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The first known discoverer of Chile was Ferdinand Magellan, on October 21, 1520. In the second Spanish expedition, Pedro de Valdivia went from Peru to Chile in 1540 and founded the capital Santiago. He succesfully enslaved the Amerindians and then became the first governor of the captaincy general of Chile. The Amerindians fought the Spaniards but failed, Pedro died in this fight. For the next 300 years the Chileans obeyed the crown of Spain. It wasn't until the 19th century when the king of Spain was overthrown did they think about self-rule.
Chile's rebellion for independence started on 1810. In 1818 Chile gained independence, but Spain sent troops out to reconquer Chile again and again. It wasn't until 1826 did the finally gain complete independence.
In colonial Chile there were the classic social classes of Latin America, and much poverty. Even though there was the typical Latin American social structure in Chile, there were even less African slaves than peninsulares in Chile because of the poverty there. Even by the end of the colonial period, there were only 15,000 African slaves compared to the 20,000 peninsulares. Another result of the poverty and the fact that the Indians were too stubborn and strong to be forced into unpaid labor, were that the people who settled in Chile had to work on their own fields especially since agriculture was the main part of Chile’s economy. Since Chile was so poor and had no mineral wealth, it caused Spaniards to stay away from it and its poverty, which shows why the ethnic composition of Chile now includes very few people of European descent. Also by the end on the colonial era, there was a huge population boom of the amount of mestizos, or mixed Indian and Europeans, which reflects the composition because the majority of the population now is mixed between Indian and Latin Americans.
