Maritime history of Chile - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The maritime history of Chile begins with the independence of Chile, but traces it origin in the colonial era and has ultimately origin in the sea faring tradition of the Iberian Peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

, Europe and the Mediterranean as well as from indigenous peoples of Chile.

Pre-Hispanic times

The indigenous peoples that inhabited Chile at the time of the Spanish arrival had a wide range of different knowledges and relationships to seafaring. Some, like the Atacameño

Atacameño

The Atacameños are a Native American people who inhabited the Andean portion of the Atacama Desert, mainly in what is today Chile's Antofagasta Region. Their language is known as Kunza....

s and Aymaras that had more complex cultures inhabited the inland of northern Chile and are likely to don't have navigated in the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

in at least, if they did, hundreds of years before the Spanish arrival. The Chango

Changos

Changos was a tribe of native South Americans who appear to have originally inhabited the Peruvian coast and spread south to the coast of Atacama, in northern Chile and further south. They lived from fishing, gathering shellfish, and hunting sea lions. In former times they used rafts of inflated...

people inhabited the coast of northern Chile and used rafts made of skins from sea lions

South American Sea Lion

The South American sea lion , also called the southern sea lion and the Patagonian sea lion, is a sea lion found on the Chilean, Peruvian, Uruguayan, Argentine and Southern Brazilian coasts. It is the only member of the genus Otaria...

. They traded fish for agricultural products with the Aymara, Diaguita

Diaguita

The Diaguita, also called Diaguita-Calchaquí, are a group of South American indigenous peoples. The Diaguita culture developed between the 8th and 16th centuries in what are now the provinces of Salta, Catamarca, La Rioja and Tucumán in northwestern Argentina, and in the Atacama and Coquimbo...

s and Atacameño

Atacameño

The Atacameños are a Native American people who inhabited the Andean portion of the Atacama Desert, mainly in what is today Chile's Antofagasta Region. Their language is known as Kunza....

s.

In south-central Chile the Mapuche made extensive use of canoes mainly in rivers and lakes. In the far south of Chile

Zona Austral

The Zona Austral is one of the five natural regions into which CORFO divided continental Chile in 1950 corresponding to the Chilean portion of Patagonia. It is surrounded by the Southern Zone and the Chacao Channel to the north, the Pacific Ocean and Drake's Passage to the south and west, and the...

, a land split by fjords and channels into islands and peninsulas, several peoples made extensive use of canoes for longer travels. These groups were the Chono

Chono

Chono or Chona is a generic name for a nomadic, indigenous people of the Chiloé Archipelago, Chile. They are now extinct.The Chono became extinct during the 18th century with the last survivor going missing in 1875....

s, Alacaluf

Alacaluf

The Alacaluf are a South American people living in Chile on the Strait of Magellan , Chile. Their traditional language is known as Kawésqar.- Economy :They were a nomadic sea-faring people until the twentieth century...

es (Kaweshqar) and Yamana

Yaghan

The Yaghan, also called Yagán, Yahgan , Yámana or Yamana, are the indigenous inhabitants of the islands south of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego extending their presence into Cape Horn...

(Yagán).

Conquest and colony

During the conquest of Chile maritime routes became crucial to supply the new colony as Chile was separated from Peru, its mother colony by the Atacama Desert

Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert is a plateau in South America, covering a strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world...

. Numerous contingents of soldiers arrived to Chile by sea to fight the Arauco War

Arauco War

The Arauco War was a conflict between colonial Spaniards and the Mapuche people in what is now the Araucanía and Biobío regions of modern Chile...

. Since the colonization of Chile the country had its economy oriented towards cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

farming, mining and later on agriculture with the ports serving rather as access point to the relatively dense populated central valley than commercial hubs.

After the Archipelago of Chiloé was overrun by Huilliche

Huilliche

The Huilliche is an ethnic group of Chile, belonging to the Mapuche culture. They live in mountain valleys in an area south of Toltén River and on Chiloé Archipelago...

s from the north and conquered by the Spanish in the 1560s a unique maritime tradition emerged there blending Huilliche

Huilliche

The Huilliche is an ethnic group of Chile, belonging to the Mapuche culture. They live in mountain valleys in an area south of Toltén River and on Chiloé Archipelago...

