Atacama at the conclusion of the war of the Pacific (1879-1883), to the detriment of Bolivia, makes it possible Chile to put the hand on important copper and nitrate layers; the rise of the agricultural production, the surge of English capital, then American, and European immigration stimulate the economic development of the country consequently.

Political evolution at the XXe century

In 1891, the country knew a civil war aiming at imposing the domination of the Congress - in which the interests of the exporters, British, of nitrate were strongly represented - against the executive: president Balmaceda had attacked the monopoly held by the British companies. Since, Chile lived under a parliamentary mode.

The absence of majority causes a chronic ministerial instability. Arturo Alessandri, president of 1920 to 1925, deeply marks the political scene of his print: he makes adopt social laws and the Constitution of 1925 restoring the presidential power. The coups d'etat do not save Chile, which knew a military regime between 1927 and 1931, but Alessandri return to the presidency (1932-1938) and harden the mode.  

In 1938, the Popular front gains the elections and preserves the power until 1948; it founds in 1939 Corporación de Fomento of Producción, charged to take care of the development of the economy. The Popular front bursts with the reference of the three communist ministers and the prohibition of their party in 1947. Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, the general responsible for the interruption of the mandate of the civilians in 1927, returns to the power and is combined in turn with the right-hand side and the left.

In 1958, Jorge Alessandri (the son of Arturo) is elected to the detriment of Salvador Allende: it defends the advantages of the middle-class and lance, timidly, the land reform. Eduardo Frei (1964-1970) continues it more actively (the latifundism slows down the modernization of agriculture then), but it is not long in limiting the right to strike and the exercise of the trade-union power, which involves many social conflicts. With the presidential election of 1970, no candidate obtains the absolute majority: Salvador Allende east elected by the Congress with the support of the Christian Democrat.

The Allende experiment

On September 4th, 1970, the Salvador Allende Socialist senator arrives at the top of the presidential election with a relative majority (36.3 %). Elected by the Congress, it applies of 1970 to 1972 a reform program deep: 60 % of the arable lands and 80 % of industries - of which that of copper - are nationalized; a policy of redistribution of the incomes is committed, which dissatisfied and worries the middle-class and the American administration.

Very quickly the difficulties emerge: the popular Unit, gathering the Communist Parties, Socialist and radical, as well as the MAPU (Movement of popular action unit) and the Christian Left, divides; the possibility of an alliance with the Christian Democrats is exhausted and the opposition parties lead a guerilla constitutional; extreme left (MIR) considers the reforms too timid and the far right maintains a climate violence (attacks, assassinations).

At the same time, the economic situation is degraded (“wall of the money”, economic blockade disguised which imposes the United States) and the military opposition increases. The strike of the truck-drivers, then conveyers, paralyzes the country and prepares the ground with the coup d'etat of September 1973.

Military dictatorship

On September 11th, 1973, a military junta directed by the Augusto Pinochet general reverses the Allende Socialist, who dies while fighting against the putschists. “To extirpate Marxist cancer”, the army brutally applies the doctrines of the “national security”, and the dictatorship violates systematically the human rights (arrests, tortures, assassinations).

The state of emergency is proclaimed, the closed Congress, the prohibited trade unions, the censured press; the army concentrates all the powers. The putsch of the Pinochet general puts a term at the Constitution of 1925. Controlling using decrees, the mode gives itself a legal base with the Constitution of 1981. The president names the ministers, controls the legal apparatus and orders the armies.  

The economic policy consists in privatizing the nationalized companies, giving the priority to the exporting activities and calling upon the foreign assets. In 1989, the socio-economic assessment is mitigated. Chile seems better to succeed that its neighbors: inflation is suppressed (508 % in 1973; 9.6 % in 1994), the trade balance are positive, annual rate of economic growth reaches 4.5 % in 1994.

The framework of the new democracy

The year 1990 raised sharp hopes in Chile; the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin, candidate of the CPD (Dialog of parties for the democracy), gains the election of December 14th, 1989, with 55 % of the votes, vis-a-vis the candidate of the dictatorship (30 %); he becomes president on on March 11th, 1990. In spite of notable progress (recognition of the right to strike, better tax justice, freedom of expression), the new democracy inherits a situation which limits its capacity of action considerably.

The Pinochet general, who became ordering Army, chairs the National council of safety. Making following its failure at the time of the referendum of October 1988, it promulgates decrees to preserve its power and reserves the right to name 9 senators out of 48. On March 10th, 1998, it leaves the command of the Army to occupy a seat with life, with the Senate.  

On the economic plan and social, the action of the new government is limited by the budgetary austerity and the inflationary skid. However Chile is incontestably the country of Latin America which obtains the best results on the economic plan. Whereas the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei, elected official with the presidency on on December 11th, 1993 with the strongest majority of the history of the country, takes his functions on on March 11th, 1994, Chile preserves an annual growth rate higher than 7 % and sees inflation passing under the bar of 10 %. On December 9th, 1994, president Clinton invites Chile to join the ALENA.  

In March 1998, the Pinochet general leaves the command of the Army and enters to the Senate, where it must occupy a seat with life. However, of passage to London, this last is stopped within the framework of a procedure of extradition initiated by the Spanish justice, which puts it in charge for the crimes committed against of the Chilean opponents between 1973 and 1989. After fifteen months of bounces judicaires, during which the question of the diplomatic immunity whose enjoys the old one chief-in State, the introduction of an international jurisdiction against the persons in charge of crimes against the humanity and successive decisions, the possible competence of Spanish justice to judge the crimes of the former dictator, the diplomatic context and the complaints of the families of the victims of the dictator and defense associations of the human rights, are tackled, British justice calls upon the troubles of health of the former dictator, to authorize its return to Chile and to allow him to be judged by its fellow-citizens

In parallel, the Chilean Supreme court of justice approves the arrest and the inculpation of about forty officers and former secret policemen of the former dictator. In parallel, the political life is dominated by the victory, at the time of the organized presidential elections in January 2000, the candidate of the coalition of center-left and former minister for Public works in the government of Eduardo Frei, Ricardo Lagos, which precedes her main adversary, Joaquin Lavin (right), with 51.32 % of the votes compared with 48.68 % for this last.

Regarded as one of the principal craftsmen of the return to the democracy, Ricardo Lagos had before convinced the opposition to Pinochet, gathered under her presidency within democratic Alliance, to take part in the referendum of October 1988, was in the beginning, in 1989, of the Democratic cooperation, joining together socialist and Christian Democrats, and had declared himself favorable to a return to the country of the Pinochet general, so that it is judged there. On August 8th, the Supreme court of Santiago announces officially the lifting of the parliamentary privilege of the senator Pinochet, thus reserving the right to inform the 157 complaints, deposited by the families of the victims of the former regime, against the Pinochet general.