, Chono

Chono

and Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

influences. While mainland Chile occupied a rather small areas of what is now Chile, with its elongated shape, seafaring was not as important there for internal communications as it was in Chiloé

Chiloé Archipelago

Chiloé Archipelago consists of several islands lying off the coast of Chile. It is separated from mainland Chile by Chacao Channel in the north, the Sea of Chiloé in the east and Gulf of Corcovado to the southeast. All of the archipelago except Desertores Islands, which are part of Palena...

.

During much of the colony Chile had a thriving shipbuilding industry, with the city of Valdivia

Valdivia, Chile

Valdivia is a city and commune in southern Chile administered by the Municipality of Valdivia. The city is named after its founder Pedro de Valdivia and is located at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Valdivia and Cau-Cau Rivers, approximately east of the coastal towns of Corral and Niebla...

producing the largest ships in the Kingdom of Chile

Kingdom of Chile

The General Captaincy of Chile or Gobernacion de Chile, was an administrative territory of the Viceroyalty of Peru in the Spanish Empire from 1541 to 1818, the year in which it declared itself independent, becoming the Republic of Chile...

. This industry flourished due to trade restrictions imposed by Spain, which forbid direct trade between Spain and Chile so that ships built in Spain rarely entered the South Pacific

Pacific Ocean

if it was not for exploration or military purposes. This changed after the Bourbon reforms

Bourbon Reforms

The Bourbon Reforms were a set of economic and political legislation introduced by the Spanish Crown under various kings of the House of Bourbon throughout the 18th century. The reforms were intended to stimulate manufacturing and technology in order to modernize Spain...

during the second half of the 18th century when direct trade with Spain was allowed.

Independence and republic

During the later stages of Chile's independence war it was conceived that the country needed a navy to bring under Chilean control areas that could not be reached by land like Chiloé Archipelago

Chiloé Archipelago

and Valdivia

Valdivia, Chile

. The newly formed Chilean navy was put under command of Lord Cochrane

Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald

Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, 1st Marquess of Maranhão, GCB, ODM , styled Lord Cochrane between 1778 and 1831, was a senior British naval flag officer and radical politician....

, who introduced British customs. The Chilean navy succeeded in capturing Valdivia and landing a Chilean-Argentine army in Peru for further fight against the royalists.

Later on the Chilean navy saw action in the War of the Confederation

War of the Confederation

The War of the Confederation , was a conflict between the Peru-Bolivian Confederation on one side and Chile, Peruvian dissidents and Argentina, on the other, fought mostly in the actual territory of Peru and which ended with a Confederate defeat and the dissolution of the...

, the Chincha Islands War

Chincha Islands War

The Chincha Islands War was a series of coastal and naval battles between Spain and its former colonies of Peru and Chile from 1864 to 1866, that began with Spain's seizure of the guano-rich Chincha Islands, part of a series of attempts by Isabel II of Spain to reassert her country's lost...

, the War of the Pacific

War of the Pacific

The War of the Pacific took place in western South America from 1879 through 1883. Chile fought against Bolivia and Peru. Despite cooperation among the three nations in the war against Spain, disputes soon arose over the mineral-rich Peruvian provinces of Tarapaca, Tacna, and Arica, and the...

and the Chilean Civil War

Chilean Civil War

The Chilean Civil War of 1891 was an armed conflict between forces supporting Congress and forces supporting the sitting President, José Manuel Balmaceda. The war saw a confrontation between the Chilean Army and the Chilean Navy, which had sided with the president and the congress, respectively...

of 1891. The navy was also instrumental into bringing the Strait of Magellan

Strait of Magellan

The Strait of Magellan comprises a navigable sea route immediately south of mainland South America and north of Tierra del Fuego...

and Easter Island

Easter Island

Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...

under Chilean control in 1843 and 1888 respectively.

During the second half of the 19th century the Chilean navy begun a series of explorations towards the Patagonia

Patagonia

Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...

n archipelagoes. These explorations where fueled by several factors including the establishment of Chilean rule in the Strait of Magellan

Strait of Magellan

The Strait of Magellan comprises a navigable sea route immediately south of mainland South America and north of Tierra del Fuego...

, the increased trade with Europe and border disputes with Argentina in Patagonia.

Pre-Hispanic times

Conquest and colony

Independence and republic

See